Thai is a Language of the Heart

Sometimes, listening to Thai people speak, it seems like the word jai (ใจ) is everywhere.

เข้าใจไหม (Khao jai mai, Do you understand?)

ใจเย็นๆ (Jai yen yen, Chill out.)

คนใจดี (Kon jai dee, Kind person)

But what does jai mean? Jai translates as “heart” and has all the similar connotations that heart has in English, such as “spirit” or “inner being.” So it makes sense that jai is used to construct phrases that have meanings related to one’s heart, mind and spirit.

Back in training, we learned three jai phrases that are deeply tied to Thai culture: jai yen yen (ใจเย็นๆ), naam jai (น้ำใจ) and greng jai (เกรงใจ), which roughly translate as “chill out,” “generosity” and “considerate,” respectively. But each one is so much more than that.

Jai Yen Yen

Jai yen yen was something that I, and I know many of my cohorts, heard often throughout my first year here. I would be frustrated that the students weren’t on time for class, and I would be admonished with a jai yen yen.  I would be impatient with the speed of my language acquisition and would hear a quiet jai yen yen with a slight smile. I would implore the bus or vehicle to move a little faster or leave on time and I would hear a little voice in my head telling me to jai yen yen.

Literally, this phrase translates as “heart cool cool,” or basically “have a cool heart.” The opposite is jai ron, or “heart hot” or “heated heart,” similar to the English “hot-headed.” This is a concept that I picked up pretty quickly and easily deploy the phrase in a cheeky manner with my Thai friends.

At a recent training, Pick one of the Thai trainers what trying to hustle us together to take a requisite picture. I decided to finish what I was doing before joining the arrangement and told him, “Jai yen yen!” He looked at me and said, “No, jai ron,” and we laughed as we posed for the picture. I most especially feel integrated and like I have a grasp on the concept when I am able to tell my co-teacher, Ning, to jai yen yen when she is frustrated by things that I have been bothered by in the past.

Naam Jai

Naam jai in a short, surface form of understanding translates as “generosity.” Literally, it means “water heart,” and so it’s approached with the understanding that the love and care of your heart pours out of you like water. The hospitality and helpfulness that Thai people are known for is the signature of naam jai.

Giving to people with no expectation of a return, such as the fruits that I’m eating right now because Ning knows that I like sour things, is naam jai. The rides that I got last week, when my bike had a flat tire and I didn’t have a new tube and was walking to and from school is naam jai. The snacks and shirts and trinkets that are bought while on a bpai tiao to bring back to your friends are naam jai.

It’s a part of the appearance, of how people perceive you. A person who has naam jai is a kon jai dee (see above). It plays into the Buddhist beliefs that are the undercurrent to a lot of interactions and societal norms. But it certainly feels nice when you hitchhike somewhere and you end up with a bag of fruit to take home and enjoy

Greng Jai

The biggest cultural norm, and one that I will probably never be able to master is greng jai, which has been explained to me as being considerate but truly there is no real way to explain this concept. However it has led to the idea that because Thai people greng jai that Americans are not considerate, to which I have tried to explain that we are, but in different ways.

Much digital ink has been spilled on the topic of greng jai, and I’m going to continue that in an effort to help the cross cultural understanding. To greng jai properly, you consider the group and society as whole and think about how your actions would impact that. Deferring to the hierarchy and not challenging when the person whose status is higher than yours may be wrong is a form of greng jai. Not giving honest, but negative, feedback for a training session is a form of greng jai. When trying to figure out projects and community issues to address, often volunteers are met with, “There are no problems here, but in the next village over, the teenage boys there, they drink sooo much,” which is a kind of greng jai.

I think one of the best examples I’ve heard of to embody greng jai came from my friend Joel. He had surgery and was out of his community for quite some time convalescing. He would get a number of phone calls from people in his community and would not always answer them. There’s generally no voicemail in Thailand, cell phones just ring and ring an ring until you either silence them or pick up or the caller hangs up.

When he talked to the community members when he returned they would say to him, “I tried calling you, but you picked up too late.” They both knew that he just did’t pick up, but rather than point it out and rock the boat and call their relationship into question (why would he ignore their phone calls?), they just deferred to the possibility that he did pick up, but they had hung up at that point, saving everyone’s face in the situation.

More Heart-ful Language

Those are the jai concepts that are a constant in my daily life, but there are other jai‘s that percolate through my life and enjoy using:

• dtueng dut jai (ดึงดูดใจ) is to be attractive or interesting
• glap jai (กลับใจ) is to change your mind (literally “return heart”)
• sa bai jai (สบายใจ) is to be content or comfortable and something that I tell Thai people often after I tell them how long I’ve been here
• kop jai (ขอบใจ) is one that I hear occasionally living in Isaan, as it’s also Lao for “thank you”

Finally, my Thai nickname is Gaeow Jai which my host family in Suphan Buri gave to me. It translates roughly as “beloved” or “of mother’s heart.” All these heart words are a nice reminder of what is important, here and in life.