I chose this guesthouse for three reasons. 1) the price 2) the garden 3) the sense that the young man working the night shift was a bright-minded and ambitious student. I was correct on all counts.
Aside from just being smart and ambitious, BounNgeun is a wonderfully social person. I make it a habit to be back by 8:00 and we spend the rest of the evening talking around the table in the lobby. Guests come in to get their keys and there is a nightly procession of small conversations. In the course of the conversations, we’ve collected what he calls lessons in “talking culture”.
“Where are you going?” ເຈົ້າຊິໄປໃສ?
This is the first phrase that should come in any Lao language book. It’s the national greeting of Laos, though it doesn’t translate well for guests leaving in the morning. Nor does, “where have you been” work well when asked abruptly in the evening. “Why? Was I supposed to stay in my room?” is the natural reaction. We practiced, “How was your evening?” and he’s used that ever since. Where otherwise guests would march to their rooms, this greetings makes people stop in their tracks, smile and start chatting.
“How much did it cost?”
The other night a nice lady gave BounNgeun a big pillow. He really liked it and asked how much it cost. Her natural reaction was to laugh and say, “Well, at least $3,000 dollars. Why do you ask?” We had to get to the bottom of why asking the price is such a common thing in Laos. What we determined was that in a Lao phrase book, the following would be a perfectly natural conversation.
B: Why are you giving this to me?
A: This is a present for you.
B: Thank you very much. It’s so nice, but it must be expensive. How much did it cost?
A: It cost $5 US at the morning market.
B: Oh, it’s expensive. How could I ever return my gratitude?
A: Don’t worry about it.
It’s kind of hard to get up the nerve to ask, but I’ll try the next time I get something.
“May I be excused?”
I got kind of concerned hearing talking about table manners. I had assumed it was Lao manners to simply leave the table without saying anything because I’d seen it happen so often. Usually, someone would get a drink of water, pick his teeth and maybe just sit around, but away from the table. I’d lived near a Hmong family and ate every meal with them for six months and that was customary. I had even done so myself though I’ve always wanted to say something like, “Oh, that was a delicious meal” or “Thank you, I’m stuffed.”
He says it’s disrespectful and downright bad manners. He’s says it’s a sign of an unhappy family. Maybe I’ve been eating with unhappy families too much. I lived near a Hmong family and ate with them every day. Come to think of it, the silent meals started to get to me. One day the older brother said, “My stomach hurts” and I caught the younger brother smirking. That’s when I realized I wasn’t in happy company.
The woes of the middle child
My own older sister loves to talk about birth order. The famous book on birth order basically says there are three patterns; one for the oldest, one for the youngest and one for the middle child. I asked BounNgeun about the cases in which there are ten in a family. He had enough information to write his own Lao version.
There are endless combinations, but let’s say the oldest is a boy and the four that follow are girls. It’s a pretty good set-up. The oldest boy has it made and doesn’t have to lift many fingers. The younger sisters can work in shifts and share the housework.
If they’re all boys, it’s hard on the parents because of dowries. Of course this varies according to ethnic groups, but they’ve got a big financial burden if they want to marry them all off.
In Khamu culture, the youngest child inherits the family fortune, if there is one. At the same time, he/she is responsible for taking care of the parents. In both cases, the spouse comes to live with the youngest child’s family. A man might be happy to marry into the wife’s family and have the security of the future inheritance, but he is always in a bit subservient position. I knew of someone in that position and he wasn’t the happiest guy around. What happens if both are the youngest? There’s discussion until a reasonable agreement is made.
“Good luck”
A: “I’m leaving first”.
B: “Good luck”.
That’s how it’s said in Lao when people part. It makes sense, but doesn’t always sound right in English. The other night, a young honeymoon-type couple stopped to chat and then excused themselves to go to bed. BounNgeun said “good luck” and they laughed.
I explained that in English “good luck” is usually used when someone is concerned if they will succeed at something or not. If BounNgeun says, “good luck” to guests who are taking a trip north on a Lao bus, they might start to wonder if they’re going to come back alive.
When useful language is learned, there’s always the joy of testing it out. The next morning, it was only natural to say, “good luck” to each other when we left to sell books. “Good luck and sell a million.”
“You’re fat”
BounNgeun was getting pretty good at charming the guests with, “How was your evening?” One night he followed that up with, “Oh, you’re fat” while patting the guest’s tummy. The guest’s smile pretty much froze and there was no comment made on such an accurate observation.
I was in an herbal sauna once and a really, really big guy walked in. The other guy who was not so petite himself immediately asked, “So, how much do you weight?” I figured it wasn’t the rudest thing to say on earth because the big guy answered that he was easily over 100 kg and then they continued to talk about his weight in detail.
In fact, I don’t know some people’s names in Vientiane because they’re referred to by their appearance. “Miss fatty this, Miss fatty that”. Apologies to those out there who might take offence. It’s culture talk.
