Mai Pen Rai, how many times did I hear this word
during my forty day stay in Thailand? The hot summer days, here
in Japan, sometimes remind me of the smiling country and the
smiling people living there.
The sky was all blue. There were no white cottons to stain it.
Five of my Japanese friends and I were on our way to our Thai
friend's house. The sun was gleaming and we were all sweating.
Fortunately, we could shade ourselves in a cool moving
refrigerator box: a taxi. One of my friends could speak a little
Thai, so he told the box janitor, the driver, our destination. We
spoke in a mysterious language, Japanese, all through our drive,
but the box janitor took no notice of our chatting. To him, we
must have sound like buzzing noisy bees.
Boooooommzzz! The front glass of the refrigerator suddenly
cracked into tiny, tiny pieces. A giant spider had built a huge
fine spider net in a moment. Were we shot by a gun? Did a large
rock hit the glass? No, neither seemed to be right. My friend,
who was sitting in the front seat, was sparkling in the snow of
glass.
We were all in a panic. Only the box janitor remained as cool
and as calm as his refrigerator box. He wasn't surprised at all.
He just slowed down his moving box. What happened actually was
that the difference in temperature between the inside and outside
was so big, just as a refrigerator and an oven, that the glass
couldn't hold and exploded. The box janitor shouted cheerfully,
"Mai Pen Rai!" and started the car again!
"No! No! Please stop!!" We screamed in Japanese. "It's
dangerous!" It didn't matter whether he understood our language
or not. We were just scared. Fortunately, we tumbled out and
escaped from the dangerous refrigerator, outside to the hot oven
again. A hot oven was much better than a broken refrigerator. We
took another safe refrigerator box to go to our friend's house.
We could see our cheerful janitor driving with no front windows,
looking for other new food, I mean passengers, to take in. Surely
the food would not feel comfortable in the broken refrigerator, I
suspected.
Can you imagine what Mai Pen Rai means? It was the
first or second expression I had learned in Thai. When I heard
the taxi driver saying this word, I was half delighted and half
surprised, because I could understand the meaning. Every guide
book that I had read beforehand said that Thailand is a country
of Mai Pen Rai. It means "never mind," "do it as it
goes," or "you're welcome." I never thought it to be true, but it
was true.
Japanese are very punctual. In Japan, the trains arrive at a
certain time. We never use a broken car as a taxi. We always seem
to worry about little things and our future. On the other hand,
Thai people care little about trifling things. They are often
late when they make an appointment. When they talk about their
future, I can always feel that they have a great expectation for
their next life! If they are not so happy now, they believe they
can surely be happy in their next life. They are always smiling.
It is a hot country, so maybe it takes much energy to be cross or
anxious.
Because I love hot climates and I seem to have a Thai
disposition, I thought I was a Mai Pen Rai person too.
But no, not much as Thai people. I wonder if the driver is
driving around with no windows, under the blue sky in Thailand
even now.
by Yuki Tanaka
