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	---> MORE Thai Proverbs: _________________________________ Keeping your head down Standing the World on its Head Beware of Appearances Keeping Your Head Down When the Cat's Away You've Got to be Stupid Before You Get Wise Measuring Someone's Footprint Be compliant! Snake Snake Fish Fish Bid Tong Lang Phra - To do good by stealth The Menacing Tiger Little birds nest according to their size Keeping Your Head Down The Chameleon That Lost Its Head Out of Pride Wisdom come from Stupidity Follow the old, and the dogs won't bite you LOOKING AT THE TSUNAMI DISASTER Measuring Someone's Footprint One drop of honey Keeping Your Head Down Avoiding Victory Blame and Responsibility Beware of Appearances When the cat’s away, the mice play Water, water everywhere…

Beware of Appearances

Buddhists as they are, and supremely pragmatic, it's not surprising that Thais should be cautious about the way things look on the surface. After all, doesn't Hindu-Buddhist religious philosophy teach that the phenomenal world is the work of Maya, the feminine principal that enmeshes and hides the masculine pure spirit and ultimate reality - Prakriti - in a web of illusion?

It's not surprising then that Western proverbs along the lines of All that glitters is not gold should have a number of Thai equivalents and parallels. Khang-nork suksai, khang-nai ben prorng, is what they say when they don't trust someone's promises - 'A glittering surface, but empty inside', as well as khang nork kru-kra, khang nai dta-dting nong - ‘Rough on the outside, but the interior smooth’. Again expressing distrust of what others want them to believe, they speak of phakhi riw hor thong - ‘A rag wrapping up gold’: especially useful in describing the kind of person who is rich but wants to give the appearance of poverty.

Naturally, when it comes to attracting the opposite sex, there are plenty of proverbs of the ‘Beauty is only skin deep’ and, ‘You can't tell a book by its cover’ kind…probably the best known of them, doo chang hai doo harng - ‘If you want to know an elephant look at its tail’: doo nang hai doo mae: 'If you want to know a (young) woman, look at her mother.'

But it's not only visual appearances the proverbs warn us about. There's also the matter of lies and hypocrisy. ‘The Devil quotes the Scriptures when it suits his purposes,’ we say of those pretending morality, but having evil intentions, while the Thai speak of mue tue sak, bak tue sin - 'A pestle in the hand, but the mouth uttering precepts'. And where we say, 'Practice what you preach,' the Thai are likely to describe a deceiver as bak wa dta kaiyip - ‘Winking at what his mouth condemns.’

But as I say, the Thai are pragmatists, not easily deceived either by the outward show or the deceptive word. When in doubt, we're likely to ‘Take something with a pinch of salt.’ Here people do the same. They just express it slightly differently... fung hu, wai hu as they say - literally ‘Listen with one ear, but keep the other one clear.’