If you are interested to learn about Thai culture, I will demonstrate Thai greeting. This symbolic gesture is manifested of being Thai people.
Thai greeting or wai is pronounced like the word “why”. Wai is a manner that has been passed from our generations.
It is normally used to express friendship and cordiality instead of a handshake, hug or kiss
like in western culture. The wai is also used as a means of saying sorry and thank you, or praying to the Lord Buddha. We do the wai for the one whom we respect or who is older than us.
The most important thing of wai is we should do it from our heart to express our sincerity.
The wai can easily be done by putting our palms together and rising them
to the chest level, then, bending our head to hands. If you are in Thailand,
you will see Thai people doing wai in their daily life. And if someone gives you the
wai, you have to do the wai them back. For me, I do the wai every day because this is my innate behavior. If I do not wai, everyone will not believe that I am Thai.
To sum up, wai is only one of Thai cultural aspects which is essential to learn
Showing wai makes us know each other. I believe that
no matter what happens in the world, wai cannot certainly be forgotten.
All Thai people preserve this beautiful manner like the world heritage. When
you come to Thailand do not forget to do the wai. Thai people will definitely
love you.
Yukitaka Takeuchi
ReplyDeleteThat is a good tradition. Asian greeting is modestly. and I think wai is resembles Japanese greeting like "gassyo". If you interest in Japanese greeting "gassyo", you should reseach it.
Hello , everyone!
ReplyDeleteMy name's Prapruet Rassmeearamwong.
I'm Thai student who wrote this blog.
Thanks for sharing your culture.
I'll research it as soon as possible.