Thread: Kop Khun Khrap - I hate saying it!

Originally Posted by DrAndy

Originally Posted by DrB0b

The ka and khrap stuff was imposed and made compulsory by a dictatorship in the thirties/forties, seems to have stuck quite well as most Thais will tell you they've been saying it for hundreds of years and that it's an integral part of Thai culture. I've only met a few who know where it really comes from.

I did not know that...but is it true or are you just repeating something you believe to be true?

any links?

It was Plaek Phibungsonghkram who made the use of Khrap and Ka mandatory, he took those words from the courtly written language and introduced them to the spoken language. There's not an awful lot of useful information on the web about it. It's in (I think) No 5 of Phibunsongkhram's Cultural Mandates, a series of Government publications produced during a time of increasing Thai nationalism. These mandates, along with the 1940 "National Cultural Development Act" sought to both define Thai culture and to "civilize it'. I can find no copies of the mandates on the web but they are available in book form from the Thai Government as part of the Thailand State Edicts Series, I have copies published in the 60's by the Department of Culture.

Plek Phibusongkhram promulgated a national ideology called "Ratthaniyom", probably best translated as "that which is done by civilized people". The first mandate stated that it was the duty of all Thais to "suppress' anybody bringing discredit to their nation," this is generally taken to mean the Chinese, who Plaek through his political partner Luang Wichitwarhakarn, compared to the Jews in Germany, both men being great admirers of Hitler.

Further mandates changed the name of the country from Siam to Thailand (because Siam was a "Khmer" name and had been adopted by the Chinese and the Europeans), specified that noodles were a suitable (they used all-Thai ingredients) and nutritious food for Thai people and specified recipes for noodle soup and descriptions of how to build the now ubiquitous noodle stall, not a common part of the Thai street scene before that, he also created the first recipe for Phad-Thai which was proclaimed as being not only all Thai in ingredients but also in concept (Guay Tiow being Chinese). The wearing of hats was made compulsory for both men and women. New "traditions" were created in the mandates including the use of Sawasdii as the standard greeting, the use of Khrap and Ka in conversation whereas before all three words had only ever been in used in highly formalised, written, poetic Thai (for example the description of an obeisance to royalty or your parents - the Mop Khrap), the Ramwong dance (which was adapted from a traditional Isaan dance and for which the first songs were written by Plaek's wife Laiad.), and the wearing of "appropriate" Thai national dress as opposed to the more revealing genuine traditional dress, and "good" western dress. To popularise these new "traditional" and western styles of dress and to show people how to wear them Plaek introduced beauty contests to Thailand for the first time (as an aside, the "traditional" Thai clothes we see at many celebrations today were designed by the Queen in the '60s). Among posters lauding Plaek's greatness the streets and public places of Thailand were liberally covered with posters extolling Thais to "Wear a Hat for your Country"

Plaek also instigated a list of occupations which would only be available to Thais, fundamentally the same list the Dept of Labour implements today.

He passed laws stating that men must kiss their wifes before leaving for work, that everybody must get 8 hours sleep, that people must wear shoes, and against loud talk on the streets and pushing and shoving to get on buses or trains. He also mandated severe punishments for men who beat their wives.

As I said there's not much on the web about this, this is pretty much what I've got in my bookmarks;

There's an excellent article (which first made me interested in Plaek as an originator of Thai culture and tradition) at

Thailand and the Second World War 1941- 45

Wiki has some good stuff on the Plaek Phibunsongkhram page

Plaek Pibulsonggram - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Google books also have some interesting reads related to this subject online,

Abortion, Sin, and the State in Thailand
Materializing Thailand
Politeness in Language: Studies in Its History, Theory and Practice


I also got a lot of interesting information from here;

NUS: ARI > Publications

and here;

http://www.peteranthony.org/Thailand...ific%20War.pdf

And also here, though you need a login it's probably possible to find the publication online somewhere;

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-9118(199405)53%3A2%3C649%3ANIAIDT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3

And for those who find the subject of Plaek genuinely interesting there's a huge bibliography of Thai politics at:

kpien - Thai Politics Bibliography