Column: One, two, three, four, five
A difference between a Thai and a Dutchman is the way they count with their fingers.
A Dutchman puts his thumb up and says one. He inserts his index finger and says two. Then the middle finger with three, the ring finger with four and finally the little finger with five. A Thai does this differently. First the index finger with one, then the middle finger with two, the ring finger with three, the little finger with four and he concludes with his thumb, which is of course called five. Facts and tidbits, which are completely unimportant, are often nice to know.
This reminds me of an event long ago. We camped with friends at a campsite in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. In the evening we went out and drank red wine. Lots of red wine. Maybe too much red wine. When we returned to the campsite we must have fallen asleep immediately.
The next morning I woke up because an announcement was made through a public address system. It wasn't the announcement itself that woke me up. However, the fact that that announcement was made in Dutch. The owner of a green jacket was asked to come to the office. Not many people walked around in a green jacket. I do. And I am Dutch. So I looked around and saw I was missing my jacket. The announcement had to be for me. I got up and hurried to the office.
There was a Belgian lady who handed me my jacket. It was found on the road in front of the campsite. Apparently burglars had visited the campsite and we had not noticed anything in our deep sleep. The lady asked if I was missing much. Fortunately, I was able to reassure her that there had been nothing of value in the jacket. I thanked her warmly and was about to go back to the tent when I asked her one last question. How did she know that this jacket belonged to a Dutchman.
Very simply, she said. Inside was a piece of paper with a phone number and the number contained an eight. And what would that be, I said. You Dutch are the only ones in Europe who write the eight differently than all other peoples. You start in the middle and then go down to the left and so on. We also start in the middle, but then we go to the top left. So you can see from the eight whether someone is from the Netherlands. A little fact like that intrigues me.
The fruit is also peeled the other way around, we peel an apple to the left and the Thai to the right.
And we from bottom to top and the Thai from top to bottom.
I noticed that too.
Thais 'peel themselves off'.
Could I have Thai genes without knowing it? Because I always count as you think the Thai counts, so starting with the index finger and ending with the thumb. I also stood on that campsite in Bois de Boulogne, along the Seine, 50 years ago. If you had been to the center of Paris, you took the metro back to Pont de Nueilly and then it was another hour's walk. Buses didn't run then and I didn't have money for a taxi. Paris made an overwhelming impression on me as a teenager at the time, just like Bangkok on me in my forties.
Me too, ever since I was little. Probably Thai genes indeed 555
I may live very close to the Netherlands, but if I have to go by the way you count on your fingers, I am more Thai than Belgian…. Luckily nothing wrong with that!
Indeed, being Belgian, we find it a strange way of writing 8.
I've tried it the Dutch way, but prefer to stick to the International way
I seriously doubt the claim that non-Dutch people would also start in the middle when writing the number 8, but then move to the top left.
To my knowledge, the most common international method is to start at the very top center or slightly right of center with (well) half of the top circle, counterclockwise. The lower circle is then formed clockwise in its entirety and the upper circle is finally rounded counterclockwise again.
There are even several English rhymes for it:
.
Make an S,
But then don't stop!
draw a line,
From the bottom to the top.
.
Make an S,
But don't you wait.
Go right back up,
To make an eight.
About that written number 8, Dick! In primary school we had a lesson in “clean writing” and I can say that my handwriting is very beautiful. Also my written 8 is beautiful and perfect.
Indeed, start in the middle, make a circle down counterclockwise and at the starting point continue clockwise back to the center. So beautiful!
But alas, when I put my figure 8 on the scoreboard at pool or use it in a written phone number, I invariably got the question: Is that an eight?
The eight described by Frans Amsterdam in the poem with an S is of course disgustingly ugly!
I always start and end my 8 in the middle but start right up. A bit like the international standard, but not quite. Does it matter at all?
Well, yes, I think. You can get your stolen jacket back through it.
Dear Thai Lovers,
Have you never noticed that most Thai also manually watch their phalanges?
Peer