Hook up and sing along

Sornkiri Sriprachuab got it right. Decades ago this one sang Thai country singer in a hardship-ridden voice: "Girl, you say a great flood is better than a dry spell / I tell you, let the drought come and don't let the waters rise."

With prophetic words, the singer continues: “This year the flood brings fear to every house / I fled to the roof, but the water mingles with my tears.”

Forgive my translation. This pen is too dry and this mind too dull to express the rich and inner power of Sornkiri's lyrics, as well as the unforgettable poetry of Paiboon Butrkhan, written 40 years ago, every word of which is still relevant today.

If Froc – Frog Revolution Oh-la-la Crocodile – has succumbed to morbid rumor in a quagmire of satire, one can comfort our drenched minds by playing this song as a new anthem every day at 6pm after us real anthem. Not only because Paiboon's lyrics are heartbreakingly beautiful, but also because the song “Nam Tuam” embodies the complex relationships our country has always had with floods, droughts, monsoon, mud, air, climate: the water of life and the water of tears and fears. In this agrarian utopia, water means rice and wealth, but also pestilence and poverty, and in our melancholy minds this turns into poetry. With Sornkiri's voice and Paiboon's lyrics, the famous song Cry Me A River sounds like a nursery rhyme.

Nam – water – is a source of inspiration that crops up everywhere in the poetic somersaults of the Thai language. And the "water" references in Siamese pronunciation and sentences have a deeper meaning than in a simple translation. You can transfer Sornkiri's verses into another language, but not the national character hidden in it.

Our Madam Prime Minister is a prime example of what we call “Nam tuam pak (literally, “a flood in the mouth”'). Overwhelmed by liquid and solid opponents, our poor PM tends to gabble with a lot of umm...arrr...errr...urgh, and her task in fighting the actual flood is complicated by this metaphorical equation.

She has my sincere sympathy. But what we still need from Froc is the solution to “Nam Ning Lai Luek” – Shakespeare gave us the English version, “Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep” ”) – but instead we mainly have Nam Tuam Thoong Pakboong Rong Reng. That's already Shakespearean, the term literally means "the field is flooded, but there is little future glory". The saying combines both sarcasm and slander, with a direct reference to the high water, and in its allegorical possibilities it is more lofty, more organic than "talk fills no holes" Or as I once heard a Texan say "All hats but none cattle"

We can wade through more water-related proverbs at Froc's trembling hand. They will add one to me first: “Mue Mai Phaai Oa Thaao Ra Nam – “your hand does not paddle and you slow down the boat with your foot in the water”. That's probably true, but this saying is about a boat on the water, not a car on the road or an airplane stranded on a flooded runway.

And in “Nam Chiew Ya Oa Rua Kwang” it is again about water and a boat. Froc will inevitably recommend this, as it means "Don't moor against the current". This philosophy is old and clear and it seems to have been born out of centuries of shipwrecks and a long history of coexistence with floods: let the water through, or find a way to let it through, because there's no point in trying to use its natural, inexorable and irreversible passage.

It is too late. Long before the Big Bags are introduced to block or divert the water, our restless urbanization has already blocked the flow with concrete, roads, buildings and a lack of spatial planning in general. The seriousness of this disaster will soon become clear “Nam Lod Tor Phud – “when the water recedes, the roots will be exposed” – when many problems, which are still under water now, emerge. In fact, we already see some of those tree and plant remains, faeces, snakes, etc. and one can only wish (against expectations) that they can be pumped away in time,

Sornkiri is right, the water still mixes with our tears. Join in and sing along!

Column by Kong Rithdee in the Bangkok Post, (sometimes freely) translated by Gringo