| wāj ไหว้ |
Dec. 10th, 2015|05:42 pm |
Buddhist monks by virtue of their holy yellow robes, will not return the obeisance of a “wai” to a layman however old or great in rank, not even to the king. This is not, in Thai etiquette, presumption on the part of the monks. The appropriate way for a monk to respond in such a situation is by a gesture of acknowledgement either by speech or a facial expression of good will. At least he should assume a serene face as befitting a monk.
To most of the Thai, the “wai” is preferred to hand shaking for the reason that, the “shaking of one’s own hands” is hygienically better than the shaking of other people’s hands. A firm cordial hand-clasp sometimes gives the Thai a somewhat painful sensation, if the hand which is clasped is a sizeable, big one, compared to the slim hand of the Thai, particularly a woman. Confronted, sometimes with a large number of individuals which requires an endless process of hand-shaking, it is sometimes a trying experience though not an impossibility. In such a dilemma, if the function is not of a formal nature, the Thai has recourse to another kind of “wai” by raising the bands to a “wai” in the “budding lotus” position and slowly turning in a sweeping manner to all the persons present, thus making a “wai” to all of them. One will observe such a “wai” at a boxing ring, when a pugilist makes a sweeping motion of “wai” to the audience, before a boxing match begins.
http://www.siamese-heritage.org/jsspdf/1961/JSS_049_2f_PhyaAnumanRajadhon_ThaiTraditionalSalutation.pdf |
|