User:Pawyilee

Wikipedia:Babel

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ผู้ใช้คนนี้สามารถใช้ภาษาไทย ได้ในระดับปานกลาง.

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Edmund Roberts (diplomat)

About Pawyilee

In 1971, I was a US Air Force sergeant in the Strategic Air Command B-52 Wing at U Tapao Royal Thai Navy Air Base, Sattahip, Cholburi, Thailand. In 1973 I was in the SAC B-52 Wing at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, and returned to U Tapao 1974-75. In 1998 I returned to Thailand, going for the first time to the remote provincial capital of Yasothon, and have been retired near there since 2001. I connect to the Internet via cell phone, but the connection is slow, so I also use a free, fast Wi-Fi hotspot at www.aecomputer.com in Yasothon City.

"Lee" is my given middle name. "Pawyi" means "Big Daddy" (พ่อใหญ่ in Thai). Pawyi Lee evokes images of "Phuyai Lee" (ผู้ใหญ่ลี), a wildly popular Thai country ballad that all Thais seem to know by heart. "Phuyai" (ผู้ใหญ่) simply means "adult". "Phuyaiban" (ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน) is a village headman (that is, head of a numbered group within a township). Phuyai Lee is the mythical headman of an upcountry village in the 1960's whose people were just coming into contact with modernization programs funded with foreign aid.

The many, many, verses of the song all show Phuyai Lee as an assertive individual who thinks he knows everything but always gets it wrong. In the most famous verse, Bangkok sends word down to villagers to raise ducks and pigs. But Bangkok officials use a loan word from Pali instead of the ordinary word for pig. Phuyai Lee doesn't know the word's meaning but he issues the instruction anyhow: You should all raise ducks and swine!

Ducks they know, but one old man scratches his head and asks: What are 'swine'?

Just an ordinary little dog, replies Phuyai Lee, and that line - little dog, ordinary little dog - is repeated as the chorus after each succeeding verse: หมาน่อย หมาน่อย ธรรมดา. You can find the song in Thai and English here [1]