In Thai, we have a very special word: สบาย (sabai). If you look at a Thai-English dictionary, you might see a translation meaning “relaxed” or “comfortable”. But it’s not an exact translation. Even Google translate needs many lines to try to encapsulate this word.
The most relatable definition I’ve seen comes from my favorite Thai chef: ไพลิน จงจิตรนันท์ (Pailin Chongchitnant). She is the author of the wonderful cookbook สบาย (Sabai). She defines สบาย (sabai) as: “The state of being when you’re at ease. Comfortable. Relaxed.”. For the most part, this photo of Booker on the way up to Angels Landing in Zion National Park captures the imagery:
Or these photos of two of our bunny companions who have since crossed the rainbow bridge:
But there are other ways that สบาย (sabai) can manifest. I think a lot of it has to do with the relationship we Thai people tend to have with time. You see, there’s this phenomenon called “Thai time“. We have a relatively complicated way to tell time even with just a clock. In Thai, saying “2” for time could mean a bunch of different things: 2am and 2pm are the obvious ones. But it could also mean 8pm if you say it a certain way: สองทุ่ม (“song thum”), which is 2 hours past 6pm!
That, coupled with heavy traffic in Thai cities – it’s no surprise that people show up late to things. There’s a joke (but not really a joke) that if someone is an hour late, they are on Thai time. But we also just like to relax, have fun, and enjoy the moment. Work to live and not live to work – something like that. So สบาย (sabai) could also look like this:
Why สบาย (Sabai)?
You might be wondering why I’m writing a musings blog post about this. Well, in an effort to infuse more of my culture into my work environment, I’ve been playing around with things. For example, my Zoom background is a film photo I took of อยุธยา (Ayutthaya), the old capital of Thailand (then called Siam). Often, people recognize the photo as being from Thailand and ask me about the significance. Another example is how I’ve been using Thai signoffs on emails, with links to the translation of the phrases. I’ve had a few people notice, but I don’t use them as much since sometimes the translations aren’t exact.
So I thought more about how I would sum up my culture in one word and สบาย (sabai) immediately came to mind. There are a few webpages that attempt to describe it, but I think it’s also a personal interpretation. Hopefully the examples I shared add a bit of a personal flair to the word. Now, I’ll include สบาย (sabai) as part of my email signature, with a link here to hopefully explain what it means to me.