Hide and seek in Thai

Getting into a game

You will probably not have to ask. An adult who stands still long enough in a Thai soi gets absorbed. But to start it yourself: เล่นซ่อนหากันไหม (lên sâwn-hǎa gan mǎi), shall we play hide and seek — กัน (gan) is "together, with each other" and is what turns a bare verb into a group activity.

The first question is always ใครเป็นคนหา (khrai bpen khon hǎa), who's the seeker. คนหา (khon hǎa) is literally the person who looks, and it is what gets said out loud; written descriptions of the game use ผู้หา (phûu hǎa) and ผู้ซ่อน (phûu sâwn) for the two roles, but nobody in a soi says either. It gets settled by เป่ายิ้งฉุบ (bpào-yíng-chùp), rock-paper-scissors, or the older จับไม้สั้นไม้ยาว (jàp mái sân mái yaao), drawing straws — literally grab-short-stick-long-stick. Volunteering is the fastest way in, and here is where you have to get your own pronoun right: ลุงหาเองก็ได้ (lung hǎa eeng gâw dâi), I'll be the seeker then. ลุง (lung) is uncle, and to a child who is not yours that is what you call yourself. Not ผม (phǒm).

Two things get argued about before anyone hides, and both are yours to settle. The count: นับถึงเท่าไหร่ (náp thěung thâo-rài), count to how many — answered with a number, นับถึงยี่สิบ (náp thěung yîi-sìp), to twenty. And the boundary, which matters more than it sounds: เล่นแค่ในบ้านนะ (lên khâe nai bâan ná), inside the house only, or ห้ามออกนอกรั้ว (hâam àwk nâwk rúa), nobody goes outside the fence. ห้าม (hâam) is the flat forbidden you see on every sign in the country, and children use it on each other constantly.

How a round goes

The seeker faces a wall, a post or a tree, covers their eyes — ปิดตา (bpìt dtaa) — and counts out loud so everyone can hear the pace. One to ten in a small courtyard, twenty or thirty in a bigger one, by tens to a hundred once the game spills down the soi. The numbers: หนึ่ง สอง สาม สี่ ห้า หก เจ็ด แปด เก้า สิบ (nèung, sǎwng, sǎam, sìi, hâa, hòk, jèt, bpàet, gâo, sìp). Keep going and Thai's two irregulars ambush you inside three seconds: eleven is สิบเอ็ด (sìp-èt), never สิบหนึ่ง (sìp-nèung), and twenty is ยี่สิบ (yîi-sìp), never สองสิบ (sǎwng-sìp). From thirty on it behaves itself — สามสิบ (sǎam-sìp), สี่สิบ (sìi-sìp), ห้าสิบ (hâa-sìp).

The traditional call-and-response, which some households still run: the seeker shouts เอาหรือยัง (ao rěu yang), ready yet, and the hiders yell back ยัง (yang), not yet, dragged out as long as they can manage, until somebody concedes เอาล่ะ (ao lâ), ready now. The modern version is a single line as the eyes open: พร้อมนะ ออกหาแล้ว (phráwm ná àwk hǎa láew), ready, I'm coming to look.

Then the search. Spotting someone is เจอแล้ว (joe láew), found you — เจอ (joe) is the ordinary come-across verb, the same one you use for bumping into a friend in Big C. In the โป้งแปะ (bpôong-bpàe) version you do not have to reach them: you shout โป้ง (bpôong), which is the noise a gun makes, followed by their name — โป้ง! น้องบีม! (bpôong! náwng Biim!) — and they are out from right across the yard.

The counter-play is aimed at you, not at any base, and there is no base: nowhere in this game is safe ground. A hider you have not spotted creeps up behind you, touches you and shouts แปะ (bpàe), slap — the written descriptions call it แตะตัวผู้หา (dtàe dtua phûu hǎa), touching the seeker — and that puts you straight back in as seeker for another round. โป้ง and แปะ are the two halves the game is named after: your shout at range, his slap at close quarters.

When everyone is accounted for: ออกมาได้แล้ว (àwk maa dâi láew), you can come out now, shouted at the two who are still crouched behind the water tank. Then the handover, which runs the opposite way to the one you grew up with: the first child found is the one who takes over — ต่อไปหนูเป็นนะ (dtàw bpai nǔu bpen ná), you're the seeker next, where หนู (nǔu), mouse, is how you address a child. Being found first is the forfeit, not the escape, which is why the good hiders take the awkward corners and stay in them. Unless somebody landed a แปะ on you, in which case you are seeking again and everyone knows it before you do. Then อีกรอบ (ìik râwp), again, and again, until it goes dark.

What you say

What you will hear

The half that decides whether you can play. You do not have to say these; you have to catch them.

Watch out

Twenty is ยี่สิบ (yîi-sìp), not สองสิบ (sǎwng-sìp), and eleven is สิบเอ็ด (sìp-èt), not สิบหนึ่ง (sìp-nèung). Those are Thai's two number irregulars, and this game is practically designed to expose them: you have to produce them out loud, at speed, in front of children whose entire job for the next thirty seconds is listening to you. You will say สองสิบ once. You will hear about it for the rest of the afternoon, and quite possibly whenever that child sees you for the next year. This is not a reason to avoid the game — it is the reason to play it, because you will never forget the correction and nobody in an office is ever going to give you one. The tone trap sits right alongside it. ห้า (hâa), five, is a falling tone; หา (hǎa), to look for, is rising. You will be saying both in the same breath — counting to five, and being the one who looks — and getting them backwards is exactly the kind of mistake that adults politely let pass and children do not. It is the cheapest, most immediate tone drill available to you, and the feedback arrives in under a second. And know who is next before you argue about it, because the handover runs the other way here. The child found first takes over as seeker, not the child found last, and any hider you never found can cancel that by slapping you with a แปะ (bpàe), in which case you go again. There is also no home base to run for. Foreigners import all three rules from home, insist on them at volume, and lose the argument to a seven-year-old.

How it is really played here

The game lives in the soi, on the concrete apron between shophouses, on temple ground after school, in the shaded space under a raised house upcountry, and in condominium car parks. Thai children play outdoors later into the evening than European children do, because the useful hours are after five when the heat drops, and a game will be going on well past dark. The old taunt is worth knowing even though most children no longer sing it. Hiders used to chant at the seeker: ปิดตาไม่มิด สาระพิษเข้าตา พ่อแม่ทำนาได้ข้าวเม็ดเดียว (bpìt dtaa mâi mít, sǎa-rá-phít khâo dtaa, phâw-mâe tham naa dâi khâao mét diao) — your eyes aren't properly shut, poison in your eyes, may your parents farm all season and get one grain of rice. It is a curse rhyme aimed at a cheat, and it turns up word for word in Thai write-ups of the game. Anyone over fifty knows it; reciting it in a soi will get you a reaction you did not expect. Then the ghost, which is not a folkloric footnote but a live rule. There is a widely held belief in ผีลักซ่อน (phǐi lák sâwn), the ghost that steals a child away and hides them, and a corresponding prohibition on playing at โพล้เพล้ (phlóo-phlée), dusk, or anywhere on temple ground at night. Whether a particular grandmother means it literally or is using it to get everyone indoors before dark, the effect is identical: when she says it, the game stops. Do not be the foreigner who explains that ghosts are not real. One more thing that decides how you sound: the pronouns. You are ลุง (lung) or ป้า (bpâa) to a child who is not yours, พี่ (phîi) if you are young enough to get away with it, and they are หนู (nǔu) to you. A foreign man who says ผม (phǒm) to a six-year-old sounds like a bank teller reading out an account balance.