Town Hall

Town Hall


On May 12, 2002, at 7:05, my daughter was born.
While I was in the room with my wife and the baby, a nurse came in the room and gave me some papers. Everything in Thai language. I asked the nurse what the papers were meant for and her answer was that the papers were for the town hall to register my daughter.

We agreed that she would be named after my aunt, "Carmen", who had passed away a few years before and at 9 am, I left for the town hall with the papers.

Arrived at the town hall, I took a queue ticket and after a short time it was my turn to be attended.

The lady at the counter spoke a little bit English and I told her that I came to register the birth of my daughter and gave her the documents I had received from the nurse.

She started to fill in some papers, in Thai script, and after a few minutes she looked up and asked me "What name have you chosen for the baby?".

"Carmen" I said.

Her face turned pale and she looked at me as if I was some mass murderer.

Are you sure about that?
No Thai name?

I answered again, "Carmen" was the name that my wife and me agreed on.

Her hands started to tremble and she took some scratch papers.

First she wrote "การ์เมล".
But when she pronounced this, it sound like "Camen".

Then she wrote "การ์เมน".
But when she pronounced this, it sound like "Camen".
Not exactly what I wanted.

Then she wrote "การ์ราเมน".
But when she pronounced this, it sound like "Caramen".

By that time, a few other civil servants had come to rescue her and were given their solution how to write "Carmen". But none of them sounded like "Carmen".

One of them, I think that she was the chief of the department, corrected her and said that the name should end with the consonant "ล (L)" which is pronounced as "n" when written at the end of a syllable.

After about 1 hour of trying, without a solution in sight, I started to get tired of this and told them "You have 72 consonants and 26 vowels and you are not able to write "Carmen"?

We settled for "การ์ราเมน" and about midday I left the town hall in disbelief of what I just witnessed.
Thai people are mostly called by their nickname and I chose the nickname "Samui", the island we visited a few weeks before.
 

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