Pappo Yassalat

We've got some friends who are Thai. We got to know them when they first moved to Canada because mutual friends from the church we were attending at the time set us up with them for English language lessons. We gathered once a week at a mutual friend's house. We learned some Thai words and phrases from them. They learned English words and phrases from us. We never did become very good Thai speakers, but they became very good English speakers, so you can tell who the better students were.

Each week after language lessons we ate food. I often came to the lessons straight from my work and so did they. The result was that by later on in the evening we were all hungry. We ate some North American style food and a lot of Thai food. All of it was good. Because we were working on language skills, we wanted to know the name of each dish and also what was in it or how the name would translate into English. We taught and learned the words for plates, spoons, and cooking utensils. Some things were easy – hot pot is a dish that both Thai and North American people have adopted from Chinese cooking. Some things are cultural staples like Pad Thai, which is served in many places here and was familiar to them from home.

image by Yuichi sakuraba. CC BY-NC 2.0

There was one dish in particular with carrots and other vegetables plus limes and other fruit chopped fine and seasoned both hot and sweet at the same time. It's served with rice and sometimes pieces of roasted chicken. It's called Pappo Yassalat. We wanted to know how that would translate into English, and they laughed and said they had been wondering what the name meant since they learned in Thailand that its name was already English. It had been named by North American tourists who liked to buy it from street vendors and then it had become popular with Thai people too. They thought the name was already in English and wanted to know from us what it meant. We had no idea.

“Pappo” is not an English word, and neither is “Yassallat.” We liked to eat it, so did they, and it's not hard to make (except for a lot of chopping), so we ate it often and each time talked about what the name meant. They thought it was English, and we were pretty sure it was not. We thought maybe it was like Chop Suey, which is purposely a nonsense-sounding name as the dish was first made in North America but was named to sound Chinese. Or maybe it was the food name equivalent of people getting a tattoo of a word in another language just because the script looks interesting and nobody knows what it means. It was a mystery.

This went on for several years. Every few months we ate some Pappo Yassallat and talked about what the name meant. Their English skills improved, and we explored a few new options each time but never got anywhere on solving the riddle. They were sure it was English. We were sure it was not.

Maybe looking at that picture of the mystery dish, you have figured out the riddle already.

One day the light bulb came on when we finally figured out that maybe we were putting the gap in the wrong spot.

Pappo Yassallat ... Pappoyassallat ... Pappoya sallat ... Papaya Salad

Pappo Yassalat is papaya salad.

Papaya is called something else in Thai – malakx – and there is a Thai word for salad so the English words made no sense to our friends. But papayas aren't common here; people import them from other countries, and we didn't recognize them all chopped fine and mixed with other fruits, vegetables, and spices. Our friends were correct, the name is in English, but because they didn't understand the words, they approximated the sounds without the meaning and it took a long time for us to sort the sounds out partly because we weren't familiar with the meaning they referred to. It's a good thing it wasn't an important issue of medical care or employment standards or faith development or immigration process since we tripped on that communication breakdown for years before solving it. The solution was right in front of our noses the whole time and only needed a simple adjustment of the break between words to start the process toward clear understanding.

Is it spiritual analogy time now? No, it is not.

It's simple literal application time. I have 'pappo yassallat' moments often. I hear what somebody else says and don't understand what they mean. Sometimes I feel like somebody else has heard the sound of my words without connecting those words to meaning. I hope the people who I don't understand are as gracious with me as my friends were as we keep on trying to work it out. I hope the people who don't understand what I say are willing to keep on trying in good faith and good humour. I hope that we have a good time waiting for the mysteries to become clear and I hope we become closer as we wait. I hope that when one mystery becomes clear we are willing to move on to others with eagerness and enthusiasm.