Hole in the Dictionary

I was joking around with one of the caregivers about how sometimes life with Jip can be just a little bit crazy—“but always interesting, never boring.” She replied with the word “headache,” which in Thai happens to rhyme with “boring.” At first I thought she had meant to continue the playful mood.

But when I thought about it later, I wondered if she really was beginning to feel frustrated by the job, and what I could do to help. I wanted to ask just how irksome she found some of the strange behaviors that come along with this disease, but I didn’t know the words for “frustrated,” or “irked,” or “it’s really getting to me.”

So I checked with some bilingual people at work, and with my Thai teacher. Nobody knew what I was asking about. The closest they came were words that meant “agitated,” or “oppressed,” or “uneasy,” which I didn’t think really captured the sense of annoyance or vexation that I connect with frustration.

Then it occurred to me that maybe that word doesn’t exist in Thai. Is it possible that an entire emotion is missing from this happy-go-lucky culture?