Seeking Sanook
OR
The Flight of the Cormorant Crowd
Twenty-nine portraits of travel in search of life, love and meaning
Sanook (สนุก)
Pronunciation: sà-nùk
Noun: Fun
Usage: The Thai word for ‘fun’. Fun can mean different things to different people and different cultures however, in Thailand, Sanook is more like a mindset, or a way of life.
Cormorant (鵜)
Pronunciation: ˈkȯr-mə-ˌrant
Noun:
- A large aquatic bird once prized in Asia for its use in catching fish.
- A gluttonous, greedy, or rapacious person.
Usage:
In Japan, Cormorant Fishing is called Ukai (鵜飼): To control the bird, the fisherman ties a noose near the base of the bird’s throat. It doesn’t stop the bird from swallowing small fish, but it prevents it from swallowing the larger ones. When a cormorant has caught a large fish in its throat, the fisherman brings the bird back to the boat to retrieve it.
The Cormorant Crowd can be any group, typically tourists or travellers, in search of new experiences but who can be like cormorants, catching fish but unable to swallow because of the noose.