Thai language fun fact: Watching movies = watching skin?

Watch Thai language fun fact: Watching movies = watching skin? - The Nation Thailand on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00Here's a fun Thai-language fact you probably didn't know.

00:03The phrase for watching movie, in Thai we say đu năng, which literally means watching

00:08skin.

00:09But no worry, it's not as creepy as it sounds.

00:13Back in the day before movies existed, one of the main entertainment was shadow plays.

00:18Kind of like early films, the puppets were made from animal skins, which created shadows

00:23on the screen.

00:24So when people say đu năng, they were literally saying watch the skin, revealing to the puppet's

00:29material, not the actual skin.

00:32And over time, the phrase does.

00:34Today, đu năng simply means watching movies in Thai, even though the modern films today

00:39has nothing to do with the animal skins.