The sorrow in Thai literatures: Jak

When I was young, I was raised at Samut Prakan province, my mother’s side hometown. My mother’s house was built in the degenerated mangrove forest area, which still remains some kind of plant that can see in mangrove forest like mangrove itself or mangrove apple (Sonneratia caseolaris). Nowadays, most of them are gone during the uprising of town and factory except nipa palm or in Thai Jak.

Jak or Nypa fruticans is the one and only palm species that can adapted to mangrove biome. It can be seen in mangrove forest, through south-eastern Asia to Australia and the southern part of Japan. In Thailand, this plant is used to made a sweet called “kanom Jak”, which is made from the sticky rice flour, ripe coconut flesh and coconut sugar. The ingredients are mixed and warped with Jak leaves before grilled until they’re cooked. The immature fruits, fresh or macerated in syrup, are also consumed as a snack.

Unripe fruits of Nipa palm, Samut prakan province.

Because the word “Jak” also means “depart” or “farewell” in Thai, this “Jak” tree is famous to use by the writers or poets in Thai literatures and folklores as the symbol to express the emotion of the characters when they are forced to depart with the one they loved. The masterpiece one is Enau,. Not only Jak tree was used to express the sadness of the character, but also Jak-prak, which is Thai name of ruddy shelduck or tadorna ferruginea.

Other famous plants used in the literatures to describe the sadness of the characters are Rakum and Sala. Both of them are also the member of Arecaceae family like Nipa palm and their name have synonym with the sadness-meaning words in Thai.

Sala or Salak in Malaysia and Indonesia, commonly known as “snake fruit”, has the scientific name of Salacca zalacca, which could be derived from the word Salak. Unlike Nipa palm, Salak has numerous long spikes on thepetioles. Salak is one of the economic plants in Indonesia due to its delicious fruits. The most famous cultivars are Salak pondoh from Yogyakarta province and salak Bali from Bali.

Rakum or Salacca wallichiana is closely resembled to Salak. The difference is easily observed from their fruits. Normally, Salak fruit is round-shape and has only one pulp while Rakum fruits is longer and might be divided to 2-3 pulps. However, because these two species is very close and can cross-breeding, the divided-pulp Salak can be found in the market in Thailand. Moreover, there is the hybrid of Salak and Rakum which the spike is absent. Thai farmers called it “Sakum”.



Since both Sala and Rakum have synonym to the sadness-meaning words (Sala in Thai means “sacrifice”, Rakum means “sorrow”) and they are closely resembled. Most literature and poem use both of them as the symbol to express the character’s grief.