Girl goes sweary and then viral when her chicken's missing

The story goes that Kanittha “Lila” Chansawang, 15, of Satun province, bought sticky rice with fried chicken and popped into a 7-Eleven only to find that the two pieces of chicken were missing from her bike when she returned.

Like any rational person would do, she took to YouTube to vent her frustration.

“Yed mae, who stole the chicken? It was only Bt30. Can’t you buy your own? Don’t let me find out who took it, yed mae. I’ll stick the chicken in your mouth.Yed mae,” she says in her video, peppering her speech with a colourful phrase she’s really too young to be using. “Now I’m stressed. I bought the two pieces of chicken and I should have enjoyed it now ... yed mae. I hope you choke on my chicken, yed mae.”

Of course, the video of the cute girl swearing like a trucker has gone viral, with fans smitten by her southern accent as well as her sincerity.

TV channels have featured the “Neaw Kai” story on their news programmes, and Channel 3 interviewed Lila for its morning show.

Satun Governor Dejrat Limsiri has taken up the cause, offering “compensation” by buying Lila a big chicken dinner. He’s also proposed that Lila be a presenter for the now-famous shop where she got the chicken.

And there’s another twist in the missing-chicken mystery – the police are investigating! They are reviewing footage from the surveillance cameras in front of the 7-Eleven.

Clues are pointing to the possibility that the chicken thief may have had four legs, and staff at the 7-Eleven report that there are a lot of stray dogs who hang around the place. And another guy has emerged to say he’s had food stolen in the same place by those cunning canines.

So case closed? Not quite. While the “Neaw Kai” saga was harmless fun at the beginning, it’s simply gone too far, and concerns have been raised about how quick authorities are to take up trivial causes while more-serious issues are overlooked.

“Two pieces of chicken worth Bt30 goes missing and people pay so much attention. What about the three million tonnes of rice that’s gone missing? There’s not a word,” says @niekhang on Twitter. 

actually think there’s a good chance of catching the sticky-fingered thief.

However, the quick action by the cops was criticised in the social media, especially by victims of crimes the police didn’t seem to care too much about.

“I was robbed once but so far there was no clue,” a Facebook user said. Another recalled that when she reported her car had been broken into, the police officer flatly told her she should be more careful about where she parks.

Undeterred, the police in Satun want to make a federal case out of the missing chicken, and The media has also come under fire for stoking the flames of the “Neaw Kai” case.

On Facebook, National Press Council President Chakrrish Permpool acknowledged that perhaps the media should rethink how it reports such stories. “It matches Spiral Silence Theory that the media is not influential but those information receivers are.”