750 Years of ChiangRai, the Heart of Lanna

750 Years of ChiangRai, the Heart of Lanna
by Joel J. Barlow

Although people lived here before that, there’s good reason to celebrate ChiangRai as 750 years old this year. 750 years ago a new polity came into being, one without which the greater polity of Thailand might never have arisen. 750 years ago, a kind of teak and bamboo curtain was established (a bit like the much later “Iron Curtain” dividing East and West Germany), and that divide prevented the Mongols “hordes” from absorbing into their Yuan Empire the plains area drained by the MaeNam ChaoPraya.
The new polity became known as Lanna; its capitol was ChiangMai, but ChiangMai was more a business and administrative than cultural center. Its kings often preferred to retire to ChiangRai, which more epitomized their cultural heritage from Sipsongpanna (Xishuangbanna), Yonok, Dali and the Sipsong Chu Tai (12 Tai Names). ChiangMai was much more influenced by Mon, and even Khmer, cultures. It was essential as a trading center - engrossed in business with areas more to the south than to the north, where an intimidating threat remained. ChiangRai, however, was able to remain tight with municipalities in bordering Shan and Lao areas (well, tight in the sense that, although they sometimes fought, they were very much of the same cultural family).
The founder of Lanna, Paw Khun Mengrai (“Good Father King Rai”; King Mangrai, though frequently used, is a redundancy) laid the basis for the long-enduring Thai political independence by creating a reliable alliance of T’ai and related, neighboring, peoples, in the Christian Era’s13th century. His alliances and strategies enabled him to resist aggression by the Mongols, who were conquering elsewhere pretty much as they pleased. A contemporary, neighboring king Paw Khun Ramkamhaeng, is officially acknowledged as the first Thai king for his promulgation of Thai written language and of Theravada Buddhism with king as the top defender and advocate. Unlike Mengrai, though, Ramkamhaeng was nominally a vassal of others, both of the Mongol empire (which he visited twice), under Kublai Khan, and also of the Angkor Khom, his antecedents.
After Mongol horsemen attacked and defeated NanChao in 1253 CE, with Shan aid they then defeated the Burmese (1277). The power of the Mongols and their Yuan Dynasty Chinese Empire were a clear threat to all peoples of the entire region. From the Pacific Ocean to Eastern Europe and Persia, Mongol horsemen were going where they willed. Mengrai couldn’t have maintained his position as king without moving his court (and people) to a less vulnerable position. Realizing he had to avoid direct confrontation between his army and the stronger Mongols, Mangrai took his people south across buffering waters (the Mekong, the Kok and the Chiang Saen Lake), away from his patrimonial JingHong in the semi-mythical Ngoen Yang, and matrimonial Chiang Rung (both in southern Yunnan). His people made a new capital and named it after him: ChiangRai. The ChiangSaen Lake, lying between NgoenYang and ChiangRai, was quite large then, as a big earthquake (about 800, or perhaps 1015 CE) had released lots of water down from the KengTung area of present Shan State. Most of the lowlands between the Mekong and Kok rivers had become jungle swamp difficult to cross except along thin pathways, where steep, thickly vegetated hills met the wetlands. This kind of area can still be seen at the Doi NangNohn lagoon just southwest of the international border at Mae Sai.
1296 is the accepted date for the establishment of Lanna, as that’s the founding date of ChiangMai - but our modern concept of a country didn’t yet exist. There was empire, with greater and lesser rulers. Only with a significant center of business could Mangrai be seen as a great king; for 34 years, Mangrai hadn’t been King of Lanna, but of ChiangRai - if indeed that name was yet well established. It took him three years of attacking and defeating other towns (Muang Mop, Muang Lai, Chiang Kham and Chiang Chang) before he founded ChiangRai. By then, he already had a son (Khun Kruang), the mother of whom receives no mention in the ChiangMai Chronicle.
Impressed with the hills of Doi JomTong (on the south bank of the Kok River, with a village called Pantu Nakorn), which he likened to the three mountains NgoenYang, he built a fortified city there, and named it after himself. Three years later, he had another son, Jao Khun Khram. It’s said that, when settled into ChiangRai, Mangrai met Princess Eua Ming Wiang Chai, of ChiangSaen (Yonok, or whatever it was called then – the name ChiangSaen came later). Wanting to marry her, he promised to forgo other women for that privilege - also not mentioned in the Chronicles.
Six years before Mengrai’s ascendancy, the Mongols took Yunnan’s northern neighbor, Nanchao; with Mengrai’s leaving, they had all of Yunnan. In 1279, all China was theirs. By 1290 Kublai Khan had annexed past the Volga to the Danube; Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, most of northern Burma and coastal northern Vietnam were included in his Empire. Kublai Khan sent armies south of the Kok, but Mengrai’s successful harassment tactics, which disrupted supply lines, persuaded them to leave. The Mongols conquered the similar Irrawaddy region (taking Pagan in 1297), but in Lanna found no established urban center to lay siege to, as Mengrai had stayed fairly mobile, transplanting his capital from place to place, unpredictably, for decades. Unable to take a major city or establish any permanent base in Lanna, the Mongols never approached the Chao Phraya River basin. Thus the soon much greater kingdom, then empire, of Ayudhaya was able to prosper, and grow into Siam.
By the time of Mengrai, T’ai people were spread over an area in excess of a quarter million square kilometers, living in co-operative, communalistic style. The village was the main political unit; we’ve no record of any complex social hierarchies. The name of Mengrai’s lineage, Luajakarat or Lawajakarat, as well as his actions, denotes intermingling among indigenous peoples (Lua, Lawa), and access to various ancient political ideas. Young Mengrai clearly saw a united political and military front with loosely-associated peoples as the only way to maintain his position and prestige; he had the sophistication to effectively use ideas as advanced as those put forth much, much earlier by Sun Tzu in his book, The Art of War (although Mangrai may well never have known of the book, or even Sun Tzu’s name).

When Mangrai came to ChiangRai, there had long been a predominantly Buddhist culture for several centuries (at least). Wat Boran in Wiang Nua, just northwest of WiangChai, may hold the oldest remnants of this by-gone society to be found in northern Thailand. Just how old the Buddha effigy there is isn’t clear, but bricks and mortar from a jedi (pagoda), wall or gate, dug up in 1972, are from the early Chiang Saen era (before the city was called that), about 1200 years ago. ChiangSaen, or Yonok, or whatever it might have been called then, closer to the Mekong River (perhaps ruins lie under the river’s course, no-one knows), had existed for quite awhile, and there were temples at Doi Khao Quai and Doi Jom Tong. Haripunchai (now Lamphun) had Mon rulers, but locals hereabouts were Leu, Lawa and forest peoples. There are about 15 groups with names including the term “Tai” here now, but exactly who was here then we don’t know. None of this area’s municipalities in any way rivaled Asia’s contemporaneous real metropolises (like southern Thailand’s Nakorn Sri Thammarat), which were larger than anything then in Europe. Those places were mentioned in accounts by people from elsewhere. For early Lanna, though, not many documents have been found, so there’s not a lot to refer to.

Between Amphoe Wiang Chai and the Kok River is Amphoe Wiang Nua, where life is about as it ought to be. Instead of malls, pollution and traffic, there’s rice and corn fields, with pumpkins, coconut, banana and other fruit, and tobacco, all growing in profusion. Tourists are few - in fact, almost non-existent. The pace of life is slow, people are friendly, reliable and honest, and passing fads of fashion must seem to many locals as but crazy fairy-tales from far away.
As everywhere in Thailand, there are many temples. One, Wat Boran, isn’t much, except perhaps in significance. It may hold the oldest remnants of by-gone Buddhist society to be found in northern Thailand. Just how old the Buddha effigy is isn’t clear, but bricks and mortar from a jedi (pagoda), wall or gate, dug up in 1972, are from the early Chiang Saen era (before the city of that area was called that), about 1200 years ago.
East of the “Ha-Yaek” at the Mengrai Monument south of the Kok River bridge on Highway 1 about 10 kilometers past the Sports Stadium, is Wat Panalai Kasem, in Ban Panalai, about 4 kilometers from Wiang Chai. At nearby Ban Wiang Nua old style clothing and architecture remains common, and at Ban Rat Jalern aren many ‘galae’ roof horns, raised houses and even polished teak ones. Wat RatJalern has fancy embossed temple doors and gorgeously colorful front wall paintings of Mae Toranee and Taewadah angels. The next small town is Ban Sansalit; Wat Sansalit is just before Wat Boran, in Ban Wiang Doem (or Derm, given the Thai predilection for transliterations using silent r’s with no counterpart in corresponding Thai script). Atthe back of Wat Boran a new temple structure is being finished. Small houses for spirits of the newly deceased stand between it and the ‘bot’ (sala si-ri tamon pracha-nuson) for chanting and services. Lots of birds fly around inside the bot; others are caged (some ‘talk’). The ancient things are in a fancier temple building, just to the right after a small pavilion at the gate. Nothing is in English… and often no-one is around. But there one can get a hint about what was here before Mangrai.



Front of Wat Sansalit



Image unearthed at Wat Boran

Another fascinating historical temple is just a few kilometers further on. Pass the turns to the interestingly named Ban Ta-bandai (water-stairs, or perhaps, “waiting for stairs” place. If it seems I should explain why sometimes I’m not sure of a translation, I’ll be getting to that presently! First let’s get to our next old temple).
Wat Bang Trai-gaeo, at Ban Trai-gaeo, is a bit down at the heels, but not a century old, I’m sure. Just past it, take a clearly marked (in English even) left turn, to Wat Ku-na (the sign in Thai calls it Boran Satan Prajao Ku-na). After about a kilometer and a half, turn right and go the same distance to Ban Ku-na (no real village) and pass the little rest stop for weary drivers (I think the only one I’ve seen in Thailand). Then turn left at the lake.
This is an amazing place. Built first by Lanna’s animist king while he was still a Buddhist, over 630 years ago, the setting charming, ambience delightful and surprises amazing. I particularly like the little “ti-pak ron jai” (place to stay for hot hearts) tiny jail.



More noticeable, in fact, impossible to miss, is a roofed over fallen tree. A sign in Thai explains that it was a rubber tree (ton yang) over 100 years old, over 29 meters tall and 4.1 meters around, found in the river early in 2004. But a caretaker there told me it was a “Ton sai” tree, and not only do I clearly remember the tree being there, and not with a new roof, either, before that, I have pictures from my first visit – over a year before that! So, I’m reluctant to trust everything I read or hear…
By the roofed tree’s roots are gifts: women’s cloths and zip up wardrobe, make-up equipment and a donation box. Clearly a spirit is believed to be in residence.





There’s no resident monk at Wat Ku-na, just a caretaker who sweeps up and sells fish food, incense and candles. Often one simply puts money in a bowl and helps oneself. The bowl is on a table in a “sala” between the small lake and a sturdier sala with a large Buddha statue. That is the main bot – with no walls.
People tend to ignore the bot, and place their offerings before a huge 5 or 600 year old Ton sai tree (well, the caretaker told me that’s what it is, I thought maybe a Bo tree… but it’s another kind of fiscus, the banyan; and, apologies to the caretaker, rubber is a kind of fiscus, too!) which often has images of royals among its roots. High up in its branches are over 20 bee hives, easily visible. The largest appears to be over a meter in length. Locally, bees building a nest is regarded as a token of great good fortune.
Extending over the lake is a small wood sala, with benches, placed above a cement walk around it, with protective railing, used for feeding the many fish – many fairly big for such a small lake. There are pla duk catfish, pla ja-la met butterfish, pla tah pien and long pla chon fighting fish, I was told by visitors feeding them.
West of the big tree, near the river, is something like bleachers for images given to the tree, and the riverside is where the Loi Kratong parade from Wiang Nua ends and people launch their kratongs.
It’s all quite lovely, with the air cooled by breezes passing above the river and lots of vegetation, including plenty of trees. Well worth a visit, especially if one wants to see a bit of unspoiled northern life.

When I started compiling ChiangRai tourist information a decade ago, WiangChai was off the tourist track, and few people there spoke anything but northern &/or central Thai. Although with a primarily rice-based economy, due to proximity to Amphoe Muang, good soil (a legacy from when the ChiangSaen Lake was huge), and plentiful water, WiangChai is more prosperous than PhrayaMengrai, Theung or other outlying areas of ChiangRai. Santiburi Golf has helped too, as has land speculation. Grounds preparation for another golf-based community, “Happy City”, is well underway, and already there are Farang faces to be seen around and about. There are internet cafes, modern homes aplenty, and other signs of development; with that, though, has come removal of some mountains (over towards otherwise beautiful Bung Luang and charmingly slow PrayaMengrai), for materials. Soon the area will be ‘discovered’ – and much busier. Global economic problems will surely affect this development, and perhaps the success of Happy City, but ChiangRai is sure to replace ChiangMai in the hearts of many. We should regard ourselves as fortunate to still be able to enjoy the unspoiled charm in Wiang Chai. One of its nicest places is just north of town on 1173, 2.5 km along PhaNgio (spelled Pha Giew on signs) Road from Ban DonRuang, 3 km. past the turn to ChaingRung and ChiangKhong.



WangChang



The-elephant-rest-canal



a-most-rikkety-bridge



WanChang's-biggest-weir

Thai Linguistic Complications

Lack of tense and plurals, and less utilization of prepositions present real challenges, as do tones and the Thai alphabet, and some Western words (i.e. a syllogism, logic, earn, perspective, hypocrisy, a bump) just don’t have directly corresponding terms in Thai. But these matters present much less difficulty than do some others.
Thai classifiers require learning which scholars of by-gone eras would have found less strange than most of us, unaccustomed to the formality essential to much of Thai language, do. Similarly, not too long ago thou was used to express intimacy, amity and sometimes disrespect (although also used when speaking to God), while you (the oblique/objective form of ye) was used mostly in formal circumstances to imply respect. Early Quakers refused to use what they considered the fancier term, instead addressing high-ranking persons with thee and thou. Those terms later disappeared from normal English usage (in French, Quakers used tu to address even those who by common convention would be addressed with the more formal vous). Thai yet retains characteristics now archaic to English; it also varies greatly between spoken and written forms. I once bought books of pithy Thai proverbs to help me absorb the language – but they proved far too difficult!
Thai (a Lao, or Tai, language) includes Central Thai (Siamese) and a dozen or so variants used within Thailand; it’s absorbed many foreign words. “Loanwords” come from both ancient and modern Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese and other dialects, especially Teochew), and from Malay. Also from the closely related Mon and Cambodian languages, 16th-century Portuguese, and English. Overlays of polysyllabic words added to common speech most often come from Pali (related to Sanskrit) and Old Khmer. Despite that the linguistic forms of Sanskrit and Pali differ greatly from Tai languages, elegant religious and literary terms come from them; occasionally new words are coined from Sanskrit roots.
Sanskrit, as ancient a language as almost any still in use, flourished from about 500 BCE to 1000 CE, but now is hardly ever (if ever at all) a mother tongue. Its grammar is similar to Latin and Greek. A cultured and sophisticated language used for religious and learned discourse, it’s related to Old Persian (as was Khom, the language of Angkor royalty, which had great influence upon Siamese royalty and language).
Pali, a literary language of rather mixed vernacular origins, was used for the Theravada Buddhist canon (and thus is thus regarded as sacred). Gautama Buddha preferred vernacular dialects and opposed the use of Sanskrit as a learned (so less natural) language. But Pali use declined about 400 CE, as Sanskrit use rose (and Buddhism’s popularity in the subcontinent declined); it died as a literary language of India in the 14th-century, and survived elsewhere only into the 18th.

Thai uses a variety of speech levels (called ‘registers’: colloquial, formal, literary and poetic); similarly, a century ago German had low, middle and high, each with its appropriate usages. The best example is “eat”: kin (กิน; common), kah-ma (ขมำ; to gobble in indecent manner), daek (แดก; vulgar, what a dog does), yat (ยัด; also vulgar), boriphok (บริโภค; formal), taan khao (ทานข้าว; polite), rapprathan ahaan (รับประทาน อาหาร; very formal), chan (ฉัน; religious) or sawoei (เสวย; royal). Words for blood (leuat เลือดม, formally lo-heet โลหิต), family relationships and hygienic or sexual terms vary similarly (although not as muchas with the terms for eat). In speech “dog” is usually ma (rising toe; หมา), while in writing, it’s sunak (สุนัข).
Thai registers, for different social contexts, include:
• Street or common speech (ภาษาพูด, spoken language): informal, used between close relatives and friends
• Market vernacular (ภาษาตลาด market language): casual, unceremonious but not intimate
• Formal Thai (ภาษาเขียน, written Thai): the official version, with respectful terms of address (used in simplified form for newspapers)
• Rhetorical Thai: for public speaking
• Religious Thai: used to discuss Buddhism or address monks, and
• Royal Thai (ราชาศัพท์): to address members of the royal family or describe their activities.
Educated Thais are familiar with all of these; those less educated have less familiarity. As situations grow more formal, so do honorifics and other terminology -as when one speaks differently with a doctor than with an intimate friend… Even in English, we have legal language, journalistic language and many others, but the Quaker influence which led to the opposite of the terminology they chose coming into general use (still, though, simplifying things) hasn’t occurred in Southeast Asia (unless perhaps communism is producing something like that effect in Vietnam, where I’ve never been and of whose language I know only that there are seven, two more, tones).

Half a book might be made on Thai pronouns alone, but simply, Phom or Dichan are snobbily polite, Chan (sometimes pronounced Shan) is the best informal 1st person pronoun, except in formal documents where one becomes a Slave of God (Ka-prajao ข้าพระเจ้า). 1st person pronouns include: ผม, เรา, ฉัน, ดิฉัน, ชั้น, หนู, กู, ข้า, กระผม, ข้าพเจ้า, กระหม่อม, อาตมา, กัน, ข้าน้อย, ข้าพระพุทธเจ้า, อั๊ว, & เค้า… Each expresses gender, age, politeness, status, or relationship between speaker and listener.
2nd person uses Khun (คุณ; good, virtue, value, quality) normally, Thaan (falling tone, ท่าน) to be even more respectful (it can be 3rd person too). Meung and Kae need to be understood when heard, but not used. Thuh (Ter, or, alternatively, Thoe… written in Thai, เธอ) is used informally, sometimes offensively, sometimes intimately, sometimes to show displeasure with children… Rao, or puak rao (เรา, or พวกเรา, the group of us) is usually “we”, but can also be a casual form of I/me or even you.
For 3rd person, khao (เขา; rising tone, sometimes puak khao - พวกเขา) is fine, Kae or Mahn (it, มัน) are OK but somewhat rude - or, as it is with 1st and 2nd person, a given or nickname can be used. Them, they = puak khao or kao thang lai (for only two people, khao tang song, or, if you will, r)khao h)thang r) sawng)…
The reflexive pronoun is tua eng (ตัวเอง); it can mean any of: myself, yourself, ourselves, himself, herself, themselves. This can be mixed with another pronoun to create an intensive pronoun like tua phom (ตัวผมเอง meaning I myself) or tua khun (ตัวคุณเอง - you yourself). Tua eng is Me, thuh eng (เธอเอง)You… Khon ni (คนนี่): Me; Khon nan (คนนั่น): That One… There’s also Nai (นาย master, 2nd, 3rd person). Again, Rao (เรา, or puak rao พวกเรา) can be first person (I), second person (you), or both (we), depending on the context.
And there’s even Khun Nu, if you want to be both sycophantically obnoxious and patronizing simultaneously…
A person might refer to themselves by nickname, but in northern “Lao” areas, to refer to another person they add “I” as a prefix (I’m called “I-Jo” or sometimes “Eye-John”); in the Central Plains that’s considered insulting and khun (คุณ means “good”) must be used. For a Chinese, “Ah” is often preferred (for a man), Jae for a woman (Ah is always followed by a name; Jae need not be).
Pii and nong indicate relative relation, not only about who is older and who younger, but who is more influential. Pii (พี่) may mean older brother or older sister, but is also used for older acquaintances), and nong (น้อง) younger brother or sister (but also used for younger acquaintances); luk pii and luk nong refer to first cousins, luk lahn to nieces and nephews and grandchildren.
Thai has no possessive pronouns; instead possession is indicated by the particle khong (ของ). For example, “my mother” is mae khong phom (แม่ของผม, mother of I). This particle is often implicit, as in mae phom (แม่ผม).
When speaking to someone older, nu (หนู) is a feminine first person (I); when speaking to someone younger, it’s a gender-less second person (you).
The second person pronoun thoe (เธอ, meaning you) is semi-feminine, used when the speaker or the listener (or both) are female. Males usually don’t address each other with it, except in the case of a father expressing intimacy with small children. “Khun thuh” (คุณเธอ) is a feminine derogative third person, but I’ll note here that inflammatory Thai speech is usually not taught, for good reason.
Instead of a second person pronoun such as khun (คุณ, you), it’s much more common for unrelated strangers to call each other พี่, น้อง, ลุง, ป้า, น้า, อา, ตา, or ยาย (brother, sister, uncle, aunt, grandpa, granny), but this is often inappropriate for foreigners, especially when the relationship has not been at all defined. Typically, one starts with faen (แฟน), or, “Faen, ja”… !!!
To express deference, the second person pronoun is sometimes replaced by a profession, similar to how, in English, presiding judges are always addressed as “your honor” rather than “you”. In Thai, students always address their teachers by kru (ครู), Khun kru (คุณครู), or ahjaan (อาจารย์ - each means teacher, อาจารย์ ranking higher than ครู) rather than คุณ (you). Doctors are addressed as Khun Moh (คุณหมอ); in print นาย แพทย์ (Nai Peht).
A monk, and even a novice monk, is not a khon, but a dohn: pra dohn neung = one monk. Pra ong neung = a Buddha image. Pra ong nohn = that particular Buddha image. Neither can be mahn (it) as a pra ong is NEVER just a thing. Members of the royal family also require specialized terminology, as also some high officials.

It all requires some getting used to! Perhaps it’s just an urban legend, perhaps not, but it’s said that a young man in India somehow got hold of a Thai transliterative dictionary, and learned the language by himself. Some amazed Thai academics came to observe this phenomenal person, and reported that he could indeed speak Thai – in a rather strange way… As it’s unlikely to have been in his dictionary, I wonder what term that guy would’ve chosen to refer to speed bumps, and how close he might have gotten to whatever road-building contractors here call them!

a few more Chiangrai recommendations

Jong's family with mine

Chiang Rai Trekking And Guiding Service (see www.chiangraitreks.com)
Trekking – day trips or longer, to visit mountain-top hill-tribe villages, waterfalls and the unspoiled nature of the Thai province with the most national park area – has long been a favorite tourist activity here. And Ah-Jong has long been one of ChiangRai’s best guides.
Jong is what friends call Sompong Laophong, a Government-licensed professional trekking and jungle guide based in ChiangRai City of in Northern Thailand. The forests, jungles and mountain areas of the Golden Triangle area there are world renowned for their unique cultural and biological diversity. Jong can show you the wonders of this special region, scheduled to your particular interests, abilities and needs, whether as a tourist, professional scientist or naturalist, as an experienced mountaineer or just as a day tripper. For those interested in the cultural offerings, history, temples and monuments of Lanna, as we call our region, a variety of specialized tours to satisfy your curiosity and enliven your stay in Chiang Rai are available. Jong is multilingual, fluent in Thai, Mandarin Chinese and Akha, and also speaking English and Lahu. He’s especially knowledgeable of the natural resources of the area, ranging from the identification of medicinal and edible plants to indigenous birds, mammals and insects... and is well-known in many traditional villages.
Contact: Tel: (66) 081-111-2733, e-mail: chiangraiguide.jong@gmail.com


Orn’s Bookstore, at 1051/61 JetYod Soi 1, Chiangrai 57000, tel. 081-0220818 (English) or 086-0624080 (Thai), offers the best book-exchange deals in Thailand. The manager, Peter (Orn is his wife), an Asia old-hand (like myself, 20 years here), hails from a small village in the Black Forest of Bavaria, but speaks fluent Thai. He lived in Malaysia then ran ChiangMai’s Supreme Guest House for a decade, amassing a large collection of books left behind by tenants. Return and exchange deals are more than fair, tea can be purchased, and there are lots of friendly cats – when in Chiang Rai, be sure to pay a visit!






Chalong Pintsuwan’s Tai Yuan Art Gallery, 250 Mu 15, Rajyotha Road Soi 3, Chiangrai 57000 (call in advance for appointment, 053-712137 or 089-631-9438, e-mail Taiyuan_artgallery@hotmail.com) is my candidate for Chiangrai’s best gallery. Many artists are represented, including most of the area’s significant ones, and upstairs, in his studio, is a fine collection of fascinating local artifacts.





Aphirak Punmoonsilp, impressionistic painter of flowers in outdoor spaces, lives and works at 79 Mu 10, Ban Mai Pattana, Tambon Pasang, Amphoe Mae Chan, Chiangrai 57110. To visit, make an appointment by calling 081-603-2758 or ew-mail art!punmoonsilp.com. See also www.aphirak-punmoonsilp.com

Naris Rattanawimol carves stone into gracious Buddha images, at Naris Sculpture House, 119 Mu 4, Tambon Wiang Pangcome, Amphoe Mae Sai, Chiangrai 57130


Although Taksin’s absurdly misguided OTOP (One Tambon One Product) policy did much to degrade the quality of Thai crafts (having made my living at the time through crafts export from here, I have some expertise on the matter), there remain a variety of interesting artistic forms on sale in ChiangRai. Weavings, basketry, silverwork, jade, wooden frames, wood carvings, pottery and tea pots, amulets, effigies and other talismans can all be found at the night Bazaar, along Tanalai Road, Highway 1, and at Wat Jedi Luang (next to the National Museum) in Chiang Saen. The Silver Birch shop on Pahonyothin Road by the soi to Wat Jet Yod is by far ChiangRai’s best general crafts store, with some truly amusing items. Don’t forget, Buddha images usually require an export permit.

Banana Plantation Tips

The short, stubby bananas common here in ChiangRai (gluai nam-wá, the fatter, shorter, firmer, less sweet kind) are much healthier for you than the long, Chiquita-type ones (Gluai hohm ‘fragrant’ Cavendish commercial bananas), and are often tasty too. There’s little better than fresh fruit taken immediately from where it was growing, and bananas are easy.
There are about 30 Thai banana varieties, including “egg” (gluay kai), “100 bunches” (roy wee), “fragrant gold’ (hohm tong) and “sandalwood” (jun); they change in color over time, but when ripe some are red, purple, orange or a very light green.

Plantains, cooking bananas, are drier, more starchy, and used like potatoes (they taste similar). Thais use almost every part of the banana tree in addition to the fruits. Pigs and chickens like the fruit, and the leaves, large, flexible, and waterproof, are often used as ecologically friendly, disposable food containers (“ serving plates”), or for food wrappers, roofing material, ceremonial lanterns and even to polish floors. The leaves are also used as steamer cups for ho mok pla, a spicy paté made with fish and coconut milk. They can be fed to horses, cows and other grazers (even ducks, which especially like the new shoots or sprouts, known as suckers, which grow from a big underground rhizome called the corm – in English, anyway). Banana flowers are used in Thai salads, or minced and deep-fried into patties. Grilled “barbecued bananas” are often sold on the streets, the fruits are simply peeled and roasted over hot coals. Banana breads, cakes and that backpacker standard, the banana pancake, are also popular.
Banana inflorescence, the banana heart, from which the fruit develops (in a hanging cluster made up of tiers known in English as hands, in Thai as a wii), have up to 20 fruit to a tier; bunch applies to parts of a tier with 3 to10 adjacent fruits. Edible banana flowers that are popular in Southeast Asian cuisine, but if you try to eat a flower from an unsuitable variety, it’s quite unpleasant.

One of the world’s oldest cultivated fruits, bananas may have originated in southern, peninsular Thailand. More likely, it occurs to me, they developed in the Sunda Shelf area, when the oceans were lower, but perhaps in Borneo. Technically not a tree (they’ve no bark), but an overgrown herb (gingers and bird-of-paradise flowers are banana relatives); banana trunks are leaf stalks wrapped around each other. New leaves start growing inside, below the ground; they push up through the middle. So does the flower, which finally turns into a bunch of bananas, which can be yellow, purple or red. The banana plant flowers after 9 to 12 months, depending on the climate; most bananas require at least 20 months to fruit.
The banana is the largest herbaceous flowering plant; tall, sturdy and often called a tree, their main stem, or “pseudostem”, grows 6 to over 7 meters (to almost 25 feet). Each “tree” produces but one bunch of bananas. Then it dies, but usually offshoots (corm) develop at the base of the plant. Locals will often cut the stem down, and use it to fertilize other banana plants, at the time they take the bananas. If a "tree" is cut early, it can grow out again, and still produce a banana bunch.
Sometimes the plant needs support to not topple over.

Bananas aren’t as closely related to grass as is bamboo, but there’s similarity. For reasons unclear to modern man, they stopped sexual reproduction about a century ago. If you’ve got a few banana trees, and want more, want to learn to care for them well, best not to look to me – better to find a local! But, as local agriculturalists often prefer to use only Kham Muang or their tribal language, I’ll clue in to the little I’ve picked up.
First - banana tree water (often from condensation, which sits where leaves join the stem, absorbing sap). Avoid it. Won’t hurt your skin or anything, but it will permanently stain your clothes with dark spots. Bleach, vinegar, lemon-juice, hot water and soap – nothing. No results at all. Even sunshine doesn’t fade the stains. You can try an immediate rinse, and sun drying, and get some success, if you do it fast enough (less than 10 minutes, better, less than 5) but once the stain is there, it’s permanently there. Be advised: wear old clothes before cutting any part of the banana plant!
Second – what should you try to do? Well, get rid of the yellowing leaves. Green leaves can be sold, yellow leaves can be put between banana trees (but be careful not to cover the young ones that, while still above, they were preventing sunlight from reaching). To do this, you need a curved rice-harvesting knife, and a long PVC pole. Duct tape (amazingly, not intended to be used for sealing duct-work; it can, however, be used as a bandage...) might help to attach the two, but a long piece of wide, stretchable rubber will do better. String, wire… might as well try WD-40. I've gotten best results with a pvc pole and a screw through a small hole in the handle of the curved knife.

Third – in the dry season, water them. Avoid over-watering, which results in rot. Just get the bottoms of the trees wet on an irregular basis and you’ll be fine. Neighbors have ditches between rows of bananas, into which they occasionally pump water, but to me theirs seem to grow more slowly than mine.
Mulch them by piling on lots of organic matter, let them shelter each other instead of standing alone and exposed, and hope for moderate weather with no extremes like flooding or string winds. You need to cut off dead leaves, trees that have produced already and unhealthy trees to let in light, especially for new and young trees; also, here in Southeast Asia, at least, people begin to see ghosts in banana groves when there’s too much dead and dying material hanging around in them!
Fourth – don’t worry too much about the central Thai superstition of ghosts haunting banana plantations: here in the north we don’t often have that problem! Well, once, but nevermind that. Bananas are, though, slightly radioactive; they’re high in potassium, and all naturally occurring potassium contains small amounts of radioactive potassium-40.

The purple pointed globe which hangs below banana clusters should be cut off to get larger bananas, the very inside of the trunk is edible (I haven't tried it yet); banana flowers, which are normally eaten as a complement to a dish as a side vegetable, can be eaten raw or cooked. You can steam, fry or boil them. Lastly: when you take a bunch of bananas, you might as well cut down the whole tree. Cut it up and put the pieces between other trees for moisture and fertilization.
Farmers will level banana fields and plant baby ones; I prefer to let nature take its course. When trees get dark inside (only the white interior is edible) or otherwise unhealthy, it can be a good idea to thin out the trees, and separate young ones for transplanting (a mixture of soil, carbon cinder and rice husk is good). A tree cut in half will often sprout new leaves, which is OK, but baby trees are better.

Found these interesting pictures on Facebook:

Taxes Imposed on Expatriates in Thailand

1. Are expatriates subject to taxation in Thailand?

A: Yes, expatriates are subject to taxation in Thailand since Thai laws impose taxes on both residents and non-residents. Therefore, as long as the expatriate resides in Thailand for a period of at least 180 calendar days in a year, then he is liable to pay taxes.

2. What kind of income is taxable from expatriates in Thailand?

A: Personal income derived from sources within Thailand, regardless of the actual place where the payment was made.

3. What are examples of assessable income on the part of expatriates?

A: Below are few examples of the assessable income from expatriates:
Income derived from hire of services such as services rendered in an employer-employee relationship
Income derived from the hire of work such as services rendered as an officer or as a person holding a position in the company
Income derived from intellectual property rights such as goodwill and copyright as well as from annuities
Income derived form the lease of properties
Income derived from services rendered by liberal professionals
Income derived from construction contracts and services rendered where tools and materials are supplied
Income derived from business, commerce, or industry not enumerated in the preceding numbers
4. Are there classes of income derived by expatriates that are exempt from tax? If yes, what are examples of those?

A: Yes, there are certain classes of income derived by expatriates that are exempt from tax. Below are examples of such:
Income obtained from the sale of an immovable property given to the expatriate either as a gift or a donation;
Income obtained from the sale of a residential building which was subsequently spent for acquiring a new residential building within 1 year before or after the sale;
Income obtained from the sale of shares listed in the Thailand Stock Exchange;
Income obtained from interest that has already been withheld at the rate of 15% at source
Income obtained from dividends or profit shares from a Thai registered company or a mutual fund, provided that 10% of such dividends have already been withheld at source
This article was provided by Siam Legal, an international law firm with offices in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Hua Hin, Pattaya, Phuket, and Samui. Siam Legal publishes guides to dealing with tax in Thailand on its website.

Siam Legal International
Interchange 21 Building, 23rd Floor, 399 Sukhumvit Road
North Klongtoey, Wattana, Bangkok 10110

Some interesting tidbits about Thailand and its cultural development

Some interesting tidbits about Thailand and its cultural development:

Thai boxing (Muay Thai) began to develop before Thais came to Thailand. Perhaps 2000 years ago, T’ai tribes, harassed and attacked by Han Chinese and others in areas of southern China they then inhabited, responded by developing a strongly militant attitude, with a military code called the Chupasaht. It called on all able bodied men to be prepared to come to the aid of their leaders with swords, spears, axes, bows and, when those weren’t available, various parts of the human body to be used as weapons (muay boran: Muay Thai is a modern integration of traditional regional muays, including Muay Chaiya, Muay Korat, Muay Tarsao, Muay Jearng and other forms of “ancient boxing”). Warriors developed sophisticated skills, specializing in combining deployment of sabers, clubs, swords and lances with use of elbows, knees, feet, fists and heads. With these skills, they were able to survive. Migrations from southern China to Southeast Asia may have occurred in the 6th and 7th centuries; while that remains unclear, that many moved away from China isn’t; some stayed and became the Zhuang, the largest (12 million) ethnic minority of modern China. Those who left became Shan, Thai, Laotians and Vietnamese.
Muay Thai, Thailand’s national sport, is also its oldest. But there’re no records, and little evidence, of when Muay Thai originated. It’s certainly been around longer than the nation! Its importance to Thailand’s identity no other nation can even imitate. Unique among other kinds of fighting disciplines in its approach to close quarters fighting, it’s been the country’s most popular spectator sport for hundreds of years. Fighters use a greater variety of body parts more effectively than in any other martial art (Thai boxing is aggressive, most martial arts are defensive). For the sport, bare-fisted fighters wore lengths of hemp rope around their hands and forearms. For warfare, special skills were taught among those of noble status, then down to high-ranking military individuals and on to foot-soldiers. Since Buddhism became the religion of T’ais, Muay Thai has been taught by Buddhist monks, and a bond between Buddhism and Muay Thai developed. Before Thai boxing matches begin, each Muay Thai artist performs a pre-match ritual, with sacred cotton bands worn around arm and over the head. Each contender solemnly says a prayer then performs a sacred dance routine to commemorate his master who teaches and trains him for the fight.

Elephants have been used in war for thousands of years, but their history in Southeast Asia is as murkily unclear as is that of the local martial arts of boxing. T’ais leaving the area of modern China for parts south didn’t have elephants, which weren’t yet available to them. But they did have horses, bulls, and water-buffalo, which not only provided some military utility, but paved the way for elephant utilization. A war elephant can trample men under foot, batter down obstacles, and strike terror into the hearts of soldiers and horses. Its main purpose is to terrify the enemy while smashing through its ranks. Horses won’t charge into a bristling wall of sharp points, but even a phalanx-style formation won’t halt an elephant’s charge. Also, horses fear the smell of elephants. The presence of elephants on a battlefield can render cavalry useless.
The war elephant, used in India as far back as the 3rd millennium BCE (at any rate, soapstone carvings depicting elephants with cloth on their backs indicates use by humans), was familiar to Persians of the 4th century BCE. Their presence in Hannibal’s army of 218 BCE, despite the extreme difficulties they presented, demonstrates their perceived utility (mostly in willingness to charge both men and horses, and from the panic that it inspired in horses). Hannibal's personal elephant (named Surus, meaning “Syrian”), his only Asian one, was the only one to survived and reach Italy. African elephants have much larger ears, used to dissipate body heat – which wouldn’t have been helpful in the Alps.
The powerful Angkor Empire came to regional dominance in the 9th century CE, utilizing war elephants. Mangrai of Lanna (ruled 1259-1318) defeated invading Mongols in 1296 and 1301, most likely more from insufficiency of invading troops and, overextended, undefended and thin supply lines than from utilization of lots of war elephants, despite that closely neighboring Lan Xang – northern Laos – was supposedly the Land of a Million Elephants (surely an exaggeration). He later made some counter-raids into China, then sent elephants and other gifts to the court of Timür Khan. Sino-Thai relations stabilized. Bas-relief murals at Angkor Wat show Ayuddhayan T’ais (or Siamese) attacking with war elephants; when Angkor collapsed, both Burmese and Siamese had adopted widespread use of war elephants, and in the 1548 Burmese invasion into Siamese territory, war elephants were used to fight each other. But as some elite fighters had matchlocks or muskets, introduced to the rival kingdoms by the Portuguese a bit earlier, this was clearly closer to the end of the war elephant’s great utility than to its beginning. They were still used a couple centuries later, but by the time of the Chakri kings, had become primarily ceremonial, while diplomatic cleverness had become much more important than fighting techniques.

The baht, once called the tical (from Portuguese or Malay), was worth about a US nickel ($.05, or 5¢ – a baht was a tical and a tical was a nickel, from 1956 to 1978 (sometimes closer to 4¢, but still real money in the local sense, although not nearly of as much value as it'd been a century earlier). Before 1860, Thailand didn’t have coins, but rather bars of metal, thicker in the middle, bent round to form a complete circle on which identifying marks were stamped: "bullet" coinage (some of which did look like bullets, a bit flattened). Prior to the introduction of decimalization at the turn of the 20th century currency units included (from largest to smallest) the hap, chang, tamleung, baht, mayon, salung, feuang, sik, sio, att, solot and bia (the last 5 being very small units). Many Siamese cities in the 19th century used porcelain Chinese gaming counters (poker chips) for small change; were an issuing casino lost its license or otherwise had to go out of business, its owners would have to send a crier thru the local streets banging a gong and announcing that anyone with chits had 3 days to redeem them. In 1851, the Thai government issued ⅛, ¼, ⅜, ½ and 1 tical notes, then 3, 4, 6 and 10tamlung notes in 1853. After 1857, 20 and 40 tical notes were issued, which stated their values in Straits dollars and Indian rupees. In 1892, notes for 1, 5, 10, 40, 80, 100, 400 and 800 ticals were called baht in the Thai text. In 1897, the decimal system, with one baht = 100 satang, was introduced. Until 1902, the tical was silver, and valued accordingly; 15 grams of silver was a baht. Coins of the old units were issued until 1910, then in 1925, notes were issued with the denomination “baht” used in the English text (denominated at 1, 5, 10, 20, 100 and 1000 baht). After WWII, the B1000 notes disappeared until the 1990s. The pre-decimalization saleung (25 satang, ¼ baht) is still called that, but only used in certain places (gas stations and 7-11 shops, mostly, but also for paying electric bills). Twenty years ago I tried to buy a box of matches with 4 saleung coins; the seller, sitting on the sidewalk, told me beggars wouldn’t take those. By the late 20th century the baht had become one of Asia's most important currencies, mysteriously stable and strong.

With the invention of the automobile in the late 19th century began a huge rubber boom; in 1895, Henry Ridley, head of Singapore's botanical garden, persuaded two coffee growers to plant two acres of Hevea brasiliensis trees. Twelve years later Ceylon and Malaya had over 120,000 acres of rubber, grown at only a fraction of the cost of collecting wild rubber in Brazil. Soon rubber trees were planted in Phuket as well, the first in 1903. Many large and profitable plantations were established, covering more than a third of the island and creating a wave of immigration to fill the needs of this labor intensive industry. As automobile and aircraft industries demand huge amounts of rubber, things were good until WWII; afterwards the rubber industry spiraled through a series of boom and bust cycles. Synthetics were introduced, but they haven’t made for good condoms, so, since HIV, the market for natural rubber is back. Since 1991, Thailand has been the leader in world production, and the largest exporter of natural rubber. Now the rubber tree also provides most of the wood for furniture made in Thailand (beware – much is insufficiently cured, and moulds quite easily, especially in humid weather).
Thailand is also the world’s largest producer and exporter of pineapple, accounting for over 40% of all pineapple exports (over 2 million tons per year). Hawaii produces only 10% of the world's pineapple crops; its pineapples are much sweeter, and softer. Even canned, Thai pineapple is crunchier – I remember with fond nostalgia the “no-name brand” canned Thai pineapple – so much better than the more expensive (and exploitative) Dole brand product!
Pineapple isn’t indigenous, nor as important commercially as rice or rubber, or even sugar cane, cassava, cotton, maize, kenaf (a jute substitute used for fiber, from Africa) and other more recently introduced crops (coffee is a significant new one, as is the potato). Mungbeans, soybean, oranges and tangerines, tobacco and peppers are also important Thai crops, but the Thai pineapple has achieved special recognition.
Thai cuisine uses a variety of sauces, such as fish, soy, chili, and oyster. Other ingredients include lime and lemon juices, tamarind juice, coconut milk, garlic, lemon grass, galangal, basil, cilantro, bean sprouts, shrimp, cayenne and black peppers. Important also are the tomato, which, like cassava, tobacco, pepper (like the tomato, a member of the nightshade family, from the Americas), maize and sugar from sugar beets (sugar cane is from the East Indies, perhaps New Guinea, but decomposes rapidly) – all imports over the last half millennia (we don’t know quite when… there’s even some speculation that a Chinese fleet brought back many of these things in the early 1400s – carbon testing should be done on residue in unearthed old tobacco pipes!). Rice, on the other hand, is truly indigenous: pottery shards bearing the imprint of both grains and husks of Oryza sativa were discovered at Non Nok Tha in the Korat, rice plant remains from 10,000 BCE were discovered in Spirit Cave, MaeHongSon (on the Thailand-Myanmar border), suggests that agriculture may be older than previously thought. Some Korean archaeologists claim to have discovered the world's oldest domesticated rice at 15,000 year old; others claim rice cultivation originated in China about 12,000 years ago, and it’s possible that it was cultivated on now undersea areas of the Sunda Shelf even earlier, but the ever-popular Thai fragrant kao hom mali jasmine rice is certainly purely Thai.

A Mangrai Story

Yesterday I heard an interesting story: when Good Father Mangrai was settled into ChiangRai, he met Princess Eua Ming Wiang Chai, of ChiangSaen (Yonok, or whatever it was called then) and wanted to marry her. She insisted on a promise that he would then take no other wife. He gladly agreed.
But when much older, after a successful campaign against the Burmese and tired of fighting them, negotiations for peace included a traditional offering of Princess Pai Koma in marriage; he decided to accept. Queen Eua Ming, distraught, withdrew to a nunnery, in anguish and grief so strong that it infected a great storm. She later later died there at the nunnery. It was gossipped about that the broken promise, and her broken heart, produced the lightening that struck Mangrai down and ended his life.