Sunday, December 23, 2012
Militant dreams of restoring lost glory
In Prachinburi, Pitsanulok, Ayudtaya, Petchabun, Muang Nong Bua Lam Phu and MaeSuay, ChiangRai (surely among other places too), are “San” shrines (spirit residences) for King Naresuan the Great (Somdet Pra Naresuan Maharat; สมเด็จพระนเรศวรมหาราช or Somdet Phra Sanphet II, สมเด็จพระสรรเพชญ์ที่ 2). From the age of 20, Naresuan (then Pra Naret) participated in 29 military campaigns with major battles between large armies. Altogether, as King he spent only 2 years in his capital. A map at the MaeSuay shrine shows Naresuan to have controlled all of Cambodia and Laos, parts of Western Vietnam, southern Burma to the Irrawaddi and most of the Shan States, west past the Salween and north to Hsenwi, where the Shawbwa was a friend from childhood. This is fabrication.
In a time of great martial instability, Pra Naret was able to quickly raise armies and defeat other armies. This had nothing to do with administering a country, but everything to do with re-establishing one of the greatest port-trading communities on the world. Trade made might, Lanna was no more, and mainland Southeast Asia was becoming a busier, more international area. The idea of a country had only started to take root; the idea of Siam, as opposed to Ayudtaya, was equally new. At the time, international borders simply did not exist (feudal obligations did). The idea of restoring some former Siamese glory from that time is but myth, wishful thinking, or delusion, but the existence of these shrines testifies to its active continuance.
At the shrines are lots and lots of plaster roosters, in memory of a story of Pra Naret beating the Burmese Crown Prince at a contest of fighting cocks: "Not only can this cock champion a money bet, it can also fight for kingdoms" Pra Naret is said to have said.
Naresuan (the ‘Black Prince, พระองค์ดำ) is said to have started rebuilding Ayudthaya about 1580, 10 years before the beginning of his reign. With powerful Dutch and British traders (in addition to Arabs, Indians, Persians, Japanese, Chinese, Spaniards and French ones) coming, it had been an important entrepot; it was soon to be the busiest port in Southeast Asia. A century away from being the world's largest city at over a million inhabitants, Ayudtayaq needed more than city walls; it needed the buffering territory of surrounding tributary states. It needed to not be just a city-state, but the center of Siam.
Naresuan captured Siamreap, Battambang and other important Cambodian cities (the Angkor Thom area had already degenerated and become uninhabitable), as King Boromoraja of Cambodia had invaded Siam a year after Bayinnaung (Burengnong) sacked Ayudtaya (he’d annexed ChiangMai and Lanna in 1556, invaded Ayudtaya in 1563, took most of it 1564, and finally sacked the city in 1569). In 1594, and Cambodia became a vassal state of Siam, ruled by its own prince, Soryopor, who became Barom Reachea IV. Naresuan left an army in Cambodia, but it was driven out by Rama Chungprey the very next year. Cambodia hadn't been annexed, only paralyzed, so that Naresuan could deal with his Burmese arch-enemies without danger at his back. Siam needed ports on the Indian Ocean, so in 1593, Naresuan took Tavoy and Tenasserim. He then aided a successful Mon rebellion from Moulmein, took Martaban, and marched on Toungoo. But his successes ended there. A pustule, most likely of smallpox, suppurated, and he died in 1605.
His successor Egatosrost (Ekat’otsarat, aka Ekathotsarot the White, Naret’s younger brother) abandoned Siamese efforts in the Shan States. In 1610 Ekat’otsarat was succeeded by Int’araja (“The Just”). Local Japanese rose up and sacked Ayudtaya, while the King of LuangPrabang attempted to come to their aid. Peace was restored in 1612, but the Burmese soon recovered Moulmein and Tavoy. Laotian kings had continued to rule throughout. The map of a gigantic Siam is but wishful thinking, like the plaster chickens purchased to bring to the purchaser wealth, gold and good fortune.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
The future now
There’s been talk in government circles of turning ChiangRai into a “Green City”. Right now it seems more likely to turn into just another mean city.
ChiangRai has been an unusually successful mix of cultures, with a minimum of hatred and violence. Her Royal Highness Princess Srinagarindra, the Princess Mother Somdet Ya “MaeFahLuang” contributed greatly to this success. Now new guidance is needed, but lacking. ChiangRai’s roads can’t handle the increased traffic they now try to bear, smoke from burned refuse can no longer dissipate, and sustainable traditional ways of life have almost completely given way to the murderous greed killing modern human society and our oceans, if not the entire planet.
While the lessons of history and the wise teachings of Thailand’s revered King are all too commonly ignored, bad habits become increasingly the norm. While there are now more prisoners than space for them, desperate hot hearts are becoming increasingly common.
Once again, the only way many residents of the border hills see to get money they feel need for is through trafficking in drugs. But as that traffic is controlled by institutionalized (often uniformed) powers, such hopes are little more than illusion. The prisons, like the roads, and also the rivers, can no longer bear all that is being pushed into them. In this, perhaps ChiangRai is a good metaphor for the whole country.
Thailand avoided the curse of colonization by diplomatically offering the appearance of adherence to norms developed in a newly industrialized “West”. But much of what was put in place is now proving to have become inoperative. Thailand must choose between acting as a staging base for the rape of its neighbor with the longest common border, Myanmar, by soulless business, or caring for her people.
The alternatives are clear. That there is the political will to choose them is not. But unless rot is cut from the system, there will soon be no system, not even an alternate one.
Why perpetrate the misconception that sitting in an oversized pickup truck is happiness? Thailand needs to be proving to itself and the world that its traditional values of community sharing, respect for elders, Buddhist non-materialism and willingness to absorb from elsewhere while staying independent still have meaning and merit. The path to self-immolation most of the modern world is clearly on need not be the way here. There’s a better way than to believe in business acumen as a guiding light.
If it seems cliché to tout the benefits hemp could bring, perhaps that’s because of the obvious truth involved. Southeast Asians have been loath to follow the absurd Western copyright dictates - why, after so long, need Mickey and Minnie Mouse receive the forceful, impositional “protection” they do? Only because Western business interests remain in a colonial mindset. Thais need to think for themselves! And perhaps first by asking, what new ideas has Nai Taksin provided in the last couple of years? Mega-projects for flood control? Clearly hemp to replace lost forests would do much more, much better.
More solar panel utilization would be beneficial too, as would less reliance on plastics. Can’t government help, instead of manipulate, coerce and toady to foreign interests?
We all love having gas-powered vehicles, but we’re going to have to pay more to use them. We like convenience, but must accept that we can’t have everything. If we don’t do more to protect nature and biodiversity, well, again, that it sounds cliché is because it’s so true – we lose the good things we have through selfish short-sightedness.
One way or another, the days of rampant self-indulgence are ending. Thailand, and ASEAN, can lead, or follow into the grave.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Zomia-Thai history
ChiangRai, History and You
Some comments on matters frequently overlooked, to provide better context for understanding the societies of the Golden Triangle region, utilizing some excerpts from my new novel, “Going to Laos”.
Because the world has changed so fast of recent, many people consider the past almost insignificant, and, relative to modern technologies, unimportant. But the past is the only context we have through which to gain the informative perspective on things which we need to have. As has been said before, we cannot know where we are, if we don’t know how we got here.
750 years ago Mengrai came to ChiangRai, and settled in a town which became named after him. Historians say he “founded” ChiangRai, but as there was already an established town, with temples, markets, and surely some form of government, it might be better should say he transformed it.
History is only semi-rigorous, half almost scientific, half of it’s about opinion. Who “started” a war? Was King Taksin, who ruled just before the beginning of the Chakri Dynasty, crazy, and if so, when did he become crazy? Was Burma part of India, just because it was also a British colony? Did the USA “defeat” the Soviet Union in the “Cold War”? One cannot prove most answers to questions like these to be correct, or much more than opinion.
Not so long ago, history was regarded mostly as the chronicles of the acts of kings, great military generals and other leading men. Then, some people started to notice that women were often of real significance too. And that human events have been determined as much by disease and other natural events, commerce, ideas, and even fashions. The people of Easter Island cut down all their trees to put up huge stone effigies - which apparently was a fashion, as it served no known functional purpose. And the lack of trees resulted in most of Easter Islanders dying. A strange history, but history still.
Mengrai made a decision to come here, and that decision was important, perhaps the most important decision in all the history of Southeast Asia. Had Mengrai not done what he did, Chinese troops under Mongol leadership surely would have brought the Lanna area into the Yuan Empire. Disease may have played an important role; it isn’t known for a fact, but seems likely that the demise of the great Angkor Empire was rooted in the Black Plague, something which arose because of the success of the Mongols, but something which they surely didn’t intend. Rats carrying disease-infested fleas were able to travel further and faster, due to Kublai Khan’s success in promoting commerce, through, among other things, building roads. The rats got on ships, and eventually almost half of the people living in the well-populated parts of Europe died - from the Bubonic, or Black, Plague. This may well have happened in Angkor also; we have little other information to explain their sudden loss of strength. It’s very clear, though, that without both the fall of Angkor and Mangrai’s success at blocking Mongol incursions into what is now Thailand, Ayudhaya could not have so quickly arisen to the importance it did, becoming, for a while, perhaps the most populous city on our planet.
So, history, although about people, is about diseases, too. It’s also about natural events like floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, meteors and violent storms. As the 3rd decade of the 15th century CE went on, weather became significant in Lanna history, when King Sam Fang Kaen was fighting Jeen Haw from the Yunnan area. Lightning struck and destroyed the Haw headquarters, killing their chief and many others, and allowing a Lanna victory. At about the same time, another lightning strike destroyed palaces of the newly completed Forbidden City in Beijing, leading to Ming isolationism. The lightning may well have suggested to many that he’d lost the “Mandate of Heaven” and so made a change of important policy essential, in order that the Emperor at least appear to win that mandate back.
History is about everything which affects us, about commerce and invention, ideas, fashion, the arts and even the games we play. Need I mention the significance of last eyar’s floods, or the desire of so many to gamble?
King Ramkamhaeng promoted a wide commerce in Sangkalok pottery, beautiful glazed ceramics, containers and dishes, while he was king. Sangkalok style pale blue or off-white porcelain with designs of flowers, foliage and fish painted beneath the glaze, were made at Sukhothai’s sister city Si Satchanalai and later, Kampaeng Phet. Most were bowls and plates, but some sangkalok ware was used for architectural decoration; much was exported to countries throughout Asia (mostly to China, but even to Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia), making Sukhothai the center of a trade empire and perhaps the most important producer of ceramics in Southeast Asia for over two centuries. Many examples are in museums throughout Asia. But while similar ceramics made in ChiangRai were of much better quality, they never became famous. How did that happen? Perhaps because beauty and grace don’t mix well with business? About this, and many other things, you can decide for yourself. Certainly, I’d like to know, but don’t. Somlak Pantibun, who makes world-class pottery at Doi Din Daeng, near Ban Pa-O, east of Highway 1, would surely like to know more about that too!
The last king of Lanna, Phra Mekut (Mah Ku or Mekhuti, ruled 1552-1564) died in the area which has become Myanmar, at Pegu or Ava, and the people there revere his spirit as a powerful Nat, Yun Bayin, #22 of the 37 widely believed in Myanmar to protect the country. Nats are an important part of Burmese culture, and represent spirits so troubled by misdeeds, so horribly, tragically dis-ordered by extreme complexities from violence, lust, greed, and other unfortunate realities, that it cannot return through the cycle of re-birth, and must remain earth-bound. Mekhut’s problems, among other things, involved the levy of taxes so heavy, and rules for conscription into the military or doing of unpaid labor, things so demanding and onerous, that the people became rebellious. Surely that consequence was unintended, unless Mekhut wanted a Burmese invasion, but intended or unintended, actions do have consequences, which we learn about through history.
Through the kind of spiritualism that gave rise to the Yun Bayin Nat, which we can see as an idea, we can have some understanding of what happened to Lanna, understanding we most likely wouldn’t have otherwise, as so many records have been lost. There are good records of Lanna, but they leave many things confused. Mengrai is said to have had two wives, but we have three names for them: Eua Ming, Rai Koma and Usa Payaki. How did that happen? Quite a lot, if not most, of the historical records of neighboring countries have been lost, some due to politics, some due to the leaves they were written on rotting from humidity. So it is good that we can learn other ways, and from other places.
To really know about Lanna, one must know about Mengrai, Pra Makut, and also the Burmese General Burengnong (or Bayinnaung) and the wars with Burma, which went on from the middle 1500s CE until 1825 (about 2100 BE to 2368), just as to really know about the language used by locals here, one must know of the Tai Yai in Shan State, and the speakers of an ancient Tai dialect, with written characters, who live near Luxi and Ruili in what was once southern Nanchao, at the western tip of Yunnan, China, in what has now become called Deihong Dai or the JingPo Nationalities Autonomous Prefecture. People from Bangkok used to call Kham Muang “Lao”, but it is as different from most Lao as it is from the Central Thai pasa klang. Similarly, ChiangRai has always been different from ChiangMai – and only history can explain this.
Similarly, the Lanna area has always been different from the central plains area of ChaoPraya River drainage, as much so as Issan is different from the Thai peninsula. North of ChiangMai, the once ubiquitous Siamese sampan was of little utility; Brahaministic influence has been small, social stratification and cultural antipathies much less, and resistance to centralized control much more. But a quarter century of the Lanna area’s history has mostly disappeared, due to needs felt by advocates of centralized control.
Fortunately, we aren’t totally dependent on written chronicles for learning history. Not only the study of language but excavations, textiles, personal collections and even tree rings have offered a lot that has helped develop insights. But much Thai history remains unclear: who was here before T’ai people came, and how much did the introduction of Thai language change things? How many different migrations to here from China were there, and what all was affected by them? Much about the strange history of opium use here remains unclear, as does much about the political use of buffer states (rat gan chon, or muang pradhesa raja). Were people to better understand history, misunderstandings about politics, business, religion and how best to speak properly might make for less problems, and respect for valuable resources, art and literature might come more easily to people not generally inclined to think about matters like those.
Northern vs. southern Muslims (the northern ones failed to protect when a mosque proposed for the MaeKaJaan hot springs roadside tourist trap was vehemently protested by locals, in part because the traditional Islamic community was Chinese, many of the newer ones from Bangladesh, and recent relocates from the south were mostly spirited businesspeople with no more intention of riling up or alienating locals than the others, and little more interest in the tourists the mosque was supposed to make feel more welcome), the opening up of Myanmar, Who Benefits from the last gasp of the credit economy flooding Cambodia and Laos with electronics, resource depletion and increased cost of living from inferior products mostly from China, too many New-Years and elections, casinos, money-laundering shops, schemes and scams. Inflation, half of the stores getting low on stock or going out of business while others prosper (or appear to prosper; in ChiangRai, a three block stretch of one street had nine opticians, three of those branches of the same company (which also had two more within a block of each other on a nearby street, and more elsewhere in the amphoe), and all sold reading glasses at a couple thousand baht, while TescoLotus sold them at 200 and at street-stalls they’d fetch as little as 50…).
So, an interesting divide: northern Islamic traders, noodle eaters accustomed to mountains and working with non-Islamic town-folk and power-brokers, Chinese language and bureaucracy, tribal peoples and beasts of burden vs. southern Muslims, rice-eating descendents of people who’d lived under the Raj British empire, mostly in low-lands, and suffered grievous strife with non-Islamic people of the same empire… And an interesting parallel: TehChiew and other Thai central plains Chinese vs. Jeen Haw, the Islamic descendents of ancient Silk Road traders, who, rather than speaking one of the many, many Chinese dialects, speak something fairly close to central Mandarin, but trust Beijing even less, the Bangkok elite not at all, and other outsiders but little. For a long time we had made some use of them, but these cultural divides, and desires for distinctive identities, can be tricky, indeed.
Although Myanmar’s Naypyidaw government tries to control trade in precious and semi-precious stones, they can’t. Much of the country has never been controlled, and perhaps never will be. It’s been said that only opium funded the guns of resistance, but it’s just not so. Manufactured goods smuggling, rubies and jade, religion, prostitution, gambling, racketeering and information-selling have always been part of it. Weaponry is expensive, and drug production is the small potatoes at one end of that trade. But young men do get guns, which is all any of the common people do get from international trade. Perhaps as much as half of resistance weaponry is received free, contributed for political, religious or more nefarious reasons. Without such help, resistance would have collapsed, despite the value of goods available to trade. For, in the circumstances, trade is only chaotically managed, fraught with corruption and deceit, with pricing at great variance from the norm. Without the guidelines of social convention or much in the way of adherence to written law, business isn’t just a risky proposition, it’s absolutely perilous. Most hunting in northern Myanmar is still done with home-made bullets; lots of fishing is done with home-made bombs. Even petrol sales tend to be done clandestinely. Nothing small is traded except at morning vegetable markets, and what is traded cannot be tightly controlled.
Burma was never a country in the modern sense, but rather an elaborate series of interlocked obligations, agreements, exchange traditions and mutual defense agreements. There had been many royal courts, before colonization, with one more powerful that the others, but local affairs were dominated by local chiefs. Consequently, after the end of World War II and independence, local militias became so common they could hardly be counted. Methods for remaining competitively armed became equally elaborate, armaments procured through a wide variety of methods, of which opium was for a few decades the most obvious. Many of the “defense forces” were hardly well armed, but only at great peril could their territory be traversed without permission. Trade was tricky; some went on anyway. Especially for guns, bullets and explosives – paid for however possible. If not opium, or amphetamines, then information, trickery, food stuffs, forest product, promise of alliance (including religious alliance), and precious stone. Chinese weapons obtained by the Wa might end up on Kachin hands, Kachin jewels in Shan hands, and information on government materials movements in anyone’s hands. Competition, and rivalries, often internecine, were fierce.
In his 2009 book, “The Art of Not Being Governed, An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia”, James C. Scott gives a name to the mountainous region of South East Asia comprising parts of Myanmar, Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand: Zomia. He claims that the people of the highlands of Zomia have lived outside the reach of lowland governments for millennia, although things have changed for many of them in the last 50 years. Scott argues that those living in the highlands, rather than being just tribal remnants of primitive societies, consciously choose to live outside the reach of the state. In providing an alternative to the common view that those living outside the state are uncivilized, Scott’s analysis makes the important point that the nation state is not synonymous with order. What he apparently misses is the relative weakness of most of those raised on agriculturally-based state societies. Few of them could ever successfully adapt to the rigors of jungle, tribal existence; fewer still would even be accepted.
Also, when people wanted to escape the corrupt, US-sponsored South Vietnamese governments, did they go live with Montagnards, to Laos, or to highland tribal societies of Cambodia? No, they became boat people, or went to PhnomPenh. I don’t think Muslims from India went to highland, Tribal areas of Pakistan or Bangladesh after Partition, either. Nor have but a few of the millions of Chinese who immigrated to Thailand gone to the hills – those that were mostly soldiers who stayed as a group of Chinese, well-connected to Taiwan. Nice of James Scott to try to improve the image of purported “barbarians”, but really, they’re no more refugees from “civilization” than they’re wannabee Americans. Which isn’t to say that people seldom want to escape the manipulations of government, or church, family or whatever – they often do, and one result of this well be a new round of attempts to secede from the central government in a few years, when that has become allowed under their new constitution.
Nations derived from city-states, which came to be because of necessities involved in storage, and trade. Armed forces are hardly as much for protection of territory as they’re for protection of group capacity for trade. Government’s prime function is to protect trade, not only for food security, but to maintain a sufficiency of necessities for the polity, against the likelihood of attempted depredations by others. Trade is about us versus them – about one group benefitting from another. It’s about the existence both of occasional abundance and the regularity of scarcity. The nation is a new idea, as ideas, rather than inventions, go. It’s really of but half a millennium’s duration. Before that, there were centers away from which power gradually weakened, and trading empires. Armed resistance to disruption of trade has gone on for over five millennia; protection of trade capacity long precedes the nation, and is, in fact, the root of our capacity for civilization. The new situation in Myanmar, while glittering with potential profit, is clearly rife with economic peril. That’s something many Japanese investors learned about, painfully, a decade ago. The billions of the first wave of international investment in China after Deng opened things up were mostly been lost, and I see little reason not to anticipate a repeat performance with Myanmar “opening up.” The Kanchanaburi pipeline didn’t transport gas (or anything else) to Thailand for years following completion; the universities were closed or dysfunctional for decades, infrastructure remains minimal or less, and yet there are all sorts of shiny new banks. The famous jade mines in the north, filthy, open sores with thousands of desperate, out-of-control, heroin-addicted workers infected with HIV and no hope of medications, plus gunmen everywhere, should serve investors as a warning, but likely won’t.
Natural medicines factories purportedly producing ancient forest-product remedies have almost no quality control, those producing them, on-line in the factory, are often meth-addicted and of ridiculously poor hygiene. Over 200 corpses per week, more than an average of one per hour, go unidentified in Thailand, and the situation is far worse in Burma. Per population, it’s as bad elsewhere in Asia. Many of the deceased meet their deaths for political reasons, which can usually also be called economic ones. A few result from love, lust and anger, but these kinds of murder tend not to be as well arranged. Most result simply from someone being in the way of someone unprincipled and ruthless.
Here in Asia the big challenge is to rise high in the “patronage system”. Money from drugs (illegal or not), human trafficking (for adoption, pederasty, prostitution, refugees or organ harvesting), counterfeiting (currency and goods), illegal gambling venues, pimping and prostitution, various forms of theft and tax evasion, and, most particularly, political graft (bribery, black-market armament sales, padded purchasing and various other scams and rake-offs) all need to be washed before they can be profitably invested and retired in luxury on, so money-washing has become part of the patronage system too. It’s not just those recognized as “criminals” who do these things - the “silent services” do them, as do many judges, most politicians, almost all law enforcement agents (certainly in this country, at any rate), many too-clever bureaucrats, and even computer hackers.
Long ago, the Thai patronage system, then called sakdii-na, and pretty much like the European feudal system, had under-lords and overlords, and one direct master for each individual. Loyalty is a commanding virtue, and exists because it is bought. But recently, the Thai system, now rabop khwam oop-pa-taam, has changed to allow a variety of patron backers: if you want, say, to start a business or do something that requires a bit of bureaucratic manipulation, your various patrons (pu-soop oop-pa-taam) will make calls, signs checks, bang or butt heads, and get in touch with connections on your behalf. They expect, in return, a show of gratitude and good manners in the form of “tea money” gratuities, political loyalty and an appropriately kraing-jai (afraid of offending) attitude. It’s pretty simple, and efficient.
Might not a ski resort in Myanmar’s northernmost province, Kachin State, as Taksin Chinawat proposed, possible make good money? Yes, perhaps, if the cost of security matters somehow doesn’t need to be an issue. How about a Club-Med type facility or two in the islands? Well, sure; maybe with some budget hotels with minibus service between them to service those interested in ancient ruins, tribal peoples and beautiful Inlé Lake, definitely. In India they raked in money through spiritual “instruction”… possibilities there… Halliburton had done well with food services for employees; possibilities there too. Some might see it as too bad that a Blackwater thing wouldn’t be possible, but with about half-a-million armed men spread throughout, well, never-mind that. Real manufacturing? Slowly, slowly. Mineral extraction? That’s what was calling to the big money, but what was possible right away would be just too crude. And the people of “Zomia” remain difficult to deal with.
Not long ago, descendents of Dr. William Briggs of Overbrook Hospital came to visit, after contacting me for help finding their way around. I found people very glad to meet them! More recently, a shop-owner in the USA also contacted me, about wanting to sell some things which had belonged to Dr. Briggs, including his personal seal. This seal is quite like seals used with opium. This is suggestive of how many ideas about opium came from the British (Dr. Briggs was from Canada, a British colony, although his descendents are citizens of the USA. In Dr. Briggs’ time, the British were very important in this area due to their cutting lots of teak in the general area, and having a consulate in ChiangMai). The strange histories of opium, over-exploitation of natural resources, and the system of buying positions in governmental bureaucracy, the military or police, deserve much more attention, for the sake of solving pressing problems. History can also help one understand why Siam could resist European colonialism while so few else could, and why Europeans were able to think so highly of themselves from about 1500 CE until not very long ago. The history of where you live can foster respect for where you live.
Despite Dr. Briggs and government efforts, development in ChiangRai proceeded but slowly until the 1990s. The economic crash of 1997 put an end to hopes for many poorly-thought-out construction projects here, but in the last decade there’s been considerable growth. With growth, new problems replace old ones, and traffic, air and noise pollution, garbage, inflation and long waits for health-care are growing problems. Understanding of history may or may not help with these things, but it will certainly take knowledge to solve the problems, and not just knowledge of business. Only people with general knowledge will be able to think up new solutions.
In a quickly changing world, information is perhaps our most important resource. Without new information, we certainly cannot survive as well as we’d like. It is not enough to just believe; we need respect for knowledge, and understanding that knowledge is not constrained by written words. Some history gets lost, but sometimes lost things get found, too. There’s much history in the world, and one can hardly learn it all, but to know one’s self, one must know at least some of the history which made you what you are. Only knowledge of the past can help one decide best about the future, and only history confirmed through a variety of sources can be considered knowledge.
Meanwhile, people who’ve never been disciplined or denied become too quick to anger, petty in recriminations and spites, pompously full of pretentions, unproductive, selfish, self-absorbed, self-centered, self-deluding, self-serving, lacking in self-awareness, small-minded and disdainful, demanding, mean-hearted, cruel, immature, irresponsible, morally weak if not immoral, scornful, pugnacious, provocative, contentious, back-stabbing, fashion-addicted and begging for trouble, have become common. The well-heeled and well-connected, too often too busy to provide all the personal involvement their children need, try to compensate for lack of attention through lavishing undue entitlements, which the children come to expect and indeed demand. In their consequent arrogance, uncontrolled young men relish thoughts of becoming violent with impunity, and having a kind of revenge on the world. To gain some excuse to lash out, they’ll provoke others, not only insolently refusing to adhere to societal norms, but cultivating angles of defiance to them.
One of the many things one tends to learn in Asia: life’s not about changing the world. It’s about relationships, what you can change in yourself, and keeping a cool heart, jai yen-yen. A few get to pretend to be big, often through no doing of their own, but mostly simply through lucky circumstance (if it really is luck, as being “big” has drawbacks too). The only ones who really get to accomplish much must be flexible, adapt, don’t ever publicly act over-excitable and even in private don’t let things seriously upset them. Ones that have to prove themselves just end up embarrassed, eventually losing face and stature. A few, kids of the rich and powerful, are allowed to grow through that when young, to make mistakes and then learn and grow from them, but, like the investors who will surely throw away lots of money in Myanmar, many will only learn from painful mistakes. Maybe that’s necessary, maybe not. History needn’t be boring, but can be a good, edifying story, helpful towards better decision making. If only we will let it be so.
Some comments on matters frequently overlooked, to provide better context for understanding the societies of the Golden Triangle region, utilizing some excerpts from my new novel, “Going to Laos”.
Because the world has changed so fast of recent, many people consider the past almost insignificant, and, relative to modern technologies, unimportant. But the past is the only context we have through which to gain the informative perspective on things which we need to have. As has been said before, we cannot know where we are, if we don’t know how we got here.
750 years ago Mengrai came to ChiangRai, and settled in a town which became named after him. Historians say he “founded” ChiangRai, but as there was already an established town, with temples, markets, and surely some form of government, it might be better should say he transformed it.
History is only semi-rigorous, half almost scientific, half of it’s about opinion. Who “started” a war? Was King Taksin, who ruled just before the beginning of the Chakri Dynasty, crazy, and if so, when did he become crazy? Was Burma part of India, just because it was also a British colony? Did the USA “defeat” the Soviet Union in the “Cold War”? One cannot prove most answers to questions like these to be correct, or much more than opinion.
Not so long ago, history was regarded mostly as the chronicles of the acts of kings, great military generals and other leading men. Then, some people started to notice that women were often of real significance too. And that human events have been determined as much by disease and other natural events, commerce, ideas, and even fashions. The people of Easter Island cut down all their trees to put up huge stone effigies - which apparently was a fashion, as it served no known functional purpose. And the lack of trees resulted in most of Easter Islanders dying. A strange history, but history still.
Mengrai made a decision to come here, and that decision was important, perhaps the most important decision in all the history of Southeast Asia. Had Mengrai not done what he did, Chinese troops under Mongol leadership surely would have brought the Lanna area into the Yuan Empire. Disease may have played an important role; it isn’t known for a fact, but seems likely that the demise of the great Angkor Empire was rooted in the Black Plague, something which arose because of the success of the Mongols, but something which they surely didn’t intend. Rats carrying disease-infested fleas were able to travel further and faster, due to Kublai Khan’s success in promoting commerce, through, among other things, building roads. The rats got on ships, and eventually almost half of the people living in the well-populated parts of Europe died - from the Bubonic, or Black, Plague. This may well have happened in Angkor also; we have little other information to explain their sudden loss of strength. It’s very clear, though, that without both the fall of Angkor and Mangrai’s success at blocking Mongol incursions into what is now Thailand, Ayudhaya could not have so quickly arisen to the importance it did, becoming, for a while, perhaps the most populous city on our planet.
So, history, although about people, is about diseases, too. It’s also about natural events like floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, meteors and violent storms. As the 3rd decade of the 15th century CE went on, weather became significant in Lanna history, when King Sam Fang Kaen was fighting Jeen Haw from the Yunnan area. Lightning struck and destroyed the Haw headquarters, killing their chief and many others, and allowing a Lanna victory. At about the same time, another lightning strike destroyed palaces of the newly completed Forbidden City in Beijing, leading to Ming isolationism. The lightning may well have suggested to many that he’d lost the “Mandate of Heaven” and so made a change of important policy essential, in order that the Emperor at least appear to win that mandate back.
History is about everything which affects us, about commerce and invention, ideas, fashion, the arts and even the games we play. Need I mention the significance of last eyar’s floods, or the desire of so many to gamble?
King Ramkamhaeng promoted a wide commerce in Sangkalok pottery, beautiful glazed ceramics, containers and dishes, while he was king. Sangkalok style pale blue or off-white porcelain with designs of flowers, foliage and fish painted beneath the glaze, were made at Sukhothai’s sister city Si Satchanalai and later, Kampaeng Phet. Most were bowls and plates, but some sangkalok ware was used for architectural decoration; much was exported to countries throughout Asia (mostly to China, but even to Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia), making Sukhothai the center of a trade empire and perhaps the most important producer of ceramics in Southeast Asia for over two centuries. Many examples are in museums throughout Asia. But while similar ceramics made in ChiangRai were of much better quality, they never became famous. How did that happen? Perhaps because beauty and grace don’t mix well with business? About this, and many other things, you can decide for yourself. Certainly, I’d like to know, but don’t. Somlak Pantibun, who makes world-class pottery at Doi Din Daeng, near Ban Pa-O, east of Highway 1, would surely like to know more about that too!
The last king of Lanna, Phra Mekut (Mah Ku or Mekhuti, ruled 1552-1564) died in the area which has become Myanmar, at Pegu or Ava, and the people there revere his spirit as a powerful Nat, Yun Bayin, #22 of the 37 widely believed in Myanmar to protect the country. Nats are an important part of Burmese culture, and represent spirits so troubled by misdeeds, so horribly, tragically dis-ordered by extreme complexities from violence, lust, greed, and other unfortunate realities, that it cannot return through the cycle of re-birth, and must remain earth-bound. Mekhut’s problems, among other things, involved the levy of taxes so heavy, and rules for conscription into the military or doing of unpaid labor, things so demanding and onerous, that the people became rebellious. Surely that consequence was unintended, unless Mekhut wanted a Burmese invasion, but intended or unintended, actions do have consequences, which we learn about through history.
Through the kind of spiritualism that gave rise to the Yun Bayin Nat, which we can see as an idea, we can have some understanding of what happened to Lanna, understanding we most likely wouldn’t have otherwise, as so many records have been lost. There are good records of Lanna, but they leave many things confused. Mengrai is said to have had two wives, but we have three names for them: Eua Ming, Rai Koma and Usa Payaki. How did that happen? Quite a lot, if not most, of the historical records of neighboring countries have been lost, some due to politics, some due to the leaves they were written on rotting from humidity. So it is good that we can learn other ways, and from other places.
To really know about Lanna, one must know about Mengrai, Pra Makut, and also the Burmese General Burengnong (or Bayinnaung) and the wars with Burma, which went on from the middle 1500s CE until 1825 (about 2100 BE to 2368), just as to really know about the language used by locals here, one must know of the Tai Yai in Shan State, and the speakers of an ancient Tai dialect, with written characters, who live near Luxi and Ruili in what was once southern Nanchao, at the western tip of Yunnan, China, in what has now become called Deihong Dai or the JingPo Nationalities Autonomous Prefecture. People from Bangkok used to call Kham Muang “Lao”, but it is as different from most Lao as it is from the Central Thai pasa klang. Similarly, ChiangRai has always been different from ChiangMai – and only history can explain this.
Similarly, the Lanna area has always been different from the central plains area of ChaoPraya River drainage, as much so as Issan is different from the Thai peninsula. North of ChiangMai, the once ubiquitous Siamese sampan was of little utility; Brahaministic influence has been small, social stratification and cultural antipathies much less, and resistance to centralized control much more. But a quarter century of the Lanna area’s history has mostly disappeared, due to needs felt by advocates of centralized control.
Fortunately, we aren’t totally dependent on written chronicles for learning history. Not only the study of language but excavations, textiles, personal collections and even tree rings have offered a lot that has helped develop insights. But much Thai history remains unclear: who was here before T’ai people came, and how much did the introduction of Thai language change things? How many different migrations to here from China were there, and what all was affected by them? Much about the strange history of opium use here remains unclear, as does much about the political use of buffer states (rat gan chon, or muang pradhesa raja). Were people to better understand history, misunderstandings about politics, business, religion and how best to speak properly might make for less problems, and respect for valuable resources, art and literature might come more easily to people not generally inclined to think about matters like those.
Northern vs. southern Muslims (the northern ones failed to protect when a mosque proposed for the MaeKaJaan hot springs roadside tourist trap was vehemently protested by locals, in part because the traditional Islamic community was Chinese, many of the newer ones from Bangladesh, and recent relocates from the south were mostly spirited businesspeople with no more intention of riling up or alienating locals than the others, and little more interest in the tourists the mosque was supposed to make feel more welcome), the opening up of Myanmar, Who Benefits from the last gasp of the credit economy flooding Cambodia and Laos with electronics, resource depletion and increased cost of living from inferior products mostly from China, too many New-Years and elections, casinos, money-laundering shops, schemes and scams. Inflation, half of the stores getting low on stock or going out of business while others prosper (or appear to prosper; in ChiangRai, a three block stretch of one street had nine opticians, three of those branches of the same company (which also had two more within a block of each other on a nearby street, and more elsewhere in the amphoe), and all sold reading glasses at a couple thousand baht, while TescoLotus sold them at 200 and at street-stalls they’d fetch as little as 50…).
So, an interesting divide: northern Islamic traders, noodle eaters accustomed to mountains and working with non-Islamic town-folk and power-brokers, Chinese language and bureaucracy, tribal peoples and beasts of burden vs. southern Muslims, rice-eating descendents of people who’d lived under the Raj British empire, mostly in low-lands, and suffered grievous strife with non-Islamic people of the same empire… And an interesting parallel: TehChiew and other Thai central plains Chinese vs. Jeen Haw, the Islamic descendents of ancient Silk Road traders, who, rather than speaking one of the many, many Chinese dialects, speak something fairly close to central Mandarin, but trust Beijing even less, the Bangkok elite not at all, and other outsiders but little. For a long time we had made some use of them, but these cultural divides, and desires for distinctive identities, can be tricky, indeed.
Although Myanmar’s Naypyidaw government tries to control trade in precious and semi-precious stones, they can’t. Much of the country has never been controlled, and perhaps never will be. It’s been said that only opium funded the guns of resistance, but it’s just not so. Manufactured goods smuggling, rubies and jade, religion, prostitution, gambling, racketeering and information-selling have always been part of it. Weaponry is expensive, and drug production is the small potatoes at one end of that trade. But young men do get guns, which is all any of the common people do get from international trade. Perhaps as much as half of resistance weaponry is received free, contributed for political, religious or more nefarious reasons. Without such help, resistance would have collapsed, despite the value of goods available to trade. For, in the circumstances, trade is only chaotically managed, fraught with corruption and deceit, with pricing at great variance from the norm. Without the guidelines of social convention or much in the way of adherence to written law, business isn’t just a risky proposition, it’s absolutely perilous. Most hunting in northern Myanmar is still done with home-made bullets; lots of fishing is done with home-made bombs. Even petrol sales tend to be done clandestinely. Nothing small is traded except at morning vegetable markets, and what is traded cannot be tightly controlled.
Burma was never a country in the modern sense, but rather an elaborate series of interlocked obligations, agreements, exchange traditions and mutual defense agreements. There had been many royal courts, before colonization, with one more powerful that the others, but local affairs were dominated by local chiefs. Consequently, after the end of World War II and independence, local militias became so common they could hardly be counted. Methods for remaining competitively armed became equally elaborate, armaments procured through a wide variety of methods, of which opium was for a few decades the most obvious. Many of the “defense forces” were hardly well armed, but only at great peril could their territory be traversed without permission. Trade was tricky; some went on anyway. Especially for guns, bullets and explosives – paid for however possible. If not opium, or amphetamines, then information, trickery, food stuffs, forest product, promise of alliance (including religious alliance), and precious stone. Chinese weapons obtained by the Wa might end up on Kachin hands, Kachin jewels in Shan hands, and information on government materials movements in anyone’s hands. Competition, and rivalries, often internecine, were fierce.
In his 2009 book, “The Art of Not Being Governed, An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia”, James C. Scott gives a name to the mountainous region of South East Asia comprising parts of Myanmar, Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand: Zomia. He claims that the people of the highlands of Zomia have lived outside the reach of lowland governments for millennia, although things have changed for many of them in the last 50 years. Scott argues that those living in the highlands, rather than being just tribal remnants of primitive societies, consciously choose to live outside the reach of the state. In providing an alternative to the common view that those living outside the state are uncivilized, Scott’s analysis makes the important point that the nation state is not synonymous with order. What he apparently misses is the relative weakness of most of those raised on agriculturally-based state societies. Few of them could ever successfully adapt to the rigors of jungle, tribal existence; fewer still would even be accepted.
Also, when people wanted to escape the corrupt, US-sponsored South Vietnamese governments, did they go live with Montagnards, to Laos, or to highland tribal societies of Cambodia? No, they became boat people, or went to PhnomPenh. I don’t think Muslims from India went to highland, Tribal areas of Pakistan or Bangladesh after Partition, either. Nor have but a few of the millions of Chinese who immigrated to Thailand gone to the hills – those that were mostly soldiers who stayed as a group of Chinese, well-connected to Taiwan. Nice of James Scott to try to improve the image of purported “barbarians”, but really, they’re no more refugees from “civilization” than they’re wannabee Americans. Which isn’t to say that people seldom want to escape the manipulations of government, or church, family or whatever – they often do, and one result of this well be a new round of attempts to secede from the central government in a few years, when that has become allowed under their new constitution.
Nations derived from city-states, which came to be because of necessities involved in storage, and trade. Armed forces are hardly as much for protection of territory as they’re for protection of group capacity for trade. Government’s prime function is to protect trade, not only for food security, but to maintain a sufficiency of necessities for the polity, against the likelihood of attempted depredations by others. Trade is about us versus them – about one group benefitting from another. It’s about the existence both of occasional abundance and the regularity of scarcity. The nation is a new idea, as ideas, rather than inventions, go. It’s really of but half a millennium’s duration. Before that, there were centers away from which power gradually weakened, and trading empires. Armed resistance to disruption of trade has gone on for over five millennia; protection of trade capacity long precedes the nation, and is, in fact, the root of our capacity for civilization. The new situation in Myanmar, while glittering with potential profit, is clearly rife with economic peril. That’s something many Japanese investors learned about, painfully, a decade ago. The billions of the first wave of international investment in China after Deng opened things up were mostly been lost, and I see little reason not to anticipate a repeat performance with Myanmar “opening up.” The Kanchanaburi pipeline didn’t transport gas (or anything else) to Thailand for years following completion; the universities were closed or dysfunctional for decades, infrastructure remains minimal or less, and yet there are all sorts of shiny new banks. The famous jade mines in the north, filthy, open sores with thousands of desperate, out-of-control, heroin-addicted workers infected with HIV and no hope of medications, plus gunmen everywhere, should serve investors as a warning, but likely won’t.
Natural medicines factories purportedly producing ancient forest-product remedies have almost no quality control, those producing them, on-line in the factory, are often meth-addicted and of ridiculously poor hygiene. Over 200 corpses per week, more than an average of one per hour, go unidentified in Thailand, and the situation is far worse in Burma. Per population, it’s as bad elsewhere in Asia. Many of the deceased meet their deaths for political reasons, which can usually also be called economic ones. A few result from love, lust and anger, but these kinds of murder tend not to be as well arranged. Most result simply from someone being in the way of someone unprincipled and ruthless.
Here in Asia the big challenge is to rise high in the “patronage system”. Money from drugs (illegal or not), human trafficking (for adoption, pederasty, prostitution, refugees or organ harvesting), counterfeiting (currency and goods), illegal gambling venues, pimping and prostitution, various forms of theft and tax evasion, and, most particularly, political graft (bribery, black-market armament sales, padded purchasing and various other scams and rake-offs) all need to be washed before they can be profitably invested and retired in luxury on, so money-washing has become part of the patronage system too. It’s not just those recognized as “criminals” who do these things - the “silent services” do them, as do many judges, most politicians, almost all law enforcement agents (certainly in this country, at any rate), many too-clever bureaucrats, and even computer hackers.
Long ago, the Thai patronage system, then called sakdii-na, and pretty much like the European feudal system, had under-lords and overlords, and one direct master for each individual. Loyalty is a commanding virtue, and exists because it is bought. But recently, the Thai system, now rabop khwam oop-pa-taam, has changed to allow a variety of patron backers: if you want, say, to start a business or do something that requires a bit of bureaucratic manipulation, your various patrons (pu-soop oop-pa-taam) will make calls, signs checks, bang or butt heads, and get in touch with connections on your behalf. They expect, in return, a show of gratitude and good manners in the form of “tea money” gratuities, political loyalty and an appropriately kraing-jai (afraid of offending) attitude. It’s pretty simple, and efficient.
Might not a ski resort in Myanmar’s northernmost province, Kachin State, as Taksin Chinawat proposed, possible make good money? Yes, perhaps, if the cost of security matters somehow doesn’t need to be an issue. How about a Club-Med type facility or two in the islands? Well, sure; maybe with some budget hotels with minibus service between them to service those interested in ancient ruins, tribal peoples and beautiful Inlé Lake, definitely. In India they raked in money through spiritual “instruction”… possibilities there… Halliburton had done well with food services for employees; possibilities there too. Some might see it as too bad that a Blackwater thing wouldn’t be possible, but with about half-a-million armed men spread throughout, well, never-mind that. Real manufacturing? Slowly, slowly. Mineral extraction? That’s what was calling to the big money, but what was possible right away would be just too crude. And the people of “Zomia” remain difficult to deal with.
Not long ago, descendents of Dr. William Briggs of Overbrook Hospital came to visit, after contacting me for help finding their way around. I found people very glad to meet them! More recently, a shop-owner in the USA also contacted me, about wanting to sell some things which had belonged to Dr. Briggs, including his personal seal. This seal is quite like seals used with opium. This is suggestive of how many ideas about opium came from the British (Dr. Briggs was from Canada, a British colony, although his descendents are citizens of the USA. In Dr. Briggs’ time, the British were very important in this area due to their cutting lots of teak in the general area, and having a consulate in ChiangMai). The strange histories of opium, over-exploitation of natural resources, and the system of buying positions in governmental bureaucracy, the military or police, deserve much more attention, for the sake of solving pressing problems. History can also help one understand why Siam could resist European colonialism while so few else could, and why Europeans were able to think so highly of themselves from about 1500 CE until not very long ago. The history of where you live can foster respect for where you live.
Despite Dr. Briggs and government efforts, development in ChiangRai proceeded but slowly until the 1990s. The economic crash of 1997 put an end to hopes for many poorly-thought-out construction projects here, but in the last decade there’s been considerable growth. With growth, new problems replace old ones, and traffic, air and noise pollution, garbage, inflation and long waits for health-care are growing problems. Understanding of history may or may not help with these things, but it will certainly take knowledge to solve the problems, and not just knowledge of business. Only people with general knowledge will be able to think up new solutions.
In a quickly changing world, information is perhaps our most important resource. Without new information, we certainly cannot survive as well as we’d like. It is not enough to just believe; we need respect for knowledge, and understanding that knowledge is not constrained by written words. Some history gets lost, but sometimes lost things get found, too. There’s much history in the world, and one can hardly learn it all, but to know one’s self, one must know at least some of the history which made you what you are. Only knowledge of the past can help one decide best about the future, and only history confirmed through a variety of sources can be considered knowledge.
Meanwhile, people who’ve never been disciplined or denied become too quick to anger, petty in recriminations and spites, pompously full of pretentions, unproductive, selfish, self-absorbed, self-centered, self-deluding, self-serving, lacking in self-awareness, small-minded and disdainful, demanding, mean-hearted, cruel, immature, irresponsible, morally weak if not immoral, scornful, pugnacious, provocative, contentious, back-stabbing, fashion-addicted and begging for trouble, have become common. The well-heeled and well-connected, too often too busy to provide all the personal involvement their children need, try to compensate for lack of attention through lavishing undue entitlements, which the children come to expect and indeed demand. In their consequent arrogance, uncontrolled young men relish thoughts of becoming violent with impunity, and having a kind of revenge on the world. To gain some excuse to lash out, they’ll provoke others, not only insolently refusing to adhere to societal norms, but cultivating angles of defiance to them.
One of the many things one tends to learn in Asia: life’s not about changing the world. It’s about relationships, what you can change in yourself, and keeping a cool heart, jai yen-yen. A few get to pretend to be big, often through no doing of their own, but mostly simply through lucky circumstance (if it really is luck, as being “big” has drawbacks too). The only ones who really get to accomplish much must be flexible, adapt, don’t ever publicly act over-excitable and even in private don’t let things seriously upset them. Ones that have to prove themselves just end up embarrassed, eventually losing face and stature. A few, kids of the rich and powerful, are allowed to grow through that when young, to make mistakes and then learn and grow from them, but, like the investors who will surely throw away lots of money in Myanmar, many will only learn from painful mistakes. Maybe that’s necessary, maybe not. History needn’t be boring, but can be a good, edifying story, helpful towards better decision making. If only we will let it be so.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Historical revisionism?
Before me is a strangely interesting little brochure from the Chiang Rai Municipality: “guide 9 Temple Route”. I don’t know where it came from (and I don’t know where it’s going), but it both intrigues and annoys me. “For more information about these routes and free bicycle rentals, Please contact the Tourist Information Center behind King Mengrai Memorial” it says, sounding quite well-intentioned. “Worship Buddha images” it also says, plus “Worship Phaya Mengrai stupa” and Worship City Pillar”. Now we’ve all encountered interesting mis-translations, or mis-transliterations (“Fried crap” etc). That’s not what really gets me.
Wat Phra Keaw was founded as “Yarukhavanaram” – OK, maybe so. Not what I read on the temple’s own sign, but really, I don’t know. Wat Phra That Doi Jom Thone “was built by Phraya Reun Kaew in 940” (AD, or CE, more appropriately, I suppose). Interesting. We know so little about things that far back around here. “Also, the Ratanakosine 108 city pillars, which are in the pattern of the universe” (sic)… well, again, subject to interpretation, I guess. I was strongly under the impression that there was but the one city pillar, but I could’ve been misinformed. “The interesting thing about the chedi of Wat Jet Yod is that it is in the same Indian style that is found throughout Chiang Mai.” Learn something new every day, almost.
“Wat Ming Mueang is located on Trirat Road, Amphoe Muang, Chiang Rai. The temple is Thai Yai style. It was built in 1262 by Queen Maha Tevee Usa Payaki, King Mengrai’s wife.” Again, maybe so. I don’t know. On 10 August, 2011, I posted: “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, and later died there. It was gossiped about that the broken promise, and her broken heart, produced the lightening that struck Mangrai down and ended his life.” (Well, I just discovered a couple typos, one pretty big, and corrected them).
So, three wife names for Mengrai (I’m told “King Mengrai” is redundant as Meng means king, but as should be apparent by now, I’m told many things). Eua Ming, Rai Koma and Usa Payaki. None are mentioned in the ChiangMai Chronicles. So who knows? I became interested in local history after being asked to teach it, and noticing many contradictions and absurdities in what I was asked to teach. Many of my students noticed these things too: when I did as told and instructed them that Ramkamhaeng’s father was a fisherman, several lost it and fell out of their seats, rolling around the floor in hilarity. I was impressed. Perceptive kids, those 12-year-olds.
Somehow, I think that with that, I’ve said enough.
Wat Phra Keaw was founded as “Yarukhavanaram” – OK, maybe so. Not what I read on the temple’s own sign, but really, I don’t know. Wat Phra That Doi Jom Thone “was built by Phraya Reun Kaew in 940” (AD, or CE, more appropriately, I suppose). Interesting. We know so little about things that far back around here. “Also, the Ratanakosine 108 city pillars, which are in the pattern of the universe” (sic)… well, again, subject to interpretation, I guess. I was strongly under the impression that there was but the one city pillar, but I could’ve been misinformed. “The interesting thing about the chedi of Wat Jet Yod is that it is in the same Indian style that is found throughout Chiang Mai.” Learn something new every day, almost.
“Wat Ming Mueang is located on Trirat Road, Amphoe Muang, Chiang Rai. The temple is Thai Yai style. It was built in 1262 by Queen Maha Tevee Usa Payaki, King Mengrai’s wife.” Again, maybe so. I don’t know. On 10 August, 2011, I posted: “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, and later died there. It was gossiped about that the broken promise, and her broken heart, produced the lightening that struck Mangrai down and ended his life.” (Well, I just discovered a couple typos, one pretty big, and corrected them).
So, three wife names for Mengrai (I’m told “King Mengrai” is redundant as Meng means king, but as should be apparent by now, I’m told many things). Eua Ming, Rai Koma and Usa Payaki. None are mentioned in the ChiangMai Chronicles. So who knows? I became interested in local history after being asked to teach it, and noticing many contradictions and absurdities in what I was asked to teach. Many of my students noticed these things too: when I did as told and instructed them that Ramkamhaeng’s father was a fisherman, several lost it and fell out of their seats, rolling around the floor in hilarity. I was impressed. Perceptive kids, those 12-year-olds.
Somehow, I think that with that, I’ve said enough.
ChiangRai History
ChiangRai, History and You
Because the world has changed so fast, many people consider the past almost insignificant, and relative to modern technologies, unimportant. But the past is the only context we have, through which to gain the informative perspective on things which we need. We cannot know where we are, if we don’t know how we got here.
750 years ago Mengrai arrived here, to a town which became named after him. Historians say he “founded” ChiangRai, but as there was already an established town, with temples, markets, and surely some form of government. Perhaps it might be better should say he found ChiangRai. Or transformed it.
History is only half a science. Half of it’s about opinion. Who “started” a war? Was King Taksin, who ruled just before the beginning of the Chakri Dynasty, crazy, and if so, when did he become crazy? Was Burma part of India, just because it was part of the same British colony? Did the USA “defeat” the Soviet Union in the “Cold War”? One cannot prove answers to questions like these to be correct, or much more than opinion.
Not so long ago, history was regarded mostly as the chronicles of the acts of kings, great military generals and other important men. Then some people started to notice that women were often of real significance too. And that human events have been determined as much by disease and other natural events, commerce, ideas, and even fashions. The people of Easter Island cut down all their trees to put up huge stone effigies - which can only be called a fashion, as it served no functional purpose. And the lack of trees resulted in most of them dying. A strange history, but history still. Mengrai made a decision to come here, and an important decision it was. Perhaps the most important decision in all the history of Southeast Asia. Had Mengrai not done what he did, Chinese troops under Mongol leadership surely would have brought the Lanna area into the Yuan Empire. But I suspect that disease may have played an equally important role. It isn’t known for a fact, but does seems likely that the demise of the great Angkor Empire was rooted in the Black Plague, something which arose because of the success of the Mongols, but something which they surely didn’t intend. Rats carrying disease-infested fleas were able to travel further and faster, due to Kublai Khan’s success in promoting commerce, through, among other things, building roads. The rats got on ships, and eventually almost half of the people living in the well-populated parts of Europe died - from the Bubonic, or Black, Plague. This may well have happened in Angkor also; we have little other information to explain their sudden loss of strength. It’s very clear, though, that without both the fall of Angkor and Mangrai’s success at blocking the Mongol expansion, Ayuddhaya could not have so quickly arisen to the importance it did, becoming, for a while, perhaps the most populous city on our planet.
So, history, although about people, is about diseases, too. It’s also about natural events like floods, earthquakes and storms. As the 3rd decade of the CE 15th century went on, weather became significant in Lanna history, when King Sam Fang Kaen was fighting Jeen Haw from the Yunnan area. Lightning struck and destroyed the Haw headquarters, killing their chief and many others, and allowing a Lanna victory. At about the same time, another lightning strike destroyed palaces of the newly completed Forbidden City in Beijing, leading to Ming isolationism. The lightning may well have suggested to many that he’d lost the “Mandate of Heaven” and so made a change of important policy essential, in order that the Emperor at least appear to win that mandate back. Need I mention the threat of floods facing us right now? History is about everything which affects us, about commerce and invention, ideas, fashion, the arts and even the games we play.
King Ramkamhaeng promoted a wide commerce in Sangkalok pottery, beautiful glazed ceramics, containers and dishes, while he was king. Sangkalok style pale blue or off-white porcelain with designs of flowers, foliage and fish painted beneath the glaze, were made at Sukhothai’s sister city Si Satchanalai and later, Kampaeng Phet. Most were bowls and plates, but some sangkalok ware was used for architectural decoration; much was exported to countries throughout Asia (mostly to China, but even to Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia), making Sukhothai the center of a trade empire and perhaps the most important producer of ceramics in Southeast Asia for over two centuries. Many examples are in museums throughout Asia. But while similar ceramics made here in ChiangRai were of much better quality, our local product never became famous. How did that happen? Perhaps because beauty and grace don’t mix well with business? About this, and mnay other things, you can decide for yourself. Certainly, I’d like to know, but surely don’t. Somlak Pantibun, who makes world-class pottery at Doi Din Daeng, near Ban Pa-O, east of Highway 1, would certainly like to know more about that too!
The last king of Lanna, Phra Mekut (Mah Ku or Mekhuti, ruled 1552-1564) died in the area which has become Myanmar, at Pegu or Ava, and the people there revere his spirit as a powerful Nat, Yun Bayin, #22 of the 37 widely believed in Myanmar to protect the country. Nats are an important part of Burmese culture, and represent spirits so troubled by misdeeds, so horribly, tragically dis-ordered by extreme complexities from violence, lust, greed, and other unfortunate realities, that it cannot return through the cycle of re-birth, and must remain earth-bound. Mekhut’s problems, among other things, involved the levy of taxes so heavy, and rules for conscription into the military or doing of unpaid labor, things so demanding and onerous, that the people became rebellious. Surely that consequence was unintended, unless Mekhut wanted a Burmese invasion, but intended or unintended, actions do have consequences, which we learn about through history.
Through the kind of spiritualism that gave rise to the Yun Bayin Nat, which we can see as an idea, we can have some understanding of what happened to Lanna, understanding we most likely wouldn’t have otherwise, as so many records have been lost. There are good records of Lanna, but they leave many things confused. Mengrai is said to have had two wives, but we have three names for them: Eua Ming, Rai Koma and Usa Payaki. How did that happen? Quite a lot, if not most, of the historical records of neighboring countries have been lost, some due to politics, some due to the leaves they were written on rotting from humidity. So it is good that we can learn other ways, and from other places.
To really know about ChiangRai, one must know about Mengrai, Pra Makut, and also the Burmese General Burengnong (or Bayinnaung) and the wars with Burma, which went on from the middle 1500s CE until 1825 (about 2100 BE to 2368), just as to really know about the language used by locals here, one must know of the Tai Yai in Shan State, and the speakers of an ancient Tai dialect, with written characters, who live near Luxi and Ruili in what was once southern Nanchao, at the western tip of Yunnan, China, in what has now become called Deihong Dai or the JingPo Nationalities Autonomous Prefecture. People from Bangkok used to call Kham Muang “Lao”, but it is as different from most Lao as it is from the Central Thai pasa klang. Similarly, ChiangRai has always been different from ChiangMai – and only history can explain this.
Fortunately, we aren’t totally dependent on written chronicles for learning history. Not only the study of language but excavations, textiles, personal collections and even tree rings have offered a lot that has helped develop insights. But much Thai history remains unclear: who was here before T’ai people came, and how much did the introduction of Thai language change things? How many different migrations to here from China were there, and what all was affected by them? Much about the strange history of opium use here remains unclear, as does much about the political use of buffer states (rat gan chon, or muang pradhesa raja). Were people to better understand history, misunderstandings about politics, business, religion and how best to speak properly might make for less problems, and respect for valuable resources, art and literature might come more easily to people not generally inclined to think about matters like those.
Not long ago, descendents of Dr. William Briggs of Overbrook Hospital came to visit, after contacting me for help finding their way around. I found people very glad to meet them! More recently, a shop-owner in the USA also contacted me, about wanting to sell some things which had belonged to Dr. Briggs, including his personal seal. This seal is quite like seals used with opium. This is suggestive of how many ideas about opium came from the British (Dr. Briggs was from Canada, a British colony, although his descendants are citizens of the USA. In Dr. Briggs’ time, the British were very important in this area due to their cutting lots of teak in the general area, and having a consulate in ChiangMai). The strange histories of opium, over-exploitation of natural resources, and the system of buying positions in governmental bureaucracy, the military or police, deserve much more attention, for the sake of solving pressing problems. History can also help one understand why Siam could resist European colonialism while so few else could, and why Europeans were able to think so highly of themselves from about 1500 CE until not very long ago. The history of where you live can foster respect for where you live.
Despite Dr. Briggs and government efforts, development in ChiangRai proceeded but slowly until the 1990s. The economic crash of 1997 put an end to hopes for many poorly-thought-out construction projects here, but in the last decade there’s been considerable growth. With growth, new problems replace old ones, and traffic, air and noise pollution, garbage, inflation and long waits for health-care are growing problems. Understanding of history may or may not help with these things, but it will certainly take knowledge to solve the problems, and not just knowledge of business. Only people with general knowledge will be able to think up new solutions.
In a quickly changing world, information is perhaps our most important resource. Without new information, we certainly cannot survive as well as we’d like. It is not enough to just believe; we need respect for knowledge, and understanding that knowledge is not constrained by written words. Some history gets lost, but sometimes lost things get found, too. There’s much history in the world, and one can hardly learn it all, but to know one’s self, one must know at least some of the history which made you what you are. Only knowledge of the past can help one decide best about the future, and only history confirmed through a variety of sources can be considered knowledge.
Because the world has changed so fast, many people consider the past almost insignificant, and relative to modern technologies, unimportant. But the past is the only context we have, through which to gain the informative perspective on things which we need. We cannot know where we are, if we don’t know how we got here.
750 years ago Mengrai arrived here, to a town which became named after him. Historians say he “founded” ChiangRai, but as there was already an established town, with temples, markets, and surely some form of government. Perhaps it might be better should say he found ChiangRai. Or transformed it.
History is only half a science. Half of it’s about opinion. Who “started” a war? Was King Taksin, who ruled just before the beginning of the Chakri Dynasty, crazy, and if so, when did he become crazy? Was Burma part of India, just because it was part of the same British colony? Did the USA “defeat” the Soviet Union in the “Cold War”? One cannot prove answers to questions like these to be correct, or much more than opinion.
Not so long ago, history was regarded mostly as the chronicles of the acts of kings, great military generals and other important men. Then some people started to notice that women were often of real significance too. And that human events have been determined as much by disease and other natural events, commerce, ideas, and even fashions. The people of Easter Island cut down all their trees to put up huge stone effigies - which can only be called a fashion, as it served no functional purpose. And the lack of trees resulted in most of them dying. A strange history, but history still. Mengrai made a decision to come here, and an important decision it was. Perhaps the most important decision in all the history of Southeast Asia. Had Mengrai not done what he did, Chinese troops under Mongol leadership surely would have brought the Lanna area into the Yuan Empire. But I suspect that disease may have played an equally important role. It isn’t known for a fact, but does seems likely that the demise of the great Angkor Empire was rooted in the Black Plague, something which arose because of the success of the Mongols, but something which they surely didn’t intend. Rats carrying disease-infested fleas were able to travel further and faster, due to Kublai Khan’s success in promoting commerce, through, among other things, building roads. The rats got on ships, and eventually almost half of the people living in the well-populated parts of Europe died - from the Bubonic, or Black, Plague. This may well have happened in Angkor also; we have little other information to explain their sudden loss of strength. It’s very clear, though, that without both the fall of Angkor and Mangrai’s success at blocking the Mongol expansion, Ayuddhaya could not have so quickly arisen to the importance it did, becoming, for a while, perhaps the most populous city on our planet.
So, history, although about people, is about diseases, too. It’s also about natural events like floods, earthquakes and storms. As the 3rd decade of the CE 15th century went on, weather became significant in Lanna history, when King Sam Fang Kaen was fighting Jeen Haw from the Yunnan area. Lightning struck and destroyed the Haw headquarters, killing their chief and many others, and allowing a Lanna victory. At about the same time, another lightning strike destroyed palaces of the newly completed Forbidden City in Beijing, leading to Ming isolationism. The lightning may well have suggested to many that he’d lost the “Mandate of Heaven” and so made a change of important policy essential, in order that the Emperor at least appear to win that mandate back. Need I mention the threat of floods facing us right now? History is about everything which affects us, about commerce and invention, ideas, fashion, the arts and even the games we play.
King Ramkamhaeng promoted a wide commerce in Sangkalok pottery, beautiful glazed ceramics, containers and dishes, while he was king. Sangkalok style pale blue or off-white porcelain with designs of flowers, foliage and fish painted beneath the glaze, were made at Sukhothai’s sister city Si Satchanalai and later, Kampaeng Phet. Most were bowls and plates, but some sangkalok ware was used for architectural decoration; much was exported to countries throughout Asia (mostly to China, but even to Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia), making Sukhothai the center of a trade empire and perhaps the most important producer of ceramics in Southeast Asia for over two centuries. Many examples are in museums throughout Asia. But while similar ceramics made here in ChiangRai were of much better quality, our local product never became famous. How did that happen? Perhaps because beauty and grace don’t mix well with business? About this, and mnay other things, you can decide for yourself. Certainly, I’d like to know, but surely don’t. Somlak Pantibun, who makes world-class pottery at Doi Din Daeng, near Ban Pa-O, east of Highway 1, would certainly like to know more about that too!
The last king of Lanna, Phra Mekut (Mah Ku or Mekhuti, ruled 1552-1564) died in the area which has become Myanmar, at Pegu or Ava, and the people there revere his spirit as a powerful Nat, Yun Bayin, #22 of the 37 widely believed in Myanmar to protect the country. Nats are an important part of Burmese culture, and represent spirits so troubled by misdeeds, so horribly, tragically dis-ordered by extreme complexities from violence, lust, greed, and other unfortunate realities, that it cannot return through the cycle of re-birth, and must remain earth-bound. Mekhut’s problems, among other things, involved the levy of taxes so heavy, and rules for conscription into the military or doing of unpaid labor, things so demanding and onerous, that the people became rebellious. Surely that consequence was unintended, unless Mekhut wanted a Burmese invasion, but intended or unintended, actions do have consequences, which we learn about through history.
Through the kind of spiritualism that gave rise to the Yun Bayin Nat, which we can see as an idea, we can have some understanding of what happened to Lanna, understanding we most likely wouldn’t have otherwise, as so many records have been lost. There are good records of Lanna, but they leave many things confused. Mengrai is said to have had two wives, but we have three names for them: Eua Ming, Rai Koma and Usa Payaki. How did that happen? Quite a lot, if not most, of the historical records of neighboring countries have been lost, some due to politics, some due to the leaves they were written on rotting from humidity. So it is good that we can learn other ways, and from other places.
To really know about ChiangRai, one must know about Mengrai, Pra Makut, and also the Burmese General Burengnong (or Bayinnaung) and the wars with Burma, which went on from the middle 1500s CE until 1825 (about 2100 BE to 2368), just as to really know about the language used by locals here, one must know of the Tai Yai in Shan State, and the speakers of an ancient Tai dialect, with written characters, who live near Luxi and Ruili in what was once southern Nanchao, at the western tip of Yunnan, China, in what has now become called Deihong Dai or the JingPo Nationalities Autonomous Prefecture. People from Bangkok used to call Kham Muang “Lao”, but it is as different from most Lao as it is from the Central Thai pasa klang. Similarly, ChiangRai has always been different from ChiangMai – and only history can explain this.
Fortunately, we aren’t totally dependent on written chronicles for learning history. Not only the study of language but excavations, textiles, personal collections and even tree rings have offered a lot that has helped develop insights. But much Thai history remains unclear: who was here before T’ai people came, and how much did the introduction of Thai language change things? How many different migrations to here from China were there, and what all was affected by them? Much about the strange history of opium use here remains unclear, as does much about the political use of buffer states (rat gan chon, or muang pradhesa raja). Were people to better understand history, misunderstandings about politics, business, religion and how best to speak properly might make for less problems, and respect for valuable resources, art and literature might come more easily to people not generally inclined to think about matters like those.
Not long ago, descendents of Dr. William Briggs of Overbrook Hospital came to visit, after contacting me for help finding their way around. I found people very glad to meet them! More recently, a shop-owner in the USA also contacted me, about wanting to sell some things which had belonged to Dr. Briggs, including his personal seal. This seal is quite like seals used with opium. This is suggestive of how many ideas about opium came from the British (Dr. Briggs was from Canada, a British colony, although his descendants are citizens of the USA. In Dr. Briggs’ time, the British were very important in this area due to their cutting lots of teak in the general area, and having a consulate in ChiangMai). The strange histories of opium, over-exploitation of natural resources, and the system of buying positions in governmental bureaucracy, the military or police, deserve much more attention, for the sake of solving pressing problems. History can also help one understand why Siam could resist European colonialism while so few else could, and why Europeans were able to think so highly of themselves from about 1500 CE until not very long ago. The history of where you live can foster respect for where you live.
Despite Dr. Briggs and government efforts, development in ChiangRai proceeded but slowly until the 1990s. The economic crash of 1997 put an end to hopes for many poorly-thought-out construction projects here, but in the last decade there’s been considerable growth. With growth, new problems replace old ones, and traffic, air and noise pollution, garbage, inflation and long waits for health-care are growing problems. Understanding of history may or may not help with these things, but it will certainly take knowledge to solve the problems, and not just knowledge of business. Only people with general knowledge will be able to think up new solutions.
In a quickly changing world, information is perhaps our most important resource. Without new information, we certainly cannot survive as well as we’d like. It is not enough to just believe; we need respect for knowledge, and understanding that knowledge is not constrained by written words. Some history gets lost, but sometimes lost things get found, too. There’s much history in the world, and one can hardly learn it all, but to know one’s self, one must know at least some of the history which made you what you are. Only knowledge of the past can help one decide best about the future, and only history confirmed through a variety of sources can be considered knowledge.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Another Nam Lad occupation.
Even tribal villages are adjusting rapidly to new ways, while valuable, sustainable old ones fade. Not three years ago, Ban Nam Lat had two elderly broom-makers; now it has only one. Nai Pan Satda, of 111 Ban Nam Lat mu 3, Thanon MaeFahLuang Soi 3, ChiangRai 57—(tel 053-150-127) makes big brooms for outside use year round, of coconut leaves (bai maprao) and bamboo. The selling price recently went up from B40 to B50. In the cool season, November to January, he makes house brooms, B20 before, B30 now. These are made with brushes from dok kong, which grows wild, and can be seen drying on streets many places in Amphoe MaeFahLuang during the cold season, especially by Akha people, who gather it for brooms, but usually only attach bamboo handles for their own use, selling the brushes wholesale.
Prettier brooms with decorative stitching are made elsewhere, for instance out Chiang Rung way.
Nai Pan's son Jarusak Satda, runs Northern Most Point Audit, an accounting firm, out of their home, and raises beautiful carp, similar to if not the same as Japanese koi.
The lower pair of brooms were made near Nang Lae; B110 retail for the pair!
Prettier brooms with decorative stitching are made elsewhere, for instance out Chiang Rung way.
Nai Pan's son Jarusak Satda, runs Northern Most Point Audit, an accounting firm, out of their home, and raises beautiful carp, similar to if not the same as Japanese koi.
The lower pair of brooms were made near Nang Lae; B110 retail for the pair!
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Musings on the local economy of Amphoe Muang, ChiangRai
This morning I visited friends who’ve opened a yoga teaching shop-front in what was called Ban Du Muang Mai, just east of NamTong Road, where there are “Walking Street” open-air market activities on Sunday and Tuesday evenings. I asked about the empty area east of the end of their street (the street directly across from that of Chiangrai Rajapat University Gate #1). They said that that area will become an Old-Folks home for Japanese, and part of the proposed expressway from China, now already somewhat in operation.
This led to discussion of our real-estate bubble. Not 3 years ago, my wife and I bought 3.5 rai of land for 1.36 million baht. Now land prices in Amphoe Muang are a minimum of a million baht per rai. So my wife wants to buy more land. I’d just as soon buy gold.
OK - land prices tend to rise, but haven’t they gone down recently, in lots of places? Aren’t the economic “fundamentals” of lots of places coming heavily into question? Is business with China really going to flow, even flood, through here?
#1 - Chinese products are cheap in two ways, price and quality. I, personally, don’t want most of them anymore, and I’m hardly alone in that.
#2 - with Myanmar opening up, vehicular traffic through from MaeSot to India becomes a real possibility.
#3 - this immediate area is flush with money right now, but much of it is casino, drug and prostitution related, and there’s good reason to question whether that can last.
#4 - the Old-Age Home idea is a good one, except that there are problems with the quality of help available. A decade ago, some Japanese Yakusa wanted to build one, but then backed off.
#5 - MuBan Omsin, and the housing projects by the 2nd MaeSai bridge remain largely empty, so why expect that all these new tiny dwellings are going to turn a profit?
#6 - the US may well import much less from China soon, hurting the Chinese economy, most of which is on its eastern seaboard anyway. Yunnan isn’t very industrial, and with gas prices rising, trucking all the way here isn’t going to be competitive with shipping. Going across Laos involves a variety of complications, including bureaucratic, logistic and infrastructure ones (the hard-top currently needs re-surfacing yearly, and when trucks break down, the road can get blocked, among other things).
Maybe money from Bangkok will continue to flow to here, or maybe they’ll finally admit to the necessity of moving government somewhere else, and that money will change in destination to wherever that will be. And another year of devastating flooding is hardly going to help the Thai economy!
Just thought I’d say…
This led to discussion of our real-estate bubble. Not 3 years ago, my wife and I bought 3.5 rai of land for 1.36 million baht. Now land prices in Amphoe Muang are a minimum of a million baht per rai. So my wife wants to buy more land. I’d just as soon buy gold.
OK - land prices tend to rise, but haven’t they gone down recently, in lots of places? Aren’t the economic “fundamentals” of lots of places coming heavily into question? Is business with China really going to flow, even flood, through here?
#1 - Chinese products are cheap in two ways, price and quality. I, personally, don’t want most of them anymore, and I’m hardly alone in that.
#2 - with Myanmar opening up, vehicular traffic through from MaeSot to India becomes a real possibility.
#3 - this immediate area is flush with money right now, but much of it is casino, drug and prostitution related, and there’s good reason to question whether that can last.
#4 - the Old-Age Home idea is a good one, except that there are problems with the quality of help available. A decade ago, some Japanese Yakusa wanted to build one, but then backed off.
#5 - MuBan Omsin, and the housing projects by the 2nd MaeSai bridge remain largely empty, so why expect that all these new tiny dwellings are going to turn a profit?
#6 - the US may well import much less from China soon, hurting the Chinese economy, most of which is on its eastern seaboard anyway. Yunnan isn’t very industrial, and with gas prices rising, trucking all the way here isn’t going to be competitive with shipping. Going across Laos involves a variety of complications, including bureaucratic, logistic and infrastructure ones (the hard-top currently needs re-surfacing yearly, and when trucks break down, the road can get blocked, among other things).
Maybe money from Bangkok will continue to flow to here, or maybe they’ll finally admit to the necessity of moving government somewhere else, and that money will change in destination to wherever that will be. And another year of devastating flooding is hardly going to help the Thai economy!
Just thought I’d say…
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Karen pole dancers and other shots from Colors
addendum
Lahu dancers and drummers:
Thai-digerees-do:
Locals in "chut-parjam-pao" (Palaung or Paduang, not sure):
Ongsasin Rhythm, from Central Thailand:
Chianghai World Colors 750 years
Just back from the World Colors @ Chiangrai thingy where the hilltribe houses from the Flower Festival still are. Long-time resident of Thailand, singer Todd Tongdee Lavelle, originally from Scranton, PA USA, was MC - he's been on many a Thai stage for well over 2 decades, speaks Thai quite well. Sunday the 26th is the last day, with School Shows starting at 6 pm, Ongsasin Rhythm at 7 then Hmong Superstar, World Colors of Lahu, Dara-ang, PuTai and Kamu... Punjabi Academy dance troop from India, and lastly, at 10:30 a Farewell Jam.
In all, nicely weird, with a tiny yurt, a teepee made of crepe or something, a Thai on digereedoo, a Lakota hoop dancer/flutist who's accent was quite White by me... some interesting write-ups (including about Lanna trade with Mongolia - I'd LOVE to see evidence of THAT!!!), and lots of food, handicrafts and drinks. Oh, and Karen kids were doing a neat dance between moving bamboo poles. Plenty of parking, all free.
couldn't get a photo of the Karen kids on here. will post again...
Kevin Locke, Lakota
something I'd love to see evidence of
children of the yellow leaves (OK, not exactly Mlabri, as from South Thailand, but physically similar)
ugga-wugga-wigwam
TaiYai-Kinaree
In all, nicely weird, with a tiny yurt, a teepee made of crepe or something, a Thai on digereedoo, a Lakota hoop dancer/flutist who's accent was quite White by me... some interesting write-ups (including about Lanna trade with Mongolia - I'd LOVE to see evidence of THAT!!!), and lots of food, handicrafts and drinks. Oh, and Karen kids were doing a neat dance between moving bamboo poles. Plenty of parking, all free.
couldn't get a photo of the Karen kids on here. will post again...
Kevin Locke, Lakota
something I'd love to see evidence of
children of the yellow leaves (OK, not exactly Mlabri, as from South Thailand, but physically similar)
ugga-wugga-wigwam
TaiYai-Kinaree
Monday, February 20, 2012
Linguistic Evolution, and a few words on things to come
The Summer Institute of Linguistics and the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) have done extensive translating work, to convey the Word of God (as they see it). Summer Institute’s first president, Kenneth L. Pike (served 1942-1979), developed a system of linguistic analysis in the 1950s and applied it to the description of a very large number of hitherto unrecorded languages, and the Mormons have done an incredible job training young missionaries in a huge variety of languages.
Encyclopedia Britannica explains about the method: “Tagmemics differs from alternative systems of grammatical analysis in that it defines the basic units of language (tagmemes) as composite elements, one part being the “slot,” or ‘function,’ and the other the ‘filler,’ or ‘class.’ For example, one such tagmeme, at the syntactic level of analysis, might be the noun-as-subject (in which the noun is a class that ‘fills’ the subject ‘slot’ in a construction).”
What interests me here is the concept of word, or basic unit of language. Like number, it may be a concept of quite more limited viable applicability in the real world than is commonly acknowledged. When teaching, as I occasionally do, I find things hardly so cut and dried. My young sister-without-law fails to grasp the concept, similarly as she fails to grasp the sounds of English language. She’s not trying to be difficult or lazy – the correspondences we, who grew up in Western society, so easily assume, simply do not really exist. For her, and for many others.
In one place, a letter, in English or any other language, will have one sound, in another, another. In one place, a ‘word’ will appear in one way, in another, another. Syllables, parts of speech, suffixes, prefixes - it’s simply not the same in all languages. In all, parts make greater wholes, and there may be something like sentences, even paragraphs, but I well remember a guy trying to get the message of his Indian guru put into written Thai, demanding that the Thai words be separated. It simply couldn’t be done!
We like a sense of unity, indivisibility - but, where in the perceptible world does it actually, unequivocally exist? It doesn’t. No atom, nor indivisible particle. No unarguably distinct boundaries. No absolute correspondence between map and thing mapped… though certainly some alphabets suit some languages better than others.
The Bible (pra-kam-phii in Thai, meaning respectable or revered word of scripture; profound treatise) will surely deliver a more than slightly altered message in different languages (which are always variant ways of looking at things). Not to denigrate faith, work on translation which helps people to communicate, or teaching in general, do I present this quandary, but to analyze, rather, what we do when we assert ourselves. We certainly sometimes anticipate, or desire, responses different than results we actually incur. This is normal.
We find it easy to assume that things actually are as we see them, and so, that others can discover the same truth we try to act upon. But systems apply only within contexts - as Russians found in trying to bring communism to Mongolia, and the USA is beginning to find trying to bring ‘democracy’ to the Mid-East. Mongolia had no ‘oppressed’ proletariat, and Persians and Arabs might even see leadership more accurately than do hapless citizens of the USA, in bondage to advertising.
An Akha tribe friend once invited me to her house for Christmas festivities. On the TV was a show of Bible stories, set, naturally, in a desert. I saw no correspondence between what was presented on the screen and life in the ‘Christian’ village around me. On the other hand, I did notice there, as I had noticed long before in Korea, a distinct correspondence between acquiescence to ‘membership’ and ‘belief’ and access to otherwise unavailable material ‘goods’!
Matthew McDaniel of Akha Heritage Foundation wrote at www.akha.org that “There is Youth With a Mission, New Tribes Mission, and a host of others, all hidden from the eye, unless you have done years of research, a huge mission picture, millions of dollars in trucks, compounds, salaries, budgets, but the villages are dying without representation and without a penny. They have no rights and the people are being destroyed and the missions are helping it be done.” His comments on Paul W. Lewis, Bill and Gordon Young (the “Young Dynasty” - were they all CIA, as has been claimed?), the Meese and Morse families, Rose Martinez, and Dr. Edwin McDaniel, who Matthew McDaniel (any relation?) says helped Dr. Paul Lewis (author with wife Elaine of the wonderful “Peoples of the Golden Triangle” - and many years ago retired to Claremont, California) sterilize more than 20,000 Akha women in Burma’s Eastern Shan State… seem pretty derogatory, but with some strong base in truth. He wrote, “witnesses are afraid to speak out against Paul Lewis publicly, stating that he is a very powerful man and that they fear people who continue to get money under the table from his Baptist related organizations will retaliate against them.” Dr. Lewis, though, claims, “I helped between 300 and 350 Akha women from Burma receive an operation they greatly wanted and needed. They were most anxious to have the operation because they could not take care of the children they already had.” Also, “For over 40 years I gave my life and talent to help these people in every way possible, but I always worked WITH them, and sought to turn over all aspects of the work to them as quickly as possible. In regard to the family planning program, I turned all of that over to the Thai Government at the end of our seven and a half years of service.” Anonymous Akhas reportedly replied, “They killed the best of our people… accepted it like a fish which sees the bait but not the hook.” And, “The book called ‘People of the Golden Triangle’ which has sold thousands of books in many languages must have made him some name and some money. Does he deny he made great name off us, but lives safely while we still die?” And certainly, during Taksin Chinawat’s (spelled Shinawatra in the papers) “drug war” many did die - at least one in each and every northern tribal village.
According to a North Thailand mission (EDEN Center - Serving God’s People through Evangelism, Development, Education and Nurture) website, after the 1949 Communist victory in China, the Morse family “had to evacuate all personnel from their stations. J. Russell Morse fell into the hands of the Communists and was imprisoned in solitary confinement for 15 months. The mission forced to flee in North Burma. “The years between 1950-1965 saw the work firmly established in North Burma. During the early 1950s, the mission helped settle over 20,000 Lisu and Rawang Christians onto the Putao plains. Over 30 model villages were established in the process, all of them interconnected with excellent roads and bridges.
“Swamps were drained off to fight malaria-infested mosquitoes while new land was opened up for agriculture. Citrus trees from North America were brought in and grafted onto native lemon stock which resulted in significantly improving the health of the population. Schools were started to provide education for the children of the first generation of Christians. In many respects, this period in the history of the mission was the most productive and rewarding.
“Between 1966-1972, the mission was… forced to pull up stakes and move out of its field of ministry… The mission was ordered to leave the country by midnight December 31, 1965. When it became apparent that the mission was not going to be able to meet the deadline, the group made the decision to walk out overland to India.
“This began a seven year wilderness experience as the mission became completely cut off from the outside world. Jungle survival was the new name of the game as the Morses and thousands of native Christians struggled to live off the land. The group eventually carved out self contained villages in the wilds, where community life was allowed to be guided by Christian principles.
“A real sense of peace and harmony prevailed throughout this new community until the Burmese government stumbled across the lost villages in early 1972. The missionaries were rounded up and removed to lower Burma. The Morses now became guests of the military government and spent the next three months at the Mandalay Central Prison before they were allowed to leave the country.” The site claims most of the villages in the Hidden Valley area have now reverted back to jungle, but citrus trees planted by J. Russell Morse, which once eased local malnutrition, still thrive.
“Since 1973, the mission has been based in Thailand. In Thailand… concentrated primarily on establishing churches among the Lisu, Lahu and Akha hill people. The mission is involved in a broad range of ministries that include church planting, village development work, Bible translation and literacy work, Christian literature production, promoting preventive health and sanitation, introducing alternative crops and agricultural techniques, children’s education, and leadership training.”
See: Eugene Morse, “Exodus To A Hidden Valley” (Cleveland: William Collins Publishing Co., 1974); Gertrude Morse, “The Dogs May Bark…But The Caravan Moves On” (Joplin: College Press, 1998) and Mischa Berlinski, “Fieldwork” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007).
Progress (in Thai, khwam-khao-na, stepping forward, or jalern, to grow, prosper, thrive, advance, increase, and thus, also, jarern-khao-na…), or, if you prefer, development (kan-pattana, advancement), may be less valuable concepts than adaptation (gan-prap-tua, especially about sapap-wetlom, the state of the environment). Adapting to circumstances may not get one closer to any goal, other than extending life’s goodness. And life’s goodness isn’t about possessing, or winning, or even achieving, but about interacting pleasantly, sharing good moods, absorbing delicious nutrition and enjoying pleasant rest. Things, and entertainment, don’t teach a child to interact pleasantly; guidance by the well-adapted does. Rich kids are often desperately hungry - sullen, angry, demanding and arrogant. That’s not happy. Nor can teaching through words make them so; only by example can they learn the satisfactions of giving, sharing, and being part of something greater than the illusory self.
The Morse family, to live in the jungle, must have had something to share other than words from a book. And that kind of faith is good. Missionaries may usually cause more damage than good – that depends on how one looks at things. But the temptations of the modern were going to arrive and be there, missionaries or no… and few have proven readily able to adapt to their temptations! By living so much higher than those they preach to, the worse missionaries may even have provided an exceptionally instructive example… Certainly not all affected by them have become greedy!
I posted the above on thaivisa.com’s Chiangrai Forum years ago, and found the responses unpleasant and discouraging, to say the least. I’d been impressed with bucolic, almost idyllic Swiss Family Robinson-like tales of Hidden Valley resistance to Regime Oppression and other adversities, and had hoped to elicit some discussion and maybe even new info and insights. That came to naught, but as we approach a new invasion of Burma, by global corps bent on the kind of wholesale exploitation of mineral wealth hard not to labile “rapine’, I decided to re-post it with some new comments.
I’ve met many a citizen of Myanmar with extremely positive memories of American missionaries, of American help with railways, roads, WWII, and other forms of generosity more controversial. But the extent of something related to Post Traumatic Shock Disorder which pervades everything there prevents those niceties from carrying much real meaning. In Bangladesh, Pakistan, a lot of India (especially Kashmir), much of Africa and many places elsewhere the results of violent hatreds, extended cycles of revenge, childhoods dominated by automatic weapons, and pervasive feelings of need to seek escapist solace make for a need for community and emotional support mechanisms which infrastructure, consumerism and “democracy” can never sufficiently foster. Wounds take time to heal, and often do so better in a fairly rigid, well-structured environment. A headlong rush into the strictures of corporate materialism, modern jobs, debt, celebrity envy and insidious propagandistic advertising promotions (in Yangon, over 15 years ago, I saw TV ads for heated toilet seats with automatically dispensed sanitary-paper coverings, along with others for gaudy gold jewelry) can not in any way assist in the healing necessary for a non-violent, non-drug-addicted civil society to ensue. I can’t say exactly what IS needed, but am sure that local self-determination MUST be part of it.
Encyclopedia Britannica explains about the method: “Tagmemics differs from alternative systems of grammatical analysis in that it defines the basic units of language (tagmemes) as composite elements, one part being the “slot,” or ‘function,’ and the other the ‘filler,’ or ‘class.’ For example, one such tagmeme, at the syntactic level of analysis, might be the noun-as-subject (in which the noun is a class that ‘fills’ the subject ‘slot’ in a construction).”
What interests me here is the concept of word, or basic unit of language. Like number, it may be a concept of quite more limited viable applicability in the real world than is commonly acknowledged. When teaching, as I occasionally do, I find things hardly so cut and dried. My young sister-without-law fails to grasp the concept, similarly as she fails to grasp the sounds of English language. She’s not trying to be difficult or lazy – the correspondences we, who grew up in Western society, so easily assume, simply do not really exist. For her, and for many others.
In one place, a letter, in English or any other language, will have one sound, in another, another. In one place, a ‘word’ will appear in one way, in another, another. Syllables, parts of speech, suffixes, prefixes - it’s simply not the same in all languages. In all, parts make greater wholes, and there may be something like sentences, even paragraphs, but I well remember a guy trying to get the message of his Indian guru put into written Thai, demanding that the Thai words be separated. It simply couldn’t be done!
We like a sense of unity, indivisibility - but, where in the perceptible world does it actually, unequivocally exist? It doesn’t. No atom, nor indivisible particle. No unarguably distinct boundaries. No absolute correspondence between map and thing mapped… though certainly some alphabets suit some languages better than others.
The Bible (pra-kam-phii in Thai, meaning respectable or revered word of scripture; profound treatise) will surely deliver a more than slightly altered message in different languages (which are always variant ways of looking at things). Not to denigrate faith, work on translation which helps people to communicate, or teaching in general, do I present this quandary, but to analyze, rather, what we do when we assert ourselves. We certainly sometimes anticipate, or desire, responses different than results we actually incur. This is normal.
We find it easy to assume that things actually are as we see them, and so, that others can discover the same truth we try to act upon. But systems apply only within contexts - as Russians found in trying to bring communism to Mongolia, and the USA is beginning to find trying to bring ‘democracy’ to the Mid-East. Mongolia had no ‘oppressed’ proletariat, and Persians and Arabs might even see leadership more accurately than do hapless citizens of the USA, in bondage to advertising.
An Akha tribe friend once invited me to her house for Christmas festivities. On the TV was a show of Bible stories, set, naturally, in a desert. I saw no correspondence between what was presented on the screen and life in the ‘Christian’ village around me. On the other hand, I did notice there, as I had noticed long before in Korea, a distinct correspondence between acquiescence to ‘membership’ and ‘belief’ and access to otherwise unavailable material ‘goods’!
Matthew McDaniel of Akha Heritage Foundation wrote at www.akha.org that “There is Youth With a Mission, New Tribes Mission, and a host of others, all hidden from the eye, unless you have done years of research, a huge mission picture, millions of dollars in trucks, compounds, salaries, budgets, but the villages are dying without representation and without a penny. They have no rights and the people are being destroyed and the missions are helping it be done.” His comments on Paul W. Lewis, Bill and Gordon Young (the “Young Dynasty” - were they all CIA, as has been claimed?), the Meese and Morse families, Rose Martinez, and Dr. Edwin McDaniel, who Matthew McDaniel (any relation?) says helped Dr. Paul Lewis (author with wife Elaine of the wonderful “Peoples of the Golden Triangle” - and many years ago retired to Claremont, California) sterilize more than 20,000 Akha women in Burma’s Eastern Shan State… seem pretty derogatory, but with some strong base in truth. He wrote, “witnesses are afraid to speak out against Paul Lewis publicly, stating that he is a very powerful man and that they fear people who continue to get money under the table from his Baptist related organizations will retaliate against them.” Dr. Lewis, though, claims, “I helped between 300 and 350 Akha women from Burma receive an operation they greatly wanted and needed. They were most anxious to have the operation because they could not take care of the children they already had.” Also, “For over 40 years I gave my life and talent to help these people in every way possible, but I always worked WITH them, and sought to turn over all aspects of the work to them as quickly as possible. In regard to the family planning program, I turned all of that over to the Thai Government at the end of our seven and a half years of service.” Anonymous Akhas reportedly replied, “They killed the best of our people… accepted it like a fish which sees the bait but not the hook.” And, “The book called ‘People of the Golden Triangle’ which has sold thousands of books in many languages must have made him some name and some money. Does he deny he made great name off us, but lives safely while we still die?” And certainly, during Taksin Chinawat’s (spelled Shinawatra in the papers) “drug war” many did die - at least one in each and every northern tribal village.
According to a North Thailand mission (EDEN Center - Serving God’s People through Evangelism, Development, Education and Nurture) website, after the 1949 Communist victory in China, the Morse family “had to evacuate all personnel from their stations. J. Russell Morse fell into the hands of the Communists and was imprisoned in solitary confinement for 15 months. The mission forced to flee in North Burma. “The years between 1950-1965 saw the work firmly established in North Burma. During the early 1950s, the mission helped settle over 20,000 Lisu and Rawang Christians onto the Putao plains. Over 30 model villages were established in the process, all of them interconnected with excellent roads and bridges.
“Swamps were drained off to fight malaria-infested mosquitoes while new land was opened up for agriculture. Citrus trees from North America were brought in and grafted onto native lemon stock which resulted in significantly improving the health of the population. Schools were started to provide education for the children of the first generation of Christians. In many respects, this period in the history of the mission was the most productive and rewarding.
“Between 1966-1972, the mission was… forced to pull up stakes and move out of its field of ministry… The mission was ordered to leave the country by midnight December 31, 1965. When it became apparent that the mission was not going to be able to meet the deadline, the group made the decision to walk out overland to India.
“This began a seven year wilderness experience as the mission became completely cut off from the outside world. Jungle survival was the new name of the game as the Morses and thousands of native Christians struggled to live off the land. The group eventually carved out self contained villages in the wilds, where community life was allowed to be guided by Christian principles.
“A real sense of peace and harmony prevailed throughout this new community until the Burmese government stumbled across the lost villages in early 1972. The missionaries were rounded up and removed to lower Burma. The Morses now became guests of the military government and spent the next three months at the Mandalay Central Prison before they were allowed to leave the country.” The site claims most of the villages in the Hidden Valley area have now reverted back to jungle, but citrus trees planted by J. Russell Morse, which once eased local malnutrition, still thrive.
“Since 1973, the mission has been based in Thailand. In Thailand… concentrated primarily on establishing churches among the Lisu, Lahu and Akha hill people. The mission is involved in a broad range of ministries that include church planting, village development work, Bible translation and literacy work, Christian literature production, promoting preventive health and sanitation, introducing alternative crops and agricultural techniques, children’s education, and leadership training.”
See: Eugene Morse, “Exodus To A Hidden Valley” (Cleveland: William Collins Publishing Co., 1974); Gertrude Morse, “The Dogs May Bark…But The Caravan Moves On” (Joplin: College Press, 1998) and Mischa Berlinski, “Fieldwork” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007).
Progress (in Thai, khwam-khao-na, stepping forward, or jalern, to grow, prosper, thrive, advance, increase, and thus, also, jarern-khao-na…), or, if you prefer, development (kan-pattana, advancement), may be less valuable concepts than adaptation (gan-prap-tua, especially about sapap-wetlom, the state of the environment). Adapting to circumstances may not get one closer to any goal, other than extending life’s goodness. And life’s goodness isn’t about possessing, or winning, or even achieving, but about interacting pleasantly, sharing good moods, absorbing delicious nutrition and enjoying pleasant rest. Things, and entertainment, don’t teach a child to interact pleasantly; guidance by the well-adapted does. Rich kids are often desperately hungry - sullen, angry, demanding and arrogant. That’s not happy. Nor can teaching through words make them so; only by example can they learn the satisfactions of giving, sharing, and being part of something greater than the illusory self.
The Morse family, to live in the jungle, must have had something to share other than words from a book. And that kind of faith is good. Missionaries may usually cause more damage than good – that depends on how one looks at things. But the temptations of the modern were going to arrive and be there, missionaries or no… and few have proven readily able to adapt to their temptations! By living so much higher than those they preach to, the worse missionaries may even have provided an exceptionally instructive example… Certainly not all affected by them have become greedy!
I posted the above on thaivisa.com’s Chiangrai Forum years ago, and found the responses unpleasant and discouraging, to say the least. I’d been impressed with bucolic, almost idyllic Swiss Family Robinson-like tales of Hidden Valley resistance to Regime Oppression and other adversities, and had hoped to elicit some discussion and maybe even new info and insights. That came to naught, but as we approach a new invasion of Burma, by global corps bent on the kind of wholesale exploitation of mineral wealth hard not to labile “rapine’, I decided to re-post it with some new comments.
I’ve met many a citizen of Myanmar with extremely positive memories of American missionaries, of American help with railways, roads, WWII, and other forms of generosity more controversial. But the extent of something related to Post Traumatic Shock Disorder which pervades everything there prevents those niceties from carrying much real meaning. In Bangladesh, Pakistan, a lot of India (especially Kashmir), much of Africa and many places elsewhere the results of violent hatreds, extended cycles of revenge, childhoods dominated by automatic weapons, and pervasive feelings of need to seek escapist solace make for a need for community and emotional support mechanisms which infrastructure, consumerism and “democracy” can never sufficiently foster. Wounds take time to heal, and often do so better in a fairly rigid, well-structured environment. A headlong rush into the strictures of corporate materialism, modern jobs, debt, celebrity envy and insidious propagandistic advertising promotions (in Yangon, over 15 years ago, I saw TV ads for heated toilet seats with automatically dispensed sanitary-paper coverings, along with others for gaudy gold jewelry) can not in any way assist in the healing necessary for a non-violent, non-drug-addicted civil society to ensue. I can’t say exactly what IS needed, but am sure that local self-determination MUST be part of it.
Friday, February 17, 2012
The Biggest Tree in ChiangRai?
My wife said it is, but she was just trying to get me interested. I didn’t find out what kind it is, besides “giant” (yak, yaksa – ยักษ์ ). But it’s big enough to be interesting, and in an interesting area with lots of tribal villages, terraced rice paddies, river views, hot springs, waterfalls, shrines and hill-top temples. Much of that is covered at www.chiangraiprovince.com/guide, recommended at guest houses, and so easy to find that quite a good number of tourists here do.
Big on the backpacker hit-list are Doi Klong Khai Rice-box Hill, Huay Mak Liam Hotsprings and the suspension motorcycle bridge, all in the area. Not so well-known is the huge tree. It’s even an easy bike ride out – only 14 km. from the Den Ha intersection where SanKhong Noi and RatchYotha cross. 7.2 km. from Don’s Café, with Western food from noon on. At a large picture of the King under a red corrugated roof, with two red pillars to the front, turn left: there are blue signs to the “Ton Ngoon” and Huai Kaeo Waterfall on botyh sides of the road just south of the Kok river (following along it from not far past Hang Dong). Start watching after the tree (with tree shrine) in the middle of the road, it’s about 1.5 km. past that, at Ban Huai Pu Patana.
The tree, I’m guessing, is at least 150 feet tall, 30 foot wide at the base, and when the trunk becomes round, it’s circumference might be 18 feet.
Although most trees here have some leaves in February, this one won’t until maybe May. But that means you can see the many huge bee hives attached to branches. The Ruesi hermit statue between trunk ridges is also pretty cool, especially as there’s a clay water-pot with wood nam-boui dipper by it, in old traditional fashion. Quite nearby is a Karen village (Mu 8) with lots of black pigs, a mountain stream and lots of hints as to what life around here used to be like before things got so accessible.
bee-hives
nearby
Southeast Asia has several folk beliefs about what a woman should do after giving birth; here’s one from Chiangrai’s hill people:
Sometimes after giving birth, a woman will become “pit duan” - thin and weak with yellow, itchy skin. To avoid this condition, a restricted diet is recommended: no beef, pork or regular chicken, only Kai Dam black chicken. Some kinds of fruit, vegetables and fish are OK, others not. Some chickens have all black meat and black bones, some have white bones and meat (like KFC or 5 Star), and there are gradations in between. Kai Dam is good, Kai Khao (white) OK, but yellow meat is regarded as distinctly bad. It makes new mothers weak, and to avoid that, many people are glad to pay extra (i.e. B150 as opposed to B120 per kilo) for the black meat on black bones, preferably from free-range chickens. That is thought best, for at least a month!
In fact, Gai Dam do have better protein, more amino acids, less fat and cholesterol, and other health benefits.
Another chicken belief involves the Kai Khon Fu, fluffy, kinda scary-looking chicken (see photo). Raise that kind, and ghosts won’t bother you, won’t enter your house. Especially if someone has died there, this is seen as important. The fluffy feathers somehow close the door to the spirit’s return. Without the guardian chicken, the ghost might enter the body of some animal, and wreak who knows what havoc…
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
A new travel opportunity
There is now bus service from ChiangRai to LuangPrabang Laos – only B950, leaving daily at 1 p.m.! One is even given enough time to arrange a “visa on arrival” (good for two weeks) at the border.
On 19 Jan. 2012, bus service began from from ChiangMai to LuangPrabang began, reportedly leaving CM daily at 1 p.m, routing through ChiangRai. By the 23rd, the price was said to have dropped from B950 to B735. When I asked about that at the bus station, however, they disclaimed any knowledge about it.
From Chiang Rai the 2nd class, air-conditioned, 44 seat bus goes to Chiang Khong. Before this service opened, one had to make separate arrangements to the border, and once over the border you could get a Lao bus north to LuangNamTha, then on to UdomXai and LuangPrabang; this sometimes took three days.
Now the “999” bus office in ChiangKhong allows passengers holding tickets by 3:00 p.m. to be taken by tuk-tuk to Thai Immigration, ferried across the Mekong, and then, once again by tuk-tuk, taken on to the bus station a few kilometers out, for 5 p.m. departure. The ferry and tuk-tuk both sides are included in the price (whether B950 or B735). The ChiangKhong “Boh-Koh-Soh 999” bus station office is scheduled to be to be open from 6:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. I didn’t check the new Amphoe ChiangRai station hours, but they are at least that.
Total distance by road ChiangRai to LuangPrabang 610km. It’s over 200 km. from HuayXai to the Chinese border, which this route almost reaches (just over 190 km to LuangNamTha). About 80% of the road is good, but it’s often narrow; HuayXai to Boten (at the China border) is wide and being upgraded. It’s believed that this will become an active highway, but that remains to be seen.
On the internet I found mention of a VIP bus, but again, the agents at the ChiangRai central bus station disclaimed any knowledge. They did say that the trip takes 12 to 13 hours; on the Net the VIP Bus is reported as 12 -15 hours, and the 2nd class bus as taking 18 hours, which would have one arriving in LuangPrabang at a more reasonable hour. Should one arrive an hour after midnight, prior arrangements for accommodations would be a good thing indeed! The Lao VIP bus might be something which can be arranged in ChiangRai at the new bus station, as claimed on www.thaivisa.com Chiangrai forum, but perhaps only at the tour agency offices. One report of the VIP bus mentions only 25 seats, but no aircon, no reclining seats, no service, and not enough seats for everybody. It was “very noisy, dirty, cold and we could only sit straight. There was 1 stop of 15 minutes, and a very short toilet stop. The total trip took more than 12 hours. Our clothes and personal belongings got very dirty and many people were coughing or having problems to breathe. Even though we were very tired, we could not sleep, since probably due to the bad suspension of the bus we were shaken in all directions, and several times and had to hold on to the chair in front”…
Plans to construct a bridge from ChiangKhong to HuayXai by late 1997 were derailed by the economic crash but it should be completed soon, perhaps this year. On one’s own, you present your passport at Thai Immigration by the river (open from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.); they put an exit stamp in, give you a white departure card and then take your picture (normally done in about five minutes). You walk twenty meters to the river and take a small ferry boat across to the Laos Immigration, directly across the river: B30 for you and B10 for your baggage. This also takes about five minutes.
At HuaiXai one can get a Visa on Arrival, usually for US$35 (or B1500; the visa cost ranges between $30-$42 US, depending on your nationality. For Swiss, Japanese and South Koreans it’s free. The cost in Euros tends to be the same as the dollar cost, with Lao authorities ignoring exchange rate differentials). It’s a dollar extra on weekends. You only need to complete their form, and present one passport-size picture (or a photocopy of your passport information page) with your passport. There are money changers on the Thai side, so you don’t need to pay in baht (which can save you a reasonable bit). The Laos Visa on Arrival is Single Entry.
Upon exiting Laos Immigration, one can catch a tuk-tuk out to where the bus station is, 7 km south of town, and catch the regular Laos VIP bus - which leaves at 5:00 p.m. everyday. This VIP Bus has been running from HuayXai to LuangPrabang for over a year.
A warning: on arriving in Houay Xai, you might be approached by touts asking about your next destination. If you answer Luang Prabang, you may be pressured to reserve a ticket on a VIP bus, because the bus is invariably “sold out”. The ticket offered will be priced at something ridiculously high, perhaps 210,000-260,000 kip. Upon arriving at the bus station, you’ll be handed a ticket with the actual price, 145,000 kip, on it! At the bus station you can get a ticket all the way to Vientiane for 210,000 kip.
The local bus to Luang Prabang is about US$12 (110000 kip) at the station itself, a couple bucks more when arranged at a guesthouse or through an agent. They’ll claim the trip is 10 hours, but often turns out to be 15. The bus station is 7km from the town. However, if you buy the ticket at the bus station rather than through your guesthouse or agent then the price is lower (perhaps 145,000 kip, around US $14.50). You are told the journey is 10 hours but it can turn out to be 15 hours or more, so be prepared. Local buses leave 9 a.m. and either 12:30 or 2 p.m., and cost 60,000 kip at the station. From a guest house you might choose to pay 95,000 kip (about 350 baht) for a “package” including the 10 minute tuk-tuk ride to the bus station (usually only about 10,000 kip). There’s also the option of going by songthaew to LuangNamTha - they leave when filled, from early morning to after midnight, and cost about US$7. The hotels in Luang Namtha said to be clean and cheap.
The local buses have a lunch stop along the way. The road (Hwy. 3) has been completely sealed, but some big sections in the middle have been churned up by trucks, which adds time to the trip. From LuangNamTha, it’s about 300 km. further to LuangPrabang (on Hwy. 13). From LuangNamtha to UdomXai the road has recently been resurfaced, but work is still being done on the verges. From UdomXai to PakBeng, only about 80 km., the road is bad, and that section often takes about three hours. Various obstacles may occur elsewhere, but there haven’t been any reports of Farang getting killed by bandits for several years now.
The area traversed is scenic, rural, and mountainous. The scenery is reportedly much better than the LuangPrabang - Vientienne route, but some areas are just rubber plantations, and about half the bus trip (or more) takes place at night. On one’s own, one can make stops, for instance, at “Gibbon Experience” in Don Chai, Bokeo Province, where you can stay in tree-houses and glide along zip-lines to view some of the last black-cheeked gibbons in Laos. There are also many tribal peoples, from about 30 ethnicities, including Khmu, Hmong, Lao Loum, Lahu, Akha, Pu Tai, Phou Noy, and Tai Lue. Driving on one’s own can be arranged, but as driving is on the right (as opposed to the left in Thailand), and you need to make local insurance arrangements, that’s of questionable advisability (much better for large parties than small).
For cycling, it depends on how well the hard-top has weathered, since it was last re-surfaced. It can be done, but there’s a lot of dust, and LuangNamTha to OudomXai can be quite bad.
HouayXai’s tiny airport has service to and from Luang Prabang and also Vientiane (about US$ 46 and $88, respectively). There’s also Lao Aviation service at LuangNamTha.
Arriving back to Thailand overland can mean that you will be given only a tourist visa, valid for just fourteen days.
Bangkok Post reports (http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/394778/new-loei-luang-prabang-bus-route, © Post Publishing PCL) "New Loei-Luang Prabang bus route Published: 13 Feb 2014 at 09.03Online news: Local News The Transport Company in Thailand has joined with Naluang Company in Laos to launch a new public bus service, Route 14, to link Loei with Luang Prabang.
The journey takes about nine hours and covers a distance of 395km. “By linking these historic and picturesque regions, tourists and travellers have a new, affordable way of exploring some of Southeast Asia's cultural gems. They can do it with utmost convenience and comfort,” said the Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor Thawatchai Arunyik. The Transport Company uses an air-conditioned bus with 38 seats for the new service. The bus departs from Loei Bus Terminal daily at 8am and the return trip from Luang Prabang is at 7am every day. The bus also makes one stop at Xayaburi where an Elephant Conservation Centre is located. A one-way ticket to Luang Prabang is 700 baht and 175,000 kip to Loei. If one wants to get off at Xayaburi, a one-way trip is priced at 500 baht or 125,000 kip and the travel time is s about six hours. Call the Transport Company Call centre on 1490 or Loei Bus Terminal on 042-811-706.
On 19 Jan. 2012, bus service began from from ChiangMai to LuangPrabang began, reportedly leaving CM daily at 1 p.m, routing through ChiangRai. By the 23rd, the price was said to have dropped from B950 to B735. When I asked about that at the bus station, however, they disclaimed any knowledge about it.
From Chiang Rai the 2nd class, air-conditioned, 44 seat bus goes to Chiang Khong. Before this service opened, one had to make separate arrangements to the border, and once over the border you could get a Lao bus north to LuangNamTha, then on to UdomXai and LuangPrabang; this sometimes took three days.
Now the “999” bus office in ChiangKhong allows passengers holding tickets by 3:00 p.m. to be taken by tuk-tuk to Thai Immigration, ferried across the Mekong, and then, once again by tuk-tuk, taken on to the bus station a few kilometers out, for 5 p.m. departure. The ferry and tuk-tuk both sides are included in the price (whether B950 or B735). The ChiangKhong “Boh-Koh-Soh 999” bus station office is scheduled to be to be open from 6:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. I didn’t check the new Amphoe ChiangRai station hours, but they are at least that.
Total distance by road ChiangRai to LuangPrabang 610km. It’s over 200 km. from HuayXai to the Chinese border, which this route almost reaches (just over 190 km to LuangNamTha). About 80% of the road is good, but it’s often narrow; HuayXai to Boten (at the China border) is wide and being upgraded. It’s believed that this will become an active highway, but that remains to be seen.
On the internet I found mention of a VIP bus, but again, the agents at the ChiangRai central bus station disclaimed any knowledge. They did say that the trip takes 12 to 13 hours; on the Net the VIP Bus is reported as 12 -15 hours, and the 2nd class bus as taking 18 hours, which would have one arriving in LuangPrabang at a more reasonable hour. Should one arrive an hour after midnight, prior arrangements for accommodations would be a good thing indeed! The Lao VIP bus might be something which can be arranged in ChiangRai at the new bus station, as claimed on www.thaivisa.com Chiangrai forum, but perhaps only at the tour agency offices. One report of the VIP bus mentions only 25 seats, but no aircon, no reclining seats, no service, and not enough seats for everybody. It was “very noisy, dirty, cold and we could only sit straight. There was 1 stop of 15 minutes, and a very short toilet stop. The total trip took more than 12 hours. Our clothes and personal belongings got very dirty and many people were coughing or having problems to breathe. Even though we were very tired, we could not sleep, since probably due to the bad suspension of the bus we were shaken in all directions, and several times and had to hold on to the chair in front”…
Plans to construct a bridge from ChiangKhong to HuayXai by late 1997 were derailed by the economic crash but it should be completed soon, perhaps this year. On one’s own, you present your passport at Thai Immigration by the river (open from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.); they put an exit stamp in, give you a white departure card and then take your picture (normally done in about five minutes). You walk twenty meters to the river and take a small ferry boat across to the Laos Immigration, directly across the river: B30 for you and B10 for your baggage. This also takes about five minutes.
At HuaiXai one can get a Visa on Arrival, usually for US$35 (or B1500; the visa cost ranges between $30-$42 US, depending on your nationality. For Swiss, Japanese and South Koreans it’s free. The cost in Euros tends to be the same as the dollar cost, with Lao authorities ignoring exchange rate differentials). It’s a dollar extra on weekends. You only need to complete their form, and present one passport-size picture (or a photocopy of your passport information page) with your passport. There are money changers on the Thai side, so you don’t need to pay in baht (which can save you a reasonable bit). The Laos Visa on Arrival is Single Entry.
Upon exiting Laos Immigration, one can catch a tuk-tuk out to where the bus station is, 7 km south of town, and catch the regular Laos VIP bus - which leaves at 5:00 p.m. everyday. This VIP Bus has been running from HuayXai to LuangPrabang for over a year.
A warning: on arriving in Houay Xai, you might be approached by touts asking about your next destination. If you answer Luang Prabang, you may be pressured to reserve a ticket on a VIP bus, because the bus is invariably “sold out”. The ticket offered will be priced at something ridiculously high, perhaps 210,000-260,000 kip. Upon arriving at the bus station, you’ll be handed a ticket with the actual price, 145,000 kip, on it! At the bus station you can get a ticket all the way to Vientiane for 210,000 kip.
The local bus to Luang Prabang is about US$12 (110000 kip) at the station itself, a couple bucks more when arranged at a guesthouse or through an agent. They’ll claim the trip is 10 hours, but often turns out to be 15. The bus station is 7km from the town. However, if you buy the ticket at the bus station rather than through your guesthouse or agent then the price is lower (perhaps 145,000 kip, around US $14.50). You are told the journey is 10 hours but it can turn out to be 15 hours or more, so be prepared. Local buses leave 9 a.m. and either 12:30 or 2 p.m., and cost 60,000 kip at the station. From a guest house you might choose to pay 95,000 kip (about 350 baht) for a “package” including the 10 minute tuk-tuk ride to the bus station (usually only about 10,000 kip). There’s also the option of going by songthaew to LuangNamTha - they leave when filled, from early morning to after midnight, and cost about US$7. The hotels in Luang Namtha said to be clean and cheap.
The local buses have a lunch stop along the way. The road (Hwy. 3) has been completely sealed, but some big sections in the middle have been churned up by trucks, which adds time to the trip. From LuangNamTha, it’s about 300 km. further to LuangPrabang (on Hwy. 13). From LuangNamtha to UdomXai the road has recently been resurfaced, but work is still being done on the verges. From UdomXai to PakBeng, only about 80 km., the road is bad, and that section often takes about three hours. Various obstacles may occur elsewhere, but there haven’t been any reports of Farang getting killed by bandits for several years now.
The area traversed is scenic, rural, and mountainous. The scenery is reportedly much better than the LuangPrabang - Vientienne route, but some areas are just rubber plantations, and about half the bus trip (or more) takes place at night. On one’s own, one can make stops, for instance, at “Gibbon Experience” in Don Chai, Bokeo Province, where you can stay in tree-houses and glide along zip-lines to view some of the last black-cheeked gibbons in Laos. There are also many tribal peoples, from about 30 ethnicities, including Khmu, Hmong, Lao Loum, Lahu, Akha, Pu Tai, Phou Noy, and Tai Lue. Driving on one’s own can be arranged, but as driving is on the right (as opposed to the left in Thailand), and you need to make local insurance arrangements, that’s of questionable advisability (much better for large parties than small).
For cycling, it depends on how well the hard-top has weathered, since it was last re-surfaced. It can be done, but there’s a lot of dust, and LuangNamTha to OudomXai can be quite bad.
HouayXai’s tiny airport has service to and from Luang Prabang and also Vientiane (about US$ 46 and $88, respectively). There’s also Lao Aviation service at LuangNamTha.
Arriving back to Thailand overland can mean that you will be given only a tourist visa, valid for just fourteen days.
Bangkok Post reports (http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/394778/new-loei-luang-prabang-bus-route, © Post Publishing PCL) "New Loei-Luang Prabang bus route Published: 13 Feb 2014 at 09.03Online news: Local News The Transport Company in Thailand has joined with Naluang Company in Laos to launch a new public bus service, Route 14, to link Loei with Luang Prabang.
The journey takes about nine hours and covers a distance of 395km. “By linking these historic and picturesque regions, tourists and travellers have a new, affordable way of exploring some of Southeast Asia's cultural gems. They can do it with utmost convenience and comfort,” said the Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor Thawatchai Arunyik. The Transport Company uses an air-conditioned bus with 38 seats for the new service. The bus departs from Loei Bus Terminal daily at 8am and the return trip from Luang Prabang is at 7am every day. The bus also makes one stop at Xayaburi where an Elephant Conservation Centre is located. A one-way ticket to Luang Prabang is 700 baht and 175,000 kip to Loei. If one wants to get off at Xayaburi, a one-way trip is priced at 500 baht or 125,000 kip and the travel time is s about six hours. Call the Transport Company Call centre on 1490 or Loei Bus Terminal on 042-811-706.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Why Opening Myanmar to the West is Bad.
In a word – Monsanto. Here in ChiangRai, we still have bees and butterflies, pollinators. We, and everyone everywhere, need them. In China, they’re now often pollinating by hand. Without a large pool of poorly paid and desperate people, that would make the price of fruit (among other things) exorbitant.
The root (and trunk) of the problem is that the “scientists” (engineers) producing genetically modified seed have neglected to consider important interface mechanisms of the natural world. Just as genes function through mechanisms in their genetic sheaths (which have yet to be modified), nothing stands alone or operates alone. It’s like the “domino effect” – change one piece, and a long chain of subsequent activity becomes affected. Much as we digest with the aid of bacteria, plants propagate themselves with the aid of non-plant life-forms (insects, birds, worms). And corporate greed has been blind to these realities.
And corporate greed is the reason the opening of Myanmar may prove even worse than the horrific genocidal activity of the military regime there. Even with human mine detectors, rampant poverty and extensive fighting, the village community has thrived throughout what once was well-known as Burma. People there look out for each other, co-operate in their work and celebrations, and have loving families.
With the coming of “development” there is usually increased social alienation, and curtailing of extended social connectivity. People become in competition with each other: individualized units for production and consumers subject to the manipulations of advertising.
“Western multinational corporations, and American empire, are desperate to continue on a course of expansion, despite that there remains hardly any potential remaining for that. This is also a “domino effect” – which needs to be stopped before all of our dominos have fallen. The less humanity retains connection to its past, the less future it has.
The root (and trunk) of the problem is that the “scientists” (engineers) producing genetically modified seed have neglected to consider important interface mechanisms of the natural world. Just as genes function through mechanisms in their genetic sheaths (which have yet to be modified), nothing stands alone or operates alone. It’s like the “domino effect” – change one piece, and a long chain of subsequent activity becomes affected. Much as we digest with the aid of bacteria, plants propagate themselves with the aid of non-plant life-forms (insects, birds, worms). And corporate greed has been blind to these realities.
And corporate greed is the reason the opening of Myanmar may prove even worse than the horrific genocidal activity of the military regime there. Even with human mine detectors, rampant poverty and extensive fighting, the village community has thrived throughout what once was well-known as Burma. People there look out for each other, co-operate in their work and celebrations, and have loving families.
With the coming of “development” there is usually increased social alienation, and curtailing of extended social connectivity. People become in competition with each other: individualized units for production and consumers subject to the manipulations of advertising.
“Western multinational corporations, and American empire, are desperate to continue on a course of expansion, despite that there remains hardly any potential remaining for that. This is also a “domino effect” – which needs to be stopped before all of our dominos have fallen. The less humanity retains connection to its past, the less future it has.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
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
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
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