91 year old Thai village grandmother: "It's all our fault"

She was already, in Thai terms, an old grandmother when I came the first time to Bu Hua Chang, fifty years ago this month. The Thai never seem to be very aware of just how old they are, but I make her age to be 91 years. She is a central part of our little neighborhood in the village, sitting in the public space on an ancient wood platform that seems to be reserved for women and children, busy with her little betel nut kit the way old people have been for recorded time, always a calm and quiet presence in the group of women and kids that sit under a big tamarind tree on this vacant lot in our neighborhood. Dah and I enjoy visiting her and take encouragement from her bright conversation, she is twenty to forty years out ahead of us.

I ask her, “Grandmother do you think life was better in the old days or now?” Several of my neighbors are quietly observing this exchange.

“Old days,” she says. After thinking a bit and cutting some new pieces of betel nut.

“And Grandmother, I remember there were so many big trees in the forest above the village before we moved the village to build the dam, and there was water in the Lam Pra Plerng then even in the dry season. I know you remember too.”

She thinks a bit. “Yes, too many people came here, and we cut the trees as if it was the same as the old days, we didn’t know what we were doing.” The Thai have a remarkable capacity for accepting responsibility, blame is rarely heard. I read of a man who was struck down by a drunk driver but refused to take even insurance money for his medical expenses. He figured it must have been just punishment for his past wrongs.

Isan maid beats out Hi-So Bangkok ladies in beauty contest

In a surprising discovery, we determined that a humble maid from Isan trumped a group of would-be movie stars from the Bangkok hi-so establishment. The whole thing was captured in a wonderful video clip by the great film maker and war hero Merian Cooper, who is best known for his famous 1926 release King Kong. 

Cooper was one of the earliest American expatriates to fall in love with Thailand. When he was not flying flimsy planes and being shot down and imprisoned in various wars, three or four of them, he amused himself by making movies. His most famous film was the 1926 original King Kong, but shortly before that project he came to Thailand and made a film called Chang,  about elephants, combining real action scenes of elephants, tigers, and Thai villagers.

We can't be absolutely sure that Cooper was the one who made another wonderful short film of Thailand for the Bell  and Howell movie camera company, although it was made at the same time as Chang, 1926.The name of this film is "In Siamese society"  and it is supposed to be about a tea and betel nut party of fashionable hi so ladies in Bangkok at that time. But during the course of the film the filmmaker became bored with the ladies and much more interested in the maid, an upcountry girl, probably from Isan. So where as most of the film is about a lot of bowing and smiling between rich ladies the best part is about this wonderful servant girl, whom we see here doing her morning ablutions.

The choicest bits of the clip and the Chang movie can be seen at 

Film clip "A Thai Woman Every Day"

Future of Thai fashion under Suthep government?

It might surprise urban Thai, some of whom know more of cellphones and imported cars than they know of the country’s history and traditions, that the village tradition is quite relaxed when it comes to bodily exposure. Many older women went bare-breasted even when I first came here in the 1960s. The traditional “commoner” dress a century ago makes it clear that the top was put on only for the purpose of the photograph. Given that the face, neck, and chest is the hottest part of the body, full exposure meant more comfort in the warm weather.

It is amusing to me that this old style was banned by the political leader Phibun in and during WW2, who aspired to a Musollini  style of government within what he expected would be an Asian Japanese empire. “Proper” western style was required of women:

The people of Thailand must maintain national prestige ... by not dressing in improper manners which will damage the prestige of the country,e.g., wearing loose-ended sarongs, wearing only underpants, wearing sleeping garments, wearing loincloths, wearing no blouse or shirt, women wearing only undershirt or wrap-around ... and must maintain proper etiquette [by refraining from] unnecessary noise or improper language or behavior which ridicule those who try to promote national customs.

Some Thai history professors are today claiming that the current call for unelected "peoples government" is very similar to the call by Benito Mussolini in 1938, much copied and admred by the Thai Prime Minister Phibun in those same years.. What might the impact be in Thai fashion?

Dress required by law by royal decree in 1941. Bangkok Thai were to wake up one morning to face a government command that all women were required to wear hats like these. This is the same time as Thai were instructed to greet each other with "Sawatdee" an entirely made-up phrase previously unknown in Thailand, where the Lao expression "Sabai dee" was generally used.

What I mean to say here is that aristocracy as currently proposed can have some unexpected consequences.

Happy Thai police women abandon CBD in grim development

AP Photo, AsianCorrespondent.com

Last week it appeared that the showdown between Thai protesters and the police was ending amicably. These happy faces are Thai police women saying goodbye to protesters leaving their compound just a week ago.

Now this week (Tuesday) amidst growing concern over anarchy Thai protesters refuse to abandon their takeover of the central city and Thai police have abandoned the area, and their leader, Suthep, proposes to eliminate the Thai police altogether. Protesters say they are not interested in elections and instead want some kind of "appointed" government. NYTimes reporter Thomas Fuller today has this to say about conditions in the central city:

Fearing confrontation with protesters, police forces withdrew from the area, leaving demonstrators to direct tangled traffic at intersections. Trash built up on sidewalks, motorcycles ignored traffic rules even more than usual, cars triple-parked with impunity and protesters erected barriers to roads they wanted closed off. Amid this barely controlled chaos, the way forward for Thailand remained unclear.

All of this raises a likelihood of serious future conflict between the Thai Capital, which is against the present government, and the greater mass of rural people who have consistently supported the populist politician Thaksin whose sister is the present Prime Minister.