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.
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