We left the Tea Soldiers of Mae Salong and headed to Mei
Sai, arriving at my host grandparent’s hardware shop/home at about 9 at night.
Even though Mei Sai is not that much larger than Nan, it has a decidedly more
urban feel to it. While there are very few standalone homes, almost every
single building is a business of some sort, which the owners live above.
Visiting Mei Sai last time with Note (incorrectly called Virat in the Trip
within a Trip post), we stayed in a hotel, but this time I was in a room on the
third floor of my grandparent’s hardware shop.
The main attraction of Mei Sai is the exit. Specifically,
the border to Burma. Mei Sai’s main street runs directly to the checkpoint and
during the day it’s a near constant flow between the two countries. Thais will
buy their groceries in Burma because it’s cheaper, tourists will spend the day
shopping in Burma and sleep in Thailand because it’s more comfortable, and
Burmese people will work in Thailand before returning home. I made it into
Burma for a day, but in this post I’d like to talk about Mei Sai.
Seeing Mei Sai again was a real treat for me. The first time
I was there I’d been in Thailand for less than a week. Everything I saw in my
head was just sort of mangled into this singular image of “Thailand”, and I
didn’t really get any taste of the local Mei Sai flavor. The population here is
decidedly more diverse than Nan. While there are mostly Buddhist Thais, there
are still a large amount of Burmese, Chinese Muslims, and the various native
populations that are collectively called “Hill Tribes”.
I was most surprised at seeing the Muslims. Going through
the morning market I saw a number of women with headscarves and even a couple
of full-on Burkas. I was astounded that I hadn’t noticed this before. Thailand,
for all of its graces, can be a bit racist towards Muslims. There’s been some
violence between Buddhist and Muslims in the south, and before coming to Mei
Sai I hadn’t seen a single Muslim person in Thailand. Here they are pretty
prevalent, and cut a distinct image from the other Thais. I mentioned the
women’s attire, and the men sport lush beards. Having had to shave so as to fit
in here, I can’t help but envy those guys. Sigh…
Mei Sai has a booming market that almost everyone in the
town goes to. It’s where you buy groceries, clothes, or household items. While
the soil around the area is fertile, it’s largely used for cash crops like tea
and tobacco, so the food is all concentrated into this market. Nan has a couple
of different markets around town throughout the day, but the one in Mei Sai is
huge, easily taking up an entire city block.
My host father spent the morning and then visited a jade
factory owned by a Rotarian. It was a really impressive operation, combining
the highly industrialized rock carving with the more finite work of the
artists. The factory produces statues of the Buddha, in his trademark kneeling
position. The Theravada Buddha (which is the skinny one, the fat one comes from
China, I believe) is an image attached to Thailand. You see statues and
paintings in every temple, school, restaurant, and home. It’s everywhere.
It’s always struck me as a pretty stoic figure. A delicate,
but composed, deity casting his all-seeing, all-knowing presence over you.
While Buddhism is technically an atheistic religion, in its practice the Buddha
is a god. Thais pray to him, go to temple with offerings to secure good luck,
and every month send messages to the deceased in a procedure at the temple.
At the same time, the Buddha has a very human story of
enlightenment, self-sacrifice, and teaching that is inherent to the religion.
I’ve always struggled with this part. Simply put, I can’t really see the Buddha
as a person. He’s an icon, an ideal, but not really a person.
The jade factory was an insightful experience. Seeing the origins of this image, built by many of the uneducated lower class that the Buddha sought to help in his time, humanized him for me. Before the statues are given details, they contain the rough shape of his face, crude and imperfect. It is through the work of others that the perfectly impassive deity is formed. The statue is born of rock, of the earth, not the heavens. Whatever powers have been given to him today, the Buddha is a man. An incredibly wise man, whose teachings have probably gone farther than he could have imagined, but man none the less.
The jade factory was an insightful experience. Seeing the origins of this image, built by many of the uneducated lower class that the Buddha sought to help in his time, humanized him for me. Before the statues are given details, they contain the rough shape of his face, crude and imperfect. It is through the work of others that the perfectly impassive deity is formed. The statue is born of rock, of the earth, not the heavens. Whatever powers have been given to him today, the Buddha is a man. An incredibly wise man, whose teachings have probably gone farther than he could have imagined, but man none the less.
Leaving the half-finished Buddha statues that would be
finding their way around the country soon, my host father and I hit up an
awesome Muslim restaurant. For the past couple months I’ve been pretty much
eating exclusively Thai food, with the occasional American meal in there, since
ethnic food isn’t really available. This isn’t a problem, since it involves
eating a lot of Thai food. But eating Muslim style beef-fried rice (no pork at
a Muslim restaurant) was a triumph for my palette.
Mei Sai thoroughly explored and enjoyed, my host father and
I went to Burma.
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