Election Night

The floor’s cement, the walls are wooden planks. A gong bangs, a horn’s wails, and there’s a heavy chanting passing around. Dig the guy dragging on what can only be called a bamboo tobacco bong. I’m in a Hmong village about 10 km’s outside of my town, and tonight we’re praying to the Old Gods.

You can see posters of them on the wall. They’re wearing stately Chinese robes and bare human forms, excluding the ones with green or blue skin. Some of the Hmong worshippers sport traditional clothing over T-Shirts and jean, the silver jewelry jangling while they sway and pray.

The village’s name is Ban Nam Gohn, which translates into River Bend Village. Hmong have a long history of working silver, and some enterprising Bangkokians send gold to be shaped in this village. They practice a version of the Dao religion, and have posters with Chinese characters hanging next to the gods. I think this is part of the reason my host dad has brought me here tonight. He practices Buddhism, but feels a strong connection to his Chinese heritage. He’s officially Thai, and would no doubt call himself that, but I still get the feeling he finds a kindred spirit in the ambiguous nationality of the Hmong people.

Tonight is more than just a religious gathering, and arguably it serves more of a social purpose. Men talk their patriarchal business while women titter in the corner and serve food. It’s revealed that I speak Thai, and soon I’m chatting with some of the men. Their first language is Hmong, but most speak Thai or the Passa-Muang (local northern dialect), which I speak a bit of. A few even speak broken English, having spent time in the Sates. One of them asks about how much it would cost him to fly to Sacramento and see his daughter’s family. His face falls when I give him the lowest reasonable estimate I can.

Outside of the makeshift temple, Thailand is raging. You’ve probably heard something about the protests, and I wrote about marching with them over hear. That’s a thick issue to tackle, and the simplest summary is this: both sides are corrupt, both sides are led by some very power-hungry people, and most of their supporters don’t understand the issues at hand. But the government supports democracy and the protestors are interfering with the election, so that tips my support to the government.

That same election is happening tonight. Voting was pretty easy in my town, seeing as most everyone is a Red-Shirt and supports the government. In the south polls are being blocked off, and Bangkok is in a state-of-emergency/state-of-mess right now. But it’s easy to forget that in Ban Nam Gohn. The people live quietly, loosely attached to Nan, much less Bangkok. They carry a religion separate from the rest of Thailand, they have their own (backwards) standards on how to treat women, and they speak their own language.

I won’t say that this detachment from the broader world is always a good thing. But it’s a more than reasonable stance for these people. They don’t care about Bangkok power struggles because they’re unaffected. The world is only moving closer together, and there will come day when they will need to care.

But that day is not here yet. Tonight they laugh, the pray, and they live. Their way.

Flood Fighters

I’ve talked before about the volunteer efforts of the faculty at RMUTL Nan (aka the Farming University), especially with the rural population of northern Thailand. Last week I got to participate in such an effort when I went to build some dams in a village 20 kilometers outside of Nan. The German AFS volunteer I’m with and I went along with about a hundred students from the university, which was pretty fun. Despite the name, many of the students at the Farming University are in nonagricultural majors. There’s a large business department, and most of the students we were with last week were studying accounting. Accounting is considered somewhat of an “effeminate” major, so we were building dams with a bunch of chicks. Score.

It was a sizable initiative, with our hundred students and maybe another hundred volunteers and farmers from the region. Before enrolling in the Farming University I did some work with a sustainable farming/community development office, and there were members of this group there as well. It was a motley crew of concerned citizens, capable farmers, a couple of farangs, and we were ready to build some dams.

Or so we thought. I’ve mentioned before the large importance of taking photos in Thai culture. This is just as prevalent among Thai politics, and possibly more so. And when your bringing students and farmers together to generously help impoverished villagers, well, that’s just too juicy of a photo-op for an ambitious politician to pass up.

And so we found all 200 or so of ourselves sitting around and waiting for the governor of Nan province to come. No expense was spared in creating a photogenic environment, with a stage, banner, and blessed gong brought through the mountain roads to make a display. Comically impressive, really, and most everyone was grumbling for a good 40 minutes until the governor arrived.

I was mentally prepared to see some credit-hogging fat cat, cruel and dismissive of everyone who was going to actually build the damn dams emerge from the entourage of vehicles he came in. But I’d be lying if I said the man wasn’t charming.

He had a self-effacing manner, and didn’t seem to take himself too seriously. He wished luck to the students and discussed the harvest with the farmers. Upon seeing the two farangs there, he made conversation in capable English, asking me where I was from and bantered about the Bundesliga with my German cohort.

He may have come late, he may have done almost nothing when he actually came, but the man had a certain charisma about him, no denying it.

Photos taken and credit distributed, the construction could begin. It was a classic example of Thai ingenuity. We built about 90 small damns, no longer than 6ft or so, along a 100 meter-ish ditch the water would flood during rainy season.

The farmers hacked up the nearest available bamboo stalk with a machete, which we proceeded to hammer into the ground with a wooden club. Once a basic fence was made, we dug dirt and rocks from the ditch and filled the dams in. Easy-peezy lemon squeezy.

The dams finished, we relaxed in the forest. An intrepid (and possibly suicidal) capitalist had driven his motorcycle ice cream cart up the mountain roads to the village and made a killing among the students. We ate Thai ice cream sandwiches, a delicious, if all too literally named treat. It’s a white piece of bread folded around a scoop of coconut ice cream and peanuts. It’s also mighty tasty, and a worthy end to a damn fine adventure.

I don’t have any photos of the dam construction, but I’ve been taking a fair amount of photos while I’m here. Most of them are going on my flickr. You can take a look at 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/100169753@N08 

Some of the recent additions include cooking class at the University, Hmong New Year, and Kid’s Day at the University.

Bangkok Burning

About three weeks ago, I went on the Rotary District 3360 trip in Central Thailand. It was a truly incredible week; the exchange students I was with are all marvelous people who have enriched my life by knowing them. It was also far too large of an experience to try and capture fully on this blog. I think it’s something I may reference and if I have opportunities to bring it up in other blog posts, I will. In short though, it was just damn solid trip with some excellent folks.

One of our destinations was Bangkok. Bangkok has been caught up in the heat of anti-government protests, which I’ve been alluding to without properly explaining.

I could make this post about the issues, but I would rather focus on the experience of the rallies. The only background you need is this: The current government is pretty corrupt, led by a wealthy political aristocrat. The protestors are also quite corrupt, and also led by a wealthy political aristocrat. If I had to pick a side, it would be with the government, since it supports democracy (albeit, an extremely sleazy one), while the protestors are advocating for an “unelected people’s council” (standard Orwellian doublethink).

The protestors are based in Bangkok and have a tight lock on the city. Traffic is at a standstill, and many of the government offices have been “occupied”. The streets are filled with people, and there was no way our bus could get through. Just to get to our hotel, we would need to walk past the protests.

The 3360 Rotary exchange coordinator and leader of the trip supports the protests, and decided that we should as well. Avoiding the protests would be impossible; I understand that, there isn’t a street that doesn’t have at least someone there. Buying us all flags and whistles and having us march with the protestors? That might have been avoided. Prudent or not, we were in the protests.

The first thing you notice about the protests is that there are tons of people selling random junk. Some of it applies to the situation (whistles with a Thai-flag pattern lanyard are the fashion item of the protestors), but plenty of it is just random. Clothes, toys, and nonpolitical accessories are available about from someone every twenty feet or so.

The protests are also oppressively loud. Remember the whistles I mentioned earlier? Imagine a few hundred people blowing on them. And we were far from the thick of the protests, where thousands are gathered. That said, aside from whistling, most people simply walk quietly. Slogans aren’t yelled and people aren’t discussing the issues. They just whistle.

I’ve been to one other protest in my life, Occupy MN in Minneapolis. That protest suffered from lack of unity. It was less of a protest than a place where people met to discuss politics, like some kind of radicals’ coffee shop set up in front of city hall.

The Thai anti-government protests are pretty much the opposite of that. It’s a mob. A well behaved, mostly non-violent mob, but a mob nonetheless.

The whistle makes the perfect symbol for the protestors. A whistle makes a single pitch. There is no room for subtlety, for compromise, or for discussion. There is only the shriek, then the moment of thoughtless silence encompassing it.

Graduation at the Farming University

(Editor's note: This post was written a while ago, but I only got around to editing it today. I'm hoping to get more material up, especially some analysis on the political events in Bangkok, but that's going to take a while for me to research properly. In the meantime, please enjoy this lighter material.)

So there was graduation at the Farming University the other day (in this case “the other day” refers to a day over a month ago). Instead of working on mushrooms I got to observe the ceremonies. The morning was a pleasant event, where the graduating students (something like 1400+, I think) took group photos based on their major. It’s truly astonishing the amount of photos Asians is capable of taking. I think it stems not from a love of photography but from having photos of themselves taken. Because Thais are really generous and bring a communal spirit to everything they do, it’s social norm to take many photos of other people so that they’ll take pictures of you. As a result, many photos are taken, and it’s this drive to the point where the diminishing marginal returns of getting a photo of you taken are below the effort that you have to exert to take a photo of someone else.

While the group photos were happening, students and their families were taking photos together around displays that had been set up featuring each major. The engineering faculty had large Styrofoam pieces cut into the letters “Engineering” with cardboard wrenches and hammers, farming had pictures of plants, and the English Major’s display had a couple of bicycles leaning against haystacks, symbolizing the longstanding connection between rural cyclists and the English language.

The photo-shoot having concluded, the actual graduation happened.

Sort of.

Because Mahawittyalay Rajamongala Lanna, Nan (University of the Auspicious King Lanna, Nan) is a state-run University, all of the graduating students receive their diploma from a member of the royal family. In this case, it would be princess Sirindhorn. Princess Sirindhorn is the Monarchy’s representative in the North. She has a palace in Nan that she heads to every year (rumors abound about when she’ll come, but word is that she’ll be here in February) and directs a number of charity efforts in the region. She’s probably the most capable of the King’s children, and I honestly think that she’ll succeed him, despite being the youngest and a female. A few years back the King changed the inheritance laws to allows a woman to succeed him, and Sirindhorn has done the most representation of the Monarchy abroad.

But why is the (I would argue) Heir-Apparent in the North? See, the North is the political base of the Red Shirt party, the closest thing Thailand has to an anti-monarchy movement. Don’t get me wrong, the Red Shirts still adore the King, everyone in Thailand does. That said, they’re also big fans of this guy Thaksin Shinawatra, and he and the King have a less than friendly relationship. But that’s a blog post for another day (one I should write soon, the recent protests in Bangkok have really been heating up). By fostering a positive relationship between the next queen and the North, the King is trying to keep Thaksin in check for another generation.

But back at the ranch (technically farming University) the students were preparing to receive their diploma from the Princess. They rounded them up in the gym, all 1400 of them, and they sat and watched a movie on how to bow and take their diploma from the Princess. Then every single student practiced with one of the teachers on stage. All 1400+ of them, in full graduation robes (which, by the way, are much swankier than ours in the US) bowing, taking three steps to the “Princess” grabbing their “diploma” bowing again and taking three backwards steps. All 1400+ of them. I sat on the sidelines and worked on the “Farmer Frank” blog post, and most of the teachers used the rehearsal to get work done or play on their phone.

Afterwards, the students and teachers had dinner together, there was live music, and it was pretty pleasant. A fun time was had by all.

Flickr

Hey everyone, I've got my flickr up and running. Flickr only lets you upload 200 pictures at a time so I have slightly less than half of them up. Please give them a look and I'll try to get the rest up this weekend. You can check out my photostream at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/100169753@N08/

North by Northwest Part III: Burma

Going to Burma was a bit frustrating. I’ve spent three months in Thailand trying my best to understand the culture, learn the language, and feel at home here. I get my passport stamped, take thirty paces, get my passport stamped again, and all that hard work is gone. I’m another tourist here, with nothing to set me apart from every other white guy wandering around. I can’t even say thank you to the security guard. It’s irritating, but I had my host dad with me so that gave me a bit of street cred (I’d like to think). Frustrating, but seeing Burma was absolutely worth it.

Burma is on rough times. It’s dirtier than Thailand, and the main tourist attraction of Taichilek is the copy market, where you can pick up designer clothes, dvds, and wristwatches straight from the sweatshops of Thailand. All “authentic” of course, as the vendors will inform you. It’s a predatorily capitalist place. Within minutes of stepping though the border I had people trying to sell me playing cards, alcohol, cigarettes, and one woman even offered me Viagra (don’t really like what you’re implying there, lady). While depressing, I realize that every great country has been where Burma is today. 150 years ago China was just a funnel for tea and opium, in 20 years I’ll be lucky if I can get a job doing laundry in Beijing. That said, how do you retain a sense of cultural pride when the selling point of your country is “Hey, stuff’s cheaper here!”

The copy market is the main attraction of Taichilek, but my host father and I wanted to explore at least some of the town, so we rented a motorcycle wagon (the modern man’s carriage) for about 6 dollars. I saw a couple of other farangs (whiteys) doing the same, and I think the desire to buy a tour comes a bit out of guilt. We’re they’re mostly for the copy market, to find cheaper versions of what we can buy at home, but we like to tell ourselves that we went to Burma in pursuit of such things as “culture” and “experience”.

I won’t say the motorcycle ride was a waste. Far from it. We saw a gorgeous Burmese Buddhist temple, which was built in the Chinese architecture style, surrounded by impressive mountains. I’ve referred to “Chinese Architecture” a few times without defining it, simply because I’m not knowledgeable enough to do so. So when I say “Chinese Architecture”, just think of the Forbidden City, and that’s the general style of the buildings I saw.

While we were there, my host dad and I watched some child monks singing. It was beautiful, and really pleasant just to sit in back and listen. About a dozen farangs joined us (“groan”), and I heard them speaking Spanish. Frank Meyer, master of languages and schmoozing extraordinaire introduced himself. Or at he least tried to.

“Hola, Pohm Choo Frank-” Wait, that’s Thai. Try again.

“Hola, yo mah-jauck Pratede-” Dammnit, Thai again.

“Sawatdee-” Admit defeat and use English.

So I’m starting to forget my Spanish. There’s pretty much nobody for me to practice with, and absolutely no practical application for it, so that’s to be expected. It’s a good skill to have in the States, so I might try to set up some way to practice, but for now, I’m fine to let it slide.

Cultural quotient for the day satisfied, my host father and I went to the copy market. It was pretty surreal. Seeing designer clothes and expensive watches in these little stalls was a far cry from the Manhattan department stores I usually picture them sitting in. Though both places are just a market, really. Just a difference in glitz.

There’s a traditional market that the Burmese go to, where you can buy groceries and clothes. It’s a lower rung of knock-offs than the copy-market, and it’s here that you can actually buy actually Burmese goods. Tradition has been relegated to the lower class market. Burmese don’t shop in the copy-market. I scored some great deals on dvds at the copy market (I won’t go into details, but they would have cost me a couple hundred dollars in the Sates, and I spent about 60$). The language options vary between English audio with Thai subtitles, English and Thai audio with Thai subtitles, and some of them even have Chinese and French. But no Burmese. The vendors can’t understand the movies they’re selling.

There’s a statue about a block away from the Copy-Market. It’s a monument to King Bayinnaung, who united the Burmese kingdom to cover much of Southeast Asia. He wasn’t of noble blood, but his abilities as a soldier and administrator allowed him to marry into the Royal family, and succeeding as a king. At the time it was completely unprecedented in Burmese history, but so great was the character of this man that he could overcome centuries of inheritance law. The park around this statue is empty; there are bits of trash lying about, and my host dad and I were the only people who came to take a look.

North by Northwest Part 2: Mei Sai Revisited

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.

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.