History lessons. That’s what you’ve got to take a lot of if you want
to understand Thailand in any significant way because the Thais themselves
seem to live wholly in the present. In Europe and the Islamic countries
you can feel the soft texture of history as it covers caravan routes,
old churches and mosques. In Israel independence was only in 1948 and
yet half the people you bump into are part of some legend or other.
Even in India where the ruins are crumbling to the ground and half buried
under piles of plastic bags there are still ruins and these ruins are
part of a living dynamic, if generally unpleasant, present.
In Thailand there’s none of that. Maybe it’s because most structures
were built out of wood and so little of the great old houses survive.
Maybe because in their forced march to economic success the Thais have
said their farewells to a past too expensive to maintain. In Thailand
everything is Disney fresh. If it’s not plastic and concrete it’s not
happening. A ride out into the countryside is refreshing because then
you get to see houses built at the turn of the century, the 20th
century, and you get that lived-in feel to things again.
It’s the same with music. In every country we have passed through there
is always at least one radio station playing traditional music. Ah,
we remember Greek radio! Today the Thais listen to a kind of sterile
musak which would be perfectly at home in an elevator. No stress music.
At night the streets of every city and town become alive with the competing
nebulousness of monotonic noise from different koroake bars which are
basically whore-houses with microphones and speakers. The girls stand
on stage wearing very short skirts and sing off tune into the mike,
hoping she sounds romantic enough for some client to invite her over
for a drink or more. There’s a sad desperate quality to the whole scene
that makes you understand that any music with any life at all in it
would be unbearable in such a situation. Better to be anaesthetised,
better to be lulled than forced to face the reality behind such places.
We would like to hear some traditional Thai music and see traditional
Thais dance but we know we’re going to have to go to a tourist park
to do so. C’est la vie.
Mair and Marie-Do
Photo galery 