ABAC Journal September-December, 1999

INTRODUCTION

First of all, I would like to define the Asian Diaspora in the Thai context. The Thai Diaspora is a rare species, because Thai writers normally do not see the necessity to communicate in any other language than their own. However, there is a phenomenon we could define as Contemporary Thai Writing in English, and my presentation here is meant as an introduction to those works accessible to international readership.

Strictly speaking, there are only two Thais who have written and published literary works in English with some success. One is SP Somtow, or Somtow Sucharitkul who was born in Bangkok, educated at Eton and St. Catarine's College, Cambridge, and belongs to, what may loosely be defined as, the privileged class. In his ancestry mention is made of a grandfather whose two sisters were married to King Rama VI. Somtow's work include avant-garde musical compositions and 27 genre novels. His most recent novel, Jasmine Nights, has earned much acclaim by the international community in Bangkok. He commutes between his home in Bangkok and Los Angeles.

The other writer Pira Sudham, who hails from the poorest part of Thailand, the Northeastern plains, discovered poetry and his love for English as a young boy minding the buffaloes in the fields. He later won a prestigious scholarship to study English literature at Victoria University, New Zealand. Pira Sudham has lived in Australia, England and Hongkong, and today he maintains homes in Bangkok, and his native village in Napo, Buriram. He was nominated to the Nobel Prize for Literature, and has been singled out for his creation of grassroots characters hitherto unknown in Thai literature.

For my presentation on the topic, "Themes, Characters and Influence in Contemporary Thai Writing in English," I have selected Pira Sudham's novel Monsoon Country and three short stories by Thai authors who do not write in English, but whose work has been translated into English. In this way I hope to present a broader spectrum of Thai Writing in English.

The first author, M.R. Kukrit Pramoj is probably the most prolific writer with such well-known novels as The Four Reigns and Red Bamboo. Ussiri Dhammachote and Chart Kobchitti belong to a younger group of writers. Both have won the coveted South East Asia Writers Award (SEAwrite), and English translations of their work keep appearing. It is Pira Sudham, however, who writes entirely in English. His novels and short stories are full of characters who toil on the land, who slave in the cities or fight for survival in foreign countries. As a Thai well versed in English literature, he is probably the most self-conscious writer to whom the themes of East-West confrontation, home-coming and alienation come easy.

It is perhaps proper, in this context, to give a brief background on Thai literary tradition in general.

BACKGROUND

Much of Thai literary creation draws on religious inspiration and sources. In his book, Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation-State, the American scholar Charles F. Keyes, traces Thai literary history back to the beginning of traditional Buddhist culture.

From the time spanning the establishment of the Sukhothai Kingdom to the Rattanakosin Period (when Bangkok became the capital of Thailand), as Keyes notes, "monks still composed the majority of the literate public, and many of the first works printed were religious texts." (186)

Thai scholar Nitaya Masavisut, commenting on Thai literary traditions, also mentions the tradition of Royal patronage as an impetus to literary creation.

Like their predecessor, King Narai, the Rattanakosin monarchs before the change from absolute to constitutional monarchy were directly involved in artistic creation. Their courts were often used as arenas for courtiers to display their poetic talents. (3)

Nitaya Masavisut notes that the period before the Revolution of 1932 saw many changes in literary activities.

The period has been considered the dawn of modern Thai literature, since it was then that new literary genres and more types of drama were introduced or adapted from the West. Prose emerged as dominant means for creative expressions and literary journals and magazines gradually replaced the court as centres of literary activities. (5-6)

Thus, literary creation was passed on from the clergy, to the court, to the Western educated elite, but it must also be kept in mind that many changes were wrought by the new printing technologies and the dissemination of secular education just as much as elsewhere in the world. Today's literary scene in Thailand might resemble that of others where writers begin to doubt the survival of the book. Indeed, what literary scholar and critic, Professor Chetana Nagavajra, has to say of the literary scene does not bode well.

The novels in Thailand are dead and gone. They are no longer written to be read but to be seen. Perhaps writers have to adapt themselves to this new phenomenon of "visual tradition," and find some other ways to convey their messages to the audiences. (2)

This briefly is the background and dilemma that presents itself to the writer of today, and the question is: If the Thai novel is dead, is the Thai novel in English stillborn?

Fortunately for Thailand and the Thai literary scene, there seems to be a great demand for anything produced in print, not necessarily books, but the more ephemeral Press.

Keyes in a study of the development of the press in Thailand notes that the interest in both Thai newspapers and the English language Press has grown in the last 25 years, and this not only as a result of the growing numbers of foreigners residing in Thailand. Comparing Thai-language and English-language dailies, Keyes finds that:

The well-educated sector of Thai society is likely to turn to one of the language newspapers published in Thailand, and especially to the Bangkok Post or its chief competitor, The Nation Review for such news as well as other versions of local news. It is estimated that about three-quarters of the people who read English-language newspapers in Thailand are native speakers of Thai. (194)

Another phenomenon observed since the publication of Keyes's book is the sporadic growth of Western education through international programs offered by Thai universities, or those universities where the medium of instruction is English. Therefore, teachers are actively engaged in the process of creating bilinguals who are being waned away from their traditional oral culture to the western culture of literacy and the book. It must be understood that reading about their own culture and sensitivities in English is an entirely new experience to Thais.

What exactly accounts for the unusual hunger for Thai literary works in English is hard to explain, but French critic Marcel Barang has just embarked on the translation and publication of a book entitled, the 20 best novels of Thailand. Translations of Thai authors are published regularly and sold as soon as they appear.

Some of the above comments provide but a glimpse of the Thai literary scene. What defines a Thai writer is not easy to say. A study conducted by Herbert P. Phillips, an American scholar of Thai literature, has revealed that most Thai Writers "see themselves as inordinately busy people who in addition to being writers are also variously teachers, farmers, bureaucrats, university rectors, generals, prime ministers, revolutionaries, and the like." (39)

M.R. Kukrit Pramoj

One such writer was M.R. Kukrit Pramoj. He belongs to the so-called "Royal Ancestors," a literary term for a certain group of writers with Western education. He was also a banker, businessman, editor, dancer, and actor before he became Prime Minister of Thailand for a short term. His novel, Si Phaendin (Four Reigns), is the history of a noble family during the period 1890-1946. It first appeared in 1953, and has been reprinted many times. The other prominent work is Phai Daeng (Red Bamboo), and Keyes comments:

Red Bamboo, a novel modeled on Giovanni Guareshi's Don Camillo, tells the confrontation between the Buddhist tradition of rural society and communist ideology as personified by two friends, one a Buddhist abbot and the other an ordinary villager…. Despite its political message, Red Bamboo represents one of the first significant efforts, albeit only a partially successful one, to construct a fictional world based on rural Thai society. (189)

What comes across strongly in Keyes's comment is that M.R. Kukrit's writing was informed by his vast knowledge of literary forms and traditions of the West.

It is in this sense that I speak of influence in contemporary Thai writing. M.R. Kukrit was a striking example, and to underscore the point made here, I would like to discuss a short piece, entitled "My Dog is Missing" which first appeared on December 11, 1968 in Siam Rath, a Thai language daily of which M.R. Kukrit was the owner/editor. "My Dog is Missing" was the editorial comment of that day.

Phillips, for one, included this short piece of only two printed pages in his anthology, Modern Thai Literature, for what it says about M.R. Kukrit and his role in the Thai society, and must have seen enough literary value in it, both as a personal essay, and as a piece of confessional writing.

In the essay, M.R. Kukrit writes movingly about the loss of his dog by using understatement and factual reporting known to the journalist, beginning thus:

My dog is missing. A black, Thai dog. Male. Thirteen months old. Answers to the name "Sii Mawk." It is nothing extraordinary and it is probably of no important to anyone. But I am more miserable than I can express. Long ago I rejected ambition. Long ago I stopped thinking of rank and admiration, fortune … (111)

Even Phillips could not help noting that the flow of the rhetoric is that of a soliloquy. Indeed, this piece of writing holds more meaning than it would reveal at first. It is easy, for example, to hear the tragic hero's lament over the loss of his companion. All through his grief, however sincere, the writer never loses sight of the aesthetics of writing, and if pain must be expressed, for him, in must come in a suitable artistic form. So, from the beginning, the writer is able to express his great love for the dog through the use of the name "Sii Mawk." In Thai literature Sii Mawk is the mythical horse of the great 18th Century epic hero Khun Phaen, and thus the name expresses the dog's special place in the writer's heart.

The writer states most of the detail in the story matter-of-factly. As a seasoned journalist he was most familiar with the objective style of presenting the news:

"The dog got excited and jumped out of the car on Sukhumvit Road between Soi 14 and Soi 22. The search was in vain." (112)

The account of the events, however, is interspersed with observations of the writer's pain over the loss of the dog, therefore creating an extra-ordinary tension and sense of empathy for the animal.

I already knew that separation from a loved one meant suffering. But when that separation happens to oneself, one is incapable of suppressing one's feelings. (112)

Phillips rightly observes, that this is a reference to the Buddhist premise that if one knows the cause and effect of things, one should be able to handle a situation more effectively, including one's own emotional responses. However, the writer laments, the dog does not have the consolation of being able to take refuge in the Buddha's teachings.

Through literary allusions, the use of symbolism and reference to Thai epic characters, including the teachings of Lord Buddha, the writer transforms, as Phillips sums it up, "a somewhat maudlin issue" into a "perfect way to talk about the ultimate existential loneliness of man and the alienating qualities (including those that are self-inflicted) of Thai life." (108)

For example, reference is made to Marlowe's tragic hero as well. Like Dr. Faustus in Marlowe's play, M.R. Kukrit alludes to the sin of overreaching himself and cries at the price he has to pay. When he says "The loneliness of my heart is beyond measure … because I am still only an ordinary human being" (111) he resembles Dr. Faustus in that he has many achievements to his name, but despite his fame, he has to admit failure. He is like Dr. Faustus who says, "You are Faustus, and still man."

Phillips observes that the "power of the message in this story derives, of course, from the fact, that he [M.R. Kukrit] focuses directly upon himself and his own inner states"…. (109)

Only M.R. Kukrit with his literary panache and rich humanistic background could have turned an editorial into a new literary mode of writing.

Ussari Dhammachote

The next writer in this presentation is also a journalist. He calls himself a newspaperman, and says he writes short stories in his free time. His characters are common people, and a strong social concern is the hallmark of his fiction.

Ussari Dhammachote explains his stance as a champion for the common man thus:

I wish to write about them, about their certain moments in their lives, write in such a way as have the reader take note of them, understand them, and sympathize with them. (174)

His short story "Phi Hae and the Love Letters" is a piece of writing that pits the protagonist against an enemy he does not even perceive, leave alone understand. Although his dilemma is immediately clear to the reader, the hero for a moment never suspects that his lack of education could one day be the cause of great unhappiness in his life.

The story begins thus:

Phi Hae never completed primary school and he didn't know how to read and write. His life was very simple. He grew up on a fishing boat anchored by the shore and he once told me that being able to read books had less importance for him than being able to read the clouds and the colours of the sky, and that the hand that held the pencil for writing was not as important as the hand that held the tapering needle carved from buffalo horn which he used in mending the fishing nets. (175)

It is obvious that the young hero is a child of nature, in fact, there is a strong romantic element in this description.

He ran away from the teacher's cane and from the coaxing of his parents in order to go to the blue waters of the ocean where the sound of the waves was calling him. (175)

The hero's problems, however, begin when he falls in love with a girl from the village. Nature, certainly, would not have stood in their way. He was handsome and diligent, she was sweet and beautiful. But she had been to school, and had set her sight on further studies. It is curious, therefore, that the hero decides to befriend the girl by writing love letters to her.

It is not the plot but the point of view of the story that throws a sophisticated aura over this simple tale of unrequited love. As Phi Hae is unable to read and write he hires a young schoolboy as mediator and thus the story unfold through the eyes of the boy. At first, the schoolboy is made to copy a lover letter from a book entitled "A Guide to Writing Love Letters."

On the cover of the book was a picture of a man and woman hugging each other by the trunk of a coconut tree. (177)

The girl rejects Phi Hae's love letter because she knows it is a copy, but encourages him to write from his heart in a sincere manner. And strangely enough, the love blossoms through the fiction made by the three: the young, handsome fisherman, the lovely educated country girl, and the mediating school boy writing for his fill of sweets.

The love letters from then on become the controlling principle of the story, thus making the reader see the distortion or gap between real experience and the written word.

Ussari Dhammachote, with his degree in mass communication, is not concerned so much with the plot, although he tells the story well. His preoccupation is actually with reality and, indeed, the love letters are only a constructed mediated reality, a sort of substitute for the real experience which is hard enough to express in words, leave alone feel through a mediator.

In the end, the hero must face the reality. He rejects the unreal world of the love letters, tosses them and their author out into the sea. He is left with the rain, the pain, and his tears. The all pervading theme of the short story is not the love angle, or even the disparity between the lover', but the nature of reality – what is real and what is fiction.

Chart Kobchitti

The younger writers' preoccupation is both with the perfection of their craft and the search for modern themes. Like Ussiri Dhammachote, Chart Kobchitti also shows in his work that he is strongly influenced by Western modes of writing. In particular, in "The Personal Knife," the author is able to sustain in his narrative the extended metaphor and powerful symbol of the "personal knife" from the beginning to the end of this rather long short story. The plot evolves around the reactions of three people attending a cannibalistic dinner party. The writer satirizes society by painting a dark picture of a society where the poor live in fear of the rich who eat their fellow human beings in an endeavour to come up in life, to move towards success, so to say.

The story is told by the father of the family who takes his wife and son to a social event, i.e. a grand dinner party which is meant for his son as introduction into the privileged society. The polite conversation and social scene stand in stark contrast to the proceedings that ensue. The qualities which make a person eligible to own a personal knife and become part of the privileged class are described thus:

Lots of people struggled and grabbed wildly in order to get a personal knife. But they were unsuccessful. Some even went so far as selling their parents or their brothers and sisters to get the privilege of possessing a personal knife. A lot more were even willing to live outside the law in order to get a personal knife. But my son probably gave no thought to the trouble those people had to go to. I merely gave him two of my companies and he immediately go the right to possess a personal knife. (144) [Italics mine]

From the start, Chart Kobchitti gives plenty of indications that this is not an ordinary party. While the description of the banquet hall, the lobby and chandeliers are all recognizable scenes in our experience, the fact that the guests come armed with knives is not. Most readers receive their first tremor when they read about the thick carpet which is "blood coloured … waiting to receive the feet of the guests."

Thai readers, in particular, who read the story in the original usuallyexperience a shock here. Instead of the expected 'pig-blood' coloured carpet (a particular shade of red in Thai), they note with some foreboding 'the human-blood' coloured carpet.

The climax of the story is reached with the decision of the idealistic son whose sympathy is with the have-nots and who would like to see a just society. Will he partake of the flesh of the unfortunate victims and assume status in the society or fall down to the level of the down-trodden people and suffer the same fate as they do?

The human and social dilemma is presented through the sharp contrast of the possible and the probable in the narrative, of what could be and what might be, and the particularly shocking imagination of the author.

Apart from the strong social message, the author holds up a mirror urging us to discover truth of our own dark human nature where greed, ambition and illusion are a prison from which it is difficult to extricate ourselves. The author presents thus a picture of a non-win situation, a kind of Catch-22 of our conscience. Satire, black comedy and powerful symbols are the means by which Chart Kobchitti is able to express his social concern as well as the human dilemma in an appropriate artistic form, whether he looks inward, or at the society at large.

Pira Sudham

Pira Sudham is a Thai writer who writes entirely in English, and in a deceptively easy style, conjures up in his novel, Monsoon Country, a picture of rural Thailand where people depend on the seasonal rain to eke out a living by working on the land. This is particularly true in the first part of the novel which describes the childhood of young Prem, the son of poor farmers. The boy is encouraged by an idealistic rural teacher to continue his education in Bangkok.

The second part of the novel is set abroad, in England and Germany respectively, and constitutes the boy's experiences and moral growth, but not without going through psychological hell, very aptly described through the scenes of a German winter wasteland in the Bavarian Alps. In the third part, the protagonist returns to his homeland, disillusioned in every sense of the word. While he is disappointed over his failure to reach social status which he was striving to attain through education, he also realizes that he would have to sacrifice truth and freedom to reach the goal. He realizes that he is not ready to comprise with a corrupt system which he cannot fight. The way out of his dilemma is a typical Thai solution.

The way Pira Sudham has structured the narrative along a significant time frame spanning March 1954 to July 1980 is indicative of the deep underlying meaning of the novel. The chronology, moves not to follow the hero's life experiences so much, but to show how the hero is caught up during those periods of time when Thailand saw many social and political changes, such as the anti-communist era of the fifties and sixties, and the succession of coup d'etats in the seventies, and the staid and stable eighties. More than merely a place on the map, Monsoon Country is therefore a place of political and social upheavals.

The title of the novel is not the only symbolic play with words the author employs. The protagonist is referred to as 'The Mute' in his childhood, and there is the recurrent theme of silence which stands for the silent majority, or the inability of the people to participate in the political socialization of their country. This, obviously is the author's message, aiming to wake up the people through his writing.

It would appear strange though, that the author should choose the medium of English for his novels which will probably not be read by the rural poor. He explained his intention in a seminar on literature, held at Assumption University of Thailand a couple of years ago, that in this way he would have a chance to step into schools and tell the teachers to open the students' eyes and minds. The author believes that English literature has this propensity to make people think.

In his own words:

It is easy to understand why the majority of Esarn people suffer without words, without voice, mutely submitting to fear of the masters…

There must be a change in the way children are taught: they must be given eyes that can see, ears that can hear, mouth that can speak, and minds that are not crippled.

The novel is peopled with grassroots characters, Prem the Mute and awakening protagonist; his silent and patient parents, Khum and Boonliang Surin; the hard-working siblings; Kumjai, the idealistic school teacher; the avaricious merchants; the cruel village headman; and the bully Peng. But there are also the members of the wealthy class whom Prem encounters as a students in Bangkok and later abroad, including colleagues and academics in England, and a group of artists in Germany. Despite the large canvas so realistically presented in a good part of the novel, the novel does more than depict the social changes taking place in Thailand. Monsoon Country is also a Bildungsroman in that the writer describes the protagonist's moral growth and acceptance of his fate. J.R.L-B. Bernard, an admirer of the novel sees the dilemma thus:

Prem Surin, the principal character of the book, who has experienced the two cultures and been drawn towards both, is made to resolve his own ultimate dilemma by choosing Eastern personal detachment and Western personal involvement. (4-5)

The straight forward theme of social injustice and changes taking place in Thailand is subtly infused with the theme of East-West confrontation and the protagonist's acute sense of alienation.

Bernard comments on the solution of the crisis thus:

… To the underlying question of what way the people directly involved should choose to act, there is, possibly, no simple answer to be given. Certainly I can read no strong attempt in this book to offer one. Rather I see the effective depiction of a poignant human situation, a depiction which draws much of its power from Pira Sudham's own dichotomous insights. He has experienced the pull in opposite directions; he has lived both lives. More fully than we who read his words in the West and more fully than those who are living through the dilemma in the East, he knows the rewards which both traditions can offer and he knows the bitter penalties which each will exact for those rewards. (5)

With such a strong autobiographical thread woven through the fabric of the novel, Prem Surin is the artistic representation of Pira Sudham's own crisis, the Thai version of the Asian diaspora. Michelle Rola in her foreword to The Best of Pira Sudham describes his novel as:

…. the book of a man who has faith in intellectual civilization, is a hymn to education and art. Its author admires those "races of people who believe that men have the right to govern themselves, to speak truthfully without fear, to discuss ideas and to cultivate their skill, and excel in their work.

… Knowledge would safely free them [the poor of Thailand] from the grip of the "Lord of Darkness," which is the personification of poverty, ignorance and subservience in Monsoon Country. (11-12)

Prem Surin's choice at the end of the novel, however, does not seem to spring from his knowledge gained from the West, at least, he does not use his Western knowledge in the expected way. He chooses the least offensive, and socially acceptable, form of public disobedience, and escapes into freedom.

Thus Prem as individual manages to stay above the silent majority. Working out problems from within, in the way that Prem does it, is thought to be a chiefly Buddhist way of life.

Whatever their mode of expression, Thai writers are indeed able to express their social concern as well as the human dilemma in appropriate artistic forms, whether they write in English or in Thai, whether they look inward or at the society at large, or both.

Works Cited

Chart Kobchitti. "The Personal Knife." (Translated by Laurie Maund.) A Selection of Short Stories & Poems by South Asia Writers. Bangkok: Editions Duang Kamol, 1986. 140 -152

Chetana Nagavajra. Quoted in "Kindling Literary Flame: Then and Now." Thai Literary Traditions. (ed.) Manas Chitakasem. Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press, 1995. 1-28

J.R.L.-B. Bernard. "Introduction." Monsoon Country. Sussex, U.K.: Rother, 1993. 4-14

Keyes, Charles F. Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation-State. Bolder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1989.

Kukrit Pramoj. "My Dog is Missing." (Translated from Thai.) Modern Thai Literature. Honolulu: Univer- sity of Hawaii Press, 1987.111-112

Nitaya Masavisut. "Kindling Literary Flame." Thai Literary Traditions. (ed.) Manas Chitakasem. Bangkok: Chulaongkorn University Press, 1995. 1-28

Phillips, Herbert P. Modern Thai Literature. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987.

Pira Sudham. Monsoon Country. Sussex, U.K.: Rother, 1993.

Rola, Michelle. "Foreword." Pira Sudham's Best. Bangkok: Shire Books, 1983. 8-11

Ussari Dhammachote. "Phi Hae and the Love Letters." (Translated by Laurie Maund.) A Selection of Short Stories & Poems by South East Asia Writers. Bangkok: Editions Duang Kamol, 1986. 175-186