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LETTER FROM PRIME MINISTER CHUAN LEEKPAI TO HIS MOTHER, TUAN, 84 :I was born in a grass-roofed house. Walls were woven from strips of betel-nut wood. The floor was the earth. You and father struggled to make ends meet. His salary was trifling, so you became the family’s labourer, waking up to tap rubber from 1 a.m. By the time you mixed it with the chemicals and sharpened the knife for the next day’s work, it was five p.m. At the time there was to TV, just norah (southern dance), and narng talung (southern shadow pupetry). No one ever saw you go see them. You had little room in your life for entertainment. Your self-discipline about this was far superior to that of all your children. While we kids were in school, farther’s salary was barely enough to support the family, so you turned to making sweets and selling odds and ends at the Sunday markets. We children learned how to make khanom sai sai. Today, when I see anyone selling this sweet, I buy it even when I’m not hungry because I know it must come from a family with several children or else it couldn’t be made. Every morning I lugged these sweets to a relative’s stall in the market for her to sell. You yourself were an effective vendor. People knew you far and wide because you wen to weekend markets in various tambon. The first time I ran for a seat in parliament, when I told people I was a son of Mae Tuan, the exclaimed, “Oh! Son of the diligent Mae Tuan!” Your grandfather was a kamnan, holding a Than khum title at the time so his grandchildren got to complete at least elementary school. Not you, though, because you were a daughter you had to take care of Grandma, who was parlysed. But Mae Tuan still managed to win the heart of Khru Niyom, the man with the highest education in the village, because of your dedication to caring for your mother. In teaching us, you gave us guidelines for how to lead a decent life. The consistency and stability of your love for us became like a lesson for us to hear, see and do, and one we could use to lead our lives, both for our family and for society. Being illiterate, you were like a blind person. When you were a vendor, you relied on your memory, and an excellent one it was, too. You always remembered who you owed, and who owed you. Us kids would tease you, telling you to remember just the latter. Dad was knowledgeable about nutrition, so he asked us not to eat rice and noodles together, and not to drink coffee. You didn’t understand it but you knew that eating the two things together filled you up, and coffee kept you from falling asleep while tapping rubber late at night. We children take after Dad’s teaching. Even today, I don’t drink coffee. After Dad died, we complained that he knew a lot about nutrition, but died just a bit over 60, but you knew nothing about nutrition and are still alive today. You’d laugh. It was karma for you and Dad that all us kids were good in school, which required you to work hard, even borrow money to pay our way, Dad had a vision and knew that education was important for the future, but his salary as an elementary school teacher wasn’t enough to support several children. While you two supported most of your children through college—even though the expenses for one student almost equalled Dad’s monthly pay—we children tried to lower our spending. For example, while staying in a temple, I would accept com-missions to draw, asking for just half of the money from home. Also, I graduated in a hurry so I could support the next kid in line. You would call us to take a bath at 5 p.m. and finish our homework before it was dark. We had no electricity then. Also, you love children and you have lots of friends. When you knew some other kids born in the same year as I, the Year of the Tiger, you would get us to become friends, Relatives of these friends became like my relatives, too. This made me like participating in activities and have lots of friends. This was useful when running for a seat in parliment. But you didn’t plan it that way in advance! You like to wear just a sarong over your chest, not a blouse. When Dad’s boss came to pay a visit to our house, we kids would act like scouts, shouting to relay a message to warn you, so you could put on a blouse in time. There is one episode which is a prime example of your courage. I only learned about it later. On the day I was to be born, Dad had gone to fetch a midwife from another sub-district. But by the time she arrived, I had already come out. You used your experience from previous deliveries to deliver me! As I grew old enough to remember things, I remember hearing you talking to neighbours, telling them that all your children had nice belly buttons. At the time I didn’t understand how one measured the beauty of a belly button. In those days, kids would be running aroung naked, even when they were as old as ten. So it was easy to look at heeir belly buttons. While so many kids had protruding belly buttons (saduejoon), none of us kids did. You told us it was that way because you cut the umbilical cords yourself, with me as your first pilot project. Every time I think about this, I feel so lucky to be born healthy and whole. That incident reflects your courage because you had no knowledge about delivering babies, just the experience of having been through it. Still, you pulled through, with me born intact. Being a politician, I don’t have time to visit you that often. That stirs up remorse in me even now. When Dad died, I felt I hadn’t repaid him even a little bit, being too busy with politics. So now, when it’s just you , I’ve become more and more concerned. The older you get, the more worried I am. So I try to find every opportunity to pay you a visit. Even half a day will do. I have seen rural mothers from all over the country. I always admire their courage, patience and dedication in raising their families. You are one such mother, one who had been carrying out her duties to the best of her ability. As long as you still have strength, you’ll try to do everyting for your children.
I love you, Mum. (An immortal letter of love and devotion published in Bangkok Post of August 12, 1998 Ed.) |
AU Intranet Assumption University, Thailand |