What Thais Need to Know and Learn about Laotians

I saw this over at Samakamlao, that web site mostly for Laotians in Laos and overseas Lao. I did a simple copy and paste, even the little graphic below. No link to The Nation.

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Of the nine other members of Asean, Thailand is most culturally, linguistically and economically linked to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. The economic interdependence of the two nations is particularly important and Laos is clearly part of the ”Baht Zone”. The baht can be used easily anywhere in Laos.

Thailand critically needs energy imports from Laos and the Lao in turn need many consumer goods from Thailand. Also approximately one third of the Thai population has Lao cultural and linguistic roots.

Often Thais like to define their relationship with the Lao as “brothers and sisters”. but the Lao scholar and historian, Ajarn Mayoury Ngaosyvathn, instead calls simply for the nations to be close and friendly neighbours.

As we all know Thailand is amazing in many ways, but Laos is also amazing. What is most remarkable is that Laos has survived as a political and cultural identity despite being landlocked and surrounded by five powerful and much larger neighbours, namely, China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia.

Unfortunately there are many Thai misunderstandings about Laos and the Lao. First, many think that the Isaan (Northeast) language and Lao language arethe same. They are indeed similar but not the same. Once they were the same, but diverged over time because of 1) French colonialism, 2) communism, and 3) the Thaiification of the Isaan language.

Nearly all geographic and mathematics terminology in the Lao language, for example, is Frenchderived. If a person asks for “galaem” in Isaan, they will normally get a blank stare. “Galaem” is the Lao word for ice cream.

A second misunderstanding relates to the phrase “mai mi arai” (there is nothing there) referring to Laos. Many Thai travel to Vientiane, Laos for just one day, not even staying the night. They shop at the ”morning” market, have lunch at a nice restaurant on the Mekong, and visit a couple of prominent temples. They have “done Laos”.

I once took a group of Thai students on a study tour of Laos for two months. At the beginning they could not fathom why we were spending two months in a place where “mai mi arai”. At the end of the two months, they indicated a desire to stay longer. Obviously over time they came to realise how much there was to learn about Laos.

The Thai history, geography, and social science curricula on Laos need to be reviewed and revised. Students, for example, should be exposed to both Thai and Lao perspectives on the historical relations between the two nations. They should examine King Chao Anu both as a villain (Thai perspective) and hero (Lao perspective).

They need to analyse critically why Laos became communist and why the new government significantly reformed the Lao language.

They need to be exposed to how the Thai and Lao languages are the same and differ. The word “Thai/tai” is particularly interesting. In Thai, it means free, while in Lao it means people. Tai Luang Pabang, means Luang Pabang people, not Thai people living there.

As part of both cultural and moral education (and given the growing influence and power of social media), students need to know that ethnic jokes aboutthe Lao and Isaan people are inappropriate. Some of the gross ethnic jokes I have heard about the Lao are unprintable here. Also celebrities in their interviews need to be culturally sensitive in their remarks about the Lao. Some unfortunate incidents have occurred in the past.

Thais need to study and be more aware of more important Lao scholars and writers such as the prominent historian Maha Sila Viravong (originally from Roi Et) and his three children, who are all noted writers, and Ajarns Pheuiphanh and Mayoury Ngaosyvathn, prolific Lao scholars and historians.

One enjoyable technique for teaching about the subtle differences between the two cultures is to present ambiguous images of both cultures and have students themselves ascertain which image is Thai and which is Lao. Watching critically movies such as “Sabai Di Luang Prabang” can also be a fun and effective way for Thais to learn about their important neighbour.

Even though most Lao can understand Thai, they deeply appreciate it when Thais make the effort to speak their language, which is relatively easy, giventhe similarities between the two languages. Dr Sumontha Promboon, former president of Srinakharinwirot University, made a great effort to speak and write Lao well, when serving as an ADB consultant in Laos. Her effort was extremely well received. HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun, Prof Charnwit Kasetsiri, Dr Prawese Wasi, and Sulak Sivaraksa have all shown impressive and exemplary cultural sensitivity in writing about and interacting with the Lao people.

What is most important for the future of ThaiLao relations in the AEC (ASEAN Economic Community) era is for Thais to enhance their cultural empathy of the Lao and their rich cultures and history.

Article originally published in The Nation, June 25, 2012

by Gerald W Fry, Distinguished International Professor
Department of Organisational Leadership, Policy, and Development, University of Minnesota
gwf@umn.edu

Pantip Plaza

I wandered over to Pantip Plaza to buy an extra battery for my camera. The local Circuit City back home didn’t carry them. I figured if it’s hardware for a piece of electronics they must have it there, and they did. The first floor seemed to be inhabited by hawkers selling pirated computer gaming software. There must be a lot of falangs buying because on site of me they seemed to get whipped up into a selling frenzy. Sharks reacting to blood in the water.



I looked for a Panasonic sign and sure enough up on the third floor I spotted one. Pantip is renowned for pirated software. The store didn’t have a battery but they found one for me in about 90 seconds. Cost slightly less than at home.



13 45 0 N 100 32 15 E



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantip_Plaza

Sex Tourists Not Welcome

Entrance to the Atlanta Hotel


I first stayed at the Atlanta about thirteen years ago in the middle of the wet season 1996.

My mom in law, my soon to be wife, and I were coming from Vientiane. We were sick of guest houses and wanted to stay someplace a little nice without breaking the bank. A taxi driver recommended the Atlanta. It was a perfect choice.

The Atlanta in it's time was probably one of, if not the, finest hotel in Bangkok. The place had retained it's charm even if a modern metropolis had grown up around it. The lobby isn't air conditioned as indeed probably no buildings at the time had central air. Instead it sits lower than the street and is shaded from the sun. Ceiling fans turn slowly and you don't get that sealed from the real world, feeling that comes from central air. I remember no windows on the street side of the lobby and towards the rear open doorways leading to the shady garden and the swimming pool. The feeling was of being hushed and at ease, a place to relax from the rat race of modern Bangkok.

The lobby itself had deep leather chairs and nice wooden writing desks with hotel stationary supplied free. Potted plants, and old photographs. There was a restaurant with high booths. We ate those club sandwiches cut diagonally twice, toasted, and with the crust cut off, even had those tooth picks through them. The restaurant only played jazz music pre selected by the German owner.

A great rumor had it that the owner was somehow connected with the CIA, love rumors even if based on nothing. I think while we were there the embassy was using the Atlanta to warehouse a citizen waiting to be repatriated. I'm not sure what his story was but they were picking up the tab for his room and board. Maybe he ran into bad circumstances in Bangkok.

We stayed there a week or ten days while I figured out how in the heck we were going to get my wife to America. I can think of worse places to spend a week. Mostly we swam in the pool during the day and hung out watching TV or talking at night. There were street stalls on the soi for the construction gangs building across the street. No lack of sticky rice to be had. Often my Maetou (mom in law) would gamble for small amounts with the guys staying at the hotel, and kid them without mercy for losing.

I think they were playing for coins only, and this was before the ten baht coin. I did have to buy a lunch once so maetou didn't win every time, but almost. She loves to gamble. The guys were mostly middle aged Europeans in Bangkok to chase the girls. They'd usually appear at the pool around noon exchanging gossip from the night before, who ended up with who or what old girlfriend had gotten angry or whatever. My mom in law would kid them accusing them of being taken advantage of, or being too old anyway. She's a great kidder.

There was also a young American guy who had lost an arm to the shoulder, some kind of accident I think. He loved to swim even though one armed. He ended up meeting and then going out with an attractive Canadian girl who was staying at the Atlanta. She had just finished writing for the Vientiane Times for a couple of years. She spoke great Lao. Two months later we met them at the airport when we were headed out with our visa. I think they were also headed back to North America... together.

I went back to the Atlanta late last year. I needed to go to the hospital on the other side of Sukumvit and I figured it would be close. I read the web site and I'd seen warnings online. They have all kinds of anti sex tourist notices. I wasn't headed to Bangkok for women anyway so I figured it wouldn't matter, it did.








Big Bad Bangkok

View from my window, skyscraping hotels and apartment buildings seem to have sprung up everywhere


The elderly Thai woman who used to run the place is no longer to be seen. I think her son is running it in her stead. Perhaps he has an issue with sex tourists. Maybe I would too if I lived in Thailand and was the product of a mixed marriage. In any case the effort to exclude sex tourists has exceeded what is called for. It crosses the boundary of being rude and even racist. The hotel has also gone to seed somewhat. Dingy and tattered. The night guys are no longer awake. The many services that come with a full service hotel are no longer there.

A couple weeks ago I met my mom in law at a Vientiane fern bar and we had a glass of wine together. I told her I'd stayed at the Atlanta, hoping she'd remembered the good times we'd had there so long ago.

Turns out she'd tried to go to the Atlanta herself. My Maetou went to Bangkok with a couple of her girlfriends to go shopping and so she could brag to her other friends back in Vientiane about it. Maetou no longer gambles for baht coins but for Vientiane real estate which has skyrocketed.

The Atlanta wouldn't let her in. Said "we don't let Thai women stay here", she said, "I'm Lao not Thai", they said "you still can't stay here". She wasn't happy. She had been all excited to show her buddies the little gem that the Atlanta used to be. She had remembered the Thai owner who so warmly welcomed her and chatted about the weaving on the sinh my mom in law wore.

Maybe the changes have something to do with the changes on Sukumvit itself. There always used to be a little baby Patpong on soi 4 called Nana Plaza. The beer bars have spilled out of the plaza and onto the soi itself. Lots of drunk guys at noon, lots of women of leisure.

If anyone knows of a decent clean hotel in the area or across Sukumvit in the soi 3 area for four of five hundred baht I'd love to hear of it, chances are I'm going to be headed back to Bunrungrad hospital again over the coming years.

The Road Back From Up North

Dump Truck Full of Crushed Rock Road to Huay Xai

My ride home began as a way to avoid a road between Luang Prabang and Vang Vien in Laos. My wife had called and asked me to fly and my embassy had asked all citizens not to use the road. I’ve always been aware that there is a risk associated with using this road even if somewhat small. Not able to book a flight from the town I was in I went down the road to Huay Xai where there are flights four times a week and boats down the Mekong as well as the border with Thailand and all of it’s modern transportation system.
Some day soon the Luang Namtha / Huay Xai road will be the best road in Laos, that day can’t come too soon for me. For now it’s a hundred and eighty kilometre long construction site. To be fair probably a third is surfaced and graded, another third is graded with crushed rock road base and the remainder is graded but two inches deep in dust. Dust drifted up through the floorboards and covered everything.
The new bus station is convenient for the taxi mafia fifteen kilometres out of town and near the airport. The next days flight was full. I crossed the river into Thailand and waited for a six pm mini van to Chang Mai. All the mini vans headed in the opposite direction seemed to disgorge at the guest house where I was waiting. The guest house workers graciously arranged Lao visas for all the arriving backpackers for no charge. I guess they didn’t count the extra ten to twenty dollars apiece they were charging, or maybe my calculator was malfunctioning. They were making an extra hundred dollars an hour while I was there. Slightly sleazy. They should have been up front about the commission and not lied.
The minibus driver wasn’t that great, kept playing with the gas pedal but at about a half past midnight we rolled into Chang Mai and without a how dee doo the driver parked at a guest house a half a block from the Tapae Gate in the old quarter. For a tourist it doesn’t get much more down town than that.
I’d given up talking to the other passenger a few hours ago. All he wanted to do was talk about all the wood he was exporting from Laos into Thailand for re export to Italy and Australia. I’m not real big on Laos being turned into a scruffy dry low canopy country like Thailand has become and he just couldn’t seem to drop the subject. Of course what he was doing is very illegal. It seemed as if half the north of Thailand was on fire. Not the big blazes from slash and burn but only the small creeping flames from leaves, all over the hillsides.
Sengthian and I left Chang Mai more than ten years ago on the first leg of our trip to the United States. I’m familiar with the city even when it’s a long ways past my bedtime. I told the tuk tuk driver to take me to the arcade bus station even though there weren’t any busses running.

I was now in a hurry. My youngest daughter had been having diarria and on my last cell phone call before I went out of range of Lao cell phone coverage in Thailand my wife told me she was taking her over the border to Thailand and a good hospital in the morning. My daughter Thipalada was starting to droop. The international clinic in Vientiane recommended she be put on an IV to rehydrate and so on, but they didn’t want to take the responsibility of doing so themselves. Our insurers help line had suggested we cross the border for treatment at a modern hospital. Our daughter is only fifteen months and I know for babies in Laos having the squirts can be cause for concern.

The big hotel at the bus station looked like a big massage parlour, all gaudied up with Grecian motifs and rooms for twenty dollars. The tuk tuk man took me around the corner for less than half the price and no hot and cold running girls.

Five hours sleep and a shower later I caught the first thing moving south to Pitsianalook, a major hub on the way to Bangkok with connections to Isaan. The route south should have been all familiar territory, I’ve driven it on a motorcycle many times but in ten years things change. One of the really nice parts was that the whole road is now two lanes in both directions and mostly a divided highway. We stopped in Lampang where I first taught English probably fifteen years ago.

Ticket taker in front of the bus at the Lampang Bus station

There were no buses out of Pitsianalook headed in my direction until six at night. The bus to Udonthani was an ordinary without assigned seats. I got a place to sit at around eleven thirty as people got off and the bus became less crowded. The first few hours were very hot, I couldn’t see well but I saw the signs for Lamsak and knew we were in my old stomping grounds where Isaan blends with central Thai. I could tell we were on the road to Loei just by the contortions the bus was put through over the mountain roads. I drove that road on a Honda crotch rocket my first trip to Laos making a visa run. I kept telling myself that what was taking one hour in Thailand often took six or ten on the roads of Laos.

I thought I was familiar with Udonthani, walk thirty yards to get out of the station and stumble rightwards to a cheap hotel. The walk out of the station at half past one in the morning kept seeming five times as far, I did it twice trying to figure it out. Nothing seemed to be clicking. A tuk tuk carrying a monk stopped and I got on before I even negotiated a price. I kept trying to remember if the bus station I was thinking of was in Udonthani, Nong Khai, or any one of a million other towns in Asia I’ve been in. Too little sleep and I had dozed off on the bus.

For the record there are two bus stations in Udonthani, I was at the other one. After another five hours sleep and a shower I wandered back into my familiar bus station and was immediately pushed onto an overnight sleeper bus that had rolled in out of Pataya, they didn‘t even give me a ticket. I was half groggy and no longer even attempting to speak Thai, I figure if they don’t understand Lao in Isaan well the hell with them. What the other passenger thought was funny was that my Lao sounds like I come from the country side. For Lao speakers of Isaan, the Lao from Laos sounds old fashioned.

Sengthian anticipating that I would be coming into range of Lao cell coverage had gone out close to where the elevators were in the hospital and there was good reception. About ten minuets out of Nong Khai she told me what hospital they were at and that Thipalada was fine. I was pretty happy to see them.


Both of my girlfriends


They were just about ready to go but had been waiting for me to get there. The Thai paediatrician hadn’t given Thipalada any antibiotics yet proffering to let her fight off the infection herself as long as possible. When I got there a nurse injected the initial dose into the IV and the doctor came in to talk to me and write a prescription for more doses so that I could pay the bill and buy the drugs downstairs all at the same time.

At the window for paying bills I quickly scanned the itemized bill looking for the grand total first. Baht 4,250, a little over a hundred dollars US. Of course I paid first then brought the receipts upstairs to get us all checked out as the nurse had suggested.

Later I looked at the itemized bill, it was in English. Three days two nights private room with extra beds for my wife, her sister, and my son. Six charges for the paediatrician, various IV solutions and needles, drugs, a long list of tests on urine and blood and stool I didn’t understand, friendly English speaking nursesI should cross the river more often.

Between Trips

I took a couple of weeks and went down to Pakse to look at a piece of land we were given and then we went down to Ko Samet in Thailand for a touristy type vacation.
Pakse was a nice change from Vientiane, only a few fellow tourists wandering about, the town seemed to have more money or be better taken care of, felt clean and more pretty. After getting a hotel we rented a motorcycle and the four of us piled on Lao style and headed up to Pakson district and Ban Lak Sam Sip Paad. As the name might suggest the town was thirty eight kilometres up from Pakse, just as you get up onto the Boloven Plateau itself.


Gate and flowering tree at headmans house Lak 38

The Boloven Plateau although nothing inspiring is a lot higher and cooler than Pakse. The road rises at a steady rate for all 38 of the kilometres, we could have coasted back to Pakse. The dirt is also noticeably much more fertile than around Vientiane. Right now our land is planted with tea, although most of the neighbouring land is in coffee. It was time to pick and everywhere you looked there were bags of coffee, and people drying coffee in their front yards.
The big bragging point of our land is that it’s just up the road from the only viewing point for Tad Fan, one of the biggest waterfalls in Laos. It’s actually two falls which makes it even prettier somehow. There is one very expensive guest house with bungalows for forty dollars a night and up. I think it’s called the Tad Fan Resort. They also own the trail with access to view the falls. I took this picture from the front porch of the reception restaurant area.

Tad Fan

I really don’t know how to give it perspective. The falls themselves are probably two hundred feet in height. The English speaker working at the guest house that I talked to said he didn’t know of anyone who had walked to the bottom and that it was a full days walk just to get to the bottom of the canyon. I wonder. One of these days I’ll have to check it out.
Our land is about a five minute walk from the resort. I guess on the weekend there is a tremendous amount of Thai tour busses. Just outside the entrance is a whole market full of shacks selling useless trinkets and a couple selling soft drinks and chips. Amazing how people feel the need to buy things when they go places.
I have no idea what we will do with five thousand meters of overgrown tea bushes up on the Boloven Plateau. I have no desire to build a guest house and without someone there to watch the house it’s useless to build something. So if anyone wants a nice piece of land in Southern Laos let me know.
The next day we went to Ubon in Thailand and it felt like entering another world. Everything seemed rich and modern. The first thing we did while waiting for a connecting bus to Rayong was to eat ourselves sick on Thai food. It felt amazing that you could just go into a restaurant at a bus station and get any food you wanted.
The night bus to Rayong seemed like a never ending journey of driving down the wrong side of the road on a modern highway. Less than twenty four hours after leaving Pakse we stepped off the ferry and were on Samet. Sengthian hadn’t felt like dilly dallying.
The part I liked best about the island was this tree. It’s mai yang, a very common tree used for lumber all over. This is a big one. I figured the trunk was still three feet thick in places at eighty feet where the branches spread out. There were about twenty trees in this patch. Too bad the island wasn’t covered.

Mai Yang

I wasn’t so impressed with Ko Samet. It was fun swimming in the salt water every day but that’s about it. Food didn’t seem inspiring, and the bungalows were too pricey. Twenty five dollars for something that’s just ok seemed like quite a bit. The bungalows are jam packed onto the beach and the road is hardly walkable from the sawngthaews drag racing up and down it all day. The taxi mafia is in force, as a matter of fact there seemed to be a lot of price fixing on the island. Motorcycles were double price as was the internet, all prices were noticeably the same everywhere. Seven Eleven which probably has prices set by some anonymous corporate headquarters was half the price on most things and very busy. Lots of trash everywhere.
Oh, and all this was taking place in a protected national park. Like they say the finest people money can buy. The redeeming part was that there were a lot of Thais there on vacation from Bangkok. An interesting mix with the half dressed Europeans. I personally had no problem with topless twenty something Swedish girls. Most Thai girls were swimming in shorts, and usually a thick tee shirt. My son is very good at befriending beautiful Thai girls and I asked them what they thought of the near nakedness of the Euros. They didn’t mind at all, just wondered why the girls didn’t feel shy.

Fishing Boat, sorry no topless pictures

The day before we left a middle aged Thai woman went up the beach making all the girls cover up, they left, and people put out their cigarettes, and she also hit up people for money to clean up the beach. An older solo tourist beach type guy told me the woman was one of the original inhabitants of the island and owned half the beach, he said he was very tuned in to the local situation and knew these things. I asked our bungalow owner and she laughed. Said the lady was a drunk who liked to get money out of people and had lived there less than 15 years just like everyone else. Said no one owned the beach, all bungalows were on rented land.

Thai Tourists and big Mai Yang