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Opening ceremony of Amazing Thai Local Wisdom Fair dazzles audience
Marion Vogt
Photos Michael Vogt
Last weekend was a busy time in Chiang Mai
when the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) organized the “Opening
ceremony of Amazing Thai Local Wisdom Fair” at Khuang Thapae. The town was
almost sealed off to make space for delegates from the APEC SME conference,
their accompanying entourage, foreign media, and ministers from 21
countries.
Thapae Gate was beautifully decorated in
Lanna style and a welcoming committee presented every guest with a handmade
northern umbrella. The one question in everyone’s mind was, will it rain?
Luckily this did not happen!
The two MCs, Miss Thailand 1992, a real
Chiang Mai beauty and Appina Wattanakul asked the first guest of honor, the
governor of Chiang Mai, Suwat Tantipat to address the delegates. He spoke on
behalf of the whole Chiang Mai province and expressed how honored and
pleased Chiang Mai felt to be chosen by the Royal Thai Government as the
host of this convention. Finally Chiang Mai can show its potential in
arranging international conferences and demonstrate its variety of natural
resources, arts and culture, plus unique Lanna traditions. He also expressed
his gratitude towards PM Thaksin Shinawatra, who unfortunately had to leave
early, the government, TAT, the press, as well as the private sectors for
their cooperation to make this happen.
Next speaker was Santichai Euachongprasit,
TAT deputy governor for tourism products, who pointed out that the Amazing
Thai Local Wisdom should be seen as an additional activity, based on the
concept of the APEC SMEs. In harmony with the overall meetings, it
publicizes the potential and uniqueness of Chiang Mai and the other 17
provinces in the north, and enhances Thailand’s image at all levels -
economic, social, political and tourism.
He explained the three main zones of the
fair - The Food Zone, representing Lanna Folk art and cuisine as an
opportunity to test and sample local tasty food in traditional surroundings,
the Craft Zone with demonstrations of traditional Lanna handicraft, and the
Culture Zone which reflects the forms of dramatic arts and music.
Chadej Insawang, permanent secretary of
the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, represented the Royal Thai Government in
his opening address. After the overview of the significance to the APEC
member countries and observers, he said that he hoped Chiang Mai is now seen
as a province that can be a tourist hub. He gave thanks to the TAT and
especially to Yaowapa Wongsawat, a parliamentary member from Chiang Mai who
initiated the province’s Walking Street Project.
The evening featured spectacular
demonstrations of Thai Lanna cultural dances, fireworks, a walk through the
different zones of the fair, and ended with a sampling of food by the
invited delegates in true kantoke style.
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Relief
that the rain stayed away shows
in the faces of the hard working TAT
organizing committee. |
Mrs.
Malinee Laorpunskul, Chiang Mai Provincial Governor’s Office, at
the stalls with local Muang Food.
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Chadej
Insawang, permanent secretary, Ministry of Tourism and Sports,
presents his welcoming address. |
The
invited guests were invited to sample traditional trays of food and
‘old Lanna style’ local cigarettes. |
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200
Chiangmai dancers impressed the APEC SME meeting guests. |
Everybody
was honored that Chao Daungdeun na Chiang Mai (R) stayed
the whole
evening and spoke to all. |
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VIPs,
delegates, organizers and
dancers - everybody enthralled by
fireworks. |
The
VIPs participated in the lighting
of the 9 candles. |
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Beauty
and art - art and beauty - handicraft, dance or musical art
impressed the spectators. |
‘Lanna
Theatrical Arts’ Light and Sound Show. |
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Beauty
and art - art and beauty - handicraft, dance or musical art
impressed the spectators. |
Beauty
and art - art and beauty - handicraft, dance or musical art
impressed the spectators. |
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Chadej
Insawang, permanent secretary, Ministry of Tourism and Sports,
lights a candle carried in from dancers from the light and sound
show. |
Children
performed Chinese cultural dances when the delegates arrived. |
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Another
very festive evening during the APEC conference at the Westin Hotel
with PM Thaksin Shinawatra presiding. |
(Left)
Santichai Euachongprasit, TAT deputy governor for tourism products
with Miss Thailand 1992. |
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To make Charan’s dream come true
Nantanee Jedsadachaiyut
Photos by
Nuttanee Thaveephol
Thailand’s best-known folk singer-songwriter was Charan
Manopetch, a man who had a dream of establishing an art museum in Lamphun,
to be called Hor Sin Sala Lao Luang. Unfortunately he died before this could
be established, but a group of his friends have arranged for a concert to
raise funds to make Charan’s dream come true.
 The
statue of Charan Manopetch in front of Sai Mok Kub Dok Mai Restaurant.
Tanes Charoenmuang, a project counselor, together with
Singkaew Manopetch, Anya Phothiwat, and Chao Dararat Na Lamphun will promote
the charity concert, “To Make Your Dream Come True in Memory of Charan
Manopetch”, to raise funds to set up the art museum.
Anya Photiwat, Charan’s wife, said that besides
creating northern Thai style music, Charan dreamed of building an art museum
to conserve all forms of traditional northern style Thai art. Charan
appreciated all northern Thai artistry including music, literature, and
local crafts, so the proposed museum, Hor Sin Sala Lao Luang will be a place
to conserve arts, and importantly, to expand the artistic knowledge of the
general public.
 Chan
Upthong, Charan’s follower, performing one of his folksongs.
One of the project supporters, Chao Dararat na Lamphun,
who donated eight rai of land in Tambon Ton Thong, Lamphun for construction
of the museum, said that Charan had strong feelings for maintaining Lanna
cultures; he wanted to preserve the ancestor’s wisdom, and strengthen the
cultural pride of northern Thais. She hoped that the art museum might at
least be the first step for local people to be aware of their cultural
value.
Charan suffered from leukemia, and died aged 46 on
September 3. He was named a National Artist in the performing arts by the
National Culture Commission in 1997 and headed the Foundation for Lanna
Artists, which produced Grassroots Theater about social issues in the north.
 (From
left) Chao Dararat na Lamphun, Anya Photiwat, Tanes Charoenmuang, and
Singkeaw Manopetch combined to promote the charity concert.
The concert “To Make Your Dream Come True in Memory of
Charan Manopetch” will be held on September 3 at Chiang Mai University
Auditorium at 7 p.m. The tickets will cost 500, 200, and 100 baht. For more
information contact the office of Hor Sin Sala Lao Luang project, or Sai Mok
Kub Dok Mai Restaurant, tel. 053 357 605, 09 370-7605, and 01 764-3551.
The plan
of the art museum, Hor Sin Sala Lao Luang, or a Place for Traditional Arts.
Royal Project Doi Kham shop
opened at Huay Luek Center
Supatatt Dangkrueng
The Doi Kham shop, under the supervision of the Royal
Project, was officially opened on August 1 at the Huay Luek Development
Center. His Serene Highness Prince Bhisadej Rajanee, the chairman of Royal
Project Foundation, graciously presided over the grand opening.
 Prince
Bhisadej Rajanee, Royal Project Foundation chairman, officially opened the
Doi Kham shop at Huay Luek Center.
After the opening, there were performances of Lanna
dancing from Ban Mai Samakkhee villagers, and hill tribe dances from Hmong
and Lahu tribes.
The Royal Project provided the budget to improve tourist
attractions in Royal Project’s areas, and subsidized the multi purpose
building, in which products from the Royal Project are displayed and tourist
information is given.
Local staff of Doi Kham explaining tribal artifacts to
tourists.
Deputy Prime Minster Suwit Kunkitti dropped by the center
during his Chiang Mai visit and signed the guest book.
The Huay Luek Royal Project Development Center is located
in Chiang Dao District Chiang Mai Province, about 95 km from town and
approximately one and a half hours by car along the Chiang Mai-Fang road.
CMU and the BBC celebrate 10 years together
Supatatt Dangkrueng
Chiang Mai University’s Mass Communications Department
in the Humanities Faculty and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
celebrated a 10-year association.
 Dr.
Sirikorn Maneerin (4th left), deputy education minister, and Stephen King
(5th left), director of BBC World Service Trust, announce the 10th
anniversary celebrations.
The ceremony was held with the welcome message presented
by Assist Dr Niphon Tuwanon, president of CMU followed by Dr. Sirikorn
Maneerin, deputy education minister, and Stephen King, director of the BBC
World Service Trust.
 Assist
Prof Niphon Tuwanon (left), president of CMU, presents a memento to Stephen
King marking the 10 year partnership.
The BBC has been broadcasting news via FM 100 MHz, CMU
radio station everyday. The relationship between the BBC and CMU started ten
years ago with the first dean of the humanities faculty, Prof M.L. Tui
Chumsai na Ayudhaya.
Prof M.L. Tui and a group of teachers went to the United
Kingdom and visited the BBC and the BBC assisted CMU by sending radio
broadcasting specialists to train the students and officers in Chiang Mai.
 Dr.
Sirikorn signs the guestbook commemorating 10 years of partnership between
the BBC and CMU.
In 1993, the BBC started satellite news broadcasts and
chose CMU radio station to be a signal transmission center, so that Chiang
Mai and neighboring provinces could hear live news broadcasts from London in
the Thai language.
Dr.
Sirikorn speaking at the opening ceremony.
A photographic look at
Danish research in Nan
Metinee Chaikuna
Last week we ran a story about how Sacha Zurcher from
Roskild University in Denmark chose Nan Province in northern Thailand as the
subject for her Ph.D. studies. This week we will take a photographic look at
what she found.
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Sacha
Zurcher (right) from Roskild University in Denmark sat with a Yao
grandparent in La Baoya village while she was interviewing the hill
tribe about their land use. |
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Researcher
Sacha Zurcher (left) takes a photograph of sugar palm fruit a Hoh
guide was showing her while they were surveying the forest near Nam
Liang Village where the Hoh tribe lives. |
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Rice
paddies and mountains make for a scenic view. |
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A
popular activity in Kiu Muang Village at the beginning of the rainy
season is collecting mushrooms in the village’s community forest.
The village headman’s wife is shown here collecting a kind of
mushroom that grows very well in the community forest. |
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Lua
women in Parai Village walk back to their homes after getting rid of
weeds in their upland rice field. The river they are walking across
is the Nam Kwang stream, the main stream for the villagers. |
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Researcher
Sacha Zurcher (right) takes a photograph of a type of tree found in
a Kiu Muang Village multiple use forest. |
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The
farmers in Kiu Muang village take a rest after planting corn in the
upland. |
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Royal Lanna Rama 9 Park Lanna Prueksachart (Flora) Festival
Nuttanee Thaveephol
Though not many people visited the Lanna Prueksachart
(Floral) Festival arranged August 9-13, many fantastic flowers and plants
were presented.
Suwat Tantipat, Chiang Mai governor presided over the
opening ceremony with many Chiang Mai VIPs including Chalermsak Suranant,
director of Tourism Authority of Thailand, Region 1 Office and Boonlert
Buranupakorn, Chiang Mai mayor.
There were many activities specially arranged for plant
lovers, particularly the various plants such as cactus, orchids, and
decorative plants. Several well-known restaurants in Chiang Mai also joined
the festival by setting up stalls, creating small food festival from evening
until late. This activity should have been an attraction to food lovers who
wanted to enjoy dinner with stage performances and beautiful plants in the
area.
Like other festivals, the beauty contest could not be
ignored. This year’s Miss Lanna Prueksachart was Anchalee Dharmachart who
received a 30,000 baht cash prize from Ornnadda Tantip, the president of
Chiang Mai Provincial Red Cross.
The festival also included creative and imaginative
flower arranging displays. Displays of cut flowers and living plants could
be seen at every stall and other wonderful specimens of oriental
horticulture included ornamental cactus, incredible bonsai trees and very
colorful orchids were elegantly presented.
Perhaps next year the organizers might consider some
pre-event publicity in the flower markets to attract a better crowd.
Author asks for understanding of migrant workers
Book launched to highlight plight
Nantanee
Jedsadachaiyut
Friends Without Borders arranged the launch, at Wat Koo
Tao Chiang Mai, of the book “In Search of Sunlight,” the story of
Burmese migrant workers in Thailand, written by Pornsuk ‘Pim’ Koetsawang.
 Pornsuk
‘Pim’ Koetsawang, the author of In Search of Sunlight.
The book deals with the various ethnic groups from Burma
who have come to seek ‘a better life,’ which does not mean only a
comfortable or a luxurious one, in Thailand. The book claims that it
represents the background, the dreams and hopes, and the sufferings that
people from Burma have faced in Thailand. For many, flight to Thailand has
become a savior, not just to earn money on which to live, but merely to
survive.
On the Thai side of the border, the book says that some
have faced almost equally repressive working and living conditions and an
uncaring Thai government that has vacillated in its official attitude
towards migrant workers. The journey to the new country too, is fraught with
dangers, dishonesty and double-dealings, much of it from Thai and Burmese
government officials and private entrepreneurs alike.
The author said that in general Thais see Burmese migrant
workers as the enemy who came to Thailand and being troublemakers from the
past until the present. But in fact, the book portrays the migrant workers
as not the ones who created trouble, they suffered from maltreatment both
physically and mentally. They did not want to leave their homeland, but they
had to go. They did not want to be stigmatized as enemy, but they had to
accept. And neither the Burmese nor Thai governments protect them even in
the judicial proceedings.
News of the murders of migrant workers in Mae Sot, Tak
Province presents another side of Thai society - full of violence, but where
Burmese migrant workers are passive, said author Pim.
Pornsuk ‘Pim’ Koetsawang is an active human rights
worker. She used to work for Friends Without Borders, a project to promote
positive relations between Thai and Burmese people. Her wish is for this
book to tell people the stories of suffering, hope, courage, and
self-respect of the people who are called ‘migrant workers.’
The Spiritual Journey
of Vincent van Gogh
Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing
Marion Vogt
Vincent Van Gogh was the interesting subject of an
erudite paper presented by the very interesting Professor James C. Harris,
Professor of Psychiatry from the John Hopkins University who has lived in
Isaan, speaks, reads and writes Thai and in his younger days, volunteered to
go to the Vietnam conflict as a physician. The address was given at Payap
University during the Globalization of Religion seminars.
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15 May 1990 “The Portrait of Doctor Gachet” was sold within three
minutes for $82.5 million.
According to Professor Harris, Vincent Van Gogh was one
of the most significant spiritual figures of the nineteenth century. An
artist who deserves the attention of modern theologians interested in
inter-religious dialogue, Vincent seeks to lead us to a new way of seeing
and a change of heart. While viewing his works, we can trace his engagement
with Christian and Buddhist themes. “Works of art may touch the depth of
the human spirit. Through his art we will consider consolation and reverence
for life as critical in an age of globalization, he said.
Vincent van Gogh descended from a family of ministers and
art dealers. From ages 16-22 he was apprenticed to an art dealer; however,
when he was 20 a religious transformation began, following personal crises,
leading to continuous bible study and eventually job loss. At 25 he began,
then abandoned, theology studies, to become an evangelist, later being
dismissed from his evangelical assignment in Belgium for excessive zeal in
the “imitation of Christ”. It was only after this, at the age of 27
years of age he decided to become an artist.
He spent time with his family in Etten and painted the
endless cycle of work in the fields, sowing, repairing, and plowing. At 29
years of age he decided to study arts and moved from Etten to The Hague. He
wanted to draw, to touch people’s hearts and sorrow was a small beginning
for him. At age 32, after his father’s sudden death, he painted his
father’s bible, his most important possession, opened at Isaiah 53, the
“Suffering Servant.”
It was during his years in Nuenen that Van Gogh emerged
as a truly great artist. The Potato Eater (1885), his first great painting,
used De Groux’s painting Grace for inspiration. Never had respect for the
labor of the poor been so imaginatively conveyed to the viewer, “painting
the people as they really are.”
Vincent wrote, “I have tried to emphasize that these
people, eating their potatoes in the lamplight, have dug the earth with
those very hands they put in the dish, so it speaks of manual labor and how
they have honestly earned their food.”
In 1886, at age 33, Vincent went to Paris and he sought
to emulate the spirit and form of Japonisme which is the influence of Japan
on western art. He began to paint sunflowers in Paris and reached fruition
in Arles decorating the yellow house in preparation for Gauguin’s arrival.
The relationship between Vincent and Gauguin deteriorated
throughout the year. Their heated arguments became more and more frequent.
On 23 December, Vincent van Gogh, in an apparent delirium, mutilated the
lower portion of his left ear. He severed the lobe with a razor, wrapped it
in cloth and then took it to a brothel and presented it to one of the women
there.
Finally, at the age of 36, Vincent voluntarily admitted
himself to the Hospital of St. Paul in St. Remy on May 8, 1889, and remained
there for a year. He probably suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy, as well
as a mood disorder, aggravated by stress and exacerbated by chronic use of
absinthe, brandy, turpentine and camphor.
When he died, all his last canvasses were hung on the
walls of the room where the body lay, forming a kind of halo around him -
the splendor of his genius radiated from them.
It was a most informative paper from Professor Harris
with much insight into how art has influenced religion and vice versa.
Professor Harris showed that globalization of religion is not an invention
of our century but was practiced long before our times.
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