Life in Phana

Keeping the ancestors informed

It was important to keep the ancestors informed before we ‘interfered’ with their house, and we duly did that in a small ceremony in the enclosed ground-floor area of the old house built by Ta Rin and Yai Hom. We told them that work was going to be done in the house, that this would improve its condition and that we were doing this out of respect for them and in their memory.

When the major work had been done, we held another ceremony. This was attended by a few more people and this time I had my camera with me. I remember well going through the same ceremony when our house was nearing completion back in the mid-nineties. One of the most memorable features was that an old man prevented us from entering until lots of questions had been asked and entered, and he had decided that we meant well, had sufficient respect for the ancestors who were the true owners of the property, and that we intended to use it wisely and maintain it properly. The old man guarding the property on this occasion was Khun Ta Peng, the husband of Pensri’s father’s half-sister; answering on my behalf (although it was me who was wearing the traditional ‘regalia’ of a hat and carrying a bag containing a hammer and a nail – with which I was going to ‘maintain’ the house) was Khun Ta Gert, father of the mayor of tetsaban Phana.

This was the condition of the house at the time:

Here we are, gathered outside the house:

It was a good opportunity for old friends and relations to get together:

Khun Ta Peng didn’t want to let us in!

But eventually he was persuaded and he helped Khun Ta Gert and me to attach flowers, incense and candles to the foot of the stairs.

Khun Ta Gert prepares to demonstrate MY willingness to maintain the house by hammering in a nail above the photo of Ta Rin and Yai Homhual, Pensri’s parents.

Then Pensri’s adopted brother, Tuan, did the honours at this little temporary shrine in what used to be Ta Rin and Yai Homhual’s bedroom.

And I did, too.

Afterwards, we sat around for a while in the big, sitting area outside the bedrooms. We chatted, but also there was an important presentation. Pensri is going to use the ground floor as a community library or study centre, and a neighbour, Khun Yai Somwang had offered to donate an old ‘accordion’ book which had belonged to her grandfather, the village herbal doctor born about 100 years ago. Here she is in the blue jacket, presenting the book to Pensri.

And here is a close-up of two pages of the book.

Some of the book was written in gold on black, some of it black on white.

Everybody had a good look at the book, which was in quite a fragile state in parts.

But the interest was obvious:

Now we have to decide on the best way to display the book, keeping it safe and intact, but allowing people to indulge their interest in what is certainly an item of historic importance. Pensri has already decided that Khun Yai Somwang’s donation will feature in the logo of the study centre.

Year of the Rabbit, that was

I was born in the year of the rabbit and that year comes round every twelve years. For me, it has come round six times so far. Traditionally, the sixth cycle (and the seventh) are celebrated more than an annual birthday here in Thailand. It is considered quite an achievement, I suppose, to see your sixth cycle. I certainly feel a sense of achievement, partly perhaps because I can still remember thinking that 30 years old was OLD AGE, and I could not imagine living that long.

My actual birthday was back in October, but we decided that the best time to celebrate it would be close to Christmas. We ended up with Christmas Eve for several reasons, the main one being that the family was asembling in Bangkok the previous weekend for the wedding of Liew and Ashley. By family 'assembling', I mean that our children Dominic and Darunee, with Jay and Adam and our five grandchildren would all be in Thailand for the wedding and then staying on for some holiday time. Liew and Ashley would be here from England too of course. Our Thai family (Pensri's sisters and their children and grandchildren and her cousins and their children and grandchildren) were also able to come up to Phana, as most of them do each year for a tam boun for the ancestors.

Most people arrived in Phana on the 23rd, Dom and Darunee's lot with us in the house, everyone else booked into Phana Garden Resort. Food was organised, monks invited, a stage put up in the garden, and a marquee, plastic tables and chairs stacked up ready for use. In the morning we were going to feed nine monks (one forgot to come!) and then have a baci su kwan ceremony with one of Pensri's second (?) cousins the spirit-caller. The neice of Mom, the woman who spent several months with us in England in 2011, had offered to dance the benediction dance, and three other young women were going to perform another dance for the baci.

Hundreds of photos were taken, none of them by me on this occasion. It is difficult to make a selection,but here goes.

Presents, this one from my senior brother and sister-in-law:

And more presents:

Beautiful dancers -- worth waiting 72 years for this picture, I think.

Our two 'children', Darunee and Dominic, and three of their children, Polly, Esme and Kim:

The monks beginning their chanting; the senior monk here kindly told me I could sit cross-legged. He could see that I was likely to topple over otherwise!

Most of the guests sit outside on these occasions:

The woman on the right is well past her seventh cycle. She must have attended hundreds of ceremonies like this one. She used to give me massages when I first came to Phana, and I thought she was really old then. Really old, but her thumbs were amazingly strong, and she gave me some of the most effective massage I've had. It was good to see her again because she doesn't get out and about much any more.

And then when the monks were eating, the su kwan ceremony began:

And then the sacred threads were tied around wrists while blessings were muttered. It is usual to wish the receiver good health and a long life but people seemed to enjoy trying to outdo each other by wishing me 100, 300, 600, 1200 years of life! I'm not sure I wish any of those for myself, but who knows.

Then we all had lunch and everyone except the families from Bangkok, Abu Dhabi and England disappeared rapidly, as is the custom. But in the evening we had an entertainment arranged and I'll post some pictures of that very soon.

Ceremony for the new Lak Muang at Phana

The ceremony for the new Lak Muang at Phana took place some time ago now, but I haven't had time to get around to putting up some pictures of it. Much of what time I did have was wasted. A good friend at the tetsaban, who takes most of their photos these days, agreed to let me have some (as I thought) of his work for this blog. In fact, when he came round to download them, there were 1057 of them! I looked at them all, and realised that just choosing a few to use would take me another lifetime. But when I came to do that (choose the pics, not start another lifetime) I couldn't find them anywhere. I've spent, or wasted as I said, a lot of time looking for them. I don't like to admit to him that I've lost them, so this blog will go ahead with the few pictures that were in my camera. I didn't take any of them, but gave my camera to Hannah, one of this year's two new volunteers from Project Trust. And she gave the camera to someone else for a few of them.

The rituals began in the evening preceding the main event. A large number of people, most of them in white, gathered at the old market place for a ceremony which made the site and various artifacts holy: a super-blessing ceremony which involves a lot of chanting that continued for about six hours. Pensri and I attended for a couple of hours, but I took no photos. My contribution was to present 72 little leaf-wrapped packages of a sticky-rice concoction, one package for each year of my life. The next day they would be distributed to people who attended the ceremony.  Far more than 72 packages were needed, so I was not by any means the only person offering them.

The first thing that struck me the next morning when we arrived for the ceremony was how much work had gone into all the preparations. I wondered who had done all this work. Amongst my friend's 1057 photos was the answer: people who work for the tetsaban, monks, old people, grandchildren, passing strangers ... just about everyone except me!

These two pictures give just a little idea of the elaborateness of the preparations:

Beneath the red umbrella is the 'pit' into which various sacred objects, flowers and so on, were placed for posterity. They will form the 'core' of the lak muang, and the pillar will be immediately above this holy site.

The next few pictures were taken during the ceremony itself. In the first you can see some of the sticky-rice packages and somewhere amongst them are my contribution. During (but in theory, after) the ceremony food and drink was provided for people and all this refreshment was provided as donation by individuals and groups. For example, some teachers and students from Phana Suksa School were serving noodles and the bright red and green soft drinks so beloved by Thais. And me.

 

 After all the ceremonies were done, the governor had departed, most of the monks returned to their wats, people to their homes, there was a little time to pose for photos like this next one before everything was dismantled and the old market-place restored to its usual rather colourless state.

 

Keeping the Spirits on our side

The village guardian spirits inhabiting the Bue Baan in Ban Phana have been kept informed of the plans to build a new Lak Muang on the site of the old market-place. In effect their place is being down-graded, or at least overshadowed, by the new structure. (See the previous post for details of this.) So a ceremony was held early one morning according to local Isan customs to call the spirits and apologise to them for any inconvenience. I think their goodwill was called upon. If I have it right, there is not much these spirits can do for you, but a whole lot that they can do against you if they are not on your side.

The crowd was not a huge one, but it included most of the elderly residents of Ban Phana, a couple of abbots and a few novices, the District Officer (nai amphur), the mayors and deputy mayors of Phana Municipality and Phra Lao Municipality, and possibly a few other notables I didn't recognise. 

We were asked to be there at about 8 am but we have learned to take starting times to be largely ignored. Besides, we knew that the auspicious time for the spirits to be called was at 9.09, so we got there much nearer to that time. Here we see the spirit expert (a former head teacher from a nearby village) pointing out the need to be precise.

The calling of the spirits was a very serious matter. Some monks will have nothing to do with this kind of rite, but this monk had been called in from outside Phana because he was particularly skilled in communicating with the spirits.

Before long, more and more people became involved in the ceremony...

... the Nai Amphur ... 

... and local people:

The spirits had been offered a generous amount of fruit, but as usual they didn't actually consume any of it. It is always a nice moment in these ceremonies when it becomes clear that the spirits, although no doubt very pleased by the generosity and thoughtfulness of the people who have made offerings, are not going to take up the offer, except perhaps in a very spiritual way rather than a mundane one. This is the moment, you might think, that people have been waiting for. Help yourself (and a few others) time.

And since the number 9 was so auspicious on this day, I had better add one more photograph to this collection. There I was at the end. Just me, a resting monk, and the village guardian spirits at the navel of the village, the bue baan.

Spirits and their spiritual homes

Phana is busy with the spirit world at the moment. Placating spirits in one place and inviting them to another. It is all about Phana Municipality's plans to have a new lak muang (usually translated as the city pillar). This will be sited at the old market, in front of the community building which is taking shape based on the old fresh-market building. All of these developments are a blend of the old and the new. It is a compromise: many people want the new as a source and sign of civic pride; many others want to cling to the past, to preserve their unique history. Many people have only a hazy idea of the past. History doesn't figure much in the minds of most people, maybe because so much effort has been made by the Thai education system to expunge the memory of a time before the Thai state took over. That effort hasn't been entirely successful in Phana; there is still a strong feeling of Lao-ness here amongst the ordinary people.

The compromise was necessary because a lak muang (of sorts) existed beside the main road through the old village. Here is a photo of it taken back in February 2011 when Pensri and some friends tidied it up before the cycle rally. A group of school students were there on the day to tell people about its history. 

What you can't see from the photograph are the marker stones. You can't see them from the road either. They are exposed, but are about one metre below the level of the road. What that tells us is that the original sandy track was also about one metre lower than the present road. The houses nearby tell us this, too, because to get into them you have to go down some steps.

For years, after the road was raised by several successive 'improvements', the marker stones (bai sema) were buried and forgotten. Then about ten years ago, the Phana Municipality unearthed them (an old-timer must have drawn attention to them) and erected the concrete structure and wooden pillar you can see in the photograph above. This came to be known as the lak muang, though a surprising number of people pass it in their cars and never see it. It became neglected, as the original stones had.

For special occasions such as the cycle rally, the site was smartened up as you can see below:

The marker stones are as hard to photograph as they are to see, but this is my best shot. Click on it for an enlarged view:

Rumours went about that the current Phana Municipality planned to move the lak muang to a new site. Elaborate plans were drawn up and a lot of excitement was generated. But there were people, too, who felt that the move should not take place. This is where the compromise came in. It was finally agreed that the marker stones should stay where they have been for the last 300 years, and that their site should revert to the old Lao name of Bue Baan (navel of the village) and be marked as such. The pillar would be removed to form part of the new lak muang. Perhaps surprisingly, the site chosen for this new structure is at the old market place, in the original village, rather than the administrative centre known as 'the amphur', two kilometres further west. A good decision. Everybody happy. Hopefully, the spirits housed at the bue baan and later at the lak muang will be contented, too, when this grand new structure is completed.

Visit Phana

VISIT PHANA was the theme of the community-based tourism that was on the agenda of the Amnat Charoen Provincial authorities earlier this year. Nothing much seems to have come of it so far, at least as far as the Provincial initiative goes. That may in part be due to the change in government. Not because a change in government necessarily results in the abandonment of all previous policies, but because budget allocations inevitably have to be looked at again in order to reassess priorities.

But in Phana itself some progress was made towards planning for community-based tourism. Perhaps it has taken a new direction, or at least a somehwat unexpected one, in that Don Chao Poo and the resident monkeys have become the focus; and the focus has been narrowed down further to the educational possibilities that they offer.

Another step towards community-based tourism in Phana has been the production of several leaflets, in English initially, but to be translated into Thai and possibly into Japanese.

Here is the content of the first leaflet.

VISIT PHANA 

THE TOWN OF FIELDS IN THE FOREST

Visit Phana and uncover the secrets of this little-known but historic and surprising town in the heart of Isan.

Phana just may be the best place you have never heard of!

Phana is famous for Phra Lao Thepnimit, the beautiful image in a 300-year-old temple: come and pay your respects.

 

Phana is famous, too, for the large tribe of long-tailed macaque monkeys in Don Chao Poo forest – come and feed them, or just sit and watch them.

 

But visit Phana and you can discover much more

Visit during one of the festivals – there is one every month, but the most lively is the Wat Phra Lao festival in February. Join the festivities at the temple. Take part in the bicycle rally around the town …

Come for the rocket festival in May. You can see the young women of Phana competing in traditional dancing as well as watch the firing of huge rockets.

Or Boun Pravet in March when the story of Buddha’s penultimate life is paraded on a banner and read in 13 chapters in a temple.

Or celebrate Loy Kratong at the big pond in Don Kwan village in November.

Visit on market days – Wednesday and Saturday mornings – but you must be up early as most of the action is between 6.30 and 8.00 a.m. The market meets again on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from about 4 – 6 p.m.

Come to Phana and eat gai yaang with som tam and sticky rice, or duck noodle soup, Korean BBQ perhaps.

Or a local speciality: Jao Hawn.

 

Visit the Traditional Medicine Centre for a massage or a sauna – or spoil yourself and have both!

Ask to see how traditional herbal  medicines are produced — and then buy some to ensure your health and comfort.

 

Hire a bicycle to visit the nearby villages. Watch weavers at work at their looms or dying thread; take a tuk-tuk to Ban Soi in Tambon  Chan Lan and see the complete process of silk production from mulberry leaf and silkworm raising to the finished cloth.

Take a picnic to Fai Rong Hin (the Model Agricultural Centre) in Tambon Phra Lao. Enjoy the quiet serenity and take a look at the livestock and find out how farmers are advised to adopt a more self-sufficient and sustainable style of farming.

 

Don’t forget to take a look at those fields in the forest.

 

 

Phana Garden Resort is waiting to welcome you.

Get to Phana by bus from Amnat Charoen or Ubon Ratchathani. Or take the a/c coach service from Bangkok to Khong Jiam.

But don't forget your destination:

Phana

Come on!

Surprise yourself

with an unforgettable visit.

Buddhist Monk, Fashion Victim?

Thai Buddhist monks are not immune to the dictates of fashion, it seems. Not fashion as it refers to dress, of course, but fashion nonetheless. There was an example of this recently when the abbot of Wat Burapha in Phana celebrated his promotion to Phra Kru. Several of the local monasteries now have pictorial maps of their temple compound and the abbot let us know that he thought it would be a good idea if there was such a map for Wat Burapha.

The conversation he had was with Pensri and her friend Yupin. Both of them were students at Matayom Phana, a school which was held in the grounds of Wat Burapha for many years before the Ministry of Education set up Phana Suksa School. Former students of this school hold a meeting at least once a year and a newsletter has been circulated amongst them for several years now. The youngest of these former students are well into their sixties now.

The upshot of the abbot's conversation with Pensri and Yupin was that two maps were produced, one showing Wat Burapha as it is now, and one as it was in the days of Matayom Phana. Here are Pensri, Yupin and another former student, Charatchom, whose husband Samart supervised the production of the maps, offering the 'old' map:

 
And here is me, offering the new version:

 
And here is a clearer view of the two maps. You can click on the pictures to get a larger image.

 

A fad that has largely fallen into disuse in Phana is to inter cremated ashes in small that (the Lao form of chedi).

The problem with this fashion quickly became apparent: there was not enough space in temple compounds. Wat Phra Lao was an example of this, and nowadays the old custom has been reverted to: that is, ashes are interred inside the wall surrounding the compound.

Another fashion that is rapidly filing up space in some temple compounds is for statuary. Again, most of these contain the ashes of members of the family who have donated them. Here is the usbosot at Wat Burapha. If you enlarge the pic below by clicking on it, you will see the small commemorative plaques on the statues.

 
The whole area of donations to a temple is quite complicated. Monks are expected to accept whatever is offered to them, not expressing (or feeling) any liking or disliking. It is possible that a conversation regarding the appropriateness or otherwise of a planned donation can sometimes be skillfully manipulated to the benefit of the temple. This sort of skill is also used to 'suggest' what would be useful or acceptable to a monk, since he is not supposed to ask directly for anything. Lay people can make things easier for a monk by asking him whether there is anything he or the temple needs.

Parading the abbot

 Parades are an essential ingredient of many celebrations in Thailand and parading a monk when celebrating his promotion is no exception. When the lay people of Phana were celebrating the abbot of Wat Burapha's promotion to the rank of Phra Kru recently, a parade through the streets was the order of one of the days.

 

Dancing girls are an important ingredient. Here they are all wearing skirts woven in Phana to a traditional pattern.

The dancers are accompanied by this group of musicians:

 

Lay people follow the band, all smartly dressed and in exhuberant spirits. The umbrellas are to keep off the sun rather than the rain.

 

b 

The organisers were keen to involve the tetsaban officers and were insistent that they wore their white uniforms. Many social occasions in Phana are organised either by the wat committees or by the tetsaban; and as in this case, often both are involved together.

Here we have the mayor and his deputy seemingly glad to see me; or glad to see me taking their photograph, perhaps.

The small children amongst the onlookers got very excited when the mayor threw small coins wrapped in silver and gold paper into the crowd and there were wild scrambles to pick up the coins. 

Taking part in the parade or standing by and watching it go past -- both are seen as auspicious events, and the people of Phana make sure that they take advantage of as many occasions like this one as possible.

 

Songkran in Samui

Songkran is a festival that I don't often see. Most years we return to the UK round about the beginning of April. But this year we are still here and I went down to Koh Samui to spend a few days with our son and his family who were back in Thailand for the first time in several years. Dominic's wife is from Samui but although I had met many of her family I had never been to their home. So it was a good opportunity to put that right and I must say that everyone was very welcoming and made me wonder why I had not been before. Part of the reason was that I had thought Samui was another Pattaya but I now know better. I loved the place, and I loved the close family feeling we got as we moved around from house to house visiting Jay's mother, her brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles. Unfortunately I also had a slight accident so some of her cousins we met when I was at the Samui Hospital where they are nurses.

Because of my accident, I didn't go out on the streets to celebrate Songkran but stayed in the resort recuperating a bit while they went out with their water guns. But first we celebrated in the traditional way. This Buddha image had been set up in the reception area, along with a bowl of scented water. I felt that as well as for the new year, I was in need of a bit more blessing than usual to balance out my accident, so finding this seemed quite auspicious.

 

 To start with, we each blessed the Buddha image by pouring water over it very gently.

Ben ...

Kim ...

Jay ...

... and Dom:

And then it was my turn to receive blessings. From Jay ...

 ... Ben ...

... and Kim:

And finally Ben and Kim blessed their parents:

It was a very nice preliminary to the wilder celebrations out on the streets.

Chakri Day Action in Phana

Last week was a busy week of blogging for me. But my blogs last week had very positive responses and outcomes. I am always aware that people at the tetsaban read my blog, and they are always very helpful in providing me with information, and with photos when I need them. I am generally in favour of their initiatives and feel positively about their contribution to life in Phana (as it is lived, not just the blog). Although I am not their mouthpiece, I felt somewhat apprehensive about being critical about what was happening in Don Chao Poo forest with regard to the litter problem and the monkeys.

It seems that I needn't have worried. The response from the tetsaban and from lots of other people in Phana has been very positive. Pensri attended a meeting at the tetsaban on Thursday and distributed copies of a village development plan that was drawn up 46 years ago by her father and a noted abbot in Ubon (born in Phana). Half of this plan was to establish Don Chao Poo as a conservation area encompassing Buddhism, wildlife, traditional medicine and so on. The other half of the plan was to foster village unity through communal days on which the village would be cleaned, roads gradually  improved, ponds dug and so on. Over the years the idea of communal village/town action has diminished in importance as the tetsaban has taken over responsibility for many of these areas of life.

Nevertheless, the meeting, which involved all the village heads, kamnan, councillors and community representatives, agreed to revive the plan and to revise it as necessary. And action was immediate! The following Wednesday, Chakri Day, 6th April was declared a 'community action day' with the emphasis on cleaning up houses and streets. And it worked. People came out of their houses, got together and cleaned up. The mayor, in a cowboy hat (don't ask me why) drove an ice-cream motor-bike contraption around and gave free ice-cream to people out working. Good thinking; he's a real politician. I didn't get any pictures of most of the communal action because I was with Pensri and a gang of a few other adults and some young people in Don Chao Poo. The tetsaban sent a truck to take away our bin bags of rubbish and in the afternoon succumbed to our pleas for more active help. I think 95% of the task has now been completed.

Another turn for the better appeared on Friday. One of the English teachers at Phana Suksa came round to invite us to a meal with him and his colleagues on the Saturday, to celebrate his promotion to a higher grade. We weren't able to accept because we were going to Ubon for the wedding of one of our former volunteers to a young Thai man. But the teacher, Mr Prakong, came with us for alitter-picking session in Don Chao Poo, and afterwards he said that when the new school year began he would arrange for a group of students to pick litter there on a weekly basis as part of the new 'Community Involvement' section of the curriculum. A lucky break that augurs well.

Here is one section of our gang from yesterday:

 

The two girls were brilliant. They came out and worked with us on 5 days, so they deserve a bit of a close-up, I think. They used to come round to the house and learn English when they were at primary school, but they will be in M3 next year, สาวแล้ว, as they say, so they don't do that any more. But it was very nice to see them again, they are two lovely Phana girls.

For some the day's work was just a walk in the park ... or was it a walk on the wild side?

Whatever, at the end of the day it's just nice to put your feet up.

Which is precisely what I was glad to do after 7 days in the forest, helping to collect more than 100 bin bags full of rubbish.