Thai Life in Phana

Just another quiet day in Phana

I have to thank the Oyster Band for my title today although their song was much more heavily ironic than this post will be. That's because it really was a quiet day in Phana and as it got dark here this evening I was thinking that nothing at all had happened. But on reflection that is not quite true.

The loudspeaker from Moo 9 started up really early today, about 5 a.m. it woke me and by the sound of it it had been going on a while. There is a special harvest festival being held at Wat Burapa in Moo 9 over the next three days and it started this morning.

By about 7.15 Pensri and I were out in the drive playing badminton, a daily activity for us and a source of entertainment for the busloads of schoolkids who go by between this time and 8 o'clock. My usual intense concentration was disturbed though by what I saw on the cables strung out along the far side of the road. I rushed for my camera and then rushed with it up the road, The result was poor but at least it is proof that I'm not just making all this excitement up.

Now something like this would not get a mention if I lived in Lopburi, but here it only happens about once a year. I suspect that it is the same elderly male that goes walkabout on the wires. He is heading home here but is still about a km away.  

As we were eating breakfast on the verandah (it makes us think we are at Southfork) a young woman came by and squatted down next to Pensri and asked her advice on some family problems she is having. I wandered off to my 'study' at the back of the house to do some work on an extended piece of writing I am currently busy with in an off and on sort of way. A friend of mine, a former illegal immigrant now made legal, came by with a gift of a large fish. We said we would have it for lunch and an hour or so later he was back with lots of vegetables for us to eat with it. While he was away a friend of Pensri's came by with a ripe papaya from her garden. So that was a bit more lunch for us.

Pensri went off to do some photo-copying and while she was away another annual sort of traveller went by on a bicycle. I'm not easily fooled so I knew straight away that it was Santa Claus. Except, of course, that it wasn't. Because I caught a glimpse of a very neat leg emerging from the red robe. You shouldn't be in my blog, I thought, get back, get back to  where you once belonged Mrs Claws.

Lunchtime came and the fish was one I had never had before, The flesh was similar in colour and texture to a trout but it was a much chubbier fish (though I have never eaten chub) and a bit oily for my taste. Good though. And the papaya was sweeter and jucier than many we buy.

A couple of hours after lunch we were both on the verandah again, this time I was having a foot massage from the woman I met at the community day recently. A man from Wat Phra Lao committee came and talked us into donating towards moving the crematorium a bit further west. At the moment they need money for land-filling, 200 Baht a truck-load.  He had a big accounts book with him and took a long time telling us who had paid up so far and how much. So he put us down for 5 loads and we paid up. We don't much like their reasons for moving the crematorium (more room for the stage when they hold the annual festival) but on the other hand it will be moved further from us, so on balance it's to our advantage.

A couple more visitors. Ajarn Kanet, headteacher of one of Phana's schools, came round to talk to Pensri about the school reunion they are organizing together. Then, just after I had finished my foot massage, another ajarn came round to collect some proof-reading I had done of some work sheets he had prepared for his English classes.

And finally (but I can't really be sure of this for at least another hour since it is now 8.30 p.m.) Mr Arporn came round, coughing badly. Yesterday he was coughing worse and took himself to the district hospital just before dusk. He took a short cut from his house through Don Chao Poo, the local forest and monkey sanctuary. On one of the sandy tracks he came across a python, about 6 metres long and as fat as his admittedly skinny thigh. He didn't have much time to be frightened but he managed to be and accelerated past it because he reckoned if he had braked he would have stopped right up next to it. He also mentioned that it was lucky he wasn't on his bicycle becaue it doesn't have any lights. I don't actually think pythons are a danger to fully-grown humans but I didn't want to spoil his story. And I may be wrong. I definitely wouldn't hang around to put my theory to the test.

People used to talk about the python in Don Chao Poo but a couple of years ago the monkey population started to increase and it was assumed that the python was no more. It was a defunct python. Etc, etc, etc. I met an Englishman a couple of years ago who lives about 75 kms away. He said that he used to have a Burmese python but it grew too big so he put it in a box and drove it to Don Chao Poo where he released it, hoping it liked macaque monkeys. So I just wonder ...

I am also wondering whether tomorrow will be another quiet day in Phana. We shall see.

 

When will they ever learn?

Reading about the war cemetries in Kanchanaburi recently I was put in mind of the story of a great-uncle of mine. He spent his whole life wanting to be a soldier. His grandfather and two of his uncles had illustrious careers in the Indian Army, both of them in what were known then as 'native regiments'. His grandfather had started his career in a regiment raised by the East India Company that only became part of the British army after the mutiny, or the uprising as Indians naturally prefer to call it.

This all sounds like ancient history, which of course it is. But reading a blog about a visit to the Thailand - Burma death railway and another about the Japanese invasion of Thailand , I realised that there is a connection to the present. So this is the sad story of my great-uncle, born in 1903, died in 1954.

As I said, he spent his whole life wanting to be a soldier. In 1918, aged 15, he joined up in an Indian regiment by lying about his age. I learned from my grandmother -- his older sister-- that although he joined up, the army later rejected him. A few years ago, while researching his grandfather at the National Archive at Kew, I looked up Uncle Colin's army record too. He was sent from England to India, by ship, and made his way to the regimental HQ at Peshawar, just down from the Khyber Pass. When he reported for duty, unfortunately for him he was recognized by someone who knew his real age. The very next day he was returned by train to Karachi and some time later by ship back to England and the regimental depot! His army record shows that he was rejected by the CO for being underage.

Uncle Colin spent the years up to the Second World War feeling a strong sense of injustice, made worse because his older brother, who hated soldiering and described himself as a useless soldier, had survived WW1 and achieved the rank of major.

Then came WWII and Uncle Colin's second chance. By now he was 37 years old, too old to volunteer (though later no doubt he would have been called up) so once again he lied about his age, lowering it this time. He was accepted, retrained, and sent out to Singapore.

He had been in Singapore two months when the Japanese invaded and he was taken prisoner. He was imprisoned first in Changi jail but not sent to Thailand. He was spared that, perhaps because of his age. The graves in Kanchanaburi are almost all of very young men.

Instead, he was sent to Japan. His prison camp was on the outskirts of Nagasaki so when the second atomic bomb was dropped there on 9 August 1945 he was exposed to radiation which killed him slowly and painfully nine years later.

I saw him fairly often in the years before he died and though I didn't understand why, I remember noticing that he seemed to get smaller each time we met. The other thing I remember is that he always told me what a great thing it was to be a soldier. He talked sometimes about life in the prison camp, but never mentioned how brief and inglorious his contributions to the two world wars was. I've no doubt that if he had lived he would have wanted to enlist again. When will they ever learn?

 

Out of the Fire, into the Frying Pan

The downturn in the global economy has reached Phana. At least one small enterprise that had been looking to expand is currently feeling the chill of currency disparities despite basing  its business on applying some pretty high temperatures.

Behind the innocent-looking facade of this rural scene on the outskirts of Phana, an unlikely business is carried out.

 

 

And this is Mr Arporn, the man who lives here. His field of expertise is in  producing chicken for human consumption. He worked away from Phana for more than twenty years but like many people he has returned here to start his own little business.

 

His career as an employee was fairly evenly spread in terms of time between five different companies. Two of them, the first and the last, were wholly Thai companies, but three of them were joint ventures, one with a Japanese company, one with a Dutch company and one with a company from New Zealand.

Mr Arporn speaks pretty good English, though naturally it is better when he is talking about chickens and chicken parts and the various processes involved in preparing them for consumption.

The business he runs behind the bamboo curtain is the production of cooking oil. He has installed what looks like a giant wok which is heated using wood as fuel. He buys chicken fat from a factory in Warin Chamrap, in Ubon Ratchathani Province. This factory is currently processing 30,000 birds a day. Roughly 70% of their product is for the export market and the remainder for domestic consumption. The meat sold on the domestic market is of lower grade than that for export. That is not quite as bad as it sounds because apparently it is mostly graded on size, the smaller size not being exported. But the lower grade does also include slightly bruised meat and meat which Mr Arporn describes as 'ugly'.

Mr Arporn buys all the chicken fat which is cut off as part of the factory process. It is delivered to him in Phana every day. He pays 12 Baht a kilo and reckons to need about 1,000 kilos a day. During the night the fat is rendered into oil in his giant wok, producing about 750 kilos of usable oil. After mixing the residue with used oil from KFC in Ubon, he supplies it to another business which produces animal feed. This mixture he sells on at 20 Baht a kilo, whereas the oil destined for use by food vendors and restaurants he sells at 25 Baht per kilo. Mr Arporn's younger brother and sister-in-law work for him, carefully decanting a measured quantity of oil into plastic bags and delivering them to customers.

The problem for the factory in Warin Chamrap and hence fro Mr Arporn at the moment is the strong Thai Baht and the relatively weak US Dollar. The factory  is processing 30,000 birds a day as I said, but this is down from the 70,000 a day up to the beginning of November and their break-even figure is 50,000 a day. So there is a lot less chicken fat coming Mr Arporn's way, and his customers are crying out for more cooking oil. The other downside for him is that the factory in Warin Chamrap had asked him to try to get more customers for the processed chicken pieces they produce, specifically in Laos and Vietnam where he has some contacts still from his years working in the industry. Laos, it seems, counts as the domestic market (ie they get the lower grade product) while Vietnam is an export grade market. Either way, Thai chicken is very expensive right now outside Thailand so demand has fallen considerably.

All of this may be more information than you needed about one of those topics that is rarely thought about and perhaps best not thought about at all. So it is probably time to draw the bamboo curtain across the subject.

 

I will just add that Mr Arporn tells me that he does eat chicken but only the scrawny, free-range local variety. Who can blame him? We do the same ourselves, buying it in the fresh market on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Recycling Day in Phana, Thailand

Recycling Day was a big success in Phana. As usual just about everyone in Tambon Phana was involved, either as a participant or a spectator. The competition for the moo baan with the best costumes and float drew some interesting entries from all the little communities that make up Tetsaban Tambon Phana.

This carefully-crafted hat made from recycled materials seems to epitomise the committment the people of Phana show when they are asked to put on a show like this.

The parade started in the amphur, at Samarkee School. They started marching at about 3.15 pm and reached the bridge just down from our house at about 3.30. As always they were led by two beautiful young women, in this case the two volunteers from Project Trust.

Samarkee School students were near the head of the parade:

The marchers came in all shapes and sizes:

The women of Phana always enjoy a parade and don't seem to mind making a bit of an exhibition of themselves.

 

These men enjoyed themselves too:

This was a day of many worthy slogans.

 

This one was contributed by Pensri and I to the Moo 1 (our community) section of the parade. I don't know how or why the hyphen jumped out of place.

 

This band comes from Samarkee School which has a great tradition of music and dancing.

 

This marching band performs at every occasion imaginable in Phana. They also spend a lot of time practising in the evenings and can be heard a long way off.

 

I love this section of the band, both for the ingenuity of the mobile, battery-powered amps and for the sound that comes out.

 

Here comes the mayor! On the right.

 

The decoration of the floats was fairly predictable but colourful anyway.

 

 

And after the parade comes the Tetsaban's waste-collection truck. Is it about to be made redundant by all this recycling?

 

When I caught up with the stationary parade at the market place I realised that I had contributed these Beer Lao and San Miguel cans. A young woman we know takes them from me and turns them into these attractive decorations.

This is the recycling stall. People brought bags and sacks full of stuff, all sorted. It was weighed and exchanged for an appropriate reward. There were eggs, for example, and kids could get sticker books or soft drinks.

I saw our friend who recently hosted a harvest celebration at her farm. She was having a foot massage and I decided to join her. Unfortunately, you paid for the massage with a ticket obtained by exchanging a sackful of rubbish at the stall. So the massage women were contributing their work to the cause. Well, I didn't have any rubbish with me to exchange so I'm afraid I used a bit of influence. The deputy-mayor's wife somehow acquired a ticket for me, I don't know how because she didn't have any rubbish either. Well, this is Thailand.

Somebody mistakenly thought I would make a good photograph so I asked her to take one with my camera too.

 

This foot massage business takes a lot of concentration. It is excellent anyway, and I have booked the same woman to come and give me another massage tomorrow afternoon. I'll have to pay for that one, though.

 

When they didn't have enough customers (rarely, in fact) the massage women gave each other a massage.

 

Then the on-stage performances began and that is how I ended recycling day in Phana. Very satisfying. Oh, the tetsban also provided everyone with some sticky rice and pork in a banana leaf. Packed in with the food there was also a tiny bit of banana leaf wrapped around some nam prik. Very thoughtful. And delicious.

 
 
 
 

 

 

 
 

 

 

  

 

Celebrating the Rice Harvest in Phana

The rice harvest is pretty much completed in Phana and a couple of friends invited us to a ceremony at their farm to mark their own successful harvest.

This celebration goes by the name of Su Kwan Khao (Calling the Rice Spirits) although this one that we attended had several non-traditional features. Traditionally, the ritual was held in the fields before the rice was taken back to the house to be stored. Our friends' house is located right next to their fields and most of their rice had already been sacked up. The little pile of unhusked rice in the foreground of this picture represents the way it used to be done.

Another variation  from tradition was that the main ritual was not performed by a Mor Kwan (a spirit expert). Instead, the pa kwan (the decorated trays in the top centre of the picture) was joined to a Buddha image by the sai sin (sacred thread). People in Phana do not generally pay much attention to spirits. Nobody has a spirit house, for instance.

The spirits were well catered for, all the same. At the four corners of the rice heap were plates containing sticky rice steamed in banana leaves, hard-boiled eggs, a boiled chicken and a bottle of alcoholic spirit. The spirits don't seem to be very interested in the offerings (though I'm sure they appreciate the thought) and the guests always end up consuming everything.

 

The ceremony was held outdoors of course in an area shaded by big mango trees. Now usually if I stand anywhere near a mango tree the red ants that live in it find me within minutes. There must have been something about the presence of nine monks that persuaded them to leave us alone that day, because the ants didn't show at all.

This nicely understated set of shrine tables and the paraphenalia that goes with it stood in one corner of the area. The lotus pond in the background set it off nicely. Our friends' farm is fully organic and recognised as a model farm by one of the King's projects.

The contrasting light and shade didn't make photography easy but the atmosphere was very peaceful.

 

Here the acting-abbot of Wat Phra Lao has extinguished the candle at the end of the chant, thereby making the water in the bowl holy.

 

It is always a nice moment when one of the monks sprinkles the lay people with the holy water. You can feel the relaxation of tension after the serious business of chanting and sitting attentively (or not).

 

Phra Dit (the acting abbot) then read from a palm-leaf book, singing the words. They were in Lao, although they were written in the Thai script. This replaced the invocation to the spirits which a mor kwan would have chanted. I was very impressed by the way he could flip the book to a new page using just his right hand. And also he could read all the words without using a finger to point at them, quite an achievement since the words are very small and the lines very long, the pages being very wide. Still, I'm not sure anyone would have known if he had skipped a line or two.

 

The lay people sitting at a suitably respectful distance made me think that the mango trees had been planted with just this ceremony in mind maybe 15 or 20 years ago.

 

While all this was going on, women and small girls were preparing the food.

 

When the time comes to serve it, the young(est) men carry out the trays.

 

The host (in white shirt) prepares to make the offering...

 

... and his wife joins him with the white envelopes containing a small gift of money for each monk, and one for the layman in the dark clothes who had requested the chanting and the taking of five precepts.

 

On this occasion the monks did not eat from individual trays but arranged themselves in small groups and enjoyed the picnic atmosphere. Monks don't speak while they are eating and they don't show any pleasure or displeasure concerning the food.

 

 

We lay people waited patiently for them to finish so that we could eat. We were not constrained to silence when the time did come for us to eat, and we were full of verbal appreciation for the food.

 

Because Buddhist ceremonies in Thailand all follow the same basic pattern, it is easy to think that your experience is going to be the same on each occasion. But in fact there are always little differences in procedure, or place, or people, or FOOD and these things keep them interesting for me even though I have attended so many and often set out convinced that I am not going to have a good time. But I do. Especially now that everyone accepts that for at least some of the time I need to sit on a chair on the fringes of the gathering.

  

 
 
 

 

 

  

 

Allegations against Monk

The other day I visited a temple near a small town about 45 kms from Phana. I had heard that it had a small viharn containing two statues of a monk who was a follower of the famous Isan meditation master, Ajaan Mun Bhuridatto. 

 

I am always interested in the variety of Buddhist temples in Thailand and the extremes of architecture and atmosphere that you can experience in them. This was definitely at the austere end of the spectrum. There was no main viharn, no preaching hall, no famous image. The ubosot (ordination hall) was very plain inside and out. The door was locked but the window shutters were open. Inside there were no murals, no columns, no ceiling ornamentation. The compound was very large and there was a huge number of tall, old trees giving plenty of shade. There was a school for novices (124 of them) with a big welcome sign in English and about three classes of younger novices were in session. Some novices were using the school library to read daily newspapers and the wall outside the library featured news of the death of former PM Samak and photographs of him. Along one side of the compound wall there were several two-storey buildings to accommodate the novices. There were also two special little buildings, one a resdience and the other an office. This was because this temple is where the Chao Kana Changwat (the head monk of the province) stays.

There was a surprising number of cars and pick-ups and a mini-van parked in the shade under several of the trees. It isn't unusual for there to be vehicles like this in a temple, but there didn't seem to be anyone around except three old ladies sitting at a table in the deserted outdoor canteen for novices. While I wandered around the grounds and visited the school, Pensri went to sit with the women. It didn't take her long to find out what was going on.

A meeting was going on between the Chao Kana Changwat and a delegation of supporters of a small forest monastery not far away in the same amphur. There was only one monk (a 20-year monk, 42 years old) staying at the temple and there were also three middle-aged women, one of them his aunt, who also stay there practising meditation, though they are not mae chee. Allegations had been made in writing that the monk was 'too strict' and requests made that he be removed from the temple. There were also allegations that he had misbehaved with one or more women.

The allegation of being too strict arose from a few people who had borrowed money from the monk, or from the temple funds. His strictness took the form of ASKING FOR THE MONEY TO BE REPAID. Now it is not uncommon in Isan for loans to be requested and granted with both sides knowing that there is little or no chance of repayment, though nothing is said to this effect. But this would not be the expectation in the case of money borrowed from a temple. Asking for repayment causes  loss of face, possibly to both sides. As for the allegations of sexual impropriety, they are easily made against a solitary monk. In this case it would seem that they only arose because the monk had been so strict about the money. He certainly wasn't wise to lend money in the first place, though if you were being charitable you might say he was being helpful.

The people Pensri spoke to, and seemingly all the people who had come for the meeting (there were about 60 of them), all supported the monk and wanted him to stay. And that was the outcome of the meeting: the monk was allowed to stay. However, when his supporters had all left, he was still in conference with the Chao Kana Changwat, so perhaps some form of pennance, or at least some good advice, was coming his way.

A few photos of the temple. The wat gate already suggests austerity in that it focuses on the Buddha's teaching, the wheel of the law and the two tudong (wandering) monks on either side. Also the lack of bright colour is significant.

 

This small viharn was specially built to house the shrine to comemorate the revered monk who spent years wandering with Ajaan Mun. The local people decided some time ago to comemmorate him here, perhaps because he settled here in his old age, or perhaps he was originally a local person.

The walls of the lower section are of brick roughly covered with stucco. The interesting thing is that these walls do not reach the ceiling and the windows have no shutters, so it is very cool and airy inside. This inner building is the original, the viharn is just an open-sided sala built over it to provide protection from the rain and sun.

 

The shrine room is also very simple and relatively uncluttered.

 

Behind the viharn is the ordination hall and these two animals were being sheltered on a kind of veranda behind the hall. They were covered in heavy-duty canvas patches, stitched fairly roughly. I suppose that they were waiting to be covered with concrete or stucco of some sort.

 

This was a very interesting temple to visit, and the 'goings on' there on that day made it even more interesting.

 
   

 

 

 

Centenary in Phana

On the 5th day of the new moon of the 12th lunar month, the year of the cockerel, which was Wednesady the 17th of November 2452 (1909) around 6 pm, I was born to my mother Nang Nin. The place was Ban Phanan which is now known as Ban Phana, Tambon Phana, Amphur Phana (then) in the province of Ubon.

 

That is how Ta Rin, my father-in-law, began a memoir of his life. His memoir continued like this:

In the year 2524 (1981) my age was exactly six cycles (72 years).I had a strong desire to do something meaningful with my life story. I had spent 43 years, almost half a century, as a primary school teacher. During those years Thai primary education was changing all the time, and so did my own working life. I worked for all sorts of departments, and my work involved me in nearly all aspects of primary education for such a long time. I met a tremndous number of people, taught thousands of pupils. I have led my life sometimes with wisdom and sometimes with ignorance. I hope my experience will be useful to primary school teachers of the younger generation and interesting to readers in general. The story you are reading now is the story of a poor illegitimate child who was successful in life.

Ta Rin had, as is the custom for civil servants, retired at the end of October 1969, and in the middle of the next month I became his fourth son-in-law. He had been a teacher, a head teacher, and an education officer in the District Offie. He was also a farmer and the father of eight girls and having no sons of his own he adopted two boys who came from large families. He was chairman of the Village Development Committee and he continued in this role for another fifteen years. link to history page

 

For Ta Rin, education, education, education was not just an empty phrase. Education was his life. He taught just about everyone I know today in Phana over the age of fifty. They still talk about him. Every one of his daughters got degrees, an amazing achievement at any time and particularly so for young women from  Isan in the 1960s and 70s.

 

A few days ago I met a monk who as a young novice in Phana had known Ta Rin through another senior monk who Rin met with frequently for discussions and advice. This monk told me that Ta Rin was an exceptional man because he was honest, straightforward, caring, and treated everyone the same.

 

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, saw him as a totally impractical person and his daughters saw a man whose good ideas needed a good wife to help him put them into practice. But everyone, me included, remembers him with enormous affection.

 

In a book published to mark his sixth cycle he wrote an article entitled 'Living a Hundred Years'. He did not do so, he died on 10th November 1997. And yet today, a hundred years after he was born, it seems as if he did indeed live a hundred years. And more in the memory of many people still.

 

Rin Mahanil: 17 November 2452 (1909) -- 10 November 2540 (1997).

 

 

 

 

Thai Surnames

People who know Thailand are aware that surnames are very rarely used. People are addressed perfectly politely by their given name. In fact surnames have not been around in Thailand for all that long and they obviously have never achieved the same status they are accorded elsewhere in the world.

 

In 1906 the then Crown Prince Vajiravudh wrote an essay which set out some of the practical reasons why he thought surnames would be useful: they would identify individuals more precisely, and indicate family background. In 1913 when he had been king (Rama VI) for nearly three years, he issued a decree announcing that everyone in the kingdom was to have a surname so that government records of births, marriages and deaths would be clear and reliable and so that identification of individuals and their line of descent would be free from possible error. He wrote in another essay: "Now that we have surnames it can be said that we have caught up with people who are regarded as civilized."

The decree announced in March 1913 had twenty articles altogether. The main provisions were these:

 

• A surname was to be adopted by all Thai
• The name chosen would be the permanent name of the family, to be handed down in the male line
• A married woman was to take her husband's name
• Neither given name nor surnname was to be changed without the permission of the Nai Amphur, the District Officer
• The oldest living male of a family was to choose the name
• The surname had to be suitable, in keeping with the family's position, and with no coarse connotations
• The name must not require more than ten letters to write
• There was to be no duplication of surname in a district or neighbouring district
• The decree was to become law on 1st July 1913 and six months later all heads of family were to have complied by registering their name with the district office.

It seems that as late as 1924 the Ministry of Interior was still having trouble getting its own officials to comply with the law despite the possession of a surname being a prerequisite for appointment to positions such as kamnan (commune head) and pu yai ban (village head).

 

I don't know when it could be said that everyone in Thailand had a surname, probably not until the last thirty years or so when minority peoples in the north were pressed into adopting them, mainly by not allowing children into school without a properly registered surname.

 

The avoidance of 'coarse connotations' is a reminder that many nicknames used to be very coarse, unlike now when 'cute' seems to be the preference.

 

The oldest surnames are those that conform to the 'no more than ten letters' rule. Here in Phana almost all surnames consist of just two or three syllables. The very long names are usually quite recent and are generally attempts at translating Chinese names into a Thai equivalent.

Young Mor Lam Singers

These two young mor lam singers appeared twice in Phana recently. They are just 9 years old but already have real stage presence and their memory for the words of the songs was very impressive.

I saw them first at a tam boun baan, where I recorded them. Then they appeared at the tetsaban's entertainment for Tod Kathin where I took some photos.

Here is the video of  them:

They really seem at home on stage:

The audience enjoyed their performance very much. The only two who seemed a bit tense are the girl's mother (front left) and the boy's father (front right).

I noticed that he mouthed every word the boy sang and the boy glanced at him rather nervously and frequently at the tam boun baan. A typical 'star's parent' I guess. Seeing the little boy having his makeup put on was an odd thing, too. But they both (they are unrelated, apparently, but both come from Phibul Mangsahan in Ubon Province) sang really well. Good to see mor lam performed without 99 dancers in strange headgear, as well. 

 

If you are not familiar with mor lam, you may find the style strange. They are singing in Lao, of course. I hope you enjoy this brief example. 
 

Miss World in Phana: SHOCK RESULT!

What are we to make of this? What will political analysts make of it?

These are the questions being asked here in Phana.

The result of the Miss World contest held in Phana recently came as quite a surprise. The hot favourite was undoubtedly Miss Thailand who certainly looked the part. Here she is again for anyone who needs reminding of her undoubted charms.

 

The comperes took some time to decide who the winner should  be:

 

Well, the winner was ....

 

Miss Lao! and the runner up was Miss Vietnam.

 

Here is the happy winner:

 

 

She certainly seemed happy and appreciative of the honour:

 

No doubt the 'crown' suited her better than the pink shower cap she wore when we first saw her.