To Have and Have Not

I am finding it very difficult to blog about Phana or Thailand at the moment. This is partly because I am not there, but that doesn't account for it entirely because I have a list of blogs waiting to be written and posted. More to the point is the uncertain situation in Thailand, in Bangkok particularly, where most of my Thai relatives live. It strikes me that much of what I had been ready to write would seem complacent at best and unfeeling at worst.

As so often throughout the more than forty years I have been in and out of Thailand, (sometimes as resident, sometimes as tourist, and for the last few years as not quite one thing or the other since I spend six months at a time in Thailand and six months back in England), I find myself pondering the nature of poverty: rural poverty in Isan as compared to urban poverty in Bangkok, for instance; Thai poverty compared to the poverty of people in sub-Saharan Africa or nearer to home in Bangladesh. I remember the visit of Thaksin Shinawatra to Phana duuring an election campaign a few years back and how he upset the people by telling them they were poor (a mistake Winston Churchill once made in Liverpool) and giving as an example the fact that the road though the old village was narrow and the houses wooden, both sources of pride to those who live in Phana.

And so the title of today's blog is borrowed from Ernest Hemingway.  I am not going to hold forth on the subject of life in Isan and whether or not it is impoverished because it has often appeared to me that that is just how the Bangkok Thai prefer to think of it and to refer to it and that this has more to do with their need to feel superior than it does to the reality of life, harsh though that is in many cases. Instead I will relate briefly the story of a woman in need and what the community did to help her.

I was visited by the quite-recently-elected new headman of Ban Noen That, a 'satellite' village adjacent to Ban Phana, but outside the boundaries of Phana Municipality. I had met him for the first time at the Wat Phra Lao festival where he was on the committee, but it turned out that I had known his mother well for many years. He came to tell Pensi and me about a woman in his village who had no proper place to live and no money, although she had a daughter with severe learning difficulties dependent on her.

People in the village had raised some money for her and one woman had offered her a small piece of land on which a house for her could be built. We offered him some money to pass on to her, but he invited us to meet her and present it formally.

From the left here you can see the headman, the woman who needed a house, the woman who had donated some land, Pensri, the headman's mother, and an official from the District Office who had helped draw up a contract to safeguard both parties in the matter of the land. He had also facilitated the use of some money from the government (Ministry of Interior) to pay for building the house and putting in water and electricity supply.

 

 A few weeks later we called on her to see how the house was coming along and found it almost completed. She had moved in already and they were putting finishing touches to it around her.

 

 

 

 

Click on the images below (and the ones above) to see enlarged pictures of her new house.

         

Sometimes foreigners get the impresion that Thais lack compassion and that because there is no institutional welfare system nothing is done for those who are in need. But here I could see that a desperate need was identified and the local community and  government officials  got together to provide a practical solution. I learned later that in Phana Municipality two similar houses had been provided for families without their own resources. Of course, this is poverty alleviation, not eradicaion of the causes of poverty, but I think Phana and Thailand can be proud of their responses in these cases.

   
 

 

Comments

[Mike]

Lawrence I must admit at times that I too have thought Thais lack compassion. This article clearly demonstrates they do not, or at least in Phana.

That said I often see MTF being compassionate, an example is an old lady who lives in a run down house in the village. She lets the old woman massage her. MTF says the massage is no good but she gives the old woman 200 Baht because she knows she has no family support.

Perhaps this is little like rural life in the UK prior to 1946?

[Catherine]

I'm having difficulties blogging about Thailand too. Hopefully next week will open up as I'm going to try to get stuck into a few real posts again.

I was unaware that foreigners were judging Thais as lacking in compassion. To me, Thais live and think as a community. And as one cannot live side by side without compassion coming into it, where is the lack?

[Lawrence]

Mike, when I'm not blogging I miss your comments, so thanks. Yes, I think Thais are just low-key or modest about what they do for others. And they have a very different approach to saying thank-you ... they don't, at least not with the frequency of some in the west.

Prior to 1946? Are you trying to trap me into admitting that I remember those days? All the compasssion I remember was American GIs training for D-Day (I didn't know that, of course) giving me chewing-gum as I walked to school.

[Lawrence]

Catherine, nice to see you here again, and CONGRATULATIONS on WLT being Thailand Voice Blog of the Month!

Not all foreigners see Thais as lacking compassion but I have come across enough of them in person and in writing to feel the balance needed a bit of redressing.

Good luck with getting back into blogging.

[michael hare]

Excellent blog Lawrence. Thais do have compassion, and it is nice to see what was done in Phana. I certainly hope that no large sign was erected stating who donated what etc. I think some foreigners think that some Thais only do charity work if there is a big show and everyone gets to know how generous you have been.

I certainly hope that lady and her daughter live for many more years together in the house.

You touched briefly on the uncertain situation in Bangkok. All I can say it is spreading. My maid is a fully fledged red shirt. Nothing about Thaksin, but rather against the elite in Bangkok etc. I can't even reason with her.

As you know my son started working for Reuters in February. We bought the new condo right opposite Ratchadamri train station next to the Four Seasons Hotel. He can't even move in. He managed to get through the barricades last week to take a look at the condo. The soi leading into the condo building was full of excrement and rubbish. Squalid conditions.

And holding new elections won't change anything one bit.

[Catherine]

Lawrence,

The only westerners I know who consistantly see Thais in an OTT bad light are on forums. And those, I discount. No race is totally lacking in any human attributes - good, or bad.

Btw - thank you for the congrats. It is a sweet honour :-)

[Lawrence]

Michael, thanks for the compliment. No large sign and very little fuss about the whole business.
I'm sorry to hear that your son hasn't been able to move in yet. That will be one more heart and mind the red-shirts failed to win over.
I'm reading your memories of the old Ubon on Memock's blog, incidentally, and enjoying them.

[Lawrence]

Catherine, yes, I was thinking about forums, BP correspondents, plus a few I have met. But you are right, and I guess I was stereotyping in much the same way they do. Thanks for your comments, I appreciate them.