Temple gate (Wat Tart Tong) leading to crematorium,
with long queues for a replica Royal Cremation, 26 Oct
2017
Bangkok Love Letter
FRIDAY the 13TH
Friday 13 October – Friday 4 November, 2017, Bangkok
Dear Foreign Friend,
My
usual omen-laden picks of recent news, namely the old abbot feared for occult
powers killed with a hammer wrapped in bloody sanitary napkins; 2 more cold
skeletons unearthed by following dream directions from the murder victims; even
Ajarn Sulak Sivaraksa’s alleged lese majeste against a 16th century
king—these will have to wait as we set it all aside to share in the terrible moment
when we must burn King Bhumibol’s earthly remains, to send him off to another
dimension, far from our vale of tears.
Monsoon clouds above Rama VIII bridge, Oct 6, 2017
Friday 13 October, 2017, Bangkok
No sun again. Dark all day. Rumbling
thunder all afternoon; this morning it rained. Instead of retreating, the
monsoon seems increased in intensity. In the day-long twilight a vampire could
walk around even at noon without getting a tan.
One year after the King died, I
didn’t go out to see if people were really standing in silence for 89 seconds (HM’s
age + 1) at 3:52 pm (time of death). Banks & the Public Health Station up
the road are closed; I didn’t feel like witnessing the ceremony at the shopping
mall among temporary gardens of real & artificial marigolds.
October for us is a month
pregnant with history of sweeping change. King Rama V died on October 23 after
presiding over a long ‘golden’ reign; first true people’s uprising on October
14 followed 3 years later by the October 6 massacre; crushing of People’s
Alliance for Democracy on October 7, and now we have October 13. Even the last
uprising, Shutdown Bangkok, began at Halloween on October 30-31 beside the
train tracks at Samsen station. The light beams from passing trains provided
the requisite horror movie lighting as they passed over the massed protesters
scattering to make way for the train, itself full of people waving clappers
& flags whose screams died out as the train sped them away. Meanwhile movie
channels run their annual classic horror fests to mark the Witching Month.
Marigold garden materializing in front of a shopping
centre
to honour King Rama IX
This
October is of course especially solemn, with the one year anniversary of the
death of King Rama IX on October 13th, a Friday no less. Since October 1st, TV colour
intensity on some channels is back to what it was in the month after he died, pushed
down to about 40%, leaving the image sepia, like something that happened once
upon a time to people who lived long ago.
Everyone I know has a decision to
make re the Royal Cremation, a holiday, on October 26: to go into the fray or stay
home & watch it all on TV in the comfort of our own home, safe & dry
but with no direct contact with the sensations of a historic moment. But people
struck by an insane grief won’t care about endless
queuing & getting drenched; some might even welcome it as miraculous
blessing of holy water from the Beloved One who now continues to safeguard the cohesion
& stability of our country from above; some may even be taking pride &
joy in the physical suffering they must endure to be close to his remains, in
an attempt to assuage the intensity of their bewilderment and pain.
October storm clouds
It is announced that on the day
of the Royal Cremation of King Bhumibol, Rama IX of the Chakri dynasty, all
banks & shopping malls will be closed, to enable staff to attend the ritual
as they wish. They can’t go to the movies, however, as cinemas will also be
closed; no escapist entertainment. From October 13 to 29th all flags
will fly half-mast including at Thai embassies worldwide, during which time all
civil servants are asked to wear black. Why they feel the need to say this last
escapes me; most people have remained in mourning clothes anyway since the day
he died last October 13.
Official replicas of the Royal
Crematorium have been built in all 76 provinces, usually in front of the town
hall, which will receive the mourners’ crematory flowers [dok mai
jan—“sandalwood flower”], to be burned at the same time as the real
cremation, by a flame taken from the same sacred fire, in a symbolic attempt to
unite the nation. In Bangkok, in addition to the actual purpose-built Royal
Crematorium, there are 3 replicas (one almost next to the original, another
nearby in front of City Hall; one at a shopping centre in the Eastern suburb of
Bangna) as well as other designated sites such as Wat That Thong & other
temples known for funereal services.
Change of reign reflected by a new film for the
pre-movie royal anthem
(cinema audiences must stand up for the royal anthem
before the film begins)
With
vast emotional crowds and many crowned heads of the world attending, the Royal
Funeral is also a security nightmare. New rules & regulations have been
announced: drones are not allowed within a 19 km radius from the Royal Ground;
no selfie stick & no selfie, no zoom or telephoto lens (or anything else
that might be mistaken for a gun or rocket launcher, I suppose); those wishing
to join the crowds around the Grand Palace must first be vetted at several ‘Sorting & Filtering’ [“jood kudgrong”] checkpoints set up in a
wide net. Bring your National Identity Card & carry it always; wear proper
respectful dress: no shorts allowed & for women skirt below the knees only,
no pants; and proper, covered shoes. Since many people can’t afford such shoes,
this last injunction is likely to be an effective deterrent which could help thin
the crowds. Hats & umbrellas must be black or other “polite colours”; the telephone
covers of those seated in the front must be black only “so the picture would
look good” (this was not announced on TV but on site by volunteers—on the 25th
a photographer I know actually saw people being forced to buy new phone covers
from vendors on the spot); as the royal family approaches, hats &
sunglasses must be removed & umbrellas closed; you must then prostrate
until they have passed.
In addition, news outlets are not
allowed to broadcast the procession live, whether in rehearsal or on the actual
day; it must all come from the TV pool. They’re also not allowed to use images
from the public’s Facebook live. The Nation TV and one other channel have been
punished for disregarding this rule & were banned from presenting clips of
the last rehearsal.
One odd thing I’ve just noticed
from news clips of the final rehearsal is the American-sounding martial music,
mingling with & almost drowning the traditional Brahmin conch & Mon pi-part
sounds. It’s very odd. I don’t remember such a discordant combination during
Queen Rambhai’s funeral (which I was privileged to attend as a junior
relative). I remember people just
walking solemnly, not marching. Perhaps it’s an attempt to make it less solemn
by speeding things up. I imagine that for those in the procession, it must be
difficult to reconcile the thumping rhythm of military marching to the
emotional requirements of a funeral.
Daily News front page 16 Oct 2017: Princess Maha Chakri
Sirindhorn
at final rehearsal for her royal father’s funeral
procession
A string of funerals, of lesser
beloved mortals, deepened my sombre mood & provided the usual discreet
gossip catch-up opportunity. People seem
to be either agreeing with or confirming our worst fears. In a breathless hush
we huddle & wait for Halloween, “after the ceremony”.
As you can imagine, what with the
very recent Shakespeare court loss to the censors which we are appealing
[Bangkok Love Letter #12], I think I’ve finally reached my
limit. The royalist fervour being displayed by some unlikely quarters, in tandem
with the ‘new’ political correctness verbiage of the old colonial divide &
conquer chestnut, finally convince me that no divisions exist between human
beings other than in their sincerity or lack thereof. Instead of dividing the
world into ‘evil elite’ & ‘peasants’; ‘military fascists’ & ‘democrats’; ‘royalists’ & ‘anti-royalists’, ‘blacks’
& ‘whites’, in survival terms it makes much more sense to discern whether
someone is ‘opportunistic’ or ‘sincere’. Depending on your nature, on this
basis you’d know if someone could be trusted as an ally. A sincere person would
obviously be a bad partner in crime. Sightings proliferate of groups of
unlikely people meeting in strange configurations.
A policeman on duty at the Royal Ground proudly shows
off his knee,
blistered from hours of prostrating on a hot pavement
Yingluck’s
would-be successor, Khunying Sudarat Keyurapan of the For Thai Party tasted the
sting of social media scorn when she drove around in a truck with her name in
big bold letters on the windscreen, exhorting all & sundry to plant
marigolds to honour King Rama IX. She refuted accusations of electioneering by
pleading tearfully that she wished only to show her love for the King. As inadequate newcomer Yingluck effortlessly
landed the plum role of first Thai woman prime minister, the veteran politician
spent her wilderness years on pilgrimages, especially to the Buddha’s birth
place, Lumbhini in Nepal. As the bloodshed of Shutdown Bangkok spattered over
everyone, her Buddhist devotional dress remains white & pristine, ready for
her reentrance on the national stage, just as some poll finds her the most
appealing choice for voters, nationwide.
On TV, the stars are singing for King Rama IX
Meanwhile here’s redshirt leader
of self-proclaimed peasants & professional hater of the evil elite Thida
Thavornseth’s justifying, on her Facebook to the redshirt faithful, Yingluck’s
flight from justice 2 days before her rice scheme sentencing (despite her
defiant promise not to flee):
“Ms Yingluck is in the social
elite class..It was a sacrifice for her to participate in politics.. Ms Yingluck
cannot be held to have betrayed & forsaken the people. Professor Thida
[sic, meaning herself] understands & sympathises & believes that we
should even support her [action].”
Is the former Comrade Poon of the Communist Party of Thailand saying in
effect that lesser mortals (like Yingluck’s Commerce Minister Boonsong) can go
to jail because, not having been brought up in the lap of luxury, they can take
it?
“Thaksin Thinks, Puea Thai [“For Thai”] Acts”, Thaksin’s party’s
electioneering motto for Yingluck’s election, has turned into the catchphrase: “Thaksin
Thinks; Yingluck Acts; Boonsong goes to Jail” [“Thaksin
Kid, Puea Thai Tum; Boonsong Tid Kook”]. For Boonsong you can
substitute any other Thaksin disciple including real rather than fake ‘peasant’
redshirts jailed for burning provincial town halls on their leaders’ televised
exhortations to “Burn it all, brothers & sisters, burn it all! I’ll take
the responsibility & the blame!”
The police are also steadfast.
They obviously believe their Big Brother Thaksin, and their police state, will return in one form or another after the
elections. Witness the shameful way the local police chief treated the
DNA-collecting forensics police in front of Yingluck’s house, frisking them
& searching their cases before allowing them to enter as part of the
farcical investigation into Yingluck’s cop-assisted flight, as the National
Police Deputy Commander presided over the shame.
Forensics unit being frisked & intimidated by local
cops
before being allowed inside Yingluck’s house (Nation
TV)
Saturday 14 October
Biggest
flood in over 30 years came into the house & ruined some books. Everyone’s
exhausted after being up since 3 AM rescuing stuff & unblocking the drain
in the ‘Thousand Year Rain’. All sensitive stuff removed to high ground. A
“Niagara of flood water” roared into the 2 storey underground carpark of the
almost completed condo up the soi, drowning all the cars. That was the source
of the blood-curdling scream heard in the predawn pitch darkness after the
power black-out. Nobody feels sorry for them; they’ve destroyed the road &
choked up the drains with cement dust. With impending deluge from the North
& high water approaching from the sea, we wonder anxiously if the King’s
cremation will be flooded with brackish river water as well as tears.
Golden gates to a razed plot where an old house &
garden once stood,
drowning in worst
floods in inner Bangkok in over 30 years, 14 Oct 2017
Friday 20 October, New Moon
More
rules & guidelines for those attending the cremation at the Royal Ground
are announced: we should wear “polite colours”, carry only “black or grey
umbrellas”, and “absolutely no selfie sticks”. We should not make a spectacle
of ourselves but “express grief in an orderly & polite, peaceful & reserved
manner” [“sadaeng argarn siajai duay kwarm suparp riab-roy, sa-ngob, samruam”]. Also,
do not to forget yourself and proclaim ‘Long Live the King!’ as his remains or
the golden urn that represented his remains*, pass
by in the procession, since of course the King you’d be calling out to, for
whom you’re weeping, is dead. [*Queen
Rambhai’s was the last royal body to actually reside, ancient Thai style, within
the urn pre-cremation like an embryo ready for rebirth as another avatar in a new
womb.]
As the rules multiply, reports
abound of verbal fights breaking out between volunteers helping out with the
Royal Cremation & would-be attendees who were not deemed eligible to pass
the “filtering & sorting points”. HM the new King Rama X even issued a
request for volunteers to speak to the people in a polite tone.
Daily News headline 20 Oct 2017:
“HM is concerned that the people feel oppressed”
People
are moved by people who try. That’s why they wept like that for Princess Diana
& why they’re weeping for King Bhumibol, whose name means ‘The People’s Pride’. Even my environmental activist mother who had
to battle a Mhong hilltribe-related Royal Project to save the headwaters
forests of the Mae Ping river; who believed that the King did not always
receive the best advice, admitted that His Majesty sincerely deeply cared and always
had the best intentions. When Princess Diana died I remember hearing the same
reaction from the most unlikely people: “I’m surprised by how much it bothers
me.”
Democracy Monument with mourners & cops, afternoon
of 25 Oct 2017
Thursday 25 October
My
conscience says it’s fraud to continue writing about this without seeing it for
myself. I’ve avoided going to the old town since the death of King Bhumibol; this
is my last chance to experience this slice of history. I plan only to walk
around on the periphery, not expecting to get through the Sorting &
Filtering in my flipflops, since I’m not going to wade through flood water in
anything else.
But there is a checkpoint with
metal detector right off the boat at Pan Fa pier. To my surprise, they searched
my backpack & let me in. I see tourists in shorts & singlet wandering
around, dazed. Nobody bothers them. The police & volunteers by the pier are
relaxed & friendly, nothing like the stories we’ve been hearing, but of
course this is only the “outer ring”. The next, real ‘Sorting & Filtering
Point’ is by the Mother Earth shrine in front of the Royal Hotel.
I never get there. In early
afternoon up to one block before the Royal Hotel the crowds were still thin
enough to flow through, but after that they called people by groups of 3-5 to
move forward into the official queue for the S & F gateway to the pavements
around the Royal Ground.
Empty Rajdamnern avenue with cops, afternoon 25 Oct
2017
As I sit on the bridge a man
walks up & down with a megaphone informing the crowd that King Rama X is
about to pass by on his way to a religious rite in the Grand Palace. All must
take off hats & sunglasses & sit down, though those who remain standing
should keep their hats on. When he passes in the yellow car, we are to raise
our hands in a wai. No photography with zoom lens or a large camera.
When I hear this last I begin
filming video with my phone, but a cop tells me to stop. Yes they did say
“large cameras not allowed”, but small cameras or phones are not allowed either.
Meanwhile the megaphone guy continues in a chatty tone as he walks on, booming
voice growing faint as he passes over the bridge: “How would it look when
everyone else is saluting the King & you’re taking a photo? Also, as this
is a mournful time, please don’t cry out ‘Long Live the King’…”
Only when I get home do I realise
the absence of the military, apart from one camouflaged bunker in the back lane
running parallel to Rajadamnern and, at my favourite ‘secret’ tea stall, a
group of very intelligent-looking men, dressed as volunteers, who clustered
around a chessboard watching a game between one of their own & a tiny old
man in a shabby suit at least 3 sizes too big –
most likely borrowed, to meet the dress code. I desperately
wanted to take a picture but my phone jammed for some reason.
Our plans are finally settled. All
the people who’d planned to go out there to photograph history have chickened
out & will come over to watch the procession on TV over a lazy lunch.
Mourners camping out on pavement
near Democracy Monument, 25 Oct 2017
Friday 27 October
On
TV (TNN24) a woman who’s spent 3 days & nights to ensure her place there
says, “I’ll stay to the end. I intend to send him all
the way to heaven with the power of my heart [rang jai]” Another
woman says: “I wanted to be as close to him as possible; I didn’t want to watch
TV at home”. They obviously believe
with all their heart that their love can make a difference.
King Bhumibol’s gift was his
inclusive sympathetic good will, the ability to identify with his people
through thick and thin. We felt that he suffered with us & we suffered with
him, a bond that can still compell people to feel the
need & personal responsibility to be there with him every step of the way.
We are like weeping children chasing a car carrying away our sense of safety
& peace of mind, “the cool shade of his being over our heads” [yen sira proh pra baribarn], in the words of the royal anthem.
Mourners on Rajdamnern pavement listen to monks
chanting,
relayed from the Grand Palace, afternoon 25 Oct 2017
After
my 2nd trip to gauge the post-Royal Cremation energy (via the same canal
route to the same spot then across to the road between Thammasart university &
the Fine Arts Department & on to the river at Prajan pier), I feel the need
to reassure myself that this is not North Korea, and even North Korea is
probably not really North Korea. By early afternoon, Rajdamnern road was open
to traffic & most people were gone, just a few stragglers hailing a cab or
climbing on buses with their micro-overnight bags. At every 10-12 metre interval
a cop on full alert still stood, back to the road, facing the crowd or rather by
now the mostly empty pavement. In front of the Royal Hotel yellow-scarved
volunteers were handing out bananas to the people,
further enriching the zoo-like atmosphere with all the gate-keepers & metal
barriers.
At the Mother Earth shrine
Sorting & Filtering Point, a male volunteer said immediately, “Trousers,
no. Skirts only”. Another volunteer, a patrician woman, then said my khaki trousers
were brown, not black. It’s the day after the
Cremation & the ashes have been collected, but my clothes were just not black enough.
A beautifully-dressed Indian
yuppie couple, possibly honeymooners, approached, hoping for a tour of the
Grand Palace which they didn’t know was still closed to the public. “Your dress
too casual, cannot enter,” she told them, because her skirt was red.
Overnight mourners wait for bus home,
in front of Royal Hotel, afternoon 27 Oct 2017
Overnighters eat volunteer-provided lunch while waiting
for provided transportation,
in front of Royal Hotel, afternoon 27 Oct 2017
At another S & F point
opposite the National Museum which also rejected my khaki pants, a respectable
middle-aged couple stood disappointed. Both looked like kind professors, all in
black & the wife in a dress. But his trousers were wrong. They were black,
yes, but they were jeans. “All these rules: no sandals, no jeans. Such an
emphasis on appearances,” one of them said. This set the 3 of us talking about
the new Supreme Patriarch’s brief but intense pre-Cremation sermon in praise of
the late King’s sympathetic simplicity; how his compassionate qualities
beautify & uplift the simplest surroundings, just as the most splendid of
settings cannot redeem disgusting people who remain disgusting (“na
rangiad”—contemptible, to be shunned). I then remembered that I had a white
scarf printed in black with the number 9 & King Bhumibol’s motto ‘Por
Piang’ (“Enough”/ “Self-suffient”) from designer Maynart Nandakwang’s breast
cancer campaign. The 2 professors agreed it would be an interesting experiment
for me to wear it as a sarong over my objectionable trousers & see if I’d
get past the Sorting & Filtering process. As they watched from a safe
distance in amusement, I wrapped it over my trousers & reapproached the
checkpoint with the camera running.
“Flipflops not allowed!” the same
young cop said triumphantly. To my delight, on cue a group of women in similar
black flipflops emerged from the enclosure. The big boss fat cop said he didn’t
know which checkpoint let them in; it wasn’t his checkpoint, so that is that. If I really must know, I
should find out which & ask the people there. This was so redolent of the
Alice in Wonderland logic thrown at us over ‘Shakespeare Must Die’, it
triggered my symptoms of PTSD. There are no hard & fast rules, then, I said;
it’s just up to your personal judgement, the sorter & filterer’s personal
estimation of each individual ‘supplicant’. The boss cop turned & walked
back inside as the young cop started filming me.
Volunteer managing the queues of mourners,
afternoon 25 Oct 2017
I
walked on in a trance towards the river; perhaps I’d catch a river boat &
then a train home. At the Fine Arts Department and Thammasart corner, in answer
to my request for a clarification of the rules, a pompous middle-aged male
volunteer with a white moustache ordered me to immediately stop filming him
& then, unprompted by anything, burst into an American English tirade: “You
have no legal right to film me! I know the law. I know my rights. You cannot
film me if I refuse permission blah blah..” But we’re on a public street, I
said, puzzled by his extreme reaction. And why are you speaking English? You
don’t live here, do you? He nodded proudly. He positively smirked.
Fine if
that’s what you prefer, I said back in English. You come here to volunteer for
a few days & suddenly you’re the Number One patriot, you own everything & control everyone. You
think you’re better than the people who live here through thick & thin,
good times & bad, who have fought & died for this country for years
& years as it’s attacked by your fucking empire. Go back to your country.
Fuck off back to America.
It
shocked him speechless. But a senior-looking monk with a shining face stood by
smiling instead of doing the monkish thing of telling me to calm down. I could
swear he seemed quite pleased. It was as if such scenes went on all day as I’d
heard from afar. Nobody seemed surprised, only the cops & the Thai American
volunteer.
“Those
ones over there are the worst,” said a win motorcy (motorcycle taxi rider)
nearby. “We’ve nearly come to blows with them at least twice. This is our
livelihood & they tell us to leave the area. We provide a service to
people. Once they told us to park on one side & then told the crowd we were
providing free rides for mourners. We never said such a thing. How can we
afford to do that?” To continue the conversation, I hired him to take me home,
all the way across town.
His granny
came by bus from far-off Ubol but they told her she wasn’t smartly dressed
enough. “My gran’s so old, coming so
far. I don’t understand their thinking.” Her wrong ‘mai rieb roy’ outfit barred
her from proximity with her beloved King’s remains. “Why couldn’t they have let
her in? What are they made of?” he asked me as we sped away from these
oppressive scenes back to unexotic, humdrum but freewheeling modern Bangkok.
Off Limits: the Royal Ground (Sanam Lhuang)
with the Royal Pyre in the b/g, afternoon
27 Oct 2017
“The
King belongs to us all. That’s how we belong to the King,” I shouted back over
his shoulder against the wind. “No one has the sole distribution right to the
King, since the King and the land are one, so the King is everywhere.”
“I love
that, sister. It’s true.”
The
King is everywhere. You don’t have to go the palace area or any officially
designated site where a Replica Royal Pyre [“Phra Merumas Jumlong”]
has been set up with their accompanying long lines, since even to enter the
replicas you are to adhere to the same strict dress code. I told him how the
tree in front of my house is the meeting place for the maids & nannies of
the soi; I could overhear their anxiety over the “700 baht shoes” they’d have
to buy to be able to say goodbye to the King who advocated simplicity. Another
solved the problem by borrowing her mistress’ shoes. This inspired us to do our
own thing last night at the exact same time as the real cremation, right in
front of the house, burning aromatic dry herbs & flowers in a pure flame
fed by sandalwood oil from Rajasthan in my mother’s possibly museum piece
prehistoric stove from Isan, which is surely a properly sacred receptacle for
our grief and farewell wishes. The win motorcy was impressed.
Our homemade Royal Cremation in my mum’s
prehistoric stove from Isan,
26 October 2017 at 10:22 pm
We
agreed that some of these volunteers with their boyscout scarves & blue
caps were reminiscent of Village
Scouts [‘Luke Sua Chaobarn’—nationalist
royalist grass roots militia first set
up around 1971 to battle communism at the height of Vietnam War]. I shared my nagging worry that people will start
lynching & hanging people from tamarind trees again, as they did on October
6, 1976 in the same environs. “Oh, my dear sister! That gives me the creeps,”
he said, “I know exactly what you mean.” Except they wouldn’t be tamarind trees
we’re hanging from, since the ancient, history-soaked tamarind trees of the
Royal Ground have been removed to make way for the Royal Pyre which is instead
decorated with neat rows of potted Thai-style bonsai trees [Tako dud],
giving an unreal, fantasy Thai litrerature appearance to the whole spotless,
symmetrical precinct. Many people are upset about the tamarind trees & hope
they will return after the pavilions are taken down. In my old slides of a rehearsal for Queen
Rambhai’s funeral procession, the feathery green foliage of the tamarind trees
burnished the gold & the red & the whiteness of the vestments of the
Brahmin priests aglow with magic light, and of course on the day she really was
curled up inside the urn passing us by.
A shopping centre screen relaying the last rites in the
Grand Palace,
25 Oct 2017, 5 pm
Our
cross-town exchange, shouted exuberantly against the wind as we weaved through
traffic, gave some relief to both of us. It does help to remind ourselves in the face
of such exclusivity that the spirit of monarchy means that the King & the
land are one, and so the King is everywhere. No single person or institution
owns the King; the King belongs to everyone, in fact and in imagination. King
Bhumibol is part of our personal story & our song too must be heard.
Do what you will, I am not going
to go back in time with you to Lhuang Vichit – Field Marshall P fascist dress
codes & cheap chauvinistic brand of ultra-nationalism or “peace &
order” in uniformity & synchronicity. “Even the marigolds [that we’re told
to plant everywhere for the Royal Cremation] must bloom in unison [“Dogmai yang tong barn prom-priang gun”], joked
one newsreader. I can promise you that
if this is the road insisted upon, our civil disobedience will soon be
reflected in all our actions.
The one
predictable thing about Thai people is our need for oxygen, & lots of it.
At any time we’re made to feel that there’s no air to breathe, we burst out of
the box regardless of consequences. How we do this & the nature of the
final straw or trigger is never predictable, always underestimated & rarely
foreseen by those in power, among whom are included locked-in syndrome journalists
& academics.
Man in his best suit in the queue to say goodbye to
King Rama IX
at Wat Tart Tong, 26 Oct 2017, 6 pm
When you exclude an outcast
like me, you only delight me with good stock footage for a future film &
confirm my prejudices against (& problem with) authorities. There is no
element of surprise. Of course you keep me out; you always do.
But
when you exclude those with the overwhelmingly sincere belief that King
Bhumibol was their “Royal Papa” [“Por Lhuang”] and their
ideal, with whom they share an eternal unbreakable bond, the sense of betrayal
must sting. Then when they are further deprived of the live coverage of the
actual cremation, deprived of the sight of their Beloved rising to heaven in an
awe-inspiring cloud of smoke as he became one with the sky over their heads;
when even this traditional exorcism of grief was denied to them, that energy
will seek another outlet to express itself, to disperse or explode &
dematerialize. To use my favoured exorcism terms, the psychic crisis with its
subsequent release has not been achieved. Just as the climax was expected to
occur, the live feed to the TV pool was switched off.
The queue to say goodbye to King Rama IX at Wat Tart
Tong, (stretching to Big C Ekamai
on one end & Sukhumvit Hospital on the other), 26
Oct 2017, 6 pm
The queue to say goodbye to King Rama IX at Wat Tart
Tong,
26 Oct 2017, 6 pm
Since
TV outlets were forbidden to broadcast live from the scene (except of the crowd
& the periphery) or to hook up feed from ordinary spectators’ Facebook live
(Nation TV & one other channel was penalized with a 2-day press pass ban
for this), most of the nation never saw, live, the all-important image of the
smoke rising from the Royal Pyre, like the closing of curtains signaling the
end of an era. At Queen Rambhai’s
funeral in 1985 which I was privileged to attend, this was the moment, the
sight of it, that crystalised for me the enigma of our story in all my
conspiracy theories, so much of our history & how the real magic of
monarchy is achieved by allowing room for everybody’s personal expression,
contribution & participation, and so achieving an authentic unity through
an effortless & healthy dose of mutual respect. Seated below the Royal
pavilion, over my head I heard the amazed voice of a grand old lady, “The
people are overflowing the Pyre!” There was no airconditoning; the one pavilion was al fresco, so those on the
fringes like me could hear everything. “They’ve come to say goodbye to King
Rama VII,” someone replied. Rama VII, Queen Rambhai’s husband King Prajadhipok,
who had an exile’s simple war-time ceremony at a utilitarian English
crematorium attended by a handful of relatives.
I
recall the smoke rising into a still & overcast April twilight, unlike
Thursday night’s epic cloud of smoke with its phantasmal formations &
“miraculous appearance” of ten white cranes at dead of night. The smoke then
rising displayed no magic other than to rise up calmly, much like Queen Rambhai
herself. Yet time stood still & silent for many of us as all of history
past, present & future seemed to converge to hang suspended in the air, which
thronged with names we know whose faces we cannot see, as entities invisible
make themselves known in the smoke cloud for a spell. Other royal funerals gone
before seemed to roll by before us, & in my case the imprint of that one
glimpse has remained.
What
portents will be read in this far more spectacular smoke cloud? Laced with white cranes, burgeoning against
the aural background of chanting & ancient music and, below that, an even
note of people sobbing, like the persistent call of crickets in a forest of
humans all in black.
The queue to say goodbye to King Rama IX at Wat Tart
Tong,
26 Oct 2017, 6 pm
Tuesday 31 october 2017, Bangkok
Perhaps
you’ve heard what’s been happening in Chonburi, how hundreds of people have
risen up to demand the immediate transfer of the provincial governor for his
mishandling of the Replica Cremation, giving preferential treatment to VIPs
while the people waited in long lines for hours in the full sun & then
closing it down while the lines were still long. Watching the Chonburi protest
live on New & Nation TV, it was hard not to be impressed by the calmness of
their rage, their clarity & implacability. They had been treated as less
than human, and that too at a moment of great pain, so the governor must go. One
man concludes: “He’s not even from here. How can he rule us people of
Chonburi?” So much for unity. As ye
divide, so shall ye reap. Similar trouble has been occurring elsewhere,
including in the Bangkok satellite town of Nonthaburi.
Such emphasis on the separation
between the people & their King, including by discriminating against
certain types & excluding those who can’t afford shoes from physical
proximity to the royal precinct, is likely to create a dangerous rift that will
widen with time. Some blame such mistakes on the inexperience of the all-new
staff at the Royal Household Bureau, since the old staff which had been the
capable wind beneath the monarchy’s wings, including members of a family that
had served the institution for generations, are all gone with the end of the 9th
reign. If this is true, things might improve as the new staff gain the
necessary experience in the difficult art of ensuring calm continuity.
Incidentally, 42 people with
outstanding arrest warrants attempted to get through the S & F checkpoints.
When reporters asked if their crimes included lese majeste, the police said
that information was confidential. The
only thing we know is that they were, of course, arrested.
Loy Krathong full moon over my house, 4 Nov 2017
Friday 4 November, Full Moon (Loy Krathong)
By
default I’ve made a close study of crowds from years of filming & editing protest
footage. I think it’s a pity that security concerns are necessarily preventing
the full flowering of the Royal Cremation crowd ecology. It’s endlessly
fascinating to observe over time how each crowd weaves its own morphic field
(imaginative reality) & ecology—the communal kitchens & medical tents,
security & waste arrangements, protest t-shirt vendors, etc. Protest or event t-shirts are a fun barometer
of a crowd’s mood, but t-shirts featuring the image of the Royal Crematorium
have for some reason been banned as disrespectful.
The longer the crowd is there,
the more elaborate the village that develops. In Lumpini Park some farmers
taking part in Shutdown Bangkok managed to grow some rice & vegetables over
the 7 long months of their occupation. The Shutdown villages of multi-coloured
tents & pink mosquito nets, with laundry hanging out to dry, had an
unpretentious charm & inner harmony, even though at first glance it may
appear “disorderly” since everyone’s in maximum expressionist & survivalist
mode. The beautiful thing was they didn’t have to suppress or sacrifice any
part of themselves or their values to be there.
This difference forcefully
reminded me of our recent Shakespearean fascist woes. As with Thai cinema, the
attempt to tame all individual expression in order to create the illusion of
harmony through uniformity—of colour, dress, expression; would naturally
discourage the crowd or community in question from evolving any organic
ecology—any life, in a word.
You may say I’m comparing apples
& oranges: mourners versus a protest mob. I am not so much comparing them
as to affirm that, in the epic movie we call history, the great mass of the
people are not the extras but the stars.
With Love from Bangkok,
Ing Kanjanavanit
All photographs by Ing K unless otherwise stated
A pioneer of environmental investigative reporting, Ing Kanjanavanit is a filmmaker, painter & bilingual writer, best known in Thai for the cult classic travelogue/handbook for environmental activism, ‘Khang Lhang Postcard’ (‘Behind the Postcard’) under the nom de guerre Lharn Seri Thai (136)—‘Free Thai Descendent/Force 136’, to evoke the Free Thai Movement against fascist forces during World War 2, which fought for the Allies then after the war was betrayed by the Allies. Sadly, she no longer attends Free Thai merit-making rites, not since Thaksin’s redshirts appropriated the name & equated Thaksin with Free Thai leader Pridi Banomyong, which is a travesty & a sacrilege.
