Background

A Voice from the Shadowed Country

When Pira Canning Sudham left his home in Napo, in the Province of Burirum, for Bangkok for the first time at the age of fourteen, he became aware that he had been born in the poorest part of Thailand. Some Bangkok Thais who wanted to show their contempt said that he was not Thai, but a stupid, impoverished Lao-speaking ethnic from Isan.

Most Isan people who try to escape from the abject penury of their birthplace to make a success of their lives in Thailand’s large cities become side-street food hawkers, labourers, taxi drivers, workers in factories, slaves in sweatshops, servants and prostitutes. Some luckier ones are boxers or employees in offices. Some try to hide from their new friends and colleagues that they are from Isan, being ashamed of their Lao tongue and ignoble origins. A large number of the Isan Laos in exile do not want to return home.

Poverty, drought, debt, land becoming more barren or damaged by saline waste water from salt farming, rivers becoming highly polluted from toxic waste released by factories, land lost through debt, gambling or forced relocation to make way for the construction of dams or for large-scale eucalyptus plantations to enable investors to develop and expand the pulp and paper industry, drive the people of Isan away from their villages. And many unfortunate children of the destitute continue to be taken by "agents" to slave in sweatshops, factories, or in brothels.

Sudham considered himself more fortunate than most when his parents gave him away to a Buddhist temple in Bangkok as a luke-sith, an acolyte or simply known as a dekwat, a temple boy, to be a servant of the monks.

During the first year in the capital, it dawned on the temple boy that he had little chance to improve himself. Fortunately he succeeded in obtaining permission to attend classes in the school in the compound of the Wat, for he could see that without some level of education it would be difficult to be somebody in a money-conscious society. During the day, he sold coconut juice in Bangkok streets and later he moved to Wat Po to sell temple rubbings and other souvenir items to tourists to see himself through secondary school and high school, from where he passed the final examinations and university entrance examinations.

He was in the second year of the Faculty of Arts of Chulalongkorn University when he won a New Zealand government scholarship to study English literature at the University of Auckland, and consequently at Victoria University in Wellington. "I owe a great deal to New Zealand," Sudham admitted. "The new school gave me a chance to learn, not merely by reciting and memorizing lessons and texts, a method known as rote learning which is commonly practised in Thailand, but by learning how to think, to form and voice opinions, to discuss ideas and to ask questions. I also learned a process of reasoning, which is not taught to the majority of Thai children. I wondered why, as a child and as a student in Thailand, I had to be blindly obedient and absolutely voiceless. Perhaps if I had learned how to think, and think profoundly and critically, I might have had a mind of my own, having my own ideas and views, and asking too many questions. As a result, I might have been branded konhuakaeng, meaning "hard headed man," posing a threat to the authorities and the despots, who had an awesome power over the Thai people at the time."

After New Zealand, Pira Canning Sudham lived for three years in Australia, reading English literature at the University of Sydney. At night he wrote his first novel, Monsoon Country, and short stories and poems. From 1975 to 1978 he studied in England, saving himself and the manuscripts from the brutal political changes in Thailand. His first book, Siamese Drama (which has the new title of Tales of Thailand in the latest edition) did not appear until 1983, followed by People of Esarn in 1987 (now includes The Kingdom in Conflicts in the latest edition), Monsoon Country in 1988, The Force of Karma in 2002 and Shadowed Country in 2004.

In New Zealand, Australia and Europe, Pira Canning Sudham experienced the Western way of life. "I grew up mentally outside Thailand," he claimed. "I did not know how to reason or the process of reasoning until I lived with a New Zealand family, observing how the parents logically answered their curious children’s questions. I learned such a process along with the children, being now grateful for not remaining childish, or a child in an adult body like many Thai politicians and leaders. However, parts of my mind had already been crippled by the age-old feudal educational system that enforces rote learning, which fosters mindlessness, and being taught to fear the Masters, and obey absolutely the authorities during the formative years. I wanted to make up for this by fully developing my mind."

In so doing, he stayed as long as possible in England "to learn more, hear more, think" and finish writing Shadowed Country.

After so many years abroad, Sudham could no longer resist the call of his beloved Esarn to where he returned eventually in 1995. A team of village carpenters built him a modest wooden house at the edge of Nong Eso hamlet, on the piece of land on which he was born. Here he keeps mango trees, bananas and bamboo groves left untended after his father dismantled the family’s old house to rebuild it on another plot of land in a nearby village of Baan Nondaeng. "Our land on an Isan plain reminded me of my childhood," reminisced the author. "Here, grandparents told us tales and folklore, of hunting in the jungles which no longer exist today, of their journeys to more fertile regions in search of arable land. Lodged deep in my heart are memories of filial piety, the age-old suffering, anger, primeval bitterness and winsome faces of young girls who stayed a few years with us to learn by heart ballads and songs that my father, who was a poet in his own right, composed for them so they could become mohlams, Esarn folk singers."

Of his father, the author related: "If he had been born in the UK he might have become one of the cherished British poets, for even in the quagmire of a forgotten Isan village he managed to pull himself away from illiteracy when there was no school in his young days. He told me that at the age of 15, while he was ploughing a field, he saw several boys walking towards Wat Napo, the monastery. He called to them to find out where they were heading. To the temple sala, they had said. There, the abbot would teach them to read and write. So Father stopped ploughing and ran after them. But when his father found out that his son had deserted the paddy field with the plough still tied to the buffalo, the deserter was beaten, and dragged back to toil on the land. Not until he became a monk at the age of 22 did he have the chance to learn to read and write from the old abbot.

When he disrobed after the customary three months he began to write ballads for folk singers, and became in later years the kroo, the rural schoolteacher, and set up a primary school to teach the young while continuing to compose ballads and coach young men and women to be professional folk singers. He had been a prolific poet as well as a sage and a champion of the downtrodden, helping the poor in trouble and in litigation, fighting against injustice and corruption. It was amazing that he managed to live through dangers to the ripe old age of 94, though he had almost died from poisoning while in his time ten Isan schoolteachers of similar spirit, inclination and dedication had been murdered by hired gunmen. He handed down to me the craft of poetry, and the love of words and their sounds, a driving force to write, and the stamina to fight on in his place. If there is any regret, it is a sense of loss that my mother, who passed away at the age of 83, remained illiterate all her days, that she could not read my letters and that I had not received any from her.

"I thought that I could strive for some happiness in returning to relive a rustic life in my birthplace in order to pick up where Father had left off. One learns in time to compromise past experience of decency, fair play and freedom with scarcity, injustice, corruption and the fear for one’s life. Yet the irony is that all the primeval bitterness and anger and sorrow suffered in childhood are being experienced all over again, here, today. For now the Masters and the extremely wealthy entrepreneurs and their networks have vastly increased. They are far more rapacious and awesome than those I recognised in my childhood and portrayed in Shadowed Country. They include corrupt, tyrannical officials, shopkeepers, rice traders and middlemen who swindled illiterate peasants, and the local money lenders and gangs of gamblers who induced villagers to gamble away their cash and their land. These are pale and diminutive compared to the highly corrupt Masters and myopic, grabbing traders, who have become extremely affluent and powerful through gaining monopolies, concessions, public lands and forest reserves. They plunder the country, destroying the forests by logging and then claiming the land for private commercial purposes and making the soil, canals and rivers saline and polluted with chemical waste and effluent released from factories. They enjoy impunity and become year by year greater and greedier, more diversified with global collaborating networks and high power. I observe how rural dwellers kept in ignorance are totally defenceless against the new, omnipotent Masters," said Sudham. "The lions and tigers are devouring their prey. They do not seem to care that by destroying for short-term gain they do much harm to our country and younger generations for centuries to come."

Pira Canning Sudham determined to complete Shadowed Country, a dedication to the memories of his parents and ten schoolteachers, out of whom the characteristics of Kumjai Chaiwankul were drawn. The murdered teachers in Esarn provinces are:

Krong Chandawong, schoolteacher elected as a Sakolnakorn member of parliament, was a fighter for social justice and against graft, to fall victim to the despotic regime of Field Marshall Sarit Dhanarat. In 1961, Krong, who had never become a member of the Communist Party, was sentenced to death under the Anti-Communism Act, which he, as an MP, had unsuccessfully proposed to abolish.

Aree Utaiporn, Nakornrajasima Province (Korat), was killed by hired gunmen in 1980 for protesting against corruption in construction dealings between the local mafia and the provincial government officials.

Tim Booning, Burirum, was murdered by hired gunmen at the gates of his house in 1981 for fighting against corruption in construction contracts between the influential contractors and provincial civil servants.

Somjai Utravichian, Burirum, was killed in his own house by professional hitmen in 1985 for continuing Tim Booning’s work and more, by opposing corruption in educational institutions, construction and gambling.

Pitakchon Chalermiprasert, Konkaen, was murdered by hired criminals in 1986 for exposing corruption in the teachers’ savings co-operative and in educational institutions.

Sawang Hanbaang, Surin, a leader at the village level, fighting for the recognition of human rights and justice, was brutally murdered in 1987.

Supong Polsaen, Chaiyapume, was killed in 1988 by hitmen for exposing corruption in the provincial development budget division.

Kasem Rongton, Udorn, lost his life to hitmen in 1989 for opposing corruption in the district development project division.

Patana Deethaisong, Korat, was fatally shot while walking to the school in the morning in 1995 by hired gunmen for standing up against corruption in the distribution of funds for provincial development projects as well as against the local godfathers and corrupt headmen.

Prawian Boonnak, Loey Province, was fatally shot in 1995 by a gang of hired gunmen in front of the government district office and police station while he was leading a protest against the pollution created by a large-scale quarry in the proximity of the school and the community of Wungsapoong.

In creating Kumjai Chaiwankul as a leading character in Shadowed Country, Pira Canning Sudham also took into account several deaths of primary schoolteachers in other regions of Thailand as well as non-teaching men, including the execution of Supachai Srisati, labour leader, for criticising the dictatorship in 1959, the killings of Nid Chaiwana, headmaster of Baan Huaykaew School in Chiangmai who was leading a protest against the leasing of a forest reserve in Huaykaew District to a wealthy and influential family, Jit Pumisak, an intellectual and a writer, branded as a Communist, who was shot dead in an Esarn village not far from Napo, Sa-ngiam Tomjai-od, a farmer of Kampaengpetch Province, murdered during an agrarian rally in 1993, Tong-in Kaewwatta of Rayong, killed for protesting against the local landfill with toxic waste which was considered harmful to nearby water and soil, and Tanong Po-arn, a labour leader who was "liquidated" for leading a strike.