Dr John Bernard, Professor of English, Macquarie University, Australia, commented: "Pira Canning Sudham’s literary works are not the sort of books one can put down. There is sophistication robed in simplicity, which I found very effective; there is delicacy and good taste, even when the subject matter is painful or gross. Much as I enjoyed the technique of his writing, the surface of his art, it was the subject matter, which stays in the mind. One speaks of the unsolved problem of poverty and corruption, and Sudham depicts the peasant as the prey to even more numerous and rapacious persecutors than before. Bright lights and tall buildings in Bangkok means so little in the harsh life he writes about and it is sad indeed that the darker side of human nature should be gaining even more power over the people with whom he relates. I know that in his works, the balance is provided by the loving depiction of the humanity of these people; hopefully the innate and, to a degree, universal qualities of positive nature should in some sense win the day."

"Foreign writers writing about the Thai people look at Thailand from the outside, but Pira Canning Sudham write about his people and country as seen from the inside. This is one of the things that makes them so fascinating."
Professor Walter G. Langlois

"Pira Canning Sudham is the kind of writer who is invaluable to a country like Thailand. He is a writer who believes in development but not revolution, social justice but not communism, and who has learned that not all the Westernization in the world can take from a good man his responsibility to his own people."
South China Morning Post

He is much driven to write. He also does not want his people to have lived, suffered and died in vain. His life-like portraits of Isan people, as well as those of Thais in Bangkok and abroad, are of first hand interest to any serious person wanting to learn in depth about Thailand. He presents various personalities of different levels of the Society, from the poorest to the richest, the least literate to the highest scholars, and from the simplest to the most brilliant. All of them are drawn with an unwavering hand.

Non-Thais have thus an opportunity to sharpen their understanding of the Thai people, and this frees them from learning just from foreign writers who see Thailand only from the outside. Pira Canning Sudham’s wish is to present this country and its people from the inside, and he does this remarkably well. He offers his readers the insight and sensitivity to observe and feel what would have escaped their attention. They quickly take in the assurance that he knows what he is talking about, for he remains a Napo man in his heart, even after studying, travelling and publishing abroad. Now he lives among the villagers to whom he acknowledges his debt of "love, power of imagination, driving force, impetus to create and strength" that have produced Tales of Thailand (a revised and expanded edition of Siamese Drama) People of Esarn, Monsoon Country and its sequel, The Force of Karma. The latter has been combined with its prequel, Monsoon Country, in a hardcover edition entitled Shadowed Country.

He nourishes his art through his deep roots in the rice fields of Thailand and he goes back and forth from himself to "men and women and children of Napo" in order to recreate their existence exactly as it is. He is their voice, showing to his country and the world their humanity in their remote universe. He is a "seeing eye," with a weapon, his pen. He says: "I want to find a place in literature for the poor of Thailand so that they will not live unnoticed and die in vain."

Pira Canning Sudham dares to spell out what his country ought to do for its poor. Prem, the main character in Shadowed Country has to become a beggar like many Isan boys having to travel with his brother to distant villages to beg for rice. But the poverty he describes does not make the author ignore the richness of Thai culture. He makes Prem come back to Siam after studying in England to relive fully the spiritual values that nourished his childhood. Enjoying European culture and luxuries did not get hold of him. He ends up in a "temple of frugality and peace" where he can detach himself "from the worldly concept of value and pleasure".

Shadowed Country is written by a man who has faith in intellectual civilization, a hymn to education, culture and art. Their author admires those "races of people who believe that men have the right to govern themselves, to speak truthfully without fear, to discuss ideas and cultivate their skill, and excel in their work." But keeping constantly a critical mind even in face of "modernization, progress and industrialization", he would rather see the people of Thailand receive education, not just material goods from others. He wishes for everyone offered "aid" or "loans" to ask himself: "If ever I get their help, what will they take from me?" Knowledge would safely free them from the grip of the Lord of Darkness, which is the personification of ignorance, poverty and subservience in Monsoon Country.

Pira Canning Sudham’s writing defies time, for it reflects the unsolved problem of poverty, and goes beyond time, through the universality of the passions it describes: love, hate, generosity, selfishness, honesty and hypocrisy. His well-written short stories and his novels are complex under the appearance of simplicity.

The richness of his writing has already won him the respect his readers. This well-earned respect rises from his determination not to stray from the truth and from his intellectual honesty.

I did not choose to leave you and our land only to pursue knowledge but also to become a thinking person. I must rebuild my mind that has been maimed and stunted during the formative years by a feudal education, aimed at inducing subservience and mindlessness. We were supposed to become unthinking, obedient, silent and submissive so as to be governable, exploitable and harmless. We were not to have inquiring minds and critical thinking. We must not be opinionated, forthright, opposing the authorities in any way.

Therefore my personal revolution was an attempt to overcome a famished mind and to be far away from the despots through a learning process at a new school in another country so as to mend and develop my damaged mind. Like a pregnant woman safeguarding the foetus, I took great care of the seed in my head till it could germinate and evolve. But all the while a consuming force was relentlessly driving me to deliver an end result, a book originally called The Shadowed Kingdom, on an agenda that belonged to the force of destiny.

Thus I hope you would understand now why all those heart-breaking departures had to be made. Though this explanation came too late, I pray that your enduring spirits would forgive me.
Your son,
Pira Canning Sudham

As we drove over the Panomdongrak Range, which separates Esarn, the Northeast Region, from Thailand’s Central Plain, the monsoon storms rose and swept in with sheets of rain so forceful and blinding that we had to pull over to the side of the highway. Here, gigantic cement factories reign, while quarries are stripping and reducing hills to rubble and slime.

Soon we resumed the journey, leaving far behind the polluted air and the traffic jams of Bangkok. After the hills of Klongpai we descended onto the Korat Plateau, the home of the Lao-speaking Isan people.

"Welcome to my country," said my host and driver, Pira Canning Sudham, author of Shadowed Country.

In August, when the monsoon rains have turned the arid sandy soil into emerald green rice fields as far as the eye can see, it is hard to believe that this is the land that, for centuries, has been breeding poverty, hardship and migration. It is difficult to realize that under the thin topsoil, most parts of Isan have salt deposits in vast proportions.

Where the earth is bare and the rainwater has run off, leaving the ground exposed to the sun, salt crusts appear on the surface. Near the ancient town of Pimai, where a monumental Khmer stone shrine built in the 11th century still stands, Sudham showed me a huge area of salt farms. Here, rice fields have been made into beds over which salt water from beneath the surface is spread to be evaporated by sunlight.

The salt farm, in contrast to the nearby green rice fields, seem an ugly and horrid sight of the dying earth, barren and inhospitable, yielding salt wanted for industrial processes in Bangkok.

"Whether it is intentional or not, a large amount of brine from salt farms is discharged into the rice fields and water ways. You can see fields nearest to them being damaged; the soil there becomes barren and salty. Rice and other plants die, and the neighbouring rice farmers have had to give up their worthless farmland and moved elsewhere," said Sudham.

Along the way, very often, across the mesmerizing fields and through clumps of bamboo groves and trees, ornate and glittering temple roofs and pagoda spires appear near and far. It seems that each scattered village has its own Buddhist temple, giving rise to romantic notions of the exotic villages of the East. Tourists to the area may think that way, unaware of the implication of how the deforestation, eucalyptus plantations, quarries and cement plants, salt farms, pulp and paper factories, sugar factories and tapioca flour factories are affecting the land, the air and the water when measures to curb pollution are ineffective.

I remarked on the glorious sight of eucalyptus plantations in Isan, but the writer sadly said: "I wish I could see the devil’s dangerous discus as something adorable like a lotus flower." Having said so, he became silent for many kilometres. Meanwhile, I recalled a passage he wrote in his second book, People of Esarn, on the subject of deforestation in Thailand. He had written: Fast growing eucalyptus trees have been keenly chosen to be planted all over Thailand under the name of reforestation to provide wood chips and pulp to Japan and China as well as local paper factories. Eucalyptus trees are rapidly replacing tropical trees in Thailand’s forests. They greedily deplete water in the soil and moisture in the air, causing less and less precipitation. A few years after their growth, grass and other plants cannot survive underneath them due to the strong acid deposited in the soil by their fallen leaves, a self-protecting and generating way so that only eucalyptus can grow. The drive to establish the pulp and paper industry has brought directly and indirectly innumerable losses and suffering to the people who have been forced to leave their land and homes, where concessionaires have now planted the harmful eucalyptus trees. Squatters are encouraged to enter the forests and encroach on national parks and forest reserves to slash and burn so that a few years later the once lush rain forests can be officially classified as degraded. Then, because of rampant corruption, the so-called degraded forests could be "granted" to concessionaires or wealthy and powerful individuals to plant eucalyptus trees or to develop resorts, housing estates and golf courses.

Then, why is eucalyptus chosen?

Pira Canning Sudham explained: "Compared to other trees, these fast growing Australian trees can be harvested after 4-5 years of planting. The investors may not bear in mind the damage to the soil and to the climate the eucalyptus can cause as long as they can log them as quickly as possible for their purposes."

In late afternoon we arrived in Napo, the author’s home village in the most northern part of Burirum Province. Pira’s Place is a modest wooden house, not so much different from other villagers’ abodes, with a separate bungalow, which the author uses as a studio cum library. Sudham’s six excited dogs welcomed us. A few minutes later several villagers and their children appeared from their houses to greet the native son who had returned with a farang, a foreigner.

At dusk, everyone left us after having received some homecoming gifts. Here, at No.105, Baan Nong Eso, M.13, Napo District of Burirum, the writer lives alone. I knew that in 1996 he left Bangkok, where he went into public relations business as well as being a "wordsmith" in private. "Only a few friends knew that I penned a book at the time," admitted the author. "I disguised myself as an employee and later as a small time businessman in business suit and tie, kept my hair neat and short so as to be business-like and presentable. I kept a BMW and a Mercedes to give impression of being successful. I did all sort of daring things too to mislead predators, adversaries, and thought police away from the nest, belying the fact that I was vivisecting Thai society for a novel. After Shadowed Country has been published, I could no longer go under the camouflage."

Having said that Sudham discarded city clothes for a locally made silk shirt and sarong and then cooked a simple meal of rice and stir-fried vegetables and pumpkin soup. "If we were in Bangkok, you’d have some wine with dinner, I am sure, but we have to make do with rain water now," Sudham stated a mere fact, which could be construed as an apology. I considered that, with a certain degree of pinpricked conscience, one does not want to flaunt one’s wealth or steep in one’s bibulous inclination in living amidst the penurious Isan dwellers. Hence, tea was made from lemon grass that has grown in the back garden.

At night I lay awake, listening to the sounds of the village, the croaking noises large house lizards made against the hum of the cicadas, going over in my mind the author’s revelation on the subject of distilling his anger in an introduction of Shadowed Country. On this subject, Sudham said: "I want to be able to turn my anger and bitterness into wisdom, into an inspiration. It is bad taste to write with raw anger or sheer bitterness experienced recently or in childhood."

If I had not read all of his works, including Tales of Thailand, a collection of short stories, it would be difficult to imagine what could have caused so much anger, sorrow and pain in this peaceful, slumbering village.

Early in the morning, Sudham took me to the village market. Using parts of the village street, enterprising folk set up make-shift stalls to sell vegetables, fruits, meat, live fish as well as salted and dried ones, and goods from towns. An enticing aroma rose with the smoke from a charcoal stove, where a winsome young woman was busily grilling chicken pieces for sale. The business seemed brisk; sounds of laugher entwined with teasing remarks and bargaining utterances. All in Lao, of course.

The temple precinct is a few steps away and we sauntered into the holy ground. That day was a Buddhist holy day, and the monks were chanting prayers. Elderly men and women, clad in white, sat on the floor of the pavilion, immersed in the ritual. At the end of the rite, Sudham’s sister, Piang, came out of the sala to greet her brother. In Shadowed Country Piang played an important role in Prem’s life. I was deeply moved to find myself suddenly confronted with one of saga’s main characters. She is now over sixty years old. Her broad smile revealed a good set of teeth blackened by decades of chewing betel nuts and ploo leaves and lime.

Later I learned that in the novel, apart from Piang, Kum – the father, Booliang or Liang – the mother, Kiang – the brother, and Toon – the girlfriend were all real, with real names in real life as well as in the book. What can I say to them? You are internationally famous? Sadly, I learned too that they cannot read about themselves since all of Pira Canning Sudham’s works are written and published in English, without a Thai translation.

"Most inhabitants of Napo are rice farmers, whose fields have become exhausted and infertile after centuries of yielding rice," said Sudham. "To be productive they require a considerable amount of fertilizer and water. It is not easy at all to eke out a living from Isan’s sandy soil. In the hot dry months of February to May, hardly anything can grow. You can see existing plants and the trees wilt in the searing heat, and places, where water collects in the monsoon months of June to September, cracks in millions of fissures. In summer, when it is too hot and arid to till the earth, most men leave their homes to find temporary employment in Bangkok and other cities; some may pass the time in idleness or try their luck in betting at a cock fighting pit or in a gambling den. The women spin and weave silk for their own use and for sale. Having hardly anything to look forward to but only the drudgery of toiling on their farmland, growing rice, harvesting, child raising, and trying to keep body and soul together on a subsistence diet, it is small wonder that some of them fall victim to gambling and borrowing money."

To borrow money, in most cases, land title deeds are used as collateral, and in some cases the debt-ridden families end up losing their lands. In recent years, eight families have asked Sudham to pay off their debts and retrieve the title deeds from the moneylenders. In so doing, they have land to till and to live on. But now they have been hard hit by the financial crisis. The crash occurred in July 1997; since then prices of commodities have shot up. Worse still, more and more workers have returned to their home villages with little or no money after having been sacked or laid-off by employers. "Being laid-off, some unfortunate workers didn’t receive any severance pay," said Sudham. "But instead they have been given the hope that they would be called back to their jobs when the situation improves. Living in hope, the cash earners have become unemployed, depending now on the what they can find in the community and on the land. But they are still hopefully waiting to be called back to work despite the fact that years have passed since. Meanwhile, thieves prowl around villages at night, stealing chickens and things they can live on. Even in daytime men from some far-off places come to catch our dogs for food. Despite the hardship, I built a school to teach 100 boys and girls from the age of 12 to 18, using English learning to foster the thinking mind. When you look at it, it is quite simple really. First, I set up a role model for Anucha Rajapakdi, one of a supportive characters in Shadowed Country. Here, Anucha helps his students learn how to ask questions, how to be inquisitive, employing words like where, why, what, how, which, when, etc., then guide them to find answers to the questions. The question and answer sessions and discussion at this school may one day produce a number of young Isan men and women who have minds of their own, who become thinking individuals. I consider this to be one of the best gifts one can give to a human being"

Apart from running the school, Pira Canning Sudham has set up the Monsoon Country Project to supports poor villagers and their dependents to ensure that there is enough food as well as encouraging the young to complete their secondary school years, and then further their education in colleges and universities. Then he established the Sudham Prize in March 1992 to give scholarships to 100 students living in Burirum Province. Each of the sponsored students has been given a personal bank account, into which the Estate makes regular deposits at the nearby town, some ten kilometres from Napo. "The prize winners keep their bank accounts so when in need, they can go to the bank and withdraw any amount, without having to ask me for permission. I am pleased to say that only a few sponsored students have made large withdrawals for parents, who are in need or in poor health. Most of them are trustworthy, learning to be responsible and being able to manage their finances at an early age."

Sadly, he went on to say: "Nearly all of these children, when they become young men and women, will leave their homes for Kroongtep (Bangkok) or other large cities in search of employment opportunities. I hope none of them ends up in a brothel or become the victim of cruel and ruthless factory owners, who force them to work like slaves. I cannot stop them leaving; there is nothing here for them except to live off their limited pieces of land. Besides, the name Kroongtep is so magical that it attracts them, drawing them to it, like moths to the flame."

On this subject, I asked the writer about child prostitution and the selling of children into the sex trade and into slavery, which we have read and heard of so much in the international media. Sudham sighed: "If you want to see human drama and tragedy, you have only to go to Hualumpong, Bangkok Central Railway Station, where every day, for decades, the scene repeats itself until it has now become a pattern of everyday life. Each day, when trains from Isan arrive at Hualumpong, men from nearby Employment Agencies approach the newly arrived migrants. Most of these men came from Isan, exploiting the belief in Isan kinship and the Lao language to purport a genuine wish to help with jobs and accommodation. Isan boys and girls, fleeing from poverty in search of better living, are likely to fall into the trap. Then they are led from the station to the adjacent shop buildings where the so-called employment agencies are. Thinking that they are going to be taken to their legitimate employers, the victims are taken into forced prostitution, in Bangkok’s numerous sordid brothels, where some are chained and beaten. The unattractive ones are destined for sweatshops, where they are forced to work 12-15 hours a day without pay and never allowed outside. Tragically, many parents bring their own children to Bangkok to sell them to the agencies. Deals are usually for one year at 3,000 baht (50 pounds sterling) per child. In many areas in Isan, brokers are living in villages. They buy the children there and then bring them to Bangkok and distribute them to brothels and factories."

Like Kumjai, the schoolteacher in Shadowed Country, Sudham found a way to equip youngsters in and around Napo with a guiding light though his school, which had to be enlarged to accommodate increasing numbers of eager students. And like Toon Tinthaisong in Shadowed Country, Sudham recalled that he did not have enough money to buy even a pencil when he was in his the third year of his primary school. "Here, no child shall be without a pen, notebooks and textbooks and endure hunger while learning," he told me. It was his policy to provide free of charge all the lessons, writing materials, textbooks and a good meal a day at his school. Apart from having a clean, spacious and well-equipped kitchen, the building also provides amenities such as modern plumbing. "Beside my own house, the school is one of the few places in Napo that has flushing toilets, wash basins, and towels. The aim is to train the young with the idea of hygiene. Washing with soap and using towels to dry one’s hands after using the facilities may sound mundane to some, but it is quite important in this situation."

As I observed the way he conducted his classes at Salawittayatan, I had to ask him whether his way would pose a challenge to the age-old Thai classroom. "I consider my method is an alternative way of teaching and learning, without inheriting the outdated mode to which the authorities still adhere. I saw a long time ago that it is a monstrous apparatus to cripple the minds of the young so that most of us are what we have become today — the unthinking, mindless, obedient, subservient, silent mass. And you see, where critical thinking is not developed, avarice and low cunning grow hugely in its place."

Is it greed then that brought down the economy and certain institutions in 1997? "Yes, to some extent it’s avarice on a grand scale, and largely it’s rampant corruption, not only in financial institutions, banking, government, and high places, but also in all walks of life. What happened in July 1997 is merely a rash. The rot had set in decades ago. As a writer, I find this period in history very interesting, rich with material for me to use in my writing, particularly in Shadowed Country.

Of all his literary works, Shadowed Country is most fiery, making a head-on collision with what he calls the Dark Lord and exposing the unspeakably dark side of Thai society, covering the years 1981- 2004. The author has certainly exploited this tumultuous phase in Thai history to the full.

One of the days I stayed in Napo, the author took me on house calls. Wisely he visited the village headman first, with a gift of packages of imported cigarettes. At the Khamnan’s, I noticed standing taller than the house was a steel post on top of which four loudspeakers were installed. In villages all over Isan, such high steel posts with loudspeakers have been set up so that the people have to listen to Radio Thailand. "Starting at six o’clock in the morning, the blaring of the radio broadcast can ruin the day for you, but all of us silently endure and accept the noisy propaganda," said Sudham. "If this kind of forced listening takes place in a civilized society, the noise pollution alone will cause outcries from the people. You will not put up with it."

Protest is unwise. Ten schoolteachers in Isan were murdered by hired gunmen. Not far from Napo, on December 28, 1981 Tim Booning, a teacher of Baan Satuk, was shot in front of his house. Known for being a champion of the people in his district in fighting against injustice and corruption, his reward was a brutal death. Then, Tim’s friend and colleague, Somjai Uttravichian, established Tim Booning Foundation and attempted to carry on Tim’s good work. Four years later, Somjai was murdered by gunmen in his own house. Sudham took me to meet Tim’s wife and children at home in Satuk, where the Pira Canning Sudham Estate also extended assistance to the widow and her four children. "It’s a shame that in this country there is no room for good and just persons like Tim and Somjai. Still I want to make sure that their names and good deeds are not forgotten. Tales of Thailand is dedicated to Somjai Uttravichian, while together with the ten murdered teachers, my father, Kum, and Tim Booning were the models for me to create Kumjai Chaiwankul in Shadowed Country. People of Esarn is dedicated to Nid Chaiwana, teacher of Baan Huaykaew School, who was also killed by hired gunmen as he was to lead a protest against the leasing of a vast forest reserve to the rich and powerful wife of a politician," said Sudham.

In Napo, the author gave priority to the very old and the poorest of all families. He loaded his car with bottles of high quality cooking oil, top-grade fish sauce, packages of medicine to combat fever, headache and pains, and clothes. He presented these with some cash to each family. Under certain huts sick people lay with some cloths over their emaciated bodies, watched by relatives and friends.

"I wish I had a magic wand," Sudham said. "Many sick people are too poor to afford transportation to a hospital and pay for hospital bills. They just lie here waiting to recover or to die. Often I have taken the sick to Burirum Hospital, 90 kilometres away and in most cases I manage to pay for the hospital expenses. Should illness happen to strike the poor during my absence from Napo, as happened while I went to Bangkok to meet up with you, the outcome is, as you can see now: ailing, bed-ridden people have to wait."

Though I will never again see the kingdom with the eye of a naive tourist, I want to hold onto what I remember on the day I arrived in Napo. There was something idyllically beautiful about the rice fields, the sight of a boy, so alone and small in the vastness of the plain, setting his fish traps. With long bamboo poles, several men some fifty yards apart tried to hook frogs among rush stalks, while few women swung their small round nets in the water to catch shrimps and small fish for their meals. Peace seemed to pervade the land.

The day I was to leave Isan for Bangkok, I asked myself: What have I learned in Pira Canning Sudham’s world? At first, I was shocked that the characters in Shadowed Country are now old and wizened and tired. The author himself seems to retain his youthful looks and vigour, resilience and optimism against the evils that beset the country. Having lived a well-sheltered life in a social welfare society, I could not help but wonder at the author’s life to be lived daily in face of such predicaments – ignorance, superstition, forced listening, rote learning, disease, corruption, scarcity, drought, illness without medical treatment, grinding poverty, prostitution and slavery. I learned also that in his heart he cares very much for the poor and very much against the injustices in the society, the suffering of the majority of the people, and the murder of the brave and idealistic men. All of these, I see now as being evils, which look mundane and like the natural order of things on most days, except when tragedy strikes and political turmoil and massacres flare up such as the massacres of the 14th October 1973, the 6th October 1976 and the 18th May 1992, in which thousands of people were killed.

To combat evil and survive, Pira Canning Sudham must have patience, prudence and shrewdness; he resorts to using disguises and employs all the surviving tactics he knows. One should not put him under any political brand name. He is not trying to revolutionize the capitalist system, only to help make it more humane. His ethics are those, which emanate from the teachings of the Lord Buddha. He uses the art of his writing to sway the hearts of those who hold the power. Here, there is no dividing line between literature and politics, between poetic imagination and ethical integrity, between commitment and courage.

D. M. Allen
Queensland, Australia

The author believes that the greater danger to individual freedom comes from despotic regimes that regard any dissenting view as a threat to be destroyed, no matter if the threat comes from a single writer protesting against suppression, graft and the abuse of power or from thousands of protesters. To Pira Canning Sudham, a very important component of democracy is the sanctity of human rights including the freedom of an individual and the freedom of the mass media. However, overthrowing a despotic regime does not ensure democracy. When a despot is toppled another despot in a certain shade or form may follow after a short period of democracy.

While writing under despotic regimes and in sporadic periods of democracy, Pira Canning Sudham wished to suggest in his literary works what the authorities should do for the country’s poor. His writing defies time for it reflects the unsolved problem of poverty, injustice and corruption, and goes beyond time through the universality of love, hate, generosity, selfishness and hypocrisy. Through the years, he has highly earned the respect of his readers throughout the world. This well-earned respect rises from his determination not to stray from the truth and from his intellectual honesty.

It is this unusual combination of talents and affections, which make him so much more than a purely Thai novelist; for he writes in English. He explains this, in part, by acknowledging that he is happier and more confident writing in English, recognizing its status as the international lingua franca, and thus employing it remarkably well as a vehicle to bring his beloved Esarn to wider international attention. Sudham’s direct, clear prose amazingly has poetic quality. Dr John Bernard, Professor of Linguistics at Macquarie University, puts it: "Apart from his unexpected choice of English to write in and his cosmopolitan culture, there is another, a third, unusual aspect which intrigues me most of all. This is Pira Sudham’s actual way with words. It is like that of no other writer I know. If ever there was a writer whose every word was chosen and placed with careful deliberation, it is this one. Every word, plain or purple, is just what he intended it to be and creates the effect he calculated for it. The feeling that his prose is simple, except in the most superficial sense, will be overtaken by a realisation that it is both sophisticated and complex."

"Shadowed Country is an operation theatre for me," said Sudham. "And my scalpels have been keenly sharpened. In the sixties when I began writing Monsoon Country, the first book of Shadowed Country, not many Thais dare to bring out in the open the vital issue of rampant corruption, which, to my mind, is cancerous and destructive. Though it is universal and incurable, it can be arrested. Due to apathy of the authorities and general public towards this pernicious illness, I see Thailand then and even more so now, like a tree, rotten at the core, falls of its own accord. The July 1997 economic crisis, which is lengthening to the present and farther into the future, is merely a rash. The fall is yet to happen unless we heed the warning, arrest corruption and change our attitude towards it so that we do not accept it as a way of life."

Asked whether he writes in fear, Pira Canning Sudham replies: "Yes and no. My name Pira means courage and I don’t want to be a coward. But to write without fear in this situation one has to deploy all sorts of disguises as well as refinement. By refinement I mean refining not only words, phrases and the way one uses them, but also sentiments. Raw anger has to be crystallized by both time and the Lord Buddha’s teaching. We can say the same thing in so many different ways — crudely, angrily, directly, tactfully, euphemistically, or skillfully hiding messages between the lines. I have no British police force to safeguard my life like Salman Rushdie so I have to be extremely prudent as well as crafty, especially when 100 Thai writers, labour activists, active environmentalists, and idealistic, courageous schoolteachers have already been murdered by hired gunmen."

Then, why write? Is it worth one’s life? The author pondered: "Apart from having a good set of scalpels, I have an axe to grind. I’m much driven by a sheer force. And as if having been impregnated, I am carrying an embryo of a novel. Like a woman carrying a foetus in the womb, I have to give birth to a book the best possible way so that people in villages of Isan, who live the life of the damned, suffering exploitation, hardship and injustice. Millions of them have been swindled, despised, bullied, forced to leave the land for dam constructions and for eucalyptus planting, or completely ignored, and then die in vain. They are my impetus, my life force, my source of energy and power so that I can speak on their behalf, write about them and thus build their monuments. For so long, I have suffered along with them. An oyster, after a foreign matter strays inside and causes a great deal of pain, secretes a substance to coat the source of pain little by little, day by day, until it becomes a pearl. Like an oyster, I overcome my pain with writing. I hope that my works may become powerful enough to change people’s way of thinking so that they would not continue to believe that rampant corruption is a norm and that grinding poverty is one’s retribution, the fruit of one’s bad karma, committed in the past life."

Author Pira Canning Sudham has become the international voice of these forgotten people. In Isan, the questions of grinding poverty, exploitation by unscrupulous merchants, factory owners and government agencies, destruction of the ecology, greed and ignorance are inextricably linked. Pira Canning Sudham has written one story called The Gunman in which he narrates how professional gunmen are hired to murder a schoolteacher who is idealistic and courageous enough to try to protect a dwindling forest reserve, teaching the village children that they are entitled to a better deal. In another story, The Impersonator, he exposes the scandalous selling of children into prostitution, a sordid reality that required a special writing skill to make it palatable.

As Pira Canning Sudham shows, education for literacy and democracy is the key to overcoming this vile exploitation. But there is of course education and education. If education consists of nothing more than rote learning, which reinforces mindlessness, unthinking nationalism, subservience and absolute obedience due to local leaders and Bangkok authorities, it is worse than useless. But educators who encourage the children to question the authorities on various social issues including corruption and the selling of the young into prostitution and child labour in Bangkok’s factories are likely to be seen as a threat. Ten Isan schoolteachers have in fact been murdered.

As researchers, we humanists are morally useless if we focus only on the linguistics and the aesthetics of minority languages and traditional minority cultures. The larger issues are the politics of education, of literacy for the neglected and impoverished people, the human rights of the suppressed ethnic.

Following the heavy fighting with the insurgents in various parts of Isan in the 1970s, the authorities have set up "forced listening" in Isan villages by broadcasting, through loudspeakers installed on tall steel posts, official government news and messages by Radio Thailand based in Bangkok. As Pira Canning Sudham explains, this daily enforced listening has regrettable consequences for the cultural literacy and ethnic identity of the Isan people. Broadcasts made in the Thai language are aimed at making the Lao-speaking Isan people feel that they are "Thai" and should be loyal to the Thai government rather than foment insurgencies and demand separatism. The monopoly of Radio Thailand has succeeded in diminishing the opportunities of the Isan people to listen to broadcasts by local radio stations in the Lao language, which they previously enjoyed. Less and less frequently the Isan people hear Isan songs and music on the radio, and eventually they may be induced to forget their traditional culture and even their Lao language.

When one travels through Isan, it is not difficult to see the steel posts strategically installed in villages to hold the loudspeakers. The enforced listening would not come as a surprise in a country that is ruled by despots, but in modern Thailand it is really a remarkable occurrence. In the Western democracies if governments tried to impose such a blatant broadcast, the noise pollution alone would create an overwhelming outcry. But in Isan the voiceless people are afraid to speak up against the authorities.

It is clear that there are inextricable links between literacy, education, democracy and human rights. This could not be clearer than the case of the Isan people. It is in this context that the author would like to take readers on a journey to the hinterland of Thailand:

"I look at my life in this way: If I had not left my village at all, I would have become just another peasant, with a horde of children, going through the vicious circle of rural life in a poor village in Isan. If ignorance is bliss, I could have been a happier person. Like most villagers, I would believe that going through years of drought, scarcity and disease without medical treatment, without any relief, in a forlorn Isan village is my destiny, my fate or karma for what I committed in my previous life. So in this life, I am to suffer for the deeds done. The acceptance of one’s fate would make suffering in this life tolerable. It was in Sydney from 1969 onward when I began leading a life of a writer that I had to look deep into my heart and soul for a cure, a way to repair my maimed mind. It became obvious to me then that when young, I was gagged and blindfolded by the despotic regimes under which I lived for over fifteen years beginning in 1958 when military rule under Field Marshal Sarit Dhanarat took off. Worse still, it was rote learning, which is much alive and well in Thailand today particularly in rural schools that became a mind-maiming apparatus. I was taught and trained to become utterly obedient, subservient, unthinking, fearing the authorities.

"James Joyce says in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man that when a child is born in Catholic Ireland, nets are flung to catch his soul. In my society, it is not the nets but the instrument to nip the mind in the bud or to stunt it at any rate so that one grows up physically while one’s mind remains undeveloped. How could a man, whose mind during the formative years was not allowed to develop, write anything down that would be worth reading? This question haunted me every time I pick up a pen. Fortunately the learning years in New Zealand, Australia and in England re-educated me, giving me a newly formed mind as well as a new pair of eyes. I cherished this phase of my life so much that I made Prem Surin, the protagonist of Shadowed Country, go through in lurid details what I underwent in these democratic countries so as to demonstrate the mental reformation and the process of overcoming a crippled mind.

"Now living among the Isan people on the land on which I was born in my home village, Napo, I cannot avoid seeing daily the silent sufferers. You may say that they don’t know any better! On the whole most Isan people are not likely to complain or to voice their grievances. It’s their karma, remember? For centuries, they have been silent, without an effective voice. Only when they are pushed to the extreme, suffering beyond endurance, do they enter the capital to look for help from the authorities; their hopeful gatherings in Bangkok are so far peaceful. Each time they return to their villages with some promises from the government that their troubles would be looked into. But, alas, the promises turn out to be empty, and ironically those governments do not last long either, so then the suffering poor from rural areas keep returning to Bangkok the following summer again and again. Now their plea for help in front of the Government House has become an annual event under the band name of the Plea from the Assembly of the Poor.

"I fear that one day, after so many failures to obtain effective assistance from the authorities, they might not walk into Bangkok empty handed. Then what shall we do? For now we pin our hope on the fact that the suffering mass in rural Thailand would soon be tired of coming to Bangkok year after year. These desperate people should succumb to the notion that nothing could be done to alleviate their plights, that they would hang on to their belief in karma, the inevitable retribution, so that they must continue to suffer silently in their rural communities. The people in power may consider themselves fortunate that the annual assembling of the suffering mass at their doors are orderly and non-violent as opposed to those taking places in some other countries. But here, we are indeed fortunate when it has proven time and again that the rote learning and education system that is mind maiming work exceedingly well on the impoverished mass.

"Though I do not stand idly by while the suffering poor make their annual plea for help in Bangkok, the voice of my guardian angel comes to my ears: "Don’t lead them. Let them wake up and emerge due to their own desperation. Your role is an observer, then write about them as you see them." I heed the voice not only because I believe in my protector but also I want to be alive, at least to finish writing Shadowed Country. I keep in mind that more than thirty lives of teachers, the champions of the poor, labourers and the environmentalists have been brutally "liquidated." As a responsible writer, I am much concerned not only with urgent social issues but also with the plights of those who have been excruciatingly affected by the Moonmouth Dam (Pak Moon Dam) in Ubol. It is difficult to blot out the image of squatting old women and defenceless men and a pregnant woman being clobbered like animals by armed men so that the relocation of the villagers, who were in the way of the construction, could be made. Now the Moonmouth Dam has been proven to be a disastrous flop since it could not generate sufficient electricity as purported at the expense of human suffering and ecological disaster while World Bank continues to make a handsome return from the loan. I too have made a "return," definitely not in financial sense, but in a story: An Old Man and A Boy.

"Similarly, The Gunman does not stray from the fact that a group of villagers walked peacefully to Wapipratoom District Office in Mahasarakam Province to air their grievances. Their rice fields and river made salty by the brackish water from large-scale salt farms owned by powerful politicians and influential investors. When their farmland became salty, they could not grow rice, and in Naamsiaw River, fish died. Many farmers had to sell their once arable fields at very low prices and move away to find new land elsewhere. In front of the Wapipratoom District Office, the suffering farmers were battered and arrested and thrown in jail. Yes, for their sake, I protested against such injustice in my own way.

"The majority of the poor people of Isan remain meek and subservient and through their acceptance of their fate, they tend to avoid making outcries or demand. We know this. Employers know this only too well. Thus it gives sweatshop slave drivers and factory owners an advantage over the silent and meek ones. For this, Thailand’s Board of Investment can boast that the country is one of Asia’s cheapest production overheads with lenient environmental measures in order to attract investment from abroad.

"Taking it upon myself to speak out on behalf of the silent and meek ones, choices of tones and styles of speech are opened for me. In my books, particularly Shadowed Country, the current social conditions, the norms, the attitudes and the base on which the hierarchy rested are described along with the social ills, the corruption and injustice. By describing them in vivid details, I hope to bring to mind what should be corrected or changed for the better. When I wrote: "There are too many thieves in low and high places, cunningly and shamelessly making use of their positions and power, without conscience but with great capacity for avarice. These corrupt men aim at accumulating wealth as quickly as possible for themselves and for their families, without caring for the good of the nation" I hope that at least one or two of these broad home truths would make some Thai readers think. When I talk of the lack of conscience, I aim to make them ask themselves whether it is justifiable to say that conscience is what most Thais don’t have. Without conscience, one can bribe or take bribes, can be corruptible do wrongful deeds, without a sense of guilt. The corrupt may still claim that they have not done wrong. Then again it is up to me to make my writings "acceptable even to lying men." If it is not acceptable, then it would defeat the purpose. It cannot bring about change. It cannot change the way they think and behave. In that case I would fail as the champion of the downtrodden, the cheated, the exploited and the silent people.

"Why do I write the way I do? Let me explain. In Isan I was raised in poverty. I suffered hunger, pain and abuse. I had a fair share of happiness as well as sorrow. As a poor boy from Isan, I was much despised and ill treated in Bangkok. In time I learned that a lot of Isan people receive similar treatment in Thailand’s large cities because many of us are illiterate, penurious and ready to accept any hard work at the lowest pay, without complaint, just like buffaloes. These experiences caused much pain in me. I wince when I think of them.

"One may compare oneself with an oyster that suffers from a coarse grain of sand or a sharp foreign matter that strays inside it when it opens its shell. In order to lessen the pain, the oyster secretes a substance to coat the source of pain. After a long while the substance grows and eventually becomes a pearl. Pearl farmers use this knowledge to produce cultured pearls by keeping the oysters in the seabed until they grow to a suitable size, then bringing the farmed oysters up and prying open their shells to insert pain causing matters inside them. You can imagine the pain the poor creatures have to endure for years before they can produce the pearls. The end results are my books, my pearls. When I write, there is a sense of relief. In living in Isan, I draw my strength. What have been happening here and in Thailand as a whole challenge me to counteract with writing. The suppression of wages and farm produce, farmers losing their land and livelihood through forced relocation to give way to dam constructions and to eucalyptus plantations, the deforestation, illegal logging and the pollution of the air and rivers, the poverty and misery of the impoverished people have been taunting me daily. Then came the economic collapse in July 1997. A large number of "laid-off" workers, who did not receive even the last month of their salaries, not to mention the severance payment, returned to their home villages in Isan, only to become dependent on those who have previously depended on them. Being unemployed, they hang around their villages, with a hope that they would be called back one day to resume work when the financial situation of the factory owners improves, but to no avail. The promise has proven to be empty in most cases.

"To pick up a knife or a gun is definitely not my way for I hope very much that the pen is more powerful than any weapons available for use today.

In Shadowed Country, Pira Canning Sudham has covered the socio-economic and political changes occurring in Siam during the past 50 years. The books portray the subject of social transition, identify agents of change while he attempted to hold on to the life he had known in childhood. He had mixed feelings, when words like "strike," "protest" and "exploitation," which were once unheard in the kingdom, now being used freely and widely in the mass media, creep into the minds like ominous agents of change. He asks himself: How long would the traditional way of life last? Should he, one day, become an instrument of change?

Throughout the long history of change, we ask ourselves: What kind of values should we strive to maintain in spite of all the changes taking place around us? In what way are we changing?

Now peoples throughout the world have become alike in many ways. Men in most parts of the world wear similar shirts, trousers and jackets and use English to communicate. We eat much the same sorts of food, partly due to the worldwide spread of American-based food chains. The cheese used on pizzas or the potatoes for chips and crisps has gradually changed people’s tastes and eating habits. Until recently there were hardly any Thai farmers growing potatoes, which had to be imported for foreign residents. Now a large number of Thai farmers have become potato farmers, changing to new methods of farming, to being commercial farmers to earn larger income from this new cash crop. Milk and cheese are more examples. Not long ago, few Thai people consumed dairy products. Now milk has become part of their diet, and cheese is following quickly. The dairy industry is thriving. More and more rice fields have become grazing land, and vast areas of woodland have been turned into dairy farms. A change in the landscape has occurred as a result.

The age of electricity has come to Thailand, reaching into small communities even in rural areas. What does this mean? It means television, video, telephone and fax machines, satellite discs, rice cookers, refrigerators, computer, Internet and e-mail. Each of these items has become an agent of change in its own way.

Television means that people are exposed to advertisements as well as being entertained. These advertisements make people want goods and services that they never thought they needed before. New products tempt the consumers to change the old for the new. Hand-made Isan bamboo and tar buckets, for instance, have now been completely replaced by plastic ones. Handicrafts are being rapidly replaced by machine-made products. Walk into any village in Thailand today, if you see a man making a basket from bamboo, he would be in his sixties or seventies and probably one of the last of his generation that can and care to do the craft by hand. Soon, too, the art of mud mee hand woven-silk will be gone from Earn. Looking at dramas or television programmes also makes people in villages want to change their lives. They see how other people live and they want to catch up, to achieve certain standards or style. The electric rice cooker is another status symbol, as important as having a refrigerator. Small and innocent as they seem, rice cookers are also secret agents of change. Designed to cook white rice (kao jaow) with water, the sort of rice consumed in most parts of Siam and the world, rice cookers are not for Isan sticky rice (kao niaw), which is steamed. So, once, an Isan person has acquired an electric rice cooker, the family will have to switch from eating kao niaw to kao jaow. This also means that rice farmers have to switch to growing more kao jaow too. When one eats kao niaw, one eats it with fingers; as for kao jaow, one eats with fork and spoon. So the change simply occurs.

Refrigerators are also immense agents of change. Simply put, food can be stored for a longer period of time, causing a major change in the daily life of many refrigerator owners, who previously foraged for food in the woods and in the fields. They harvested what they grew, gathered wild plants, leaves, berries, roots, and mushrooms. In the ponds and streams and swamps, they caught frogs, eels, fish, and shrimps. This was part of their daily routine. Having refrigerators can change all this since the refrigerator owners do not have to gather their food each day. They may be some of those workers who have worked in Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and in the Middle East. These are the "new rich" of the communities. They are likely to dismantle their age-old huts (thatched roofs, bamboo walls, wooden stilts and ladders) to build entirely new houses of bricks and mortar, steel and glass, curtains and iron shutters, a stark contrast to houses of those who remain poor.

Resistance to change

Another aspect of change, good or bad – positive or negative, depends on us who view it or on who may profit from it. For instance, the people who claim that planting eucalyptus trees in vast areas greatly benefits the country are likely to be some giant corporations such as Finland’s forestry consulting firm, Jaacko Poyry, Finnish Stara Enso, Japan’s largest paper producer, Ogi, national bilateral aid agencies including Finland’s FINNIDA, Japan’s JICA and Canada’s CIDA, the UK’s Pira International (which provides information and research services for the paper, packaging and publishing industries), Sweden’s Sunds Defibrator (which supplies papermaking equipment), Eka Nobel (pulp and paper making chemicals), Britain’s Commonwealth Development Corporation (which offers grants from British taxpayers’ money in the form of foreign aid), ABB and Gotaverken (power and steam equipment), pulp and wood chip exporters, investors and shareholders of pulp and paper manufacturing plants, Australian eucalyptus seed exporters, nursery owners, Siam Cement, Siam Pulp and Paper, Siam Cellulose, Phoenix Pulp and Paper, Soon Hua Seng, Advance Agro, and the high-ranking officials of the Forestry Department, who have the authority to lease the so-called "degraded" forests and land to concessionaires to grow eucalyptus trees, among tens of thousands of other beneficiaries. On the other side are the sore losers, who are millions of the populace brutally forced to leave the land, where the authorities want to hand over to eucalyptus planters, the inhabitants of rural areas severely affected by the plantations, and the environmentalists, who fight to safeguard the environment, which includes the soil made more arid and acidic and less fertile by eucalyptus trees, the air and water from being polluted with fumes and toxic waste discharged by pulp and paper factories.

Some environmentalists claimed that five kilograms of sulphur dioxide are released to the air for each ton of pulp produced from using sulphite solution in the process of boiling wood chips, that cellulose fibres disintegrated during processing are discharged as waste water, which can deplete oxygen in rivers and streams. The sulphur added in the pulping process reacts with organic chemicals present in the pulp to form unaccountable organo-chlorine pollutants, including dioxin, which are some of the most potent poisons known to man.

Each year Isan, where large-scale eucalyptus planting has taken place, is becoming more and more like a semi-desert state of Australia, while its two main rivers, the Pong and the Shee, have been so devastatingly polluted that dead fish appeared on the surfaces for hundred of miles, that animals could not drink the water, and men could not make use of the rivers.

The drive to expand eucalyptus plantations and establish pulp and paper industry in Thailand as in several third world countries has become one of the greatest agents of change in the 20th century.

History of change

The process of change in Thailand escalated rapidly in the late nineteenth century. King Rama V (King Chulalongkorn) toured Europe twice during his reign to broaden his outlook and to enable him to find out the good and bad features of colonial rule. In Europe he saw many that impressed him and he brought back ideas and institutions with the intention to transform or modernize Thailand, especially in the area of education. He had 76 children by 36 wives (32 sons and 44 daughters). The princes were later sent to Europe for education in order to prepare them for service to the State. This period was similar to Japan’s drive to Westernize its society by bringing in Western clothing, customs, architecture, education, industry, and Western military training and weaponry. King Chulalongkorn realized that European imperialist powers, Britain and France especially, posed a threat to the political and economic integrity of Thailand. His aim was to find some way to prevent the kingdom from being colonized. His Westernizing efforts were successful. The Westernization of Thailand included the engagement of European advisers and teachers. The English produced beneficial results in education, police, surveying and railways, while the Danes were employed in the navy, the French in law and public works, the Italians in architecture and construction, and the Germans in railway construction. The first railway line was built in 1892 to link Korat in the northeast with Bqangkok, while the postal and telegraphy services were established. In 1888, the tram appeared in Bangkok streets, to be followed by the first motor car in 1902. On his return from the first European tour, King Chulalongkorn had an avenue of five kilometres built from the Grand Palace to his new Dusit Palace, after the pattern of the Champs Elysees in Paris, the Mall in London, and the Unter den Linden in Berlin. He gave it the name of Rajdamnern Avenue (Royal Progress Avenue).

For the first time, surnames were given to the people, in 1913. Prior to that, the only way to identify a person was to refer to him as son of Nai (Mister) so and so or as belonging to this or that place or village. Under the king’s influence, men and women adopted Western hair styles and clothing. He also introduced football and Western dancing to the country.

The wind of change began to increase in velocity when the king sent not only his sons, but also sons of noblemen, as well as commoners’ sons to study in Europe. Most of them went to the United Kingdom, where they entered professional schools and universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, London, Edinburgh and Manchester.

In 1911, in the reign of King Rama VI, a plot to overthrow the government was hatched by a group of army and navy officers, civil servants and civilians. But the revolution did not succeed. On June 24, 1932, in the reign of King Rama VII, another revolution broke out. As a result a fledgling democracy was born in place of absolute monarchy. The king stepped down and left the kingdom for England where he died in exile. Out of the fifteen party leaders of revolutionists, thirteen were educated in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Since then democratically elected governments have come and gone, almost at the whim of despotic leaders. Against the despots, tens of thousands of the Thai people rose in opposition, resulting in the massacres which occurred on the 14th of October 1973, the 6th of October 1976, and the 18th of May 1992.

Looking back at the history of change in Thailand, it is easier to map and gaze at the landmarks of physical change, while it is unlikely that one can locate any clear record of the change in the minds of the people, their mentality and attitudes. Westernization has presented superabundant demands, sometimes changing Thai society for the better, sometimes for the worse. Perhaps due to the Westernizing reforms around the nineteenth century, Thailand was one of the few countries in Southeast Asia, which escaped the colonial grasp of the Western countries. Paradoxically, this is one of the reasons why Siamese people even today remain open to influences from the West. Western or foreign ideas, technology, and institutions are taken into Thai society without prejudice. Now, you may ask, is this good or not? Certainly this is a question which confront all intellectuals in the kingdom. One may ask: Are we going to change most things? What about questions of value? What shall we choose to keep and what shall we choose to change?

"What I would like to see unchanged is the love and respect young people hold for their elders. Perhaps you might think me old-fashioned and conservative to place such value on filial piety. But what a pity that old people are not respected in so many countries throughout the world," said Sudham. What the author truly wants to see change is the attitude that accepts corruption as a way of life. "We should be a people that know the different between right and wrong, a people of conscience. The word "conscience" is new to Thai society. In a sense, it is a foreign import, perhaps deriving from Christianity. There has not been a word for "conscience" in Thai until recently, when few words have been coined as a translation of it. I wonder whether it would be a subversive task to implant "conscience" in the Thai mind as it is important as a safeguard against accepting corruption as a way of life. How else can we be respected by other peoples, not only in trade but also in our daily life?"

Having said "change is inevitable," we may go further to ask whether we have the power to influence what sorts of changes take place around us. Can we uphold what we believe to be valuable? Can we hold on to our heritage and also encourage changes that are necessary? We are not helpless in confronting change, but we are often confused. Who will take the initiative in guiding change? Should it be the people in power or the people on the street? These questions are left open, but for Pira Canning Sudham’s part, he claims that he would do what he could, as a writer and a teacher, to steer his students towards a positive course of change.

A great number of people evicted from their lands and those escaping from poverty in Esarn to improve 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 the despicable Esarn region, being ashamed of their Lao tongue and ignoble origins. A large number of Esarn Lao 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 evictions 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, disperse more than ten millions of the people of Esarn from their homes and farmlands. Furthermore a large number of unfortunate children of the destitute continue to be taken by "agents" to slave in sweatshops, factories, or in brothels.

During the first year in the capital as a servant to monks in a Buddhist temple, it dawned on Pira Canning Sudham that he had hardly a chance to improve himself. Fortunately he was allowed to attend classes in the school in the compound of the Wat. 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 for giving me a chance to learn from a new school and a new method. Their way is a sheer contrast to the Thai’s, which is mainly reciting and memorizing lessons and texts, a method known as rote learning. In New Zealand I learned how to think, to form and voice opinions, to discuss ideas and to ask questions," claimed Sudham. "I also learned a process of reasoning, which is not taught to the majority of Thai children from the beginning. 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 questions. On the other hand, 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 read English literature in Australia for three years. At night he wrote his first novel, Monsoon Country, and short stories and poems. From 1975 to 1978 he studied further English literature in England, also 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 subsequent editions) did not appear until 1983, followed by People of Esarn in 1987, Monsoon Country in 1988 and The Force of Karma in 2002.

In New Zealand, Australia and Europe, Pira Canning Sudham experienced the Western way of life. "I grew up mentally outside Thailand," he admitted. "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. I am grateful for not remaining 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 education 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 deeply and finish Shadowed Country."

After so many years abroad, Sudham could no longer resist the call of his beloved Esarn to where he returned eventually in 1996. 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. It stands among 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.

"Grandparents passed on to us tales and folklore as well as their search for an arable area to where they would migrate. Here, lodged deep in my heart, are memories of childhood, of filial piety as well as the age-old suffering and primeval bitterness. I also remember winsome faces of young girls who stayed several years to learn by heart ballads and songs 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 reflected: "If he had been born in the UK, he might have become one of the cherished British poets. Even in the quagmire of a forgotten Esarn village he managed to pull himself out of 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 learned that they were heading for the temple sala. There, the abbot would teach them to read and write. So the eager ploughboy ran after them. But when the old peasant found out that his son had deserted the rice field with the plough still tied to the buffalo, he went after the deserter, beat and hauled the son back to toil on the land. Not until Father 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. In later years he became a kroo, or guru, a 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 being poisoned. Meanwhile ten dedicated Esarn schoolteachers had been murdered by hired gunmen.

"Father gave me a gift of poetry, and the love of words and their sounds, an impetus 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 tycoons 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. These are 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 lands. They are pale and diminutive compared to the present-day highly corrupt and immensely avaricious Masters and myopic, grabbing traders. Most of these dark lords have become extremely powerful. They have gained monopolies, concessions, public lands and forest reserves, plundering 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. Some of them should be held responsible for using cancer-causing antibiotics banned in Europe in poultry and fish and prawn farming as if to create health havoc among the consumers for a certain insidious purpose. Alas, they enjoy impunity and become year by year greater and greedier, more diversified with global collaborating networks and high power.

I observe how the subjugated rural dwellers kept in ignorance and subservience are easy victims to 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 the land and its indigenous people for centuries to come."

D. A. Housman

Pira Canning Sudham’s literary works, People of Esarn, Tales of Thailand, Monsoon Country and its sequel, The Force of Karma are quintessentially about Thailand in conflicts.

He speaks on behalf of the impoverished people of Esarn, one of Thailand’s most economically and politically disadvantaged regions. He claimed: "Our Esarn lives are subject partly to the mercy of nature – drought, floods, diseases and scarcity – and partly to the exploitation and price suppression of agricultural produce and low wages. To escape these predicaments millions of our able men and women venture to seek opportunities abroad. Those who cannot afford to pay in advance the abominably high fees to employment agencies to work overseas have to be satisfied with jobs in Thailand’s factories and sweatshops or being drivers of trucks, taxis or fume-belching three-wheelers that choke the streets of Bangkok. Tens of thousands of Esarners in exile eke out their living, selling food on footpaths or work as servants in homes of the well-to-do or in restaurants, bars, nightclubs and brothels. With endurance, the majority of Esarners tend to accept fate as something they cannot alter. Such acceptance stems from a belief in palangkam, the force of karma – our deeds done in past lives. Thus in this life we reap the results or retribution of what we previously committed.

"One knows the good heartedness, silent endurance, submissiveness, superstition and ignorance of majority of Esarners as well as the selfishness, cruelty and arrogance of unscrupulous shopkeepers, ruthless middlemen and harsh employers.

"What I saw and experienced in childhood immensely influenced me. As a result, I tend to sympathize with the poor, the powerless, the suppressed and the much-maligned, whose lives are under the no-win situation. Fortunately there are many lucky ones who, by hook or by crook or sheer luck are rescued by foreigners from the seething morass, from the soul-destroying bars, nightclubs and brothels. Those saviours may be farang admirers, some of whom have elevated the rescued to be their wives or husbands as the case may be or as friends or partners. In some cases, the rescuers take them out and away from Thailand to live in Europe or Australia or in the USA.

"Those farang rescuers pose as a contrast to those who exploit and suppress the poor, the ignorant and the powerless, keeping them voiceless and subservient and in dire needs — a proven method to ensure great authority over the abundant work force and the easy-to-govern populace.

Sudham also declares that he wants to find place in literature for the impoverished people of Esarn so that they would not live voicelessly and defenselessly and then die in vain.

In fulfilling this commitment, the author remains honest about the positive and negative aspects of Esarn life. Even as he celebrates the religious rituals and life-cycles which imbue Thai rural living with coherence and calmness, the writer exposes various forms of corruption, the lure of the cities, the shame many displaced Esarners feel about their ignoble birth and the Lao language. He pertains to the ambiguities of change and the revolutionary dream, which lingers after the October 1973, October 1976 and May 1992 massacres of pro-democracy protesters in the streets of Bangkok.

While Pira Canning Sudham can confidently appeal to the natural and religious symbolism, which is still an integral aspect of rural life, he depicts his people with the objective detachment of a social realist. He also draws on the wealth of autobiographical material, particularly in creating characters and narrators who are positioned within a process of transition.

There is a village boy who, because his parents offer him to a monk in one of Bangkok’s temples, bravely makes efforts to improve his station in life. He attends classes at the temple school, wins a scholarship to study in England and eventually renounces the surface pleasures of European culture to return home and attempt a difficult reintegration. Back in Esarn, he belongs uneasily, yet dedicates himself to helping his people. Oddly, however, this Thai writer who has, in his life as in his masterpiece, Shadowed Country, returned to his village called Napo, writes literary works in English.

Pira Canning Sudham’s writing is dominated by the symbol of Esarn, the Korat Plateau of north eastern region that depends largely on the munificence of monsoon seasons. This region confines its people within its own ambivalence. Esarn is a place of happy, innocent children, but also of petty, brutal officials and local chowpor or godfathers. It is a place of patience, but also passivity, of people attuned to the cycles of nature, but also resigned to be neither happy nor unhappy. This ambivalence prevents Sudham’s Esarn from becoming a sentimental or conservative symbol. In fact the narrative positioning quite often ensures that Esarn is not seen as a simple home but as a place of change in which characters and narrators are trying to fashion some wisdom from their balance of grief and gain.

Any chance that Esarn might function as a nostalgic symbol is swiftly dispelled by stories that expose the sinister side, which includes child trade and slavery in Bangkok’s numerous brothels. In Two Boys of Soka, a story in Tales of Thailand (The Fifth Cycle Edition 2002) Dan, a six-year old boy, attempting to interpret and appease the land’s thirst for sacrifice, kills himself, hoping thereby to summon rain and so prevent his friend, Kum, from being sold into child prostitution. Even as he accidentally brings about his death, Dan discovered that the land is merciless and loses his innocent worldview.

There seemed to be so much of the cynicism in life, the universal suffering, sorrow, cruelty, the primeval bitterness and the futility of all things.

Dan dies without receiving any sign that his sacrifice has been redemptive. There is, in fact, a prevailing sense that his sacrifice has more to do with blind necessity than with freedom, emerging from the helplessness and ignorance, which give characteristics to the Esarn experience.

A great deal of narrative sympathy is devoted to the figures of the ageing parents whose children have disappeared into cities. One example of this is Enduring Esarn Life. Not only are the farmer and his wife left with the work, but also with the feeling that their wisdom is dying with them. Observing how religious and social customs are deteriorating, even in rural Thailand, the wife recalls how the traditions of land and religion once supported her life.

Our lives then seemed to have a kind of code that bound us together and we could go by what our parents and grandparents handed down to us.

Even so, her life is made coherent as much by resignation as by ritual. She invokes the buffaloes to symbolize her acceptance of necessity and accepts that she is "neither happy nor unhappy." Her husband invests the land with peace, which he also discovers in Buddhism. Yet, for all its resignation, this narrative is also a separated one – the wife and the farmer confide to the reader what they do not communicate to each other; how much each wants the return of their children. This narrative structure reveals the loneliness and helplessness hidden by the polite face, which they show during most of their narration.

Sudham’s work is sensitive to the ambiguity of its polite-faced narratives, knowing that there is a pragmatic version of innocence, which cultivates the appearance of calm, even ignorance, as a way of avoiding harsher realities. In From Esarn to Germany, a bar-girl, who married a farang customer and moved to Hamburg, tries to convince herself that she is content, that she is no longer treated with contempt. On the contrary she has a chance to elevate above the state of being sub-human and, more pragmatically, she realizes that a future in Germany could not be worse than her previous life. Gradually, she reveals how she was taken from her village and forced into prostitution and how she resents the complacency and corruption, which allowed this to happen.

Pira Canning Sudham has not produced any literary works in Thai. Writing in English, he aims not only to give the English reader insights into Thai life, but also to give significance to the lives of the poor in rural Thailand so that "they do not come into this world to merely exist, suffer and die in vain."

Dr Noel Rowe
Department of English
The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia