Materializing Thailand

Penny Van Esterik

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781859733110
• eBook ISBN: 9781000181241
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Buddhism
• Index: Social Sciences

Thailand has become well known throughout the world for wonderful cuisine, great package holidays, sumptuous temples and textiles. Noticeably absent from glossy tourist brochures but equally well known throughout the Western world is Thailand's seedier side - the world of child exploitation, rampant prostitution and AIDS. Thailand maintains its appeal by slipping the ugly and painful out of sight and by promoting women as exotic visual icons through beauty contests, state rituals and the sex trade. This book explores the construction of gender in Thailand and in particular the role Bangkok plays in establishing gender relations for the whole of the country. It examines the historical and cultural processes underlying Thai public culture, including historical theme parks. The author demonstrates how the materiality of the Thai world shapes gender relations and how Buddhism discourages essentialisms, including fixed binary gender identities. Throughout the book, appearances are shown to be critically important, and the essentialism of gender is maintained through display, public presentations, and everyday material practices. Anyone wishing to understand the complexity of Thailand will find this book provides a highly readable and insightful analysis.

Part II
Representations

four
Representing Thai Culture

Culture and Representation

In the last chapter, I argued that Buddhism is important for understanding gender relations. While Thai individuals differ with respect to the importance of Buddhism as an influence in their lives, there is no doubt about the importance of Buddhism as a fundamental part of Thai national identity, expressed as respect for nation, religion and monarch. This chapter does not examine Buddhism and politics, but looks instead at the links between the representation of women, and the representation of the Thai nation state. Exploring these relations takes us further behind the scenes at Thai provincial fairs, into shopping malls, and through the many heritage sites preserved by the Thai Fine Arts Department. At many of these sites, we are joined by tourists – both domestic and foreign. And many ask the same questions we ask here: are these authentic Thai experiences in authentic Thai localities?

Thai elite have been playing with historical palimpsests to define and redefine national identity throughout the last century, juxtaposing representations and texts to find the essence of Thainess (khwampen Thai). Mulder identifies Thai as an archetypal presentational society (1992: 159), one that resonates with Featherstone's definition of postmodern. He defines postmodernism in the arts as:

the effacement of the boundary between art and everyday life; the collapse of the distinction between high and mass/popular culture; a stylistic promiscuity favouring eclecticism and the mixing of codes: parody, pastiche, irony, playfulness and the celebration of the surface 'depthlessness' of culture; the decline of the originality/genius of the artistic producer; and the assumption that art can only be repetition. (1991:7)

In this sense, the Thai were postmodern before they were modern, creating images of themselves based on their own 'Orientalism',¹ and representing themselves to others with consummate skill. Thus national identity was constituted internationally from free-floating signifiers from Thailand's past, but responsive to global pressures and opportunities {see also Winichakul 1994, Tejapira 1996).

As individuals and as shapers of institutions, Thai shift between contexts easily and skilfully, influenced perhaps by Buddhist orientations to impermanence. Concern with a civilized face and image becomes a particularly prominent part of Thai national identity formation after contact with European colonizers active on their eastern, western, and southern borders.

Colonial Discourse, Nationalism and Heritage

Colonial rule shapes how the past is represented. Streckfuss argues that Thailand's narrative of nation is framed by colonialism - made conspicuous by its absence (1993: 123). As the only Southeast Asian nation to remain free of direct European control, Thailand approaches representations of her past with an unselfconsciousness lacking in other Southeast Asian nations. Thailand has had no experience in dismantling colonial empires and institutions, and as a nation state, has been interpreted by historians as demonstrating a continuity of social, political, economic and cultural structures uniquely Thai. Thus nationalism must have a different rationale in Thailand, one based on avoiding colonialization rather than experiencing it. In fact, Bangkok itself colonized its periphery. As a non-colonized but 'informally colonized' nation, Thailand benefitted from not having to fight old enemies who were now under colonial rule (Burma, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam). As Anderson says, their old enemies were too weak to fight and their new enemies, too strong (Anderson 1977:21). This allowed Thailand to be more selective and open to Western and European influence than her colonized neighbours whose exposure to the West was structured and controlled through colonial institutions.

As Mitchell describes for Egypt (1988), new methods of disciplinary power penetrate more effectively in areas colonized by European powers. For example, neither model development villages nor school discipline were as effective in Thailand as in colonies such as Egypt. Without national independence movements developed in opposition to colonial powers, the Thai governing elite had little need for mass nationalism or women's liberation movements which often accompanied independence movements. The legitimacy of the hegemonic Buddhist social organization and sakdina² social relations remained intact, delaying the break between the Thai elite and the masses (Sunthraraks 1986:76). Opposition between the elite and the masses took precedence over colonizer versus colonized. The myth of Thai identity promulgated by Prime Minister Phibun Songkhram discussed below argues that the Thai lacked a nationalist oriented character precisely because of their ability to adapt to external circumstances and select foreign innovations. In practical terms, this eased the adoption of things foreign and their redefinition as Thai. 'It is not enough to go to a foreign country to acquire specific skills, but that it is more desirable to be able to imbibe that foreign culture in all its aspects so that one can glean out what is good for one's own country' (Nagavajara 1994b: xxxii).

Concerns about nationalism and national identity proliferate when nations and national borders are threatened. But much about national identity can be learned from the construction of identity of nations and nationals at peace. Thailand is an excellent example. Its borders are essentially unchallenged, although the loss of land to Cambodia and Laos was a high price to pay for appeasing the French at the end of the nineteenth century and after the Second World War. Over the last 200 years, the country has been acutely sensitive to construction of national identity, or as Tongchai Winichakul (1994) has argued, the geo-body of the nation.

Tongchai Winichakul's masterful book Stain Mapped(1994) explores how the logic and technology of 'mapping' created the geo-body of the Thai nation. However, gender has no place in his account - the geo-body is unsexed or unmarked masculine. Women appear only as tributes or in marriage alliances with marginal vassals. Tongchai problematizes space but naturalizes gender. But he uses an interesting metaphor with regard to the geo-body. The trope of the nation as motherland is expressed as common soil or the great underworld serpent (naga), the goddess of the earth. By the end of the nineteenth century, the metaphor has become masculine, as the royal body of the divine king becomes the embodiment of the territorial space of the nation state (Winichakul 1994:133-4).

Studies of nationalism and national identity are often gender blind, as if nationalism, politics and economics were all the exclusive domains of men. Since state efforts to create nationalism are intimately connected to military service and electoral politics, the absence of women is not surprising. Citing the absence of women in Anderson's Imagined Communities,Pratt notes that, 'Women inhabitants of nations were neither imagined as nor invited to imagine themselves as part of the horizontal brotherhood ... Gender hierarchy exists as a deep cleavage in the horizontal fraternity' (1994:30-1). Recently, Parker et al in their book on Nationalisms and Sexualities(1992:2) have explored the complex linkages between sexuality, and nationalism as a passionate need, legitimated through a national discourse of civil liberties. Since Anderson's pioneering work on nationalism as the 'deep horizontal comradeship' of imagined communities (1983), nationalism has been seen - like gender - as a relational term in a system of differences (Parker et al 1992:5, Jeffrey 1999).

Studies of Thai nationalism most often stressed the personal skills of the kings of the Chakri dynasty and their prime ministers as they negotiated with Western powers to protect Thai sovereignty, thus emphasizing the continuity and uniqueness of Thai kingship and culture. Anderson (1978a), and more recently Winichakul (1994) and Reynolds (1991) have challenged this picture, arguing for a more complex and less elitist view of the process. Nevertheless, it is useful to review this official version of the nationalism of Rama VI and Prime Minister Phibun Songkhram to examine how and where gender was relevant to their arguments.

The Nationalism of Rama VI (Vajiravudh - 1910-1925): King Vajiravudhcame to the throne in 1910 after being educated in England. He viewed the monarchy as the key to nationhood. His official elite nationalism sought to impose 'a standardized, homogeneous, centrally sustained high culture (that is, Bangkok, central Thai culture) on its subjects (Barme 1993:9). His writings admonish 'free-born men ... not to forget our race and our faith... How could a manwho respects himself remain idle?' (Vella 1978:91, emphasis mine).³ In a frenzy of militaristic nationalism which excluded women, Vajiravudh drew around him young men who shared his interest in the performing arts and military rituals. His Wild Tiger Corps, a mass paramilitary group formed to promote national unity, bypassed the military and elevated commoners to positions of responsibility and intimacy with the royal person. The corps was modelled after the men who guarded the frontiers of ancient Thailand, men known for their ruggedness, loyalty, fearlessness and knowledge of nature and warfare. Although the Wild Tiger Corps ended with Rama VI's reign, the junior branch survived as the government-sponsored Boy Scouts (Support Foundation 1985:Vol. 6, 19). The infamous village scouts whose right-wing beliefs supported state repression in the 1970s and 1980s (Bowie 1997) may also be a more dubious descendant.

Vajiravudh's brand of elite nationalism was aimed at the bureaucrats (Wilayasakpan 1992:63), primarily a male audience. Many innovations such as team sports owed much to his British private school experience of male bonding. His obvious preference for male friends and his reluctance to marry and reproduce cannot be judged by Western models of gender and royal propriety, as only the latter would be cause for concern within the Thai sex/gender system, as discussed in Chapter 7.

Vajiravudh's relations with women may have been strained, as his portrayal of them in literary and theatrical works was stereotypical and unflattering. Nevertheless, in the beautiful commemorative volumes celebrating each king of the Chakri dynasty published by the Royal Palace in 1985, Vajiravudh is pictured dressed as the heroine, Marie, in a play he directed, and as a Japanese beauty in Gilbert and Sullivan's the Mikado(Support Foundation 1985:Vol. 6, 49, 51).

Vajiravudh, like Prime Minister Phibun discussed next, took it upon himself to 'raise the status' of Thai women, as he viewed the status of women as a symbol of the degree of civilization of the country (Vella 1978: 152). While colonial discussions of Egyptian mentality linked Egypt's moral inferiority to the status of its women (Mitchell 1988: 111), Thai constructions of national identity were less misogynous. Vajiravudh's concern, like Phibun's, was for appearances: he writes, 'Please understand that others are taking our measure' (Vella 1978: 153). And when appearances are manipulated, attention always turns to women.

Vajiravudh identified three major restrictions on Thai women: their limited freedom to socialize with men on equal terms, their limited access to education, and the practice of polygamy, which was viewed by Europeans as particularly barbaric. Minor problems concerned their appearance, including women's black teeth from betel chewing, their short 'brush-cut' hairstyles, and wearing chongkraben,the comfortable draped pants worn by men and women. Western travellers to Thailand, used to the extremes of gender opposition in European constructions of masculinity and femininity, were clearly confused by the similarity in appearance between Thai men and women - their clothing, hairstyles, and daily activities, for example (cf. Bradley 1981, Bowring 1857). Vajiravudh was particularly concerned because Westerners did not view elements of Thai dress simply as examples of cultural differences in fashions, but as deliberate strategies to keep women unattractive, and thus in bondage (Vella 1978:154). This attitude would be particularly anathema to Thai sensibilities because of the importance of aesthetic appearance underlying Thai gender constructions. The King encouraged his women friends and relatives to wear their hair long and wear the more stylish but restrictive skirt-like phaasinrather than the draped pants (chongkraben) worn by men and women in rural and court settings. Even hats were encouraged, and the new fashions were widely imitated among urban elite.

Thai women were advised to put devotion to nation ahead of devotion to spouse, but show devotion to nation by looking after their husbands and instilling nationalistic values in their children. Vajiravudh sought to break down the separation of the sexes in public by encouraging women to accompany their husbands to public events such as theatre parties. But women had no direct role in advancing the cause of nationalism beyond the changes in their appearance and leisure activities. In fact, changes in women's roles and appearance introduced Western elements of femininity rather than reinforcing Thai femininity. Vajiravudh relied on voluntarism, exhortation, and propaganda to accomplish his nationalist goals (Vella 1978:270), in sharp contrast to Prime Minister Phibun Songkhram who attempted to use force and enact legislation to carry out his ideas about civilizing Thai women and Thai culture.

Prime Minister Phibun Songkhram (1938-44, 1948-57): Prime Minister Phibun tried to impose modern concepts of the state and leadership on Thai Society in an attempt to establish a new relation of hegemony not based on the monarchy. Nevertheless, the sakdinasystem with its notions of hierarchy based on royal power persisted after the 1932 coup abolishing the absolute monarchy, and has been slow to change. Sunthraraks identifies the persistence of sakdinamentality as a '... passive acceptance of authority, conformity to existing views of conduct, and a belief that the world and life are governed by the Buddhist law of Karma' (1986:43). Phibun aimed to change this through the use of art, literature and culture. After the 1932 coup, a series of government offices operated to formulate and propagate the government's version of Thai national identity. Part of Phibun's nationbuilding strategy was to develop 'Thai-ness' and impose a Thai Great Tradition' to demonstrate the strength and unity of the Thai nation. Ironically, this official version of Thai culture was based on Western models and created by the suppression of a number of local traditions, most notably, the Lao of the northeast and Lanna of the north, both of which had distinctive scripts, literature, and artistic traditions that were all but destroyed in the efforts to build a Thai national identity.

The National Cultural Development Act passed in 1942 defined culture (wathanatham) as showing flourishing development, good order, harmonious progress of the nation and good public morals. Culture, by the Royal Institute's official definition, refers to characteristics that denote growth, orderliness, national unity and progress, and good public morality. It was considered the duty of Thai people to comply with national culture by preserving what was good in traditional culture. Prime Minister Phibun and other builders of Thai nationalism assumed that culture could protect Thailand against undesirable foreign influence, just as it would protect her from communism in the 1960s and 1970s. These optimistic assumptions about the power of culture would not have been made in a country overcoming direct colonial rule. Cultural nationalism was a project of the state not a direct response to Westerners, although early nationalist strategies may well have been a response to colonial threats and the need to regulate the national image abroad.

The National Cultural Development Act of 1942 established the framework for the task of cultural construction and nation building. According to Phibun, the National Culture Council was established to prevent the spread of Japanese culture into Thailand (Numnonda 1978:242). The National Culture Council begun in 1943, was divided into five offices - culture through the mind (Bureau of Spiritual Culture), through customs (Bureau of Customary Culture), through art (Bureau of Artistic Culture), through literature (Bureau of Literary Culture) and through women (Bureau of Women's Culture) (Numnonda 1977:203, Wilayasakpan 1992:117). It drew real and invented provincial and regional 'little traditions' into the Thai nation state in a construction of Pan-Thaiism as manifest destiny. Yet the classical court traditions of music,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• List of Figures
• PartI Orientations
• Part II Representations
• Part III Interpretations
• Bibliography
• Index