Khon masks, puppets, archetypes and Thai leadership

A talk I attended a week ago gave the definition of an archetype as that unchanging pattern of energy that grips us. When we act out of our normal ordinary character, we are in the force of an archetype. These are the gods that Greek mythology gave a multitude of names. For example, there are archetypes of anger, love, the hero and his quest, chaos, death and destruction, etc. All cultures have some ancient understanding of these forces giving them different names but the forces are the same.



In Thai cosmology, a popular expression of these archetypes are expressed in the "Khon" - masked dance of the Ramakien, a version of Ramayana that was adopted into Thai literature with Thai personality and characteristics since the times of Sukhothai and Ayudhya. King Rama I composed a comprehensive literary version that present day Thai dance and theater base their acts on.



There are several links on the internet about Ramakien, some of which I've listed below. However, what delighted me the most was this website of the "Joe Louis Theater".



In 2001, I visited Burma. Apart from the Shwegadon Pagoda, the most memorable impression I had of Burma was its marionette tradition. Even in the form of its touristic presentation, it indicated a highly developed art form that amazing integrated music, song, dance, theater and puppetry. When I got back to Thailand, I tried to find what I could about Thai puppetry. Sadly, all I found were empty dolls sold as tourist souvenir. I visited the National Museum where there was an exhibit of some Thai puppets that were rescued and restored and was told that there had been only two performances long over because there wasn't enough people who knew how to control the puppets. Now, they have this excellent website and a theater that gives daily performances which doubles as a museum where you can see a demonstration of how the puppets are made and manipulated!









Well anyway, this recent discovery of what archetypes actually represent had me thinking about Thai Khon masks. When I was working in Thailand, I heard on several occasions people referring to their work persona as a Khon mask. Khon masks are highly respected in Thailand, you can only wear one if you've done a ceremony in respect of its spirit, or it is said that you will be possessed by bad spirits. And of course, being a mask, it's not the real you. Each job position required a different mask.



From an admiration of our Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra for his perseverance in politics, to many indulgent forgivings for his foul ups, to outright outrage at how he's mishandled the Southern Muslim incidents, to pity for his being put on the tough spot when the Tsunami hit.... well, I realized that we're all participating in some archetypal forces here. PM Thaksin himself, I am sure, doesn't know what has him in its grip. He's like someone who unknowingly put a Khon Mask over his head without having done the right dedications to its spirit, not really understanding what the spirit of this particular mask that he chose would ask of him. Any wrong moves, and the spirit punishes severely. However, he did chose the mask, and he'll have to wear it until its energies plays out its complete act.



Links to Khon masks and Ramakien websites:



Khon masks

Khon masks



The poetic of Ramakien, presented by Northern Illinois University, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, I recommend again, is an excellent source for language and culture of Southeast Asia, including images of mural paintings.

A Muay Thai website that explains how the Wai Kru Dance of Muay Thai is related to the Ramakien tradtion.

Mahidol University's Ramakien websitet explains its connection to religious tradition and other art forms.

The six faces of Hunuman, the Thai's favorite character in Ramakien.

Rama V'th northern connection - Jao Dara Rasamee

I had wondered whether the fact that North Thailand, (previously known as Lanna, with Chiang Mai as its center) was annexed relatively late (1893) into the Thai Kingdom, could have been the motivating reason which Thai government officials chose not the recognize North Thailand's history as part of its national history. The birth of the Thai nation is counted from the Sukhothai period, and the origin of the Thai script as deriving from King Ramkamhaeng's script as found in the stone inscription of 1283. This writing of history from a nationalistic perspective seems to me to be a distortion of history. Now that the cold war detante is long over, history could be taught without this harmful nationalistic bent and we could avoid many of the problems we have with our intimate neighbors, such as Burma, Laos, and Cambodia. Southeast Asia's history as a region really is very fascinating if one could view it as historical processes without boundaries. We tend to not be aware that national boundaries were imposed on us not so long ago. I'm not proposing we do away with national boundaries. For governmental administration it has become a necessity. However, if we could view the region as multi-cultures that have co-existed and influenced each other at many levels through several centuries a "renaissance" of SE Asian cutlures could well flower.



Jao Dara Rasamee's mairrage to King Chulalongkorn, Rama V, cemented relations between Lanna and "Siam". The ruling dynasty of Chiang Mai, Gawila, however, ended only in 1939 with the death of King Gaew Nawarat.

A great Burmese essay, "The Burmese Fairy Tale"

I discovered this essay in Lonely Planet's 2000 edition guidebook of Myanmar(Burma). It was written by Ma Thanegi, a pro-democracy activist and former political prisoner who lives in Yangon. I think it is a great essay that needs to be read by those interested in Myanmar. Even if it doesn't relate to Thailand's history, I felt it needed to be posted on the internet. These are her(?) words:

"The Burmese Fairy Tale"

Like many Burmese, I am tired of living in a fairy tale. For years, outsiders protrayed the troubles of my country as a morality play: good against evil, with no shade of grey in between - a simplistic picture, but one the world believes. The response of the west has been equally simplistic: It wages a moral crusade against evil, using such magic wands as sanctions and boycotts.

But for us, Myanmar is no fairy-tale land with a simple solution to its problems. We were isolated for 26 years under socialism and we continue to lack a modern economy. We are tired of wasting time. If we are to move forward, to modernise, then we need everyone to face facts.

That may sound like pro-government propoganda, but I haven't changed since I joined the democracy movement in August 1988. I have lived most of my life under the 1962-88 socialist regime - another fairy tale, this one of isolation. In 1988 we knew it was time to join the world. Thousands of us took to the streets, and I joined the National League for Democracy (NLD) and worked as an aide to Aung San Suu Kyi.

I worked closely with Ma Suu, as we all called her, for nearly a year. I campaigned with her until 20 July 1989, when she was put under house arrest and I was sent to Insein Prison in Rangoon, where I spent nearly three years.

I have no regrets about going to jail and blame no one for it. It was a price we knew we might have to pay. But my fellow former political prisoners and I are beginning to wonder if our sacrifices have been worthwhile. Almost a decade after it all began, we are concerned that the work we started has been squandered and the momentum wasted.

In my time with Ma Suu, I came to love her deeply. I still do. We had hoped that when she was released from house arrest in 1995 that the country would move forward again. So much was needed - proper housing and food and adequate health care, to begin with. That was what the democracy movement was really about - helping people.

Ma Suu could have changed our lives dramatically. With her influence and prestige, she could have asked major aid donors such as the USA and Japan for help. She could have encouraged responsible companies to invest here, creating jobs and helping build a stable economy. She could have struck up a constructive dialogue with the government and laid the groundwork for a sustainable democracy.

Instead, she chose the opposite, putting pressure on the government by telling foreign investors to stay away and asking foreign governments to withhold aid. Many of us cautioned her that this was counterproductive. Why couldn't economic development and political improvement grow side by side? People need jobs to put food on the table, which may not sound grand and noble, but it is a basic truth we face every day.

Ma Suu's approach has been highly moral and uncompromising catching the imagination of the outside world. Unfortunately, it has come at a real price for the rest of us. Sanctions have increased tensions with the government and cost jobs. But they haven't accomplished anything positive.

I know that human-rights groups think they are helping us, but they are thinking with their hearts and not their heads. They say forighn investment merely props up the government and doesn't help ordinary people. That's not true. The country survived for almost 30 years without any investment. Moreover, the USA, Japan and others cut off aid in 1988, and the USA imposed sanctions in May 1997. Yet all that has done nothing except send a hollow 'moral message'.

Two westerners -one a prominent academic and the other a diplomat - once suggested to me that if sanctions and boycotts undermined the economy, people have less to lose and would be willing to start a revolution. They seemed very pleased with this idea - a revolution to watch from the safety of their own country.

This naive romanticism angers many of us here in Myanmar. You would deliberately make us poor to force us to fight a revolution? American college students play at being freedom fighters and politicians stand up and proclaim that they are striking a blow for democracy with sanctions. But it is we Burmese who pay the price for these empty heroics. Many of us now wonder: is it for this that we went to jail?

Unfortunately, the Burmese fairy tale is so widely accepted it now seems almost impossible to call for pragmatism. Political correctness has grown so fanatical that any public criticism of the NLD or its leadership is instantly met with accusations of treachery: to simply call for realism is to be labelled pro-military or worse.

But when realism becomes a dirty word, progress becomes impossible. So put away the magic wand and think about us as a real, poor country. Myanmar has many problems, largely the result of almost 30 years of isolationism. More isolation won't fix the problems and sanctions push us backward, not forward. We need jobs. We need to modernise. We need to be a part of the world. Don't close the door on us in the name of democracy. Surely fairy tales in the west don't end so badly."

Ocean's Sorrow

The tsunami of Dec. 26 leaves virtually no life untouched. In mourning for those affected, I offer an echo of Thai poet, Naowarat Pongpaiboon's lament, "The Ocean's Sorrow":



"Over the face of the earth swept weeping waters



And all the Three Worlds were flooded with tears"