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Today my group travelled to Chiang Rai and visited both the White Temple and the Black House. The White Temple is an ornately carved building painted white to symbolize purity. It is intricately designed by several artists who started the project in 1997. 500 sculptured concrete arms rose beneath the ‘bridge to heaven’, seemingly seeking emancipation from a bottomless pit of hell, creating an arresting image of torment and despair. On the surface, I personally feel that the White Temple like a daunting version of Elsa’s castle in Frozen. Millions of shards of broken glass are glued onto the building, creating the temple’s iconic icy image.

Inside the main temple, we were greeted by the sight of a large Buddha statue, accompanied by a life-sized wax replica of a Buddhist monk sitting in front of it. I spent my entire time at the temple thinking that the monk was a real human being, until Prof Walsh told me that I was unfortunately mistaken when we left the temple. The monk looked solemn and frail as he sat in a meditating pose. Maybe it was due to the hundreds of tourists in the temple that failed to observe silence, and the rule not to take any photos as a form of respect (bear in mind that I initially thought that the monk was an actual monk). I felt irritated that tourists failed to adhere to the rules of the temple. They should have paid a form of respect to the artwork and most importantly, the religion. Various tour guides in the temple tried to instruct the tourists to follow the rules, but to no avail.

The walls of the temple were painted a dark and sinister shade of orangey-red and had detailed drawings of hellish looking creatures. I was surprised to see that images of popular movie heroes and beloved characters from our childhood were painted onto the wall as well.  Characters like Sailor Moon, Doraemon and even Po from Kungfu Panda climbed up thorny thick vines that twisted all around the walls of the sacred room. According to our tour guide, the artist was trying to convey the message that such beloved heroes will not follow us when we go to heaven, because they are merely visual forms of temptation generated by the media industry. Even though I think this makes a lot of sense, I still feel sad that Po the Panda graduate to heaven 🙁

Next stop: The Black House. The Black House consists of more than 30 huts that make up the work of artist Thawan Duchanee. Also, the Black House is so named because it is the artist’s favourite colour. The main house stands resolutely on packed earth floor and is primarily made out of wood rafters and metal. It is painted in hues of black and deep red mahogany. The house contains a vast collection of animal skins and bones. Animal bones are systematically organized on long wooden tables for people to view and appreciate. It was fascinating to see such a unique collection of animal skins too, particularly seeing the skin of a black crocodile laid out right in front of your very eyes. Most people generally perceive the White Temple as a representation of heaven, while the Black House represents hell. However, Thawan Duchanee has since denied this, stating that the Black House is meant to evoke the past Thai civilization in a contemporary manner, and that he tries to ‘bring the spirit, heart and soul [into the art pieces]’. We stayed at the Black House for awhile, casually walking around to view and admire the other huts in the area.

It has been nothing short of an interesting day today. I feel happy that my group was able to tour two highly respected heritage sites. It must have taken a tremendous amount of effort for the different artists to come up with such unique conceptions of design for both places. The least we could do as tourists is to try to appreciate Chiang Mai’s unique culture and honour their traditions. I hope that such sites will continue to be preserved and respect by both locals and tourists.