7th Jan/ Day 4

This was a relatively intense day, to be honest – a whole day spent conducting as many interviews as we could, punctured by a trip to the beautiful Sakura Gardens. And beautiful it was – the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. We were very surprised that this was Pro’s first time here, actually!

We began the day with a lecture at Chiang Mai University, and there were certain issues that the lecturer had brought out, implicitly and explicitly, that I thought were worthy of further discussion.

One is the division of people – along historical/cultural and national lines. Thailand certainly didn’t seem like a divided country. However, the people of Chiang Mai do feel culturally very different from their counterparts to the South. Why so? Back in its heyday, of course, Siam conquered the lands to the North; even the huge amount of time which has since passed isn’t enough to erase the historical and cultural differences between them. Such is the power of history, and culture. This phenomenon is not unique to Thailand – many Indonesians still feel as if they are subjugated, constrained, under Javanese rule. What does this mean for countries that are trying to integrate peoples of different cultures? One guess would be that it would be a long drawn process, and we would be better off accepting and celebrating cultural differences, rather than try to suppress them – don’t let them turn into undercurrents of frustration, which are difficult to keep track.

Then there is the division along national lines. Often, we see foreign communities congregating amongst themselves, not mixing with the rest – the lecturer brought out the example of the Japanese and Korean communities, as well as a ‘Westerner village’ in Chiang Mai. In these cases, we see peaceful tolerance – ‘co-existence’ is a bit of a stretch. On the other hand, there would appear to be cases of discrimination against Chinese tourists. Of course, tourists and local migrant communities aren’t quite the same thing, but the point I would like to make is that both foreigners and locals have to take steps to accept each other if we were to create a harmonious society, a melting pot of nations, so to speak. There is nothing wrong with wanting to stay with your own community, but I feel that, in this increasingly globalized world, you have to mix around if you want to do well in life, whatever you define as ‘doing well’ – indeed, the importance of Chinese tourists to Thai economic growth probably has stopped outright discrimination from taking place.

A rather more successful union of opposites comes in the form of the city landscape. Right next to a historical monument are a few cafes, catering to the inquisitive tourist. This of course, brings up the issue of heritage conservation vs economic growth, as land space, especially in prime locations, becomes increasingly scarce. I guess one of the things we often forget is that it does not have to be a trade-off, as illustrated here in the marketing of the place as a tourist destination. Does this demean their culture and history? I think not – it can be an opportunity to facilitate and generate understanding as we reach out to more tourists, and the funds often contribute, in some way, to heritage conservation. It’s an issue we’re grappling with back in Singapore as well.

The last thing which came to my mind during the talk was on entrepreneurship. As an NBS student and aspiring social entrepreneur, I was intrigued by how Thais undertook entrepreneurship in a society which traditionally relied strongly on the authority for their livelihoods. I must admit it was a little underwhelming – their idea of entrepreneurship is the Government holding fairs that sold products made by each village at the supermarkets. I guess that counts for a start, but what comes next? I think education would come in handy – for example, simple financial know-how could be taught in schools. There is no lack of demand for entrepreneurial opportunities – there is only the lack of knowledge.

My favourite part of the day – the Sakura Gardens – came next. I left the place in a rather dreamy state, because it was just so beautiful. However, a small part of my contentedness, I suppose, could probably be attributed to our having met a nice and friendly Taiwanese couple on the way. Apparently, they too planned to visit the Elephant Nature Park, out of ethical considerations. They held strong feelings for the elephants, and in this respect were very similar to the Westerners who had volunteered for a week at the Park. I guess this proves that there are always exceptions to the rule, as the professors we interviewed the following day had drawn a clear distinction, based on research, between Asian and Western tourists, in terms of the types of camps they visit – Asians are much more likely to go for traditional camps.

We ended the day with a visit to the office of another ethical elephant camp, where we got to meet with its manager. I’m glad we got to meet him, as his comments proved very enlightening.

Earlier, we had heard from Jen that there was a significant shift in the treatment of elephants by the traditional elephant camps. For example, the phajaan ritual is now used on only 1 in 4 elephants, while the other 3/4 are incentivised to deliver with delicious fruits (bananas in particular). All this was made possible by the power of education – in particular, education of tourists in their home countries – tourists didn’t like the ritual, hence demand for elephant entertainment dropped, and the industry adjusted to meet tourist demand. Money really does make the world go round, and we have to see education as a solution largely in terms of how much it affects the forces of supply and demand. Unfortunately, the intrinsic good in education is not nearly enough, not on its own, at least.

On the subject of funding of ethical camps, the manager had more to say. For his camp, around 70% of all revenue goes towards the maintenance of the camp, with the rest going into marketing. If there is some way to validate the marketing efforts of ethical elephant camps (they spend a lot to differentiate themselves), we can substantially reduce its costs, thus keeping the camp sustainable. This thus gives rise to one of the solutions that we think the government may implement without hurting their politico-economic interests.

My final point deals with the chaining of elephants (at night) as an industry practice. The manager mentioned that every camp, including the ‘ethical’ ones, chains their elephants, even though they don’t admit it for fear of tourist reprisals. Without the chains, these elephants can destroy entire ecosystems (I am exaggerating, but not by much) and forest lands in a short span of time. Tourists, he said, must realise that certain practices we deem unethical are necessary, for the betterment of the elephants’ welfare too. After all, the elephant has the potential to go wild, in which case, it might hurt itself. As long as the chain is a normal chain (as opposed to a chain with spikes pointed inwards), very long, put on for a limited amount of time, and there is abundant food around, it isn’t such a bad thing. This development got us to re-evaluate how we view unethical practices – some just shouldn’t be done, while some are necessary and may even be good in some respects. The key here again is education – we cannot just claim that all unethical practices are bad, and instead educate with the intention of letting people know the full picture.