Chiang Mai Reflection Day 2

Day 2 of Chiang Mai trip

The day started with a visit to the white temple. It’s probably the most picturesque place I have ever seen in my entire life, with the stunning blue sky as its backdrop, the lush greenery and of course, the walls that are pristine white.  Every structure in this place seems to have an interesting past, the golden toilet, a wishing well with zodiac signs, and even a tree for tourists to “hang” their wishes. These are all very typical of major temples/tourist attractions, as I’ve seen them in places like Japan and China. But as we joined the crowds of tourists touring the temple, a thought rose in my mind: Something wasn’t quite right about this place. Where are the monks? Where are the places of worship? Most importantly, why do the murals on the temple walls contain modern art forms like Kung Fu Panda, but yet we were asked to remove our shoes out of respect before entering? Why the contradiction? What is wrong with this place?

After we managed to get a hold of its staff, we found out that the White Temple only has two monks, and these monks do not lead any religious ceremonies or rituals here whatsoever. In fact, when we for an audience with the monk to find out more about our research topic, the temple staff laughed it off and said that the monks here know nothing about what is going on, and that we might as well ask the staff. So we did, and asked the secretary instead. While we did manage to get our interview done in the end, the revelation shocked me a little bit.

When I first entered, I thought this was the one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen, but as I’ve learnt afterwards, it is nothing more than an empty shell, a pretty one though. The temple’s primary function, as it turns out, is not what a temple normally does, but a tourist attraction, the front page of a postcard for tourists to send home. The murals of the wall that had all those cartoon figures, seems less like a marriage of contemporary and traditional art, but more like a mockery of the sombre atmosphere in most temples. While there are intricately crafted structures that are meant to be Buddhist symbols and sufficiently big Buddha statues, the place is lacking a feel of genuineness. Even the monks does not seem to be doing what monks does, and is simply as a figurehead. What is a temple without monks after all? At least to me, it feels like the droves of tourists has eroded the place of its history. The need to maintain its untainted walls, to keep the tourism wave coming, has washed way its past, and replaced it with fresh new coat of paint not visible to the naked eye.

Though the temple staff did not openly admit so, I feel that that had been the impact of tourism. A boom in tourism forces people to rethink their strategies, to make decisions that makes the most economic sense, even if they may not have been aware of it. The expense comes at the more intangible side, at the psychological level, where the feel of the place changes and can never return. I know that the place has a history, that it used to be run-down, and the refurbishment has made it spring back to life. I do not think that that is a bad thing, nor do I claim that when something turns into a tourist attraction, it will automatically lose its authenticity. No, I do not claim that. But at least for white temple, I feel that it has been subtly morphing to become a totally different creature, one that at its core, is not much different from the many famous, soulless tourists sites that serve the world’s capitals today.

After the white temple visit, we visited the tiger kingdom. But, as our group is not really interested in tigers, we did not enter the tiger kingdom. Instead, we lingered around to interview people. More notably, we interviewed Petr, our tour guide. Now this is a straight man, that give the facts to you as it is, he does not try to play it nice, nor is he excessively bitter towards the Chinese tourists. He tells us in a matter-of-fact way how he thinks about Chinese tourists, and I am grateful for his honesty. For he is one of the first few people that we have interviewed so far to actually say negative things about Chinese tourists, despite the fact that local newspapers have shared those opinions before. Though It seems that the social norm for Thais is still not to openly speak badly about others, and Petr being so open to us is more likely than not just an idiosyncrasy of his.

Lastly, another interesting incident that happened today is during our interview with a local tour agency. The tour agency apparently only serves mainland Chinese tour groups and does not serve anything else. During the course of our interview, the interviewee made some surprising claims, like how easy it is for him to hire local tour guides that can speak Chinese, and that he estimates that almost 60% of the locals here that does business can speak Chinese. He also claimed that the richest people in Thais are the Thai Chinese. This made me think about the class conflicts, and social tensions that may exist in Thai society that is divided across ethnic lines. I have never thought really hard about it, but it does seem to make sense. Having taken H2 history in JC, I do know that Chinese have spread their roots and settled down in many Southeast Asian countries. More often than not though, despite being discriminated against, they usually end up on the better end of the social spectrum and become one of the richest in the society. I suppose the narrative is not that much different in Thailand?

This made me think that perhaps the tension between the mainland Chinese tourist and the locals stems from a deeper tension that exist between the indigenous “pure Thais” and the assimilated Thai Chinese. Even amongst the two student guides that were with us, one of them is Thai Chinese and can speak Chinese relatively well, though I have never seen the two of them as two distinct ethnic groups until today. But perhaps years of inter-marriages and assimilation has made the two groups closer to each other. After all, Thailand does rely on China quite heavily for much of its trade as well as tourism industry, and these effects should trickle down to the population level, affecting their livelihood as well as their perception of Chinese.

Just as how Singaporean Chinese view ourselves as vastly different from the Chinese from People’s Republic of China (I’m also speaking from personal experience), I believe the Thai Chinese would also view themselves as a distinct entity from the Mainland Chinese after so many generations. However, with the close ties between the countries, and just the fact that so many Chinese tourists visit the country every day(it is the largest group), I believe that the Chinese group is still more accepted in Thailand than in other countries like Indonesia or Malaysia, where the issues of Chinese remains more divisive in society.

Overall, this was an interesting day as well. And I’m glad to be able to tour this place around with the USP group. Being able to go on a research field-trip, and walk into a country with a different framework of mind, is a wonderful experience indeed. I can’t wait to find out what tomorrow awaits!