Day 2 (5 Jan) Reflection

5/1/16

The highlight of today was our visit to the White Temple in Chiang Rai, also known as Wat Rong Khun. The weather was great for sight-seeing – a little chilly with gentle breezes. There was not a cloud in the light blue sky. Wat Rong Khun appeared before us from afar in all its glory, the whole majestic and intricate structure completely in white glistened in the warm sunlight. It’s a marvel that this colossal temple, with such ornate designs, was conceived by the mind of a single person, Thai painter Chalermchai. As I walked the tranquil temple ground and observed the decorative details, I sensed a dreamlike quality to the buildings. There were stylized traffic cones with human skull sculptures on the top, fearsome heads with long beards hanging from a tree, sculpted human faces impaled by large screws as I have never seen before. These were not pretty, even eerie. All juxtaposed with the elusive perfection evoked by the whiteness of the temple, the clarity of the pieces of mirror attached to the temple sparkling in the daylight. The jarring difference made me want to avert my eyes from the one and fix them on the other. Beauty seemed to shine brighter in the presence of its contrast.

It was as if I was taking a tour inside the artist’s mind, which, with refreshing candidness, he allowed strangers like me to come in and see. Creative work is always someone’s work. It can never be alienated from the author. To the contrary, every creation bears the indelible mark of its creator. Wat Rong Khun’s evocative symbols showed me the suffering world riddled with evil as Chalermchai sees it, and also his hunger for everlasting purity. The temple is a work of art that speaks to a universal cry of the human heart for freedom from the suffering and evil all of us experience, and perpetrate, in this life. Even though the artist and I are of different faiths, I got to know and appreciate his perspective better. The brokenness of our common humanity wrought into Wat Rong Khun’s architecture, even for just a short visit, connected me to him and to the culture his art represents – across the borders.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust