Day Three: Doi Suthep

The highlight of the day was definitely visiting Doi Suthep in the morning. I learnt that “doi” translates to “mountain”, and considering that I kept seeing this name on many tourist brochures and posters around the city, I was excited to visit it at last. I could see it was full of lush greenery on the way up along its long winding road, but perhaps what interested me more in the end was the temple perched on top of this majestic mountain.
The temple’s name is actually Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, with “wat” meaning “temple”, although many simply refer to it as Doi Suthep. In some sense I can understand why this mistake could be easily made – the geography does make a significant contribution to the ambience. Up on top of the mountain, the air is cooler and fresher. We’re taken a distance away from the busier city area. Somehow, our thoughts become clearer too, especially up on the observation deck overlooking Chiang Mai city. Si Yu who was with me was just as charmed with the peace and serenity of the place as I was, memorably exclaiming, “I want to remember this place forever!” at some point.

Interestingly, the temple itself was not as appealing to me, to some extent. It definitely felt like a place for religious worship because of the Buddhists who had come to worship, the beautiful architecture, statues, candle lights and the long climb up 306 steps to reach the temple. It felt a bit like a mini pilgrimage to a religious haven for Buddhists, a short journey in which you can have some time to yourself and prepare your mind for worship. However, I felt the many tourists there stifled the religious atmosphere a little. It’s a fine line between a place of religious worship and a tourist attraction, and at some points I felt the peace, quietness and serenity that should have been in the atmosphere was ruined by the numerous tourists speaking loudly and taking photograph after photograph. This brought to light an interesting quandary – how is one to protect a religious site from excessive crowds without turning away those who want or need a place for worship? The nature of Buddhism has roots in peace, calm and serenity, and is also such that all are welcome no matter who you are or your background. Yet the more people you let in for worship, the more noisy and congested it gets. What makes it even more difficult in striking a balance between the two is the fact that from an economic stance, the thousands of tourists that visit each year do generate a lot of money for the temple. This money helps to keep it afloat and pay for its maintenance. Paradoxically, it would seem that what ruins the religious, peaceful atmosphere of the place is also essential to it. This was an interesting conflict of interest to consider, and was brought up by our professors as well. I thought it especially relevant to our theme of heritage preservation as it provides a different perspective to it that I hadn’t considered before: the conflict of economic interest and heritage site preservation.

Son took us to CMU for lunch and to interview more people. We had a good lunch, being able to experience Thai food that they eat everyday, and most of us also made it a point to try the sticky rice because of the professor’s lecture on Monday which touched on how sticky rice is very important to not just the Thai culture and cuisine but also that of the Laos and Burmese people. I tried some plain, without condiments, to appreciate this other culinary culture different from my own in its simplest and purest form.

My group had managed to interview some tourists in Doi Suthep, but now thanks to Son we could get more local perspectives. He made the effort to find us some English-speaking students to interview without us even asking him! I felt very grateful to him for his helpfulness, own initiative and eagerness to assist us in whatever way he could. His friends were very friendly too, willing to not just answer our questions but also make themselves look professional on camera and mentally prepare for the gist of their answers beforehand so as to give coherent answers on video, especially since they would be using a language they were less comfortable with. At the end of our interview with them they told us to get in touch with them, through Son, should we ever need more help or want to visit Chiang Mai again and explore the city. Just like Son, they were extremely willing to offer their help. I appreciate this so much and feel touched! The people I have met in Chiang Mai so far have won me over with their gentleness, kindness, sincerity and hospitality.

We took a break today and went to see CMU’s lake along its outskirts. Son called it an “ang-gehl”, the Thai word for lake or basin. It was a lot bigger than I imagined, in comparison to the image of Nanyang Lake back home that had immediately come to mind for me when he told me that the word meant “lake”. It was here by this “ang-gehl”, against the mountain backdrop and with a refreshing breeze blowing that I really got to sit down and talk to May, Son’s close friend who was also showing us around, and ask her more about the Thai language. What I learnt in linguistics about how our propensity for language acquisition decreases as we age really struck home when I found myself unable to recall many Thai words and phrases I had just heard a day or even just a few hours ago. In the end I decided to record some of the words she was saying so that I could keep referring to them when I wanted to, and also because the tones of the language fascinate me. Thai has five tones, while Mandarin Chinese has four, yet these tones do not overlap between the languages according to Son, who is minoring in Chinese language. I could barely hear the difference between the tones within Thai alone, and I certainly cannot repeat them or even identify which is which. I marvelled at how Son and May could speak the language so effortlessly with these tones in mind. It must be because they grew up with this – again testament to what I have learnt about language acquisition in my linguistics classes. Your linguistic environment when you are a baby really shapes your language and even what sounds you can distinguish. We are changed from being the universal listeners that we are born as, able to discern all sounds in any language, to the culture bound linguists we are today. Rarely do I get to interact with a speaker “bound” to such a different culture from my own, and the time by the lake at CMU was thus a very interesting session for me.