Lanten People

On Sunday, November 11, We had dinner with Andy's friend Veronique in Bangkok. She and Andy worked together in Hoixay, before he died. She was the founder and director of Bokeo Social Enterprise (BsE), where Andy volunteered. BsE Bokeo Social Enterprise (BsE) was created by four partners in 2008, to support development through entrepreneurship, promoting "local products and private economic initiatives in rural communities in Northern Laos." Veronique has been a good friend to us, staying in touch, letting us stay connected. She has left Bokeo and the work of BsE has been absorbed by Free Trade Laos in Vientiane.

Over dinner she tells the story of the Lanten People of Ban Nam Chan. Later, she sends along, via email, a written piece about the people, describing who they are, where they have come from, their crafts, and the tension between the traditional way of life and modernization. Here is a brief quote from the piece from one of the Lanten people about their history:

“The name of our people is Lanten. It is Chinese and means ‘liquid to dye cotton’. My people have the skills to produce their own natural colours to dye their clothes and we continue until now. Sometimes we are also called Lao Houay as we only settle on river shores. The river is very important in Lanten daily life. The water is used to wash our clothes and to make bamboo paper. If a location has no river, the Lanten will not settle there but move on.

We are originally from China. Our ancestors left 200 or 300 years ago due to jealousy and fighting amongst the people living there. There were only a few Lanten and their enemies were numerous. First, our ancestors moved to the south of China, where they crossed the sea to Vietnam using three bamboo rafts. In the middle of the sea there was an accident and two bamboo rafts sank. All those passengers died. The surviving Lanten were very sad. The remaining raft reached North Vietnam, where the refugees went ashore and continued by foot to reach Oudomxai and Luang Namtha. Most stayed there, but some continued their journey and headed for the Mekong River. They marched on, and as before, some families decided to stay along the way, at the shores of the rivers of Nga (ງາ), Ngaw (ງາວ), Saen (ແສນ), Lae (ແລ), and at the Houay Pung brook (ຫ້ວຍປຸງ) and many other places.

Travelling with the Lanten was a man known as Mister Dachan (ດາຈັນ). One day, he went hunting in the forest. For many days, he was walking through the forest until he arrived at a brook, where a dead elephant was lying. Delighted, he returned to the Lanten and told them to follow him and take the meat of the elephant to eat. Upon arrival, all realized that this place was perfectly suited for a settlement. They decided to stop their journey and called their new village Pha Sang (ຜ່າຊ້າງ) or Nam Sang (ນ້ຳຊ້າງ). But because the old people could not pronounce it nicely, today it is called Nam Chang (ນ້ຳຈ້າງ).”

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These books are made by hand

Tuesday, November 12, we arrived in Vientiane, Laos. That afternoon, we meet Veronique's friend Anousone Phimmachanh, who directs Free Trade Laos, an organization dedicated to finding commercial outlets for the crafts of Lao people. We have coffee at a coffee shop that could be just as well be located in Cambridge or any other college town. She brings along blank books that are made by the Lanten women. These books are hand-made in the Lanten village of all hand-made materials—bamboo paper and cotton that has been dyed with the traditional blue dye of the people. There are bamboo closures sewn onto the books.

I purchased all of the books she had in stock. Twelve books have simple brown and white silk embroidery on the front; eighteen books are plain. I will bring these back to the United States and see if there might be a retail outlet or two that can sell these special books. It would be a good source of income for the villagers, who can produce 30-40 of these books each month, depending on the season.

Dream House of Silk: Visiting the House of Jim Thompson, Bangkok

If I were to build a house in Southeast Asia, the house would be made from elegant old traditional buildings found in the nearby countryside. They would be simple. Any lumber, stone, brick, or tile would gathered up, disassembled if necessary and numbered, floated up a river and down a klung to rest and be reassembled together in a place that looked out on a garden. The entire house would be a reflection of the warmth of the place and the people. The windows would be open—no glass or screens. And the large wooden floor-to-ceiling carved doors would fold open and closed together to openly unite the inside with the outside or not. All of the furnishing would be comfortable and tell a story: of Kings and elephants; Buddha and naga. I would have guest rooms so that I could share this space. I would have fish in the urns in the garden, and little rooms spread around the property connected by paths surrounds by plants. The dining room would be a room of special interest, with details to entertain, so that evenings could be spent talking and telling stories, while the tropical gardens below would refresh the evening air. The daytime would be spent in work. Making things, reviewing work. Perhaps a nap in the afternoon while the soft rain fell. In the morning, a cup of coffee to start the day.

But I would not build the house looking out over the village of the weavers who had woven my fortune. Master of silk, collector, entrepreneur. Master and slaves. I would not sit in my living room and inspect the goods, counting my money on the backs of the poor. It is an old world way of being in the world. An inequality of privilege; ultimately getting lost in the jungle and never finding your way home.

Pet Department

One of the hardest parts about our nearly annual trip to Laos is leaving Dao Noi, our 3-year-old Golden Doodle. She is very much a momma's (and daddy's girl). The Goddesses of Noi—Rosanna, Sally, and Sue—have taken on shared surrogate parenting of our dearest (sorry hens) daughter. She will no doubt come out of the experience with new friends and a new understanding of the meaning of suitcases and the sound of zippers. But we know she's in loving hands, and we are hoping, in turn, she will show off her most loving side and make it fun for those by whom she is being cared. Fingers are crossed.

Knowing Noi's back home waiting for us, I decided long before I went to bed last night, our first in Bangkok, that I would dedicate today and this blog to her. Be very glad, most beautiful girl in the world, that you are safe at home. This is no place for you.

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Map of the Jatujak Market

Five years ago, together in Bangkok, Andy, Chip, Disty, and I went to Jatujak (Chatuchak) Market, what is considered the world's biggest weekend market located near the Children's Museum i the north of town. One could shop for days and get the very best and worst of what Asia has to offer: clothing, household goods, hardware, garden supplies, and food.

It reminded me of the distant memories I have of the original 1950s Modell's on Long Island. But one special "department" at Jatujak has stuck with me since then like a bad meal. There in the very back of the rows and rows of covered stalls was a distinct area of stalls which could only be described as the "pet department." Among macho Thai men, disfigured and disabled hangers-ons, foreign tourists, and  I suppose locals looking for exotic pets or worse, was a dream world of caged, tanked, and free-range domestic and wild small animals, unlike any I'd ever seen.

"In recent years the market has gained considerable notice among conservationists and the World Wildlife Fund; Chatuchak has become a notorious hub for trafficking illegal and endangered species, notably in the north west corner of the market which is all but isolated from the rest of the market. This activity was covered on CNN's "Planet in Peril" series. Despite publicity, Thai law is rarely able to pursue a course of action in preventing the illegal trade as it would just go underground elsewhere." —Wikipedia

Getting ready for the show?

This year, we arrived on a Sunday, and Disty was set on going back to the market, and I was excited to revisit the "pet department." For the very same unknown-to-me reasons why I find Las Vegas one of the most interesting places on earth, I am drawn to the irony and comicality of this otherwise cruel place. Even as we set out, it was as if every dog of the city was acting in a burlesque warmup, readying us for the main show.

It was not quite as I remembered. Gone was the side-show aspect of the place, even in the five years since we'd been here last. In its stead, were some of the more interesting aspects of pet ownership, culture, and pet fashion chronicled by Disty and her camera, Little Red...

This fake grass could come in handy for a dog needing relief.

 

 

 

 

 

Could Noi become "Pequeño?"

Or we could bring her back some bling

A bulldog for a logo.

A sugar slider would make a nice pet.

Very YMCA.

Easy girl.

I've always wanted to go to Guinea Pig World.

Too big to carry home!

Super Emiden! Wow!

Unfinished

We are on the plane from Boston to Bangkok. We stop in Narita, Japan for a few hours, change planes, and will arrive in Bangkok late on Saturday night. On Tuesday, after a few days of R&R, we will fly to Vientiane, Laos. There we will pick up again the project that we are slowly trying to finish: building and supporting a library at Wat Phou That in Oudomxay. We are hoping the library will be built by the end of 2014, but there are so many unanswered questions that we hope to answer on this trip. There is a plan. There are documents and approvals. There are two builders whom we can choose from. But we haven’t actually seen any of this.

There are so many things that I have wanted to do in Laos that are yet unfinished. And over the last few weeks I have found myself feeling more and more conscious of this weakness I have for leaving things unfinished. It's as if a lifelong pattern were playing itself out in the very thing I feel I am motivated to do: build a permanent and complete connection to Andy and Laos. It is elusive. It is impossible. In fact, I suppose, being finished is impossible for almost all of us in the end.

Before we left, I found myself busily trying to tie up loose ends: closing up a family summer house; finding elusive made-in-anywhere-but-China gifts for those I was about to meet; completing contracts with new partners; approving the design of a new website; testing a new electronic data feed; purging sentimental pictures, things, and papers left behind by my grandparents, my mother and father, my brother, and my beloved son Andy and dragging to the attic half of these things too dear to part with; visiting a safe-deposit box looking for an important document which I seem to have misplaced. When I leave, I do not want to leave behind my things, loose ends, and unfinished work, but I will.

I am flying over the Arctic at this moment. The moon is shimmering in the dark afternoon sky. An old resident of the place 40,000 feet below, a burden to family and ready for death might walk off of an ice floe somewhere in the Arctic below into the deepest frigid sea, leaving nothing behind to burden his or her family but memories, stories, or footsteps in the snow. Is that life finished? Perhaps hundreds of years later, some archaeologist or fisherman or a child on a beach in  might discover an icy casket, creating international news, taking on a new life of its own.

Yesterday morning, I took a walk around the reservoir near our home in Bedford with Noi, my dog, a three-year-old golden doodle. We saw a pair of ducks, a male and female, swimming along content to be alone together in the late fall. Then we came across a Great Blue Heron standing still at the water’s edge. It was early morning and we were alone and none of us moved. Disty has told me that she thinks Andy has come back as a Great Blue Heron, and I looked for signs that he understood that I recognized him. What if this sort of rebirth is true, and we are forever being reborn to other life forms. The never-ending cycle of rebirthing, the pain of samsara, caused Buddha to seek Enlightenment and forever be released from the unfinishing life. With Andy standing there, I think that being completely finished is neither possible nor desirable in our lives.

We can only put one foot in front of the other. March forth. Carry the flag. Practice love. Put a brick in a place and hope it will carry a soul to eternity. (To be continued…)