Page Ilth'

e

SCARLET AND BLACK

Friday. Docomhur 5, I96)

 

 

Ashley Debunks the Mysteries of the East

Now it’s raining out, Some-
Eow the rain seems to fall in
igger drops here, to be more
real, more of a fact, Down it
comes, and the puddles climb
min of themselves, and the
river thickens and shifts fatly
and moves out. Last week, that
is, it moved out. It was a chil»
‘dren's flood, enough to make
walkinga new thing, enough to
allow the boys and old women
netrfishing in.the full ditches
Blong the roads to catch mon-
sters as long as their fingers,
and enough to call off school, I
walked in the market, in shin-
deep water, trailing banana
leaves and plastic bags, and
,vaulting bunches of animal in-
testines that lo 0 k a d like
bunches of animal intestines.
and floating oranges that
lookedlike suns fallen into the
silt, sad seal The sun is bigger,
too. It grabs the cannas and
‘Be red!” and yanks out
the lice heads to where it can
see them,

And We are teaching Eng-
lish:

“No, no — ‘There are a few
books on his desk.‘ Remem»
her, the expression ‘a few’ is
used to tell ‘how many’ and is
used with a plural verb, in con-
tradistinction to , . . i mean,
uh , . r with other words, like
‘a little,’ which tell ‘how much,y

ou use a singular verb, like:
There is a little water in the
glass.’ on, now you try it,
using ‘much.’ That's right,

ow, in English we use the ex
pression ‘again and again’ to
show repeated actioni ‘Re-
ﬁe a t e d?’ Well, ‘repeated’
‘ eans something you do again
ﬁnd'again. . .”

Make the language live,
Sometimes I think I'm teaching

 

English so my students can
sell toilet paper to indisposed
American tourists.

And we study Thai, which is
a tonal language. By “tonal”
is meant that one pronounces
it as if one were a harmonica
being played by an epileptic.
For example, the sounds “cow"
when pronounced with a rising
tone mean “he, she, or they,”
and when pronounced with a
falling tona mean “ricer” Yes,
well, we thought of that too,
but semiphores seem, on close
examination, somewhat inade-
quate.

But I’m Wandering. Ahl the
mysterious Orient! Pageants
circling the mind—fabulous
temples, gold-encrusted, gleam-
ing above the scarlet-flowered
trees, and inside them, dia-
mond-studded pagan images
whose eyes express the secrets
of eons. At night, under the
spell of the full moon, en-
tranced priests in golden and
purple brocades fill the temples
with incense, strange and over-
powering, while multiebreasted
slave girls, trailing hospital
gauze, seem to float among the
worshippers, enticing the un-
wary. . . . In the morning, you
are almost ashamed, but then
the Cleaning lady arrives,
swatlied head to foot in White
silk, Ah, the inexplicable East!
Frankincense and mhyrr in the
barbershop.

Bunk. But such is a common
American delusion, if not in the
minds of the citizens of the
Athens of the New World, at
least among the readers of
”Women’s Home Companion,”
"True," and ”Man's Adven—
ture.” Nevertheless, given the
fact that the above has never
been the reality of Thailand,

 

For Christmas

Formals

Come Down to

Virginia's

New Location Open

r Monday, December 9th

826

Fifth Avenue

Virginia's

ACROSS FROM THE POST OFFICE

 

one still has to deal with the
fact of an ancient culture, dat-
ing, as an independent kingdom
in this geographical area, With
interruptions, fr 0 m approxi-
mately the thirteenth century,
which has produced, on its own
terms, great art in dancing,
poetry, sculpture, and archi
tecture, which has been and is
the home of one of the most
profound philosophies of human
history, and such “visible"
greatnesses apart, a culture
which has developed itself into
an identity visea-vis 'customs,
mores, attitudes, etc., every
bit as real and legitimate, and
a good deal older, than Ameri-
can society — one still has to
deal with this culture in con-
tact witih, for example, Elvis
Presley.

And who‘s making jokes?
That man is enormously im-
portant here I live in an older—
boys dormitory, and every
morning at seven or so I wake
to his moaning from the boy's
radios, Whole two-hour radio
shows are devoted to his sing-
ing, students buy pocket books
that have the lyrics to his
songs, his picture appears on
shopping bags, his styles of
clothes and his haircut are
aped, and his movies are
mobbed.

But Elvis is only one ex-
ample, and probably in most
ways a minor one. Here are
some others, _

The traditional Northern
Thai work shirt is shortesleeved
With ties in front instead of but-
tons, is worn outside the
trousers, and, like a Scarleteers
jacket, has no collar, It’s a
fine shirt for the climate, being
well ventilated and loose-fit—
ting, but it’s out. Among the
young businessmen and teach
ers one must wear a starched
white Western shirt with a neck-
tie, which is very hot and un-
comfortable

Thai classical dancing has
existed for centuries, and in
order to appreciate the grace

 

and beauty of’it you have to see
it either in person or in a movie,
but about the only place it is
done authentically today is in
Bangkok, in the National Mu-
seum. Instead, although the
Twist has been outlawed re-
cently, the young people do sim»
ilar American dances,

I went on a threevday bus trip
with about 50 of the students to
visit two places: the Yanhee
Hydroelectric Project (the
largest dam in Asia, which will
multiply Thailand's supply of
electrical power) and the ruins
of Sukothai, the 13thecentury
capitol of Thailand, and the
city Iihat produced the greatest
school of Thai Buddhist sculp-
tors. The Sukothai bronzes are
considered to be‘ one of the
outstanding artisticv achieve-
ments of Eastern civilizations
As for the students, at Yanhee
they were fascinated, but at
Sukothai, after the first hour
or so, most of them wouldn't
get out of the bus when we
stopped somewhere, and were
monumentally boredr

The Prince Royal's College
had a {underaising variety show
at one of the movie theatres
recently, which consisted,
among other things, of a combo
with girl and boy singers from
one of Chiengmai’s nightclubs
(another innovation) who de-
voted themselves to screaming
unintelligible American popular
songs, composed mainly of
“Bableeeee!” and "Yeaaaah!"
for about a half hour, a belly
dancer who ambled back and
forth across the stage trying
to look exotic, and an Ameri~
can movie, When I asked one
of the students later why there
hadn’t been any Thai entertain-
ment, he said that it was be-
cause most people think that
things that are ‘Thai are “old-
fashioned," but American
ways are ”uprto-dater”

Don't misunderstand. I am
not saying that young people
here are ashamed to be Thais,
or that they would rather be

 

EUROPE
COLLEGE
TOURS

Escorted, all-expense
tours for ages 18-30,
Famed Brownell College
Tours feature excellent
steamers, choice hotels,
all meals, comprehensive
itineraries.

Frequent departures by
sea and air.

35-

52 days, from $1047.

Also Popular Tours—no
age limit,

Sce us {or folders and
complete details.

Grinnell Travel Center

Boo F|F'l’H‘ AVENUE Calm

235-43“

 

 

Americans. On the contrary.
they are proud of their coun-
try, but what is their country?
Thai culture, for most of its stu-
dent generation, is being vastly
redefined, and its contacts
with American society are an
important influence in wording
those readefinitlons, And, ti-
nally, who is to say that the
changes that are occurring are
bad? The situation is much too
complex for this very limited
article to, discuss with any de-
gree of completeness, and an
American's feelings of sadness
concerning such things as fac—
tory smoke dirtying the air and
Paul Anka squealing from a
priest‘s portable radio are cer-
tainly too simple. As one writerr
has described the situation:

Pristine innocence core
rupted by Western material-
ism: there is some truth in
that, but it is also something
of a myth. Tourists in the
same way prefer picturesque
squalor -— in markets or vil-
lages — to order and cleam
liness, which they are used to
in their own countries. But
what of the inhabitants them-
selves? It is they, after all.
who want pin-tables and cin-
emas, or there would be no
point in installing them. You
cannot isolate people from
such things, or preserve them
in the past. What would be
Indian civilization, which we
so much admire, without the
rude invasions of the Aryans,
or the Turks or the Moguls?
or Japanese culture without
the massive influence oi
China? Thailand herself is
the product of both these
forces, and she is changing
Istill.

Editor‘s Note: The above
is the first of a number of
articles by Traveler-scholar
Paul Ashley.

Blacklist

(ACP) ”The Limeliterﬂ
Incident of 1963" continues to
cast a shadow over Florida
Southern College, Lakeland,
Florida, notes the c a m p u a
newspaper, THE SOUTHERN.

The Limaliters were hired
last March for a performance
during Founders’ Week, In a
letter written by a college vice}
president, the group was re-
quested to present a high cali<
bre program which would not
in any way be embarrassing to
the school.

The Limehters received half
their fee before the perform-
ance and were to receive the
balance during the intermls<
sion. However, because the
program was found to be “of-
fensive" to persons connected
with the college, payment of
the second check was stopped
at the advice of the college at
torneysr

Because of this, no group on
campus can secure name en-
tertainment for functions. In
fact, one of the reasons for the
postponement of Greek Week
this semester was the inability
to hire a band for a concert.

 

