THAI-ED CJP,UN-THAI-ED: TOWARD A GENEALOCY OF THAI-WESTERN RELATIONS

Nancy Lewis

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the deyee of Doctorate of Philosophy Graduate Department of Anthropology University of' Toronto

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Doctorate of Philosophy, 1999

Nancy Lewis

Graduate Department of Anthropology

University of Toronto

A bstract

This thesis is an exploration of Thai-westem relations using Foucault's genealogical method. The complex interactions of Thailand and the west are examined through readings of texts in the domains of history, ethnography, and feminism, paying particular attention to how western writers have conceptualized Thailand and Thai life and how Thai academics have wsponded to those constructions. The historical inquiry focuses on two moments in Thai history, the first in the 1680s when embassies flew between Europe and Thailand, then Siam, and the second in the 1860s when Anna Leonowens spent some years in the kingdom and laid the foundations for the views of Siam which were to metamorphose into the fabulous musical fantasy "The King and 1". The ethnographic examination looks at English-language Ilterature on

Thailand, organized around themes of emotion and affect on one hand and structure and hierarchy on the other. The feminist investigation evaluates whether or not women are subordinated in Thailand, paying special attention to the topic of prostitution; the chapter concludes with a discussion of transgender individuals and how they function in the Thai sedgender system. These academic and published discounes are contrasted to the personal and immediate understandings of nine couples who the author interviewed whiie living in Thailand, one member of which was a Thai, one a white westemer. It is suggested that sociocultural analysis take account of powerful discursive conshuctions like orientalism yet allow individuals agency. In this study this is accomplished in two major ways: in the historical, ethnographie, and feminist analyses by juxtaposing western voices wherever possible to Thai ones; and in the work as a whole by contrasting acadernic and generalizing discourses to the particular, momentary, and practical experiences conveyed in the interview material. He wonders what on earth he is doing here. 1s he in search of a story of himsel f, or of an answrr to the riddles of history? Or is he merely trying to colour in the globe? (Margaret Drabble, The Gates of Ivory)

Al1 ethnography is part philosophy, and a good deal of the rest is confession. (Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures) Table of Contents

Introduction: Methodological Considerations ...... 1 WorkingThrough ...... 10 Silence and Disclosure ...... 16 Teminology ...... 20 One: Historical Moments ...... 22 hurung and Siam in the 1680s ...... -25 Anna and the King of Siam ...... 49 Diversity. Assimilation. and Positionality ...... 72 Two: Ethnographie Preoccupations ...... -74 Affect and Expression ...... 77 Structure and Power ...... 89 Heterogeneous Visions ...... 106 Three: Sexual Permutations ...... 109 Men. Women. and Power ...... III Prostitution ...... 128 GenderBenders ...... 146 Theory, Application, and Agency ...... 159 Four: Siamese Connections ...... 161 Research and Ethics ...... 163 introductions ...... 168 Meetings ...... 172 Families ...... 182 Communication ...... 193 Past Relationships ...... 206 GoingAbroad ...... 210 Good Points, Bad Points ...... 218 Human Relations ...... ---333 Conclusion: Power and Resistance ...... -229 Referencescited ...... 241 Introduction

Methodological Considerations

t the risk of seeming trivial or, even worse, sloppy, i would like to bcgin by Asaying that serendipity was my corn panion through the formative period of this project. The Oxford Concise Dictionary defines serendipity as "the facul ty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident", a rendering which perfectly captures the mood of Felicitous happenstance which characterizes much of this project and, indeed, of my entirr acquaintaiice with Thailand and things Thai. It was wanderlust which over a decade ago tirst brouçht me through Asia to Thailand - and beyond, 1 had planned - and delight in the tastes, sights, smells, and sounds 1 experirnced there which caused me to end my travels and stay for five years. It was chance that connected me with a long-term partner in Thailand and my drive to understand the political, cultural, gendered, and sexualized vagaries of our relationship which prompted the researches that have led me here. 1 admit that it was serendipity, too, that led me to many of the authors and ideas 1 work with and to the interviewees whose words I gratefully reproduce in the pages that fol low. Though these admissions may seem to flaunt scienti fic conventions of

methodical study and reportage, serendipity need not denote haphazard or shoddy research, but

can instead imply openness to unforeseen circumstances and ideas, and engagement with the

unexpected twists and tums that an investigation such as mine tums up.

This project is a genealogy in the sense that Foucault, followinp Nietzsche, intended: it is

a historical exploration and a meditation on power. Genealogy, in Foucault's view, does not

entail a search for origins, nor does it reveal a linear unfolding of events; instead, the

genealogicai method cultivates a non-continuous view of history and explores diverse lineages

of descent ( 1984: 80- 1 ). Genealogy draws from subjugated knowledges, a tenn designating two

distinct types of leaming: erudite studies periphenlized by grand theoretical perspectives; and

"local mernories", "incapable of unanimity", so particular and unsysternatized as to be disqualified from the academe altogether. What unites these two disparate knowledges is that tiiey cany "the memory of hostile encounters": they are concemed with power struggles (1980a:

82-3). Thus, for Foucauli, gencalogy is not disinterested: it restags again and again a "single drama", endlessly repeating the play of relationships of power and domination (1911.1: 85).

Foucault conceived of power not as a possession - it is "never in anyone's hands" - but as something that circulates through people: "individuals are the vehiclrs of power, not its points of application" ( 198Oa: 98). He used the metaphors of nets (1980a) and capillaries ( 1980b) to describe the dispersed yet ubiquitous distribution of power through the social fabric. Power is exercised in relationships between individuals, each of whom has some possibility of action. The exercise of power by one does not erase the other's freedom: the other must always be

"thoroughly recognized and maintained to the very end as a person who acts". Though in any particular instance one person may have greater potential for "guiding the possibility of conduct 3 and putting in order the possible outcorne", resistance is always possible (1983: 220-1). "Where there is power, there is resistance" ( l980b: 95).

Foucault's researches focused on the ways in which human beings in the west are subjects of and subject to power ( 1983: 2 12). Foucault's introduction to his History of Sexuality, for example, showed how the development in the last few centuries of scientific discourses like psychiatry and medicine defined and categorized people as healthy or deviant. Discursive power is productive: it creates the very categories of individuals of which it speaks, by speaking of them; it is the condition of their possibility. Discursive power is disciplinary: elaborate techniques are devised for divining the aberrant - the hornosexual, the hysterical fernale, the masturbating chi Id - who are then subject to disci pl inary rneasures l i ke incarceration, surgery, and drugging. lndividuals are encouraged to tum a disciplinary gaze inward to scrutinize and define themselves; "abnomal" individuals are exhorted to confess, to speak about their deviance and repent, to render thrir selves into discourse (Foucault 1980b).

Though 1 find Foucault's approach extremely useful for understanding power and the ways it is exercised, some academics are less sanguine about the utility of his theoretical and methodological approaches, usual l y label led poststnicturalism. Micaela di Leonardo, Tor example, voiced the familiar criticism that "Foucauldian logic" implied that "we are al1 trapped in the prisonhouse of language". She argued that a poststructuralist social analysis can appeal only to discourse, and not to a matenal, social world outside of or beyond language (1 991: 30).

She distinguished poststructuralism as a body of theory from postmodemism as a historical moment - our late twentieth century era (25-6) - and argued that poststructuralism was

"fundamentally nihilist" and al lowed "no place for any rnorally evaluative or politically committed stance... [It]. . .cannot affirm any tmth or claim any political stance. It can only

deconstruct" (24).

Di Leonardots criticisms were made in the wake of a poststructuraiist intervention into

anthropology, an intervention which was brought into focus by the contributions in

Anthropology as Cultural Critique (Marcus and Fischer 1986) and, more diversely, the edited

Writing Culture (Clifford and Marcus 1986). "[B]egin[ning], not with participant observation

or with cultural texts ...but with writing, the making of texts" (Clifford 1986: 2), these

"ethnography-as-text writers" (di Leonardo 199 1 ) mount a challenge to the tropes used by

"classic" (pre-1970s) ethnographers to bolster their authority to make tmth daims about other

cultures: timeless representation (for example, the use of the "ethnographic present"), the

invocation of scientific standards of observation and reportage, and the effacement of the observer from the text. At the time these challenges were made, it was "almost impossible... to remember a tirne when people were not talking about a crisis in representation" (Said 1989:

205). Western feminist theorists were also facicg criticism for what Chandra Mohanty termed

"discursive colonization", a "mode of appropriation and codification of 'scholarship' and

'knowiedget about women in the third world" by western feminists using analytical categories derived from their own interests and experiences (1988: 61). She chided the sisterhood is global brand of feminism for its "debilitating ossification of difference" which "effectively erases material and ideological power differences between and among groups of women, especially between first- and third-world women" ( 1987: 38-9).

Ethnography-as-text w-riters recommended textual stratedes to overcome the representational inadequacies of their forbearers: foregrounding persona1 narrative (Clifford

1986), casting the ethnographic encounter as a dialogue (Crapanzano 1980), or hting poiyvocal heteroglossic texts (Tyler 1986). These programmatic calls for change have been sharply

criticized. The inclusion of the ethnographer in the text has been blasted as "narcissistic self-

indulgence" (J. Marcus 1990: 14) and "an egocentric and nihilistic celebration of the

ethnographer as author, creator, and consumer of the Other" (Polier and Roseberry 1989: 246).

Dialogic and heteroglossic strategies have been repudiated as eliding the "extraordinary power"

of the "authorial Iieye", who "selects the discursive mode and creates the cultural self' (249).

Feminist anthropologists - dismissed by Clifford as "not [having] produced either unconventional fonns of writing or a developed reflection on ethnographic textuality as such"

( 1986: 7 1 ) - have criticized ethnogaphy-as-text writers for focusing on representational styles as if they could "write [their] way out of' social and cultural inequalities (J. Marcus 1990: 9). They find it suspicious that as women and non-western people gain voices and speak about themselves and their conditions, the academy abandons truth daims altogether (Mascia-Lees et al. 1989:

Said 1989) - yet the white male North American anthropologist continues to write.

Taking issue with Clifford's assertion that wrlting is "central to what anthropologists do both in the field and thereaHer7'( 1 986: 2), some feminists have focused on another crucial and potentially problematic aspect of fieldwork: encounters between researchers and their subjects.

Judith Stacey's relationships with the women she studied oHen placed her "in situations of inauthenticity, dissimilitude, and potential, prhaps inevitable betrayal"; their lives became, ultimately, "data, grist for the ethnographic mill". She considered the contradictions between feminist ideals of egalitarian research "characterized by authenticity, reciprocity, and intersubjectivity" and the "inequality and potential treacherousness" of the research encounter

"inescapable" (1988: 23). So unavoidable did Julie Marcus consider these contradictions to be that she called on anthropologists to abandon fieldwork with the less powerful altogether and 6 focus instead on "main-stream, big business, authonsed forms of cultural production" to produce

"direct statements about the cultural self rather than the cultural other" ( 1990: 1 1 ). Marcus' extreme position is troubling because it ignores the possibility that without anthropological representation, some subordinated groups could have no voice at all. Mascia-Lees et al. had a more tempered solution: "formulating research questions accordinç to the desires of the oppressed group, by choosing to do the work the 'others' want and need" ( 1989: 33) - presurning that the "others" speak with one voice, and that the anthropologist can hear it.

Compell ing as these critiques of ethnography-as-text writings are, they need not require a wholesale dismissal of postmodemism's theoretical products. Susan Bordo usefully pulls apart the postmodern fabric to reveal deconstructionist and poststructuralist strands. The deconstructionist threads are spun from a recognition of "hlerpretive multiplicity... the indetenninacy and heteroçeneity of cultural meaning and meaningproduction"; theg cal1 for

"new narrative approaches". The poststructuralist threads are drawn rrom "the more historicist, politically oriented wing of poststructuralist thought"; they develop a critical framework for analysis but can degenerate into a "methodoiogism" which legislates "'correct' and 'incorrect' approaches to theorizing identity, history, and culture". Modemist science aspired to the "view from nowhere" - the observer, resolutely removed from the subject of study, divining the objective tnith; postmodemist pastiche celebrates the "'dream of everywhere" - an endlessly moving analyst throwing up diversity and difference and finding no tmth (1990: 135).

Ethnogaphy-as-text rejected the view from nowhere and retreated to the dream of everywhere, embracing the deconstructionist possibilities suggested by postmodernist theory but leaving the poststructuralist aspects relatively unexplored. Yet the dream of everywhere is a fiction: "we always 'see' from points of view that are invested with our social, political, and personal 7 interests, inescapably 'centric' in one way or another" (140). Thus Clifford et al. have been read as inadvertently betraying their investments in careerist goals (Sangen 1988: 422) and masculinist privilege (di Leonardo 199 1 : 23).

Attention to threads of postmodem possibility left dangling by ethnography-as-text writers may be found in another influential body of theory which has its roots in Edward Said's germinal text Orientalism. lnfluenced by Foucault, Said saw orientalism ' as a mu! ti-faceted entity: an academic discipline; "a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction" between the occident and the orient; and "a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient" ( 1978: 2-3). Occident and orient are constructed in mutual and perfect opposition: the west white, civilized, rational, productive, masculine; the east dark, primitive, irrational, lazy, ferninine. The dichotomy justifies colonization and defines its disciplinary goals - to "civilize" the orient - but also sets its limits: the colonized can never be truly "occidentalized", both by definition and because of orientalism's structural importance for western self-definition. Yet Said reproduces the very knowledge structure he challenges by focusing on texts by western writers, occluding both non- western texts and the "Iives, histories, and customs" of the inhabitants of the orient and the

"brute reality" of their existence, which hc can only "acknowledge ...tacitly" (5). The end result is that they remain, once again, invisible, spoken about, but not speaking.

Homi Bhabha, in one reading of orientalist texts, draws attention to moments when colonial authority falters and wavea under questioning by the colonized. He names this subversive querying hybridity, "the strategic reversa1 of the process of domination through

1 Words are only one aspect of power, but they do matter; 1 have intentionally avoided capitalizing words like orientalist and westem to challenge the importance and authority that this typographie convention can imply. disavowal"; its effeçt is to "tum the gaze of the discriminated back upon the eye of power"

(Bhabha 1994: 1 12). Said's onentals are silent, but Bhabha's "resist" through "sharp" and "wily"

"discursive disturbance": they challenge, seek clarification, disbelieve, and reinterprei, and thus

subtly change the ternis of discourse. They seditiously mimic western discourse as "a form of defensive warfare". responding with a "sly civility" which appears politely quiescent to, yet

parries, colonial discipline. Their knowledges, "disavowed" by the colonizers, "return" in colonial texts "to make the presence of authority uncertain" ( 1 19- 12 1 ). A true Foucaultian play of power and resistance is evidenced in Bhabha's innovative reading.

Some feminist theorists have fleshed out the possibilities for writing about - and speaking

from - these hybrid positions. Teresa de Lauretis, for example, explores the semiotic and historical construction of women's subjectivity, yet extends her discussion beyond language to

"that complex of habits, dispositions, associations and perceptions, which en-genders one as female"? grounding subjectivization in a "place", a "body" (de Lauretis 1984: 1 82-3). From this space women can engage in "that political, theoretical, sel f-anal yzing practice" by which they rearticulate their social relations from their hîstorical experience ( 186). Historical experience supplies "the horizon of meanings and knowledges available in [one's] culture at given historical moments" and thus gives rise to identity, but the subject reinterprets and reconstructs this horizon through reflective practîce (de Lauretis 1986: 8). To Foucault's subject of and subject to power (cf 1983, especially 2 12) we can add de Lauretis' subject "in the active sense of maker as well as user of culture, intent on self-detemination and self-definition" (1985: 10). Linda Alcoff finds de Lauretis' formulation of subjectivity useful for feminism in "its ability to articulate a concept of gendered subjectivity without pinning it down one way or another for al1 time", and she builds on it to offer a concept of positionality: "subjectivi ty...within a context" with an identity "fairly determinate though fluid and mutable" ( 1988: 43 1,435). These valuable

perspectives help us break out of the "prisonhouse of language" both by allowing for agency and

by drawing attention to the bodily, habitua1 aspects of power - dispositions, in Bourdieu's

terminology ( 1977)2.

Towards the end of his life, Foucault began to explore some of this gound through an

examination of what he called technologies of the self, which exist alongside technologies of

productions, signs, and power. Technologies of the self, or "operations" which individuals effect

"on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of beinç", allow people "to

transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection,

or immortality" (Foucault 1988a: 18). In the second volume of his History of Sexuality,

Foucault related how his researches had been motivated by curiosity - "not the curiosity that

seeks to assimilate what it is proper for one to know, but that which enables one to get free of

oneself...[to] think di fferently than one thinks, and perceive di fferently than one sees" ( 1990: 8).

In the third volume, his last completed work, he distinguished pleasure dependent on an outside

object from that which resulted from turning inward; the former he charactcrized as

"precarious ... undermined by the fear of loss ...violent, uncertain, and conditional", while the

latter seemed to him "capable of providinç a form of pleasure that cornes, in serenity and

without fail, of the experience of oneself" (1 988c: 66). These formulations go beyond his discussion in the fint volume of the History of the "spirals of pleasure and power" ( 1980b: 45)

which individuals experience from the exercise and the evasion of power, and suggest

2~ourdieu'swork on disposition and habitus, "a socially constituted system of cognitive and motivating structures" (76), is similar to that of these feminists, though they leave his contributions unremarked. His conception, however, seems to require a kind of unconsciousness of the principles of the "practical knowledge" of habitus (9),while feminists work to expose such pnnciples to women as a step towards changing them. 1 O possibilities for engaging with and changing the self in ways not fully stnictured by dominant discursive practices. In Foucault's later formulations 1 discem traces of Bhabha's hybnd questioner or de Lauretis' actively reinterpreting subject, working within the constraints of history and society, but seekinç beyond these limits to the possible. "1 believe," Foucault said in an interview, "in the freedom of individuals" ( 1988b: 14).

Working Through

My genealogy of Thai-western contact is an analog to Said's study of orientalism: 1 examine western ideas about a distant corner of the Orient - Siam, now Thailand - through an analysis of a heterogeneous collection of western discourses about it. 1 draw from a broader range of material than Said, penising seventeenth century historical relations and late twentieth century feminist explorations, Academy-award winning Hollywood rnusicals and my own homely interviews with Thai and westerners. Unlike Said, and wherever possible, I juxtapose these diverse discourses to the writings of Thai thinkers and academics which, for westerners, remain subjugated knowledges because they are largely unknown outside of Thailand itselp.

Pre-modern Siamese royal self-images and modem Thai scholarly discourses take account of, and challenge, western views of Thailand and construct a Thai self that is distinct from, if often

'Most of the sources from Thai that I refer to literally respond to western conceptions: they are written in English to reach an English-speaking audience. The contributors to the edited volume Traditional and Changing Thai World View, for exampie, are al1 "native bom and enculturated Thai", "still basically Thai in their thinking and behavior" althouph "many" of them had been educated abroad", who set out to give an "insiders"' view of Thai cuiture and society (Pongsapich, 1985: v, 8). Some Thai sources have been translated into English to increase the availability of Thai materials to a non-Thai reading audience. I can speak Thai well and read adequately, but can only deal with complex and subtle books like Jit Poumisak's radical history, translated by Craig Reynolds as The Real Face of Thai Feudalism Today (1987), in English. II influenced by, western notions of western-ness and Thai-ness. 1 recognize too that what from a westem perspective is a subjugated knowledge may from a Thai perspective be a dominant discourse, and 1 draw attention where possible to the minority discourses silenced by dominant

Thai conceptions of Thai-ness and the Thai self. 1 also include subjugated knowledges in

Foucault's second sense: the unsystematized intelligence, drawn from daily li fe, wliich my Thai friends and acquaintances shared with me, and the experiences of myself and other westemers who live, or have lived, in Thailand. Though our articulations, based on practical life experience in Thailand, sometimes utilize dominant views and reproduce western or Thai discourses, at times thry challenge them and provide alternative interpretations of western and Thai seives and others. 1 investigate these themes in four chapters, each of which examines a particular set of western formulations and Thai responses. Three of these sets are disciplinary in the academic sense, covenng the diverse domains of history, anthropology, and feminism; the fourth is cast in an intimate mode, and draws from interviews 1 conducted in Thailand with couples. one member of whom was Thai, one western. Each chapter is frarned by an elucidation of sorne key points suggested by the discussion in the chapter; the thesis concludes with an evaluation of how each segment informs the other and how they work together as a whole. Each chapter stands alone as a discussion of one facet of Thai-western association; together, they map a complex relational terrain of Thai-western association.

1 begin, in chapter one, with an exploration of Siamese history, focusing on two well- researched, but not analogous, moments. The first encompasses a few years towards the end of the seventeenth century when embassies flew between Europe and Siam and aspirations for religious conversion ran high on both sides. On the basis of short stays or hearsay and little or no language facility, western diplomats, traders, and missionarîes wrote sweeping accounts of the 12 characters and habits of the Siamese. Their writings are interesting in their equivocality: some admire the Siamese - particularly the king, whom many of them met - while others deem them idolators and heathrns, and the monarch worthy only when under the influence of his European chief advisor. The king himself is visible in these writings as a proud man, putting himself on qua1 footing with his European pers and expecting - and often receiving - reciprocal honours from them. He was also actively engaged with them, sending envoys to visit their kingdoms and bring back full reports, panying their attempts to bend him to their political wills, to monopolize his kingdom's trade, to convert him and bis people. In all, it was an extraordinary moment of exploration and miscommunication, contact and deceit, urbanity and xenophobia, a moment when Siam was asserting her place in the world and when Europe was laying the foundations for the empires it was to build in the centuries to corne.

Though popular among a European reading public in their day, the accounts of these early visitors to Siam do not reverberate in the modem west in the sanie way as do those of Anna

Leonowens, who in the 1860s was employed by the Siamese court as an English teacher and who went on to wite two bestsellers about her experience. Her books provided the on'ginary material for other media outpourings, the most famous of which is the musical "The King and I'', still performed today. Leonowens enthralled a western reading public and outraged the Thai with fanciful stories of her stem rectitude in the face of barbanc Asiatic splendour and heartless royal petulance. She has been celebrated in the west as a heroine showing the Siamese the way to freedom, claimed as a feminist defending her Asian sisters, attacked as a liar fabricating stories to back up her prejudices, and excused as a widow making a living. The king she wrote about too has been the subject of polemics, celebrated as a wise monarch leading his people into modemity by embracing western ideas and technology and denigrated as a primitive leader 13

interested only in acquiring mechanical curiosities but forced to succumb to westem politico-

economic rationalization. The rnultiplicity of Annas and kings engendered by the readings, writings, rereadings, and rewritings of Leonowens' books reveal much about the politics of cultural and gendered representation.

The subject of chapter two is ethnographie, and centres around two themes which occur often in descriptions of Thai behaviour and social structure: politeness and power.

Represcntations of politeness are familiar from Tourist Authority of Thailand posters and advertisements of smiling, usually female, Thai, who are pictured serving food. carving fruit, selling cloth, and making offerings at temples. Many academic and popular writen have rernarked on the ubiquity of smiles on the faces of the Thai, and ethnographers have searched for psychologicai and sociological explanations of this apparent affability. A number have analyzed

"typical" Thai behaviours through examinations of'vocabulary describing socially valued characteristics; others have tumed to infantile experiences or religious values for their explanations. Anthropologists have wondered what lies behind the pleasant exterior, giving answers that range from affective equanimity through sclfish duplicity to fearful self-protection.

Some Thai have suggested that dangerously physical, even murderous, actions are what is kept in check. This is a rich theoretical terrain because the westem anthropological gaze has been met with Thai responses that range in tone from partial acceptance to outright contradiction.

Sitting uneasily alongside discussions of smiling politeness are those which focus on hierarchy and power in the Thai social structure. With a few notable exceptions, westem anthropologsts have viewed the Thai social world as one deeply structured by hierarchical relations. Analysts have sought the source of hierarchy and deferential behaviow in histoncal precedent, Buddhist philosophy, animism, or child-rearing practices. Some analyze relations 14 between junior and senior in terms of patron-client bonds, and see littlr else than these dyadic linkages structuring society. Others challenge this atomistic focus and discem a number of enduring corporate groupings in the Thai social landscape. Some see hierarchical relations as, at base, reciprocal. giving them a rosy and functional gloss; others see thern as fundamentally exploitative, and cal1 for their overthrow. The controversies here extend beyond western descriptions and Thai responses, pitting Thai against Thai in struggles to define and redefine the

Thai social order.

In chapter three 1 explore three topics prompted by western ferninist theorizing about the position of women in society. The first section examines debates about whether Thai women are subordinate to Thai men. Most analysts answer yes, though they disagree about the source of women's subordination, locating it in law, religion, sexual mores, or even vocabulary. But some argue that women are not subordinate to men in Thailand, just different from them, and see in wornen's paid work and unpaid household labour sources of power and prestige; they observe wornen embodying values like nurturing and compassion which are culturally prized. Less often stressed is that Thai women are not a homopneous grooup, and that the opportunities and limitations which face élite women are not the same as those confronting commoners. Taken as a whole, this section advocates taking a nuanced stance toward women's position in Thai society.

In the next section 1 tum to the subject of prostitution. Prostitution is often mentioned as the most shockingly overt evidence of Thai women's subordination, but Ibelieve it is a more complex issue than this assertion allows. In trying to understand why prostitution is so prevalent in Thailand, some analysts blame foreign influences, while others see causes in Thai patterns of female labour, children's support of aging parents, and male promiscuity. Some advocates dismiss these culturally important practices as excuses for the sexual exploitation of women; 15

they view prostitution as degrading by definition, and see prostitutes as victims of male Iust,

govemrnental apathy, and foreign perverts. Others see a wide range of experiences and degees

of control over work conditions among prostitutes and argue that some women, at least, have

pursued prostitution as the best choice under bad economic circumstances; for these analysts,

prostitutes are engaged in rational financial decision-making to ensure their own and their

family's well-being. international voices tend to focus on sex tourism, documenting the growth

of this phenomenon and its covert encouragement by government and international tounsm conglomerates: they often neglect to mention many more women serve the domestic than the tourist market and that women who work with tourists are generally self-employed and better

paid than their counterparts serving Thai. Again, a thorough analysis gives a nuanced view of prostitution and its impact on the position of women in Thai society.

The final section of this chapter challenges the notion that gender analysis should focus on biologically defined men and women by explorhg moments in the literature on Thailand and in the lives of Thai when dominant definitions of gender begin to disintegrate. Individuais are reco~mizedas not conforming to expected standards of gendered behaviour; women dress and talk like men and men behave as women in ethnographically common ntual gender transgressions and in publicly visible, ofien prolonged, periods of gender crossing. A small but lively westem literature debates the structural significance of gender transgressions for the Thai sexlgender system as a whole. One analyst constnies gender crossing as colonized by men in a patriarchal consolidation that rendered femaie transgressors invisible; another argues that effeminate men are not acceptable in the dominant terms of Thai maleness, but are functional in defining the boundaries of Thai masculinity: effeminate men are precisely what other men are not. Both, however, agee that Thai gender crossers cannot be assimilated into westem 16 categories of homosexuality or lesbian and gayness understood as identities predicated on same- sex object choice, but must be understood in terms of Thai definitions of personhood and gender.

Chapter four moves to the intimate ground of prosaic details gleaned from interviews with nine Thai-western couples. The personal and vivid voices which characterize this chapter stand in contrast to the abstract and impersonal understandings of Thai-western interaction which figure in much of the rest of the work and inject vitality and humanity into my analysis.

The material in this chapter is youped around thernes suggested by the interviews themselves: the progress from first meeting to intimate connection, families' reactions, communication styles and disagreements, experiences abroad, future plans, and so on. These interviews represent an essential part of my research into the topic of Thai-western relations because they show Thai and western individuals actively engaged with the complexly structured discourses of Thailand and the west that are the subject of my study. They illustrate how individuals work with, through, and around dominant cultural and social constructions of self and other to fonn their own understandings of themseives and their partners, and reveal how people can overcome historical, ethnographie, and feminist relations of discursive power and resistance to Form intimate, satisfjing, and long-lasting emotional relationships.

Silence and Disclosure

In many ways which may not be obvious to the reader, this thesis remains a persona1 therapeutic project which 1 engaged in to corne to lems with the overwhelming chaos of impressions, conversations, observations, confusions, and problems that arose during my long residence in Thailand and my intimate connection with one Thai man. Indeed, this thesis could 17 br read as a cautionary tale on the pleasures and perils of doing research on topics with which

one is personally invested. Although I am committed to the perspectives of feminist standpoint

theory and very much wanted to put myself and my experiences at the centre of this project, 1

found it difficult - indeed, virtually impossible - to engage in an open and straightfonvard manner with my relationship in this thesis. In part this is because 1 could not find a way to write

çracefully and unpretensiously about my personal life in an academic paper, and in pan it is a function of the painful fact that my relationship was falling apart even as the project was takin shap. I don't think personal disclosure is inappropriate in an academic work - indeed, 1 feel that the humanization of ethnogyaphy by the inclusion of personal voices and engaged awareness has been one of the major contributions made by women anthropologists in the past few decades. 1 have often thought conventional ethnographies would be much more vital and interesting if the personal motivations and investments of the authors were revealed. 1 have harshly judged some writers unaware, even cowardly, for not being able to reveal themselves more openly in their ethnogaphies. 1 feel less judgemental today, for 1 found that 1 could not write as 1 wished to about my personal life in the pages that follow. Thus my persona1 investment, though a major impetus for pursuing this topic, remains a major silence in this work.

1 could also have said much more than 1 have about the lives of the people 1 interviewed outside of the interview context, though here 1 was more deliberate in choosing to write as I have. 1 went into the field very aware of the politics of representation and determined not to engage in the quintessentially orientaiist practice of studying sorne "other" that is removed from the self. 1 was pleased to be doing research on my own community: on westerners and Thai involved, as 1 was, in cross-cultural relationships. It was politically and ethically satisfjing for me to be focusing on connections which have a long history and great breadth, rather than on isolated "others" frozen in time and observed from the outside. There was also a research advantage in being positioned sirnilarly to rny interviewees, for the fact that we were connected as individuals trying to form intimate bonds across the divides of race, culture, gender, and class fostered bonds of sympathy between us as we compared and contrasted our experiences in the interview context.

Yet this connection was also a liability, for 1 identified with my interviewees and was more apprehensive than 1 might have othenvise about the potentially invasive aspects of rny work. From the outset 1 was determined not to ask in interviews about aspects of people's lives that I would not care to reveal about my own, but my unease with the whole process of probing was only amplified when a few friends in Thailand, discovering that 1 was an anthropologist, asked apprehensively, "You're not taking notes on us. are you?" One woman told me that she and 1 were fnends and that she didn't want to think of me looking at her as a specimen. A few others were put off with the whole idea of my research and declined to be interviewed. Even those who did consent only gave me permission to writr about what passed between us dunng the interview, and not about our other interactions. Thus, although severai of these couples were friends who I saw socially in other settings, 1 refer to them directly in the pages that follow only when they have explicitly said 1 could. This is a moral choice for me. Each writer must make her own decisions about how to reprrsent friends, family, and strangers in their works, and i have chosen to err on the side of caution and accountability. This is one reason I have diverged from the usual ethnographic procedure of foregrounding insights gained from participant observation, instead relying on textual analysis on the one hand and interview excerpts on the other.

Though the first three chapters draw heavily from published matenals about Thailand rather than my own participant observation, the topics 1 cover are ones that interested and puuled me as 1 tried to make sense of the extended time I spent in Thailand. Even as 1 was

embroiled in my own multifarious relations with the kingdom, I was constantly analyzing what 1

was observing, theorizing about the impact of Buddhism on Thai culture and behaviour, about

whether these smiling people ever felt anger or resentment, about the extent of women's subordination and male dominance, about the place of cross-dressers in the Thai gender systern, about the thoughts of my reticent partner. In Thailand, 1 proceeded by looking and thinking, writing my thoughts in my journal, and talking them over with friends; this is how 1 tend to analyze in "real life". Back in Canada, 1 bepn to read the opinions of experts in the field and weigh their interpretations against rny own; this is the way I analyze in "academia". This thesis is largely the fruit of my academic analysis, and thus relies heavily on the witings of historians, anthropologists, and gender analysts. The sheer weight of this textuality rnay obscure the fact that this thesis rests solidly on the bedrock of my life experience, but the tnith is that the theoretical issues I cover in the pages that follow are included because they have helped me understand Thailand and Thai people. Some topics about which there is ample literature - agicultural patterns and land tenure, for exampie - did not seem to aid me in intepreting the

Thai culture and people as 1 knew them, and so receive little attention in the pages that follow.

Literature on topics which seem to me more germane - in particular kinship, maniage, and family, as well as the broader cultural area of Southeast Asia - likewise receive less attention than rnight seem warranted; in this case the failure is due to unfortunate restrictions of time, length, and my own lack of mastery of these vast and complex topics. Terminology

The designation "Thailand" was adopted in 1939 under the leadership of Prime Minister

Phibul Songkram as pan of a nationalist "Thai-ness" campaign to emphasize the ethnic and

racial unity of the inhabitants of the country (Suwannathat-Pian 1 995: 1 1 3). and the name

change from "Siam" was controversial. Some argue that Thailand is the appropriate English

equivalent of the well-established indigenous label, Meirung ï'huiJ,"Land of the Free", which

has been in use since "ancient times" (Chakrabongse 1956: 6) - two seventeenth century

European visitors wrote that the area was known locally as "Muan Thai" (de la Loubère 1969

[1693]: 6; Kaempfer 1987 [1727]: 39). Others prefer the label Siam, which, argues the outspoken

social critic Sulak Sivaraksa, evokes "traditional Siamese Buddhist values" ( 1990: no page

number), an apparently ironic daim, since the name Siam is of western derivation. I use Siam to denote the temtory until 1939, and Thailand to refer to it thereafler.

In Thailand today white foreigners (and occasionally non-white westemers) are referred to asfarang. The origins of the label are debated. The redoubtable Prince Damrong, an eminent

Thai historian, asserted that the Siamese were "following the rxample of the Indian [sic] who called al1 European 'Farengi'" (Rajanubhab 1959: 1 ). Some Thai have told me that the label is a

Thai corruption of "French", though current pronunciation of that word is more like "franset".

Some argue that the Siamese took the label from Muslims, who referred to Europeans as

"Franks". This latter explanation seems the most likely, given the integration of Muslims into the Siamese polity since the fifieenth or sixteenth centuries, and the Thai tendency to drop the final hard consonant from a foreign-derived word. Whatever the case, 1 will refer to white foreigners in Siam or Thailand as farang and outside of it as westemers.

"Words in italics are in the Thai language. Transliteration is a difficult issue, and as Thai is a tonal language no method is totally satisfactory. I have used generally accepted English versions of Thai words where possible, and elsewhere have tried to give simple and clear transliterations. 1 have attempted to avoid the extraneous double letters which litter English transliterations; thus 1 render Ayutthaya as

Ayut haya. One

Historical Moments

his chapter opens the discussion of a genealoby of Thai-western relations by Texamining its historical components. 1 begin with a brief discussion of standard Thai narratives of history, and move on to a detailed examination of texts witten by a number of fururzg visitors to Siam in the 1680s and the 1860s. These two periods were chosen because they were intervals of remarkable openness to outside influences andfimng presence, and thus provide a wealth of analyzable material. In addition, the Siamese leaders at these times, aware that furang powers were pursuing conquest, colonization, or assimilation of Asian polities, successfully pamed western incursions and retained their country's independence and their own status as world leaders. In both cases accessibility to outsiders was encouraged by an intelligent and curious king, Narai in the earlier period, Mongkut in the later; in the former case Narai's death ushered in a xenophobic era in which furung were discouraged from coming to the 23 country. but in the latter the reverberations were more long-lasting. Indeed, Mongkut is ofien credited with setting Siam on a path of modernization which has continued until the present day.

The matenal presented in this chapter is important for a number of reasons.

Ethnography-as-text writers have criticized "classic" ethnographies for their tendency to portray non-westem cultures as primitive and timeless, existing in isolation from the West and thus untouched and largely unnoticed by them. The discussion which follows, on the other hand, reveals that Siam was, from earliest European contact, a cosmopolitan nation well-integrated into the Asian arena and settled by members of a vanety of Asian nations. I show that connections with the west did not always occur at the instigation offimng; Siamese leaders were often well aware of the existence and the strengths and weaknesses of western nations and sought to contact furung countries and leam what they could from them. Perhaps rnost revealing of the possibilities of fùrung integration into the Siamese state are the stories of twofurring whose names figure prominently in the pages which follow, Phaulkon and Leonowens. In the seventeenth century, Phaulkon was employed by the king and for a time held a key position of power and influence; most visitors to Siam at the time met him, and he acted as interpreter for them in dealings with Narai. Leonowens' nineteenth century position was less important for

Siamese statecraft, but after her departure from the kingdom she was able to parlay her experience into a lucrative literaiy career, and her wrîtings reverberate today in the west in distorted form in the musical "The King and 1".

The material in this chapter is important, too, because it shows that the orientalist stereotypes of splendid and monstrous barbarism which the musical exemplifies exist alongside a wide range of images of Siam and Siamese people. 1 describe a variety offnrang responses to the confrontation with Siam, from contempt and confusion to admiration and desire. Particularly 34 in the earlier period, westem constructions of occidental self and oriental other were still being

formed, and seventeenth-centuryjùrang seem more willing than their nineteenth-century

counterparts to cede superiority to the Siamese in matters such as cleanliness and courtesy,

though not, notably, in religion. By the later period prejudices were more firmly set, and many

.furung admired the Siamese only when they behaved according to westem noms and util ized

western technologies. Still, in both times orientalist images of Siam, though powerful, were not

monolithic, and individuals fashioned their own interpretations of what they saw in the kingdom.

Said suggested in Orientalism (1978) that the orientalist construal of the other was sexualized and genderized, but this remained a relatively underexplored aspect of his study. In what follows 1 am sometimes able to illustrate how this dynamic worked in the Siamese case by discussing when and how the Siamese were seen as sexualized beings. Earl iest European contact with Siam included intimate sexual relations, and manyfùrung understood interactions of this type to prove oriental prorniscuity. Furung debated the significance of the scant clothing of the

Siamese, some reading it as evidence of immodesty and seductiveness, others of adaptation to a hot climate. They marveied, somewhat scandalized, that women were included in the daiiy economic life of the country. In the nineteenth century, when rnissionaries harangued the king over the existence of his harem, Leonowens painted a picture of Siamese male lust and blighted ferninine servitude which solidified discourses of her time: orientalist clichés of sensuous excess on one hand and feminist conventions of fernale victimization on the other. Complicating the picture further are the reactions from some male writers in this century to the suggestion that

Mongkut may have been attracted to Leonowens herself: they dismiss the very possibility in derogatory language which denies the woman any attractiveness at all. These scattered moments 25 in the pages that follow suggest sorne of the ways that Thai-western relations are shot through

with genderized and sexualized power.

Farang and Siam in the 1680s

Most histories of Thailand (for example Syamananda 1977, Wyatt 1984) begin their narratives with the migration of Tai speaking peoples from southwestem China into mainland southeast Asia about a thousand years ago. By the ninth century the Tai appear to have settled in uplands interstices between already existing kingdoms: Nan Chao in southem China, Pyu and

Mon in what is now Burma, Angkor in Cambodia, and Champa on the Vietnamese coast, to name several of the largest and most influential. However, according to historian David Wyatt,

Tai speakers did not begin to organize themselves into kingdoms and empires until the eleventh century, and thus it was only at this stage that they "become a part of Southeast Asian history" in their own right (19). This interpretation recapitulates standard nationalist historiogaphy, familiar to any Thai today, which traces a prob~essionof a thousand years up to the present nation-state of Thai land itsel f.

By the thirteenth ceritury a kingdom was flourishing around the city of Sukhothai, and it is from here that the story of Thailand proper usually unfolds. Today the site of spectacular, if reconstructed, mins and a major domestic and foreign tourist destination, Sukhothai has earned a pivota1 role in the imagining of the modem nation-state because of the discovery, in the last century, of a stone inscription and seat there. The inscription itself (the full text is in Wyatt

1994: 55-59), written by or by order of the der, Ramkhamhaeng, tells of a peaceful and prosperous Buddhist kingdom ("There is fish in the water and rice in the fields" (55), nins one famous phrase) ruled by a just and accessible monarch who, among other things, vastly expanded his empire and devised the proto-Thai characters which were used for writing the inscription itself. The seat was used by monks for preaching the dhmmu, or Buddhist universal truth; when not occupied for that purpose, Ramkhamhaeng himself sat on it so that "the officiais, lords, and princes [could] discuss affairs of state with him" (58). A commoner who had

"a gievance which sickens his belly and gipes his heart" could ring a bel1 hung at the city gate and the king would "examine the case and decide it justly for him" (56). This idyllic picture of benevolent patemalism has an important place in the modem Thai imaginary.

Conventional nationalist historiography generally progresses from Sukhothai to the polity centred around Ayuthaya and from benevolent paternalistic leadership to a Khmer-influenced,

élitist aristocracy. In fact, the two kingdoms coexisted for some time, Ayuthaya finally gaining ascendancy in the late fi fieenth century (Tambiah 1 985: 762). Ayuthaya became a major power in Southeast Asian politics until it was definitively sacked by its traditionai rivais the Bumese in

1767; the kingdom then regrouped under the leadership of Taksin, a former provincial governor, at the city of Thonburi. Taksin was executed in 1782, apparently insane, and one of his generals was crowned, to found his own capital across the river at Bangkok. This dynasty, the Chakri, now in its ninth generation, still reigns, though a revolution in 1932 saw the king demoted from absolute to constitutional monarch.

Let us now retum to the Ayuthayan beginnings of my story. In the seventeenth century the most important urban centre in Siam was the island city of Ayuthaya, several days joumey up the Chao Phraya River from its mouth on the gulf of Siam. At the time Ayuthaya was by al1 accounts a large, bustling, and cosmopolitan city, home to Asians of diverse heritage. European travelers from the early seventeenth century onward noted the presence of natives of many polities such as Persia, China, Cochin-China (present-day Vietnam), Pegu (Burma or Myanmar), and Japan, as well as ethnic Malays, and ethnic Mons and Chams (neither of which have survived as nations into the twentieth century). Members of some of these groups obtained very high positions in the Ayuthayan court. Professing himself stnick by this ethnic diversity in the upper echelons, historian David Wyatt noted that a Persian, a Brahmin, a Mon, and a Chinese family established veritable dynasties of nobles, some of which reach from these early beginnings down to the currently ruling Chakri family ( 1994: 1 O 1 ).

The political structure of the kingdom was characterized by Tambiah in a germinal article as galactic: power emanated from a derin a capital, whose legitimacy in Buddhist terms stemmed from merit accumulated in past lives and whose role was to preserve the cl/~urnmu, divine law, by ruling justly. Radiating out from this centre in a series of concentric circles were tnb~taryprincipalities niled by lesser lords, often relatives of the central king; around them were ranged a series of vassal lords in their tum, the whole reaching down to cornmoners who owed corvie to a lord or the king. Nearby areas supplied Ayuthaya with labour power, produce, and metals, while remote regions may only have been required to send gold and silver-leafed trees once every few years. Lacking the means to ensure suzerainty over farfïung subsidiaries, the

Siamese empire oAen lost outlying provinces to neighbouring powers or simply IO rebellion. A strong leader could greatly expand his dornain, but fierce competition for succession among sons

"procreated in profusion in the harems" ( 1985: 268) saw energy and power spent in bloody intrigues rather than maintenance of temtory. Laws forbade high-ranking officiais from havîng private contact with one another in an attempt to forestall them from joining together to overthrow the king (Rabibhadana 1975: 10 1 ). Though a major power in Southeast Asia, Siam itself was a tributary of China, and sent a periodic payment of gold trees to the ernperor in

Beij ing. 28 In the early sixteenth century the first Europeans - Portuguese - visited Siam, and they

were soon well-established in the area; the Dutch and English followed not long after (Smithies

1993: 8; ten Brumrnelhuis 1987). The Siamese were cognizant of the European world and

actively sought connections with it: the first Siamese diplomatic mission to Europe was sent to

the Netherlands in 1608 by Ekathotsarot (reigned 1605-16 10) (Syamananda 1977: 63). By the

seventeenth century Ayuthaya was a thriving commercial centre visited by European, Asian, and

Arab traders, and the walled central city was ringed by diverse foreign settlements. Europeans

were a cornmon sight there and at some of Siam's "nebulously defined" (Wyatt 1984: 1 10)

tributary neighbours such as Ligor (present-day Nakhon Sri Thammarai) and Patania or Patana

(Patîani), ports on the Malay peninsula which are today Thai cities.

By the late seventeenth century, during the reign of Narai ( 1656-1688), the European

presence in Siam reached a zenith in response to both forei~mand domestic pressures. European

powers, as well as Persian, were concemed both to foster trade and to achieve the religious

conversion of the king. The Siamese likewise had pecuniary interests, but srem also to have been guided by their rnonarch, who was known For his interest in things foreign and his desire to

accord and be accorded reciprocal diplomatic honours by his peers, other sovereigns. Thus during this period numerous embassies and missions passed between Siam, Europe, and Persia, and many written accounts remain, for "The ambassadors, Jesuits, missionanes, and even the officers were nothing if not literate; they knew they had exotic matenal in their hands, and the reading public was avid for information about distant places" (Smithies 1993: 38). My first reading of these texts will focus on dominant personages and the diplomatic events they were embroiled in during a particularly volatile few years in Siamese history. 29

1 can do no better than to begin with the events that swirled around two most remarkable and enigrnatic personages: the Siamese king, Narai, and a furung who served him, Constantine

(or Constance) Phaulkon (or Phaulcon). Phaulkon was born on the island of Cephalonia in present-day Greece in about 1647 and came to Asia in the 1660s as an adventurer and merchant mariner (Hutchinson 1968: x). He arrived in Siam in 1678 in the employ of the East India

Company and in 1679 entered the service of one of the top officiais (mandarins in the European parlance of the time), the I'lzru Klung (Barcalon Lek5)(Srnithies 1993: 10). When this man died

"in disçrace" in 1683, Phaulkon took over his position, though not his title; in the same year he converted to Cathol icism and married a ha1 f-Japanese ha1 f-Bengali Cathol ic, Marie Guimard

(1 1 )O, renouncing his Siamese mistress and mother of his child (de Bèze 1968 [1688?]: 27). In his capacity at court Phaulkon had daily audiences with Narai, enjoyed great power and influence, and poised hirnself skillfully between the Siamese king and his numerous foreign visitors. Given his prominent roles as interpreter and negotiator for Narai, it is unsurprising thai

Phaulkon looms large in the memoirs of many late seventeenth-century European visitors to

Siam.

Phaulkon is but one of a long line of furung who have refigured themselves in the kingdom and obtained positions of more wealth and power than their humble origins would have suggested possible. He was able to do so in part because of his linguistic and cultural facilities:

arcal al on is a European corruption; Lek is a given name. Siamese did not have farnily names until 1916 when they were assigned family names by Rama VI as a "civilizing" (read: Europeanizing) gesture. Before this, people were known by given name and title: if they had one: hence Phro Klang Lek. In Thailand today given names or nicknames are more commonly used than family names, and the practice of combining a name with a positional title has been refigured by modem Thai pop stars: a member of the popular, now defunct, rock group Carabao, for example, is popularly known as Ad Carabao.

6Japanese Chnstians fleeing persecution in Japan were well-established in Ayuthaya. 30 he became fluent in the local parlance, the dificult language used to address the king, and the

manners and customs of the court before seeking a position there. Or so relates de Bèze, whose

recounting of Phaulkon's biogaphy seems to have come directly from the mouth of its subject

himsel f to be accepted unquestioningly by the French Jesuit father. As de Bèze tells it,

"Constans, by means of his talent and address, won the King's heart at their first meeting",

having prepared himself by "learn[ing] to speak the language of the country with the fluency of a

native", even "the Court language" ( 13).

During the 1680s the Siamese actively sought ties with the French court of Louis XIV, a

move which is sometimes credited to Phaulkon, who, according to the Dutch East India (VOC)

officer Kaempfer, "made his Sovereign believe" that with French assistance "he might polish his

subjects, and put his dominions into flourishing condition" ( 1987 [1727]: 3 1 ). This interpretation accords nicely with a European tendency to exagpratejurung influence and deny Siamese agency. However, the first ambassadors to France were selected in 1677 and the embassy departed Siam in 1680, when Phaulkon was still quite new to the country, so it is more likely that Narai was acting independently and in his own interest, seeking to counter longstanding

Dutch prominence in his kingdom (Smithies 1993: 1 1 ).

This first embassy was lost at sea, and in 1683, having received no word of the maritime disaster, Narai sent envoys to France to check on the fate of his first mission. The second voyage was more successful in that the Siamese reached their goal, but in other respects seems to have been a singular failure, according to historian Michael Smithies' excellent summary of the events of the time: "The two envoys, who were generally agreed to have been uncouth as well as physically unattractive, were not in the least interested in anything they saw, refused to go out, refused to meet people". In spite of this singular lack of dipiomacy, the French king responded to 3 1 the Siamese monarch's overtures by sending a retum embassy with them on their voyage back to

Siam. Smithies speculated that Louis XIV bothered with such a relatively insignificant kingdom as Siam because of false stories of its wealth and power and because of its openness to

foreigners and foreign religions ( 1993: 1 1-2). Soon also Phaulkon began to gain ascendancy, pursuing his own pecuniary interests while feeding French hopes of a royal conversion.

The French contingent on this retum voyage was relatively small, and included the first ambassador Chaumont, the courtier (and sometime transvestite) Abbé de Choisy7,the priest

Tachard, and the Chevalier de Forbin, al1 of whom wrote accounts of their voyage. De Choisy gave human face to some of the characters he met. He reported, for example, that the

"mandarins", as he called the Siamese envoys, had becorne "quite different" as they neared their home: "They had not left their lair since Brest but a couple of times; now they are always on the bridge, they smile at the angels in the sky, and play little games ... 1 think that in Siam we shall find them lively enough; may God gant that we shall not be the ones that are stupid" ( 1993

[1657]: 1 16 j.

De Choisy had occasion to meet the king, Narai, several times, first at the formal audience where they were received and Louis XIV's letter was conveyed to the Siamese monarch, and later, less formally, at elephant and tiger hunts near Narai's other residence at

Luovo (present-day Lopburi). After one of these latter, de Choisy charactenzed Narai thus:

7~hereis no indication that de Choisy continued to cross-dress during his visit to Asia except for one unattributed daim that "it is reported that 'to a feast in honour of the French visitors, de Choisy went gorgeously arrayed in a feminine evening gown, make-up and jeweiry. The Siamese thought i t was a European custom of some sort"' (Ackroyd 1979: 9), a quote reproduced in Ma jorie Garber's otherwise well-researched study of transvestitism, Vested Interests ( 1992: 256). The report would seem to be spurious: I have been unable to find its source or to substantiate it from other texts. It appears that Ackroyd made it up. this King has much intelligence, and is very capable... He is the most inquisitive person on earth. 1 had not seen him so clearly before; he was very close to us, and stood from time to time. He is rather thin, with great lively black eyes full of intelligence. He speaks quickly, and mumbles; he has the physiognomy of an honest person. ( 197j

The king, it would appear, was kind and diplornatic: several times when de Choisy was absent -

sick or in retreat, for the Frenchman took Catholic religious orders while in Siam - he was told

that the king asked after him, and on the embassy's retum to France, Narai gave each of its

members gifis, "al1 the time with a broad smile which soAens one's heari" (2 17). In fact most

who met him seem to have been impressed by the king: Nicolas Gervaise, a missionary in Siam

from 1683-7, spoke of Narai's "lively eyes full of that sparkle which denotes great wit" and

found "about his whole person a certain air of dignity and grandeur, accompanied by such

sweetness and goodness that it is impossible not to respect him greatly or to love him even

more" (1989 [1688]: 183). The Frenchman Tachard thought he had "more wit than your Oriental

Princes commonly have" and "an engaging Air, a sweet and obliging carriage, especially to

Strangers... and having a pregjqant and piercing Wit, he is easily master of what he has a mind to

leam" (Tachard 1981 [1688]: 196; 227-8).

The French mission of 1685 was not always easy, however. The procedure for the first,

formal reception was the subject of much negotiation, for Siarnese and French customs differed,

and Phaulkon shuttled daily between the two sides trying to finalize arrangements. It was agreed that the French would not have to prostrate themselves before the king as the Siamese and

Phaulkon always did, but could bow as they would to their own sovereip. The letter they bore, however, was treated as if it were the person of the royal writer himself, and was conveyed to the palace on the king's own boat and carried above the heads of those present, relative height being an important indigenous indicator of power and status. Narai attended seated at a small window 33 some feet above the rest of the Company, and Chaumont had been promised a dias ont0 which he could step to present Louis XIV's letter. Finding this absent, he held the letter resoiutely at shoulder height on a srnall tray, refusing to compromise his dignity by stretching his am up to hand it to the king. In an incident reproduced in many drawings, Narai "was obliged to lean half out of the window to take the letter, which he did laughing". As they talked about the scene aftenvards, Phaulkon told the French, "'1 was even more embarrassed [than you]; you had only one King to satis5,I had two"' (de Choisy 1993 [1687]: 163, 165).

The French had amved with high hopes for a royal conversion, and Chaumont mentioned this as the "Chief Subject of his Embassie" on their first meeting with Phaulkon, who "seemed astonished at it, and told the Ambassador... that there was no appearance of effecting it [as] the

King was extremely addicted to the Religion of his Ancestors" (Tachard 1981 [1688]: 159). The

French quickly realized that conversion was, as de Choisy put it, "not going to occur immediately. The King supports our religion, he likes the Missionaries, he has churches built; but he is still very far from being baptized" ( 1993 [1687]: 144). In fact, Narai showed a degree of religious tolerance not shared by his French counterpart: as historian Srnithies remarked, "lt is a curious fact of history that the very day Chaumont was speaking to Narai at this first audience seeking the King's conversion, his own King was revoking the Edict of Nantes which had allowed Protestants to live untroubled in his kingdom" (1993: 12). Though Phaulkon had advised Chaumont to avoid mention of religion dunng their first formal audience with the king, who "would be strongly startled at an Overture for which he was not at al1 prepared" (Tachard

198 1 [1688]: 1559, the ambassador characteristically ignored the advice. Yet French aspirations did not reach Narai's ears unedited; Phaulkon, poised between the two powers as translator, de- emphasized French desires for a royal conversion in the embslssy address to the court (de Choisy 34

1993 [1687]: 163 n. 2; Smithies 1989: 59). De Forbin, who was present at the time, wrote later

that Phaulkon,

who was ever the interpreter, cleverly played the role of a person with two different characters, saying to the King of Siam what flattered him, and replying to Mr de Chaumont what was appropriate, without there being, either on the king's or the ambassador's part, anything concluded but what it pleased Constance to give the other to understand ...

According to de Forbin, the French clergyman who was present "understood Siarnese perkctly"

and thus knew what Phaulkon was omitting, but was powerless to Say anything and risk royal

wrath by discrediting the favourite (in Smithies, ed. 1995: 80).

In other ways as well Phaulkon showed himself worthy of the epithet "wily" bestowed on

him by Smithies ( 1 989: 59). He had pecuniary interests in closer Franco-Siamese relations:

instrumental in having a commercial treaty signed with France, he quickly became a major shareholder in the French lndies Company (Smithies 1993: 26). The treaty, which de Choisy reproduced in his text, promised special trading and religious privileges to the French, and though the French diplomat reported that it was to be published in al1 the toms of the kingdom

(de Choisy 1993 [1687]: 208), the historian contended that Phaulkon had no such intention, and that "it seems unlikely that the King knew much about it" (Smithies 1993: 206 n. 7).

Interestingly, a Persian embassy also visited the kingdom dunng this time, sent by the

Shah Sulaiman the Safavid (reigned 1666-1694) in response to a friendly letter from Narai

(O'Kane 1972: x)~.Phaulkon had taken part in an earlier Siamese embassy to Persia (de Bèze

8This is an account of the embassy written by a scribe which has, remarkably, survived to be translated, though unfortunately the English text gives no original date. The book did, however, contain a remarkable passage which reversed more familiar orientalist discouae, revealing an "oriental" gaze which sexualized the occident. It described a stop at an English fort in lndia during the voyage to Siam. The English residents, hearing that there was a new king at home, 1968 [1688?]: 1 1 ), but by the time this mission reached the kingdom, he was out of favour with

the local lslamic cornmunity, having brought dom some influential Muslim officiais by exposing their corrupt practices (Wyatt 1984: 1 13). In the Persian account Phaulkon was usually referred to contemptuously as "the ill-begotten Frank rninister"; Narai, however, eamed some praise. Contending that the king "secretly wished to emulate the lranians in food and dress,

ibrahim described him as

interested in raising himself, of acquiring distinction and improving his way of living, his household and his possessions. He was eager to learn about other kings of the inhabited world, their behavior, custorns, and princi ples. He made a great effort to enlighten himself and sent everywhere for pictures depicting the mode of living and the courts of foreibm kings. (1 972 [1687?]: 99)

The scenario is stnking: a Siamese Buddhist king, interested in everything, neither espousinç nor persecuting other religions, ml ing over a diverse and cosmopol itan kingdom, being courted by xenophobic Christian and Muslim powers concemed to champion their own religion and customs over al1 others. Neither Christian nor Muslim thought it possible that Narai would receive any truth other than their own - de Choisy thought Muslim hopes for conversion

"rather amusing" (1993 [1687]: 169) - and one can't help but wonder how their arrogant posturing struck the tolerant, intelligent, and well-informed Siamese monarch.

The French envoys retumed home in 1686, accompanied by a Siamese return mission led by Kosa Pan. The choice of personnel was more fortunate this time: de Choisy deemed them

threw a party at which both sexes were present, and the scribe Ibrahim waxed eloquent at the beauty and seductiveness of the white women. With characteristic poetic flourish, the author reported that "The festivity reached such an intensity the veils of modest restraint were on the verge of bursting into flame and burning away. It is another of their fixed niles that the degree of fhendship one has for a person is expressed by the amount of affection one shows for that person's wife" (Ibrahim 1972 [1687?]: 39). 36

"very good people, accommodating, without airs, and with plenty of wit ...quite different from those awful mandarins who did not drink, did not eat, and did not speak" (272). Also on this journry was Father Tachard, ostensibly searching for mathematicians to bnng back to Siam at

Narai's request, but actual 1y engaged in secret negotiations between Phaul kon and the French.

The Siamese were received with much pomp and excitement in Paris, and several engravings of their audience with Louis XIV, as well as the text of their "harangues" at court, have survived (see Smithies 1986). From Smithies' summary of their itinerary ( 1989), it is clear that the ambassadors' visit was çnieling, with daily travels through the countryside, innumerable sights to see each day, and crowds of onlookers lining the streets in hope of catching a glimpse of them. There was a constant press of people in aîtendance at their meals, not partaking of the repast, but simply watching, evidently a most fashionable pastime. It was not that the Siamese had exotic eating habits, but simply that meals were one of the few public occasions when provincial gentry could see Foreign visitors up close. Sometirnes the throng of spectators was so dense that the ambassadors ordered the doors closed to further entrants, and sometimes they requested privacy at meals (Smithies, personal communication). In general, however, they seem to have borne up to the scmtiny gracefully.

The Siamese left France in 1687, accompanied by a large French contingent of five ships and over a thousand people (Smithies 1993: 25). Tachard was present, and once back in Siam pursued his secret negotiations, frustrating the attempts of the officiai envoys, du Boullay and de la Loubère, to fulfill their assignment of achieving greater French ascendancy in Siam, though de la Loubère "consoled himself. ..by writing a magisterial account of the country" (38). But

France's ambitions in Siam did not rise or faIl on the work of her officia1 or unofficial representatives. For local élites had long been resentful of farung influence, particularly Phaulkon's, and, when Narai fell gravely il1 in 1688, his foster brother Phetracha seized the

opportunity to imprison the king in his room, have Phaulkon arrested, tortured, and killed, and

the king's younger half-brothers and potential heirs assassinated. When Narai died soon after,

Phetracha had himsel f crowned, rnarrying Narai's daughter, Yothathep, to confer legitimacy on

his reign (28-9). His descendants remained on the throne until Ayuthaya was destroyed by a

Burmese offensive in 1767 (36).

So far 1 have been reading seventeenth century texts for factual information about the

diplornatic events that swirled about the court of Narai in the late 1680s. 1 will now re-view the

documents to see what racial, cultural, and moral qualities Europeans imputed to the Siamese,

qualities which might be seen as boundary markers (Barth 1969) erected to set the two groups of

people apart. As such, these purported Siamese characteristics reveal rat her more about the

European imagination than they do about Siamese reality, and provide an index of a burgeoning

discourse of orientalism (Said 1978).

Many wnters described the Siamese in racial terrns. The VOC officer Joost Schouten appraised them as "reasonably well proportioned, brown and tawny" (Schouten 1986 [l67 1 1:

144), while his company-mate Kaempfer depicted them as a "black race of mankind who are generally short siz'd and look almost like monkeys" ( 1987 [177]: 38). The French diplomat de la

Loubère also made the comparison to primates in his detailed catalogue of physiognomy, noting

... the colour of their Complexion mixt with red and brown, (which corresponds neither to the North of Asia, Europe, nor Africk,) ... their short Nose rounded at the end ...; the upper Bone of their Cheeks hi& and raised, their Eyes siit a Me upwards, their Ears larger than ours... their Countenance naturally squeez'd and bent like that of Apes, and a great rnany other things which they have in common with these Animals, as well as a marvellous passion for Children. For nothing is equal to the Tenderness which the great Apes expressed to their Cubs, except the Love which the Siamese have for al1 Children, whether for their own, or those of another. (1 969 [1693]: 10) Observers compiled a catalogue of Siamese "customs" like dress, cleanliness, and family relations. Salacious versions of these characteristics had already been established in the

European imagination by writers like Thomas Herbert, who accompanied the Engl ish ambassador to Persia in 1627-9. On his return he wote Some Yeares Travels into Divers Parts of Asia and Afrique..., a book which "had geat vogue in its time", being expanded and reprinted eight times in several European languages in the 150 years following its initial publication in 1634 (Stephen and Lee 19 17 vol. 9: 667). His tome is an exemplary seventeenth century onentalist portrayal, rnanaging to sound both salacious and pious in its description of the scandalously intriguing habits of the inhabitants of the non-European world. His text helped illuminate what Anne McClintock has rnemorably termed "a porno-tropics for the European imagination - a fantastic magic lantem of the mind onto which Europe projected its forbidden sexual desires and fears" ( 1995: 22).

Herbert's description of Patania, then a tributary kingdom of Siam, today a southem Thai province, brought together in one masterful paragaph al1 the characteristics of the oriental other: scnsual, promiscuous, and effeminate, peopled by natives enslaved to the pleasures offered by climate and diet.

The men of note transcend in Curtesie; for at any mans amvall, they blush not to proffer their Daughters or Neeces to be their bed-fellowes; yea to concornitate them at bed and board during his stay; the pnce for such a favour not equalling so high a complement: but that, were it lesse, too much in my opinion for such Pandars and base prostitutes. At the end of the prefixed time the woman retums home well pleas'd; so far from shame or losse, that they rather accompt her honored; and fit for prefement: But tis dangerous to be wanton elsewhere; jealousie on either side inflaming into rage, which seldom dyes without one or anothers destruction ... Adultery they punish rigidly; Fornication is more tollerable. The young women are carelesly frolick and fearelesly merry; the mamed, melancholy and strictly observed: idlenesse and heat provokes them to inchastity. The men are also effeminate; yea wallow in al1 kinds of turpitude and sensuality: their females are often in their fight; the grape commoves them to wickednesse; they delight in their bwst and pallat with choysest wines, waters, Rack, Ryce, and fruits, both succulent and restorative; and which make Venus predominate: but by this their intemperance they abreviate their dayes; few exceeding sixty yeeres: an old age, if you contemplate their lust (Deaths best harbinger) and the Zone they sweat in: bad, both; both, intemperate. ( 1638: 3 16)

Seventeenth century diplomats, traders, and missionaries more commonly remarked on the simplicity of Siamese life, a plainness which Gervaise admired: "There is no people more temperate and more sober than the Siamese. They dnnk no wine and 1 am constantly amazed at

how they can exist on so little" (1989 [1688]: 54). De la Loubère also saw "an easiness of living" and simplicity which had a positive function, "as good manners are more easily preserved in a moderate easiness, than in a Poverty attended with ioo much labour" (1969 [1693]: 73). The

Persian scribe took a dimmer view, adjudging the Siamese way of life "not at al1 affluent" and without "any luxuries or leisure", and the natives "al1 naked and penniless", without "elevated ceremonies", ''refined manners", or "sumptuous banquets" (Ibrahim 1972 [ 1687?]: 1 56). The commoner's lot, however, contrasted markedly with that of the royal court, and manyfurmg were amazed by the splendeur of the royal court, the gorgeousness of the monarch's jewelry and dress, and the opulence of the meals they were served on gold dishes. The carping Persians, however, thought the king's lifestyle admirable only when he emulated their dress or food (99).

Herbert, who 1 can only think never visited Siam himself, reported that it is "famous for power, wealth, and many forts...The Zone is hot, the men black.. .[and] transcendent Idolaters"

(1638: 316). However, the bulk of his description was given over to fantastically lascivious details. He wrote that men had a gold bell, "in it an Adders tongue dried, placed under their foreskins to (somehow!) discourage sodomy, a practice "in foregoing times" popular. When intercourse was desired, he wrote, a midwife gave the man a "sleepid opiated potion" and "the Bell is loosed from the flesh, and fastened to the foreskin, which hinders not but titulates" (316).

This detail rnipht have been supplied by Samuel Purchas, whose Purchas his Pilgrimage, or

Relations of the World... was compiled, without leaving England, from travel accounts

(Stephen and Lee 1917: vol. 16a: 489). According to Purchas, "The Siamites... weare two or three

balls of Gold or Silver, as bigge as a Tennis-ball, in their yards" (1617: 562).9

Herbert's and Purchas' accounts cover much of the same lewd ground, but betray an

intriguing discrepancy. In Herbert's portrayal, women are proffered to travelers by male relatives

(1638: 3 16), while in Purchas' women offer thernselves (1617: 562). This small difference may

reveal the authors' unease with fenale sexuality and provide some dues to European men's

ambivalent relation to the oriental - and the western - women of their imaginations. The

scandalized tone they adopted may reflect more than prevailing European sexual mores which

prescribed chastity - for white upper class women, at least. It could also point to the

unmentionable scanda1 of European male desire for the native women they were supposed to

disdain. Behind the conventional image of such women as unchaste and unclean lay a forbidden spectre of allure which seems to have haunted the imaginations of Europeans at home. How

could Europeans comprehend these women's purported sexual licentiousness? To construr the women as initiating sexual contact was both threatening and reassuring: on the one hand it deconstructed European gender noms, dismaniling "natural" masculine and feminine gender hierarchy and thus symbolically emasculating European men; on the other it placed the onus for

%one of the seventeenth century missionaries or diplomats who spent time in Siam mentioned these bells, though they figure in Pigafetta's early sixteenth century Javanese travel memoirs. That writer reported that men in love inserted the bells "between the penis and the foreskin" themselves, then "take a position under their sweetheart's window, and making a pretense of unnating, and shaking their penis, they rnake the little bells ring". In this version, the bells were not removed for intercourse, "for their wornen take great pleasure in hearing those bells ring from the inside" (cited in Boon 1990: 56). 4 1

sexual indiscretions on the "base prostitutes" themselves, absolvinp men of responsibility and of

guilt. Equaily paradoxical was the construal of these women as under local men's control, for

while "natural" gender noms were thus reconstnicted on alien soil, the careful, and

quintessentially orientalist, feminization of Siamese men was threatened. And this detennined

feminization may have been vital to the masking of an even more unspeakable desire, one

perhaps coyly revealed by Herbert's claim that the Siamese "have beene (in foregoing times)

wicked Sodomites" ( 1638: 3 1 7).

Though de la Loubère would have it that "the Siamese are naturally too proud to give

themselves to Foreigners, or at least to invite them" ( 1969 [1693]: 53), it is clear that sexual

contact between local people and visitors did happen. Father de Bèze reported that "many

Europeans ... are not ashamed to follow the native example and make it a point of honour to set

up a harem, filling it with their comeliest slave girls" ( 1968 [ 1688?]: 27). Of the numerous

foreign communities established around Ayuthaya, only the Japanese had brought wives with

them, so many foreigners settled with local women, forming hyphenated settlernents of Thai-

Persian, Thai-Portuguese, and so on (Smith 1980: 14 n. 10). The VOC official Kaempfer noted

the presence at Ayuthaya in 1690 of "a village inhabited by a Portuguese race begot on black

Women" (Kaempfer 1987 [ 1 7271: 5 1), and Gijsbert Heeck, a VOC surgeon who visited

Ayuthaya in 1655, reported that most of the forty staff at the Company factory there had local

lovers. He mentioned one woman who had been the "wife" of three different Dutchmen and

"very helpful to the Company's servants in their trade in Siam" by interpreting for them and

interceding on their behalf with local traders and of fi ci al^^^. In retum, the Company offered her

''This kind of role was common for Asian women involved with European men, and reveals that such alliances provided thelurang with benefits that ranged from sexual to economic. 42

"special protection" (cited in ten Brummelhuis 1987: 59; 25). Not al1 women seem to have been so well favoured, however. Heeckts rendering of the situation suggests that Siamese women were more usually vilified by their Dutch lovers: "they rarely refer to them other than as whores, sluts, trollops and the like, up to and including the director, for hardly anybody was free of this failinç, either the boatmen or their superiors" (quoted in ten Brummelhuis 1987: 59).

Of homosrxual relations even less was said, though Joost Schouten, a VOC official who visited Siam several times and was given titles and honours by the Siamese king, was in 1644 accused by his Company of "an offence referred to at the time by the circumlocutions siomme zonde (unspeakable sin) and sodrmie" (ten Brummelhuis 1987: 28). He "freely confessed and admitted to having started the practice while he was living in Siam"; in punishment he was strangled to death, his body bumed, and his property confiscated (Villiers 1986: no page num ber).

Herbert read moral procl ivities from outward appearance in a particular way, equating scanty clothing with promiscuity. According to him, both sexes adorned themselves for sexual display in Siam: "Boyes paint themselves with a celestiall colour from top to toe and as an augmentation of beauty, cut, gash, and pinck their naked skins... the men affect perfumes." As for women, his "dull memory compels [him] to write" that they, "the better to allure men to sodomitry", were naked but for a "fine trasparent [sic] cobweb-lawn" about their loins which

"by a base device is made to open as they go; so that any impure ayre gives al1 to mens immodest viewes". The allure was successful in Herbert's telling, for "to see a virgin here, at virgins yeeres, is as a black swan" ( 163 8: 3 17).

The sparse clothing of the Siamese was likewise remarkable to our seventeenth century visitors, but they did not always read it as sipiQing sexual licentiousness. The missionary 43

Gervaise sardonically commented that "There is no more thankless trade in the kingdom of Siam than that of a tailor, for the majority of people have no need of him" ( 1989 [1688]: 9 1 ). "Except for the king himself al1 the natives of Siam of whatever station in life, men or women, consider their bare flesh to be suffïcient clothing and they expose their bodies without concem" (Ibrahim

1972 [1687?]: 56); "They hardly cloath themselves" (de la Loubère 1969 [1693]: 25) were common observations. Particularly striking was the paucity of soldiers' attire: "their livery is their skin" (de Choisy 1993 [1687]: 145); "Each soldier was drowned in the chainmail of his nakedness, such that his whole body was visible" (Ibrahim 1972 [1687?]: 61). ln fact, the

Siamese were not exactly naked: both sexes wore pieces of cloth - "painted petticoats," Schouten called them ( 1986 [1671]: 144) - wrapped around their waists, and sometimes another about their shoulders. De la Loubère, characteristically, has rational explanations for the skimpiness of

Siamese apparel: "As the Cloaths imbibe whatever the Body transpires... the less one is cloath'd, the more easie it is to be neat, as the Siamese are"; "the sirnplicity of Manners, as well as the

Heat, is the cause of the Nakedness of the Siamese" (1969 [1693]: 28,25). He contended that

"so great a Nudity renders them not immodest. On the contrary, the Men and Women of this

Country are the most scrupulous in the world of shewing the parts of their body, which Custom obliges them to conceal". He remarked that the French habit of bathing naked offended the

Siamese, who made the furung Wear cloths when washing themselves, and then continued, rather strangely, "As these people have their Body of another Colour than ours, it seems that our Eyes do not think them Naked, at least their Nakedness had nothing which surprized me; whereas a

Naked White Man, when 1 met one, always appear'd a new Object unto me" (1969 [1693]: 26-7).

De Choisy concurred with de la Loubère that "The Siamese like modesty", and waspishly advised French women "not [to] omit to bring fans and big coq5 to conceal themselves when they corne to see [the Siamese diplomats in France], and only show themselves afier many

entreaties; those who behave in this way will have something to take back with thern" ( 1993

[1687]: 187), for the ambassadors offered Siamese fmit and jams to women of rank and beauty.

The witty Siamese first ambassador, Kosa Pan, however, turned de Choisy's advice on its head,

quipping, when asked for his opinion of French women's attire and demeanour, that "'they would

be better still if they dressed in the manner of my country.' Asked what that was, he repl ied They

are half-naked"' (Smithies 1989: 62)' '.

Many authors remarked on the high level of Siamese personal hygiene - not surprising,

given European standards of the time. The habit of bathing several times a day was striking to jurung, and de Choisy adopted the habit, considering a daily bath "necessary for one's health" in

the hot climate ( 1993 [1687]: 169). Though Kaempfer in 1690 thought the residence of the

HurcuIon - Kosa Pan, former ambassador to France - "dirty and nasty", "full of Dust and

Cobwebs" (1987 [1727]: 26), de Choisy during his stay visited some less illustrious houses and

found thern "very uncouth extemally, very clean within" (1993 [1687]: 169). The French courtier also revealed a royal Siamese concem about the sanitariness of furung, reporting that pRor to receiving them, the king had "asked Mr Constance if the French were clean, if they looked after their teeth, if they washed their mouths and their bodies." De Choisy found it "amusing" that

"these swarthy people, almost entirely naked were "the cleanest people on earth in their eating, in their dress, in everything, including their discourse. Senous punishments are meted out to those who sing scabrous songs" (1 57- 158). Herbert had equated nakedness with prorniscuity, but

"An occidentalist twist is provided by Thai tradition, which has endowed the Siamese ambassadors with fertile masculine prowess: they are said to have fathered half-Siamese progeny in France who they lefi behind on their retum to Siam. Given the strict protocol they had to follow and their extremely busy schedules, however, this is unlikely (Smithies 1989: 62). 45 here outward cornportment was thought to relate to character in a different way: de Choisy linked clean bodies with chaste morality.

Herbert had contended that Siamese virgins were as rare as black swans, but this observation was not supported by our seventeenth century visitors. "The women there are naturally very chaste," reported de Forbin (in Srnithies, ed. 1 995: 83), and de la Loubère noted that "lt is not the Custom of this Country to permit unto Maids the Conversation of young men.

The Mothers chastise them, when they surprize them so: but the Girls forbear not to get out, when they can; and it is not impossible toward the evening" (1969 [1693]: 5 1). The ease of marriage and divorce surprised many; Ibrahim considered it a consequence of women's lack of dowiy "other than their nakedness", which forced men to be "content witha pretty face" and to disregard "family honour" ( 1972 [1687?]: 1 3 1 ). De la Loubère, however, thought that ease of union and disunion resulted in much affection between spouses, and noted that "[Siamese men] love their Wives and Children exceedingly, and it appears that they are greatly beloved by them"

( 1969 [1693]: 50).

lbrahim exaggerated the ease of marnage, recording that they were "regularly arrange[d] with the closest blood relations. A father will marry his daughter, his sister or his niece" ( 1 972

[1687?]: 130), particularly if the man in question was a king; in fact, this convention was more likely confined only to royalty, and through the nineteenth century royal half-brothers and sisters regularly married. It is interesting that the king Narai's elevation of his daughter Yothathep to a high rank after her mother the queen had died led to much speculation in thefcrung community that she hnd become his wik. The ever-cautious de la Loubère "could not find out the tmth, but this is the common report; and 1 think it probable, in that her House is erected as unto a Queen"

As for polygamy, he suggested that "they think it would be best to have but one [wife]; and it is 46 only the Rich that affect to have more, and that more out of Pomp and Grandeur, than out of

Debauchery" ( 1969 [1693]: 52).

If our seventeenth century visitors disputed the libertine aspects of orientalist stereotypes, they reinforced those relating to indolence, thievery , and dissimulation. De Choisy considered

the Siamese "very docile... not ... so much from their natural virtue as their idle, lazy, and timid

nature" (1993 [1687]: 236). De la Loubère judged Siamese intellectual faculties more adequate than their work habits: "[They] do conceive easily and clearly, their Repartees are witty and quick, their Objections rational." He round them "tolerable good Workmen: so that one would think a little Study would render ihem very accomplisht", but regetted that "their invincible

Laziness suddenly destroys these hopes" ( 1969 [ 16931: 60). De Choisy wrote that "The populace is very faithful and does not steal" ( 1993 [1687]: 237), but his was a minority view. Schouten thought the Siamese "naturally light, fearful, incredulous, dissimuled, deceitful, and very lying"

(1986 [1671]: 144), and even the usually impartial de la Loubère remarked that "Vanity and

Lyes" were "Characters essential to the Eastern people" (1 969 [1693]: 1 1 ).

Sitting uneasily alongside these images of lazy and indolent Siamese are references to the public visibility of women and the hard work they did. "The men are lazy and slow", opined

Schouten, "insomuch that the women, with their slaves, are forced (contrary to the customs of other Nations) to labour the earth, & do most of their husbands work, besides taking care of their families" (1986 [1671]: 144-5). Several attributed women's activity to both male laziness and the fact that men had corvée obligations to fulfill.

Whilst the Men acquit themselves of the six months work, which they every one owe yearly to the Prince, it belongs to their Wife, their Mother, or their Children to maintain them ... He works not at all, when he works not for bis king: he walks not abroad; he hunts not: he does nothing almost but continue sitting or lying, eating, playing, smoking and sleeping... The women plough the Land, they seIl and buy in the Cities. (de la Loubère 1969 [1693]: 50)

The Persian scribe concurred:

The ordinary people [read: men] are forced to work like slaves for the king's administration... For that reason it is common for women to engage in buying and selling in the markets and even to undertake physical labour, and they do not Wear veils or cover themselves with modesty. Thus you can see women paddling to surrounding villages where they successfully eam their daily bread with no assistance from the men. (Ibrahim 1977 [1687?]: 139)

Another topic of great interest to Europeans was the religious beliefs of the "ldolators and Heathens" (Schouten 1986 [167 11: 140). Most early visitors to Ayuthaya were struck by the

Buddhist temples which dotted the city and which, in Kaempfer's opinion, "do not equal our churches in bigmess, but far exceed them in outward beauty, by reason of the many bended roofs, gilt frontispieces, advanced steps. columns, pillars, and other omaments" (1 987 [1727]: 47).

They were also amazed at the large numbers of monks, or talapoins in the curious parlance of the time; even today substantial numbers of males join the monkhood at least for a short period of time. Gewaise, interestingly enough, noted that "Siamese ladies are too fond of their freedom to confine themselves to a cloister like our nuns, there to spend their whole lives." Referring to the still common custom of the elderly taking a few vows and living in temples, he argued that

Siamese women "only give ... those years which are no longer fitted for the world" (1989 [1688]:

163).

Speculation about the religion itself, its origin, soteriology, and cosmology gave rise to some wild theorization. Kaempfer waxed eloquent in his argument that Buddhisrn was a comption of an ancient Egyptian fom of worship (1987 [1727]: 66ff) and contended that since they represent their "Saint", as he referred to the historical Buddha, with "curled Hairs, like a Negro, there is room to conclude, that he was no native of India, but was bom under the hot

Climate of Africa" (68). Both de Choisy ( 1993 [l687]: 175) and Schouten ( 1986 [167 1 1: 14 1 )

erroneously assumed that the historical Buddha was a deity, but de la Loubère, with typical

acumen, found "no ldea of a Divinity" in their doctrines ( 1969 [l6W 1: 130).

Furung marveled at the religious tolerance of the Siamese, considering it more ridiculous

than praiseworthy. Gervaise appeared amazed at Siamese Buddhists' "singular opinions on the

subject of religion", particularly "their failure to understand why God ...should have wished to

reveal Himself to some nations rather than others", leading them to "erroneously believe that He

mus1 be the author of al1 religions ...and that it is His providence which has wisely created a

diversity of religions, just as He has also created a diversity of languages" ( 1989 [ 1 688): 1 73).

De Forbin reported to Louis XIV's confessor, de la Chaize, that "Their complaisance allows

them to approve al1 kinds of religion. According to them, paradise is a geat palace where the

sovereibm master dwells... al1 religions are as many gates which lead into it." Judçing them "too

uncouth ... to easily absorb the tnith of out mysteries", he advised the father not to expect any

conversions.

The talapoins never disagree about religion with anyone. When one speaks to them about the Christian religion or any other, they approve of al1 that they are told; but when one tries to condemn their religon, they reply coldly, 'Since 1 had the complaisance to approve your religim, why do you not approve mine?' (cited in Smithies, ed. 1995: 83-84)

Such tolerance was generally considered contemptible and foolish by Europeans, but has interesting echoes in a sentiment of de la Loubère: "1 cannot forbear making a remark very

necessary, tmly to understand the Relations of Foreign Countries. Tis that the words, good, excellent, magnificent, great, bad, ugly, simple and small; equivocal in themselves, must 49 always be understood with reference to the Phantasie of the Author of the Relation, if otherwise

he does not explain what he writes" (1969 [1693]: 36). Indeed, de la Loubère is ofien singled out

as more sympathetic and systematic than other seventeenth century commentators, and his

"historicûl relation" reads well to modem eyes. His contemporaries did not echo de la Loubère's

measured forbearance in the face of the confrontation with Siam, but many did find some

aspects of Siamese li fe i nteresting, admirable, and praiseworthy.

Anna and the King of Siam

In the wake of Narai's death,furung were not welcomed in Siam, and Kaempfer, who visited the country on his way to Japan in 1690, reported that the areas where the English, Dutch, and French had lived were now inhabited by "Moors" and other Asians, including Chinese,

Japanese, Peguans, and Malaccans (1987 [1727]: 43). He met a few Dominican priests (5 1 ), and visited the jailed Jesuit fathers, finding them "living chearfully in iittle Houses built of Bambous and Reeds" (35). Through the eighteenth century European powers lefl the Siamese kingdom relatively isolated, but by the nineteenth centuryf~rungpresence in the kingdom of Siam once again peaked, and has remained high until the present. As in the seventeenth century, economic interests were a primary force propelling Europeans into all corners of the globe. The capital of

Siam, by this time Bangkok, became haven to a motley collection of fururg seamen and traders.

There was also a growing contingent of rnissionaries, Catholic as well as Protestant of numerous sects, al1 ardently pursuing a harvest of souls as their predecessors had done. The decade of the

1840s saw the xenophobic court treat American and British trade missions "rather contemptuously" (Terwiel 1991: 43), but the rulers, at least, seem to have been aware of the importance of leaming fiom furung, as the last words of a monarch dying in 185 1 revealed: There will be no more wars with the Burmese and the Vietnarnese. There will bc troubles only with the furmg. Take good care; do not faIl into their traps. Whatever they have invented, or done, which we should know of and do, we can imitate and leam from them, but do not wholeheartedly believe in them. (cited in Rabibhadana 1969: 135)

With the crowning of a new sovereign in that year, western trade and scientific knowledge, if not rel igious conversion, was welcomed.

The new king, known in English as Mongkut", came to the throne late in life, after serving twenty-seven years in the Buddhist priesthood. Succession in Siam was generally to a male relative of the king, usually a son by a queen, brother, or uncle, with the caveat that an accession council of eminent elder officiais had to approve the heir apparent. This practice ensured that the infirm or untït did not inherit the throne, but also led to numerous instances of irregular succession by more distant relatives who enjoyed the support of powerful factions in the council. Such was the case with Mongkut, who, as eldest surviving son of a royal queen, had a strong daim to the throne when his father, now known as Rama II, died in 1824. However, his elder brother was chosen to be king, in recognition of his greater familiarity and involvement with court affairs, even though his mother had never been elevated to queenly status. Mongkut, twenty at the time of his brother's accession and recently ordained for a short period, prudently decided to remain a monk. Siamese history 1s replete with stories of assassinations to eliminate

"~ongkutis his given name; he is usually referred to in Thai as Phra Clzorn Kho, but like al1 Thai kings has a much longer honorific title. Mongkut's grandson, Vajiravudh, also a king, started the practice of calling the kings Rama (Phru Ram in Thai) afler the hero of the Asian epic, the Ramayana, or Rcimukien in Thai. Mongkut, the founh king in the current (Chakri) dynasty, can thus be referred to anachronistically as Rama IV. 1 wiil follow the convention of his biographers and refer to him as Mongkut. 5 1 rivals to the throne, and one of the best ways for a potential claimant to avoid this fate was to rernain in Buddhist robes.

While in the priesthood, Mongkut proved himself an erudite and avid learner. His rapid advancement in the study of Pali, the textual language of Theravada Buddhism, earned him sibqal credit, and he was soon made an abbot. His discovery that the practice of Buddhism in his day often deviated from doctrinal precedent prompted him to found a more austere sect which in his son's reign became known as the ïkumniuyut - "Those adhering to the Law" - the older and more established sect being called the rtfuhunrkui - literally "the great sect", though in Mongkut's eyes "Those adhering to long-standing habit" (Kirsch 197%: 16). In the monastery the erudite prince leamed Engl ish, French, and Latin from texts and from foreign missionaries, copizant of the value of familiarity withjùrung tongues. Or so the argument usually goes. However, a great- gwndson questions the assumption that Mongkut's studies were inspired by calculation of advantage: "it is equally possible that King Mongkut was spurred on by a mere wish to leam - a genuine craving for knowledge" (Chakrabongse 1956: 40). The intervention is a useful one.

While Mongkut was a clever statesman well aware of the threat that European powers posed to his country's independence, he has been cast rather too easily in the scheming Asiatic monarch mold. He was also an intelligent and enquiring man with catholic interests.

Mongkut pursued more than simply langriage acquisition. He studied western scirntitic techniques and technology, and, when king, had a house in his palace which was "filled with vanous instruments, philosophical and mathematical.. .in a word, al 1 the instruments and appliances which might be found in the study or library of an opulent philosopher in Europe"

(Bowring 1969 [1857] vol. 1 : 4 10- 1). As monarch, Mongkut used his knowledge to great effect, by, for example, establishing a system of mean time for Siam in 1852; by cornparison, the 52

English Act on Greenwich Mean Time was not passed until 1880 (Cook 1993: 286). A famous

anecdote relates how, almost two years before its occurrence, Mongkut predicted the exact time

of a complete solar eclipse (293). He arranged for a lavish expedition of courtiers andjurung

guests to a spot in southem Thailand where he had calculated that the eclipse could best be

viewed, and laid on a sumptuous reception. Particularly impressive to many of the guests was the

large quantity of ice available in a jungle setting. Also unusual was the open presence of several

of Mongkut's wives: traditionally secluded in the Inner Palace, this was the first occasion that

many of Mongkut's senior ofîiciais andfùrcrng associates had even seen the wumen

(Chakrabongse 1960: 2 12-3).

In the event, Mongkut was elated to find that his prediction of its timing was more

accurate by two seconds than that of a team of French scientists camped nearby (Cook 1993:

296). The king's success helped him appear more scienti tic than those paragons of science

themselves, western experts. Tragically, his triuinph was also a death blow. The spot he had

chosen to view the eclipse was in a low, swampy area, and both he and his son and heir,

Chulalongkom, contracted malarial fevers which raged on their return to the capital.

Chulalongkorn survived; Mongkut did not. According to the Buddhist lunar calendar, and like

the Buddha himself, Mongkut died on the sarne day he was bom (Chakrabongse 1960: 214).

Chulalongkorn was only fifieen at the time of his father's death, but the accession council

thought that, as eldest son by a queen, jùrung considered him the most legitimate successor

(Wyatî 1984: 19 1), and so he was given the throne, though de fudo power was held for some

time by a regent. Thai statecraft was already being influenced by presumptions about what jùrung would think. Yet, as Cook argued, Mongkut's interest in and mastery of things western did not mean

that he abandoned eastern traditions. He demonstrated a good grasp of European astronomical

techniques, but the king was also well versed in Siamese, Mon, and Bumese astrology. The

chronicles of the fourth reign (cited in Cook 1993: 293) stated that Mongkut had used both

western and indigenous texts to am*veat his eclipse prediction, implying that for the king,

westem science supplemented, but did not replace, older indigenous knowledge. Cook

effectively showed that the king did not hesitate to draw on Southeast Asian astrological

traditions in ways appropriate to royal statecrafl, such as determining the most auspicious

moment for important ceremonies like his own coronation, his son Chulalongkom's tonsure ceremony, and so on. The king was not "the Siamese counterpart of a typical Western rationalist of that cra"; his religious reforms did not cleanse Buddhism to bring it in line with westem reason, as has sometimes been aqued, but restored it to canonical precedent (,Blofeld 1987: 24).

These fascinating snippets of the life of Mongkut are overshadowed for most westerners by the more familiar representations spawned by Anna ~eonowens'"who served as Engl ish teacher to Siamese princes and princesses from 1862 till 1867. The media that grew out of

Leonowens' yean at the Siamese court have described an imaginary and barbarous kingdom ruled by a capricious and temperamental monarch. She wrote two books about her years in the kingdom, both American bestsellers in their time, and eaçh misleadingly titled. The first she called The English Governess rit the Siamese Court: Being the Recollections of Six Years in the Royal Palace at Bangkok ( 1988 [1870]), though she was actually employed as an English teacher for the royal family and sometime foreign correspondence secretary to the king, not as a

13Her husbands name had been Thomas Leon Owens; she compressed the last two afier his death to fom her own unique sumame. 54

govemess, and was in the kingdom for five, not six, years. The second, The Romance of the

Harem (reissued as Siamese Harem Life) ( 1953 [1873]), served by its moniker to subsume

Southeast Asian concubinage under the rubric of the oriental harem with its attendant qualities of decadence, opulence, and barbarism. The English Governess is a good example of a nineteenth century traveler's tale, interspersing narrative with ethnographie description (Pratt

1986), often of evenis which Leonowens had not attended, such as the coronation of the king.

The Romance diverges even farther from anything Leonowens herself witnessed, stringing together diverse stories from al! over Asia into a tragic tale of oriental women blighted by male lust. The two books formed the basis for Magaret Landon's sensationalist reworking of the story, Anna and the King of Siam ( 1943), itself the inspiration for the 195 1 Rogers and

Hammerstein musical and two Hollywood movies, including the 1956 Academy Award-winning tilm of the musical, "The King and ï'. The pageant has recently enjoyed a Broadway revival, and played in Toronto last winter, billed as a "best-loved" attraction.

Leonowens was given to portraying her influence on Siam, particularly on the future king

Chulalongkom, as decisive, and the intrepid explorer Freya Stark, who should have known better, goes one further, declaring in her introduction to Siamese Harem Life that "few people can have wielded a stronger influence in that corner of Asia" (1953: xi). The two women exaggerated wildly; still, during her stay in Siam Leonowens did enjoy access to the highest nobles in the land. Like Phaulkon before her, she was able to overcome plebeian ongins to attain a position at the Siamese court, in part by being vague about her background, suggesting that her father had been an officer posted to India. Landon went further, inventing an English childhood for her. However, according to her biographer Dow ( 199 l)'", borrowing heavily from Bnstowe

( 1976), Leonowens was bom into poverty in India to an enlisted man and his Indian-bom

English (possibly Eurasian) wife, placing her on the lowest rungs of British colonial society. Her childhood was spent in squalid over-crowded barracks, and she did not visit Europe until she was a teenager or an adult. By the tirne she traveled to Siam she was a young widow with two surviving children. It is a testament to Leonowens' intelligence and strengh of character that she was able to hide her origins so well and adequately support herself and her children. One may speculate, however, that her insecurity about what she perceived as her ignoble background exacerbated her tendency to view things European as always, and inevitably, superior to things

Asian.

In 1862, when Leonowens amved in Bangkok, Mongkut had been reigning for eleven years, and had numerous wives and children. He sent her a letter of invitation, reproduced in one of her books, which gives evidence of his charmingly idiosyncratic but perfectly comprehensible

English, his awareness of orientalist views of Siam, and his concern that her teachings cover academic, rather than religious, subjects.

And we hope that in doing your education on our children (whom the English cal1 inhabitants of benighted land) you will do your best endeavour for knowledge of

''Dow's biography is thorough, following Leonowens from her birth in 183 1 through her years in Siam and Canada (she was a founder of what is now the Nova Scotia School of Art and Design) to her death in Montreal in 19 15. Dow admitted that her writing took "some detective work, some psychoanalysis, a good deal of reflection, and sometimes, just plain intuition" (1 99 1 : xi); the result was a text that was very readable, but sometimes overdnmatic, not unlike Leonowens' own. Even the sympathetic Dow admitted that Leonowens' books "did not shed much light on the real Thailand" (xii-xiv). Dow's book had a similar failing: she betrayed the superficiality of her own familiarity with Thailand and Thai culture by, for example, including in her bibliography "Angkrit, Phasa" as an editor ofa book on Mongkut (151); Phusu Angkrir in Thai means "English language", and denotes that the volume in question is a translation of a Thai original. English language, science, and literature, and not for conversion to Chnstianity; as the followers of Buddha are mostly aware of the powerfulness of truth and virtue, as well as the followers of Christ, and are desirous to have faculty of English language and literature, more than new religions. (Leonowens 1.988 11 8701: vi)

The king obviously hoped to avoid a repeat of an earlier experience, when the female American missionaries who had taught his wives and children English refused to end their proselytizing, so annoying him that he eventually refused them admission to the palace".

Leonowens' teachings may have helped broaden the horizons of some of Siam's young

élite, and her books ceriainiy introduced the western public to a kingdom previously poorly known, but in the end Leonowens did little to dispel the image of Siam as a benighted land, and the popularity of her often inventive accounts has proved to bc galling for Siamophiles. Some problems concern Leonowens' tendency to sacrifice historical accuracy for scnsationalism. For example, she claims that in 1865 commoncrs were immolated on the site of iwo new palace gales ( 1988 [1870]: 2 17-9), a practice that speaks volumes about Asiatic heartlessness. Smithies juxtaposed Leonowens' passage to a remarkably similar excerpt from the French explorer Henri

Mouhot's account of his Southeast Asian travels between 1858 and 1860. In Smithies' view,

Leonowens' was involved in a "doubly deceitful" plagiarism, copying (with errors) from

Mouhot's writings and transposing the event into her own the. Though "Something of the kind" as Leonowens reported "does appear to have been done in the past," concluded Smithies, "King

Mongkut was much too devout a Buddhist and too much a rationalist to have sanctioned such a

"The problem continues to be shared by many Thai: Prajuab Tirabutana, whose amusing and outspoken autobiography was collected and published by Cornell University researchers in the 1950s, related how she became fed up with her missionary-taught lessons which focused on miraculous, and to her, unbelievable, Bible stories. "1 could not remember how long I studied the Bible (it should have been English but it was not) with her. 1 just remembered that my patience came to an end one day, then I Iefl" (1958: 27). 57 bloody and Foolish tradition" ( 1 995: 1 27-9). Likewise, Leonowens' declaration that women were

kept chained in dungeons is unbelievable: underground chambers could hardly have existed in the capital, given the high water level and frequent flooding that Bangkok experiencrs to this day. And the further one yets from Leonowens, the more fanciful the account: Landon's novel was unabashedly romantic, its author having set out to "combine the personal narrative bits of both books and omit the endless intervening discussions and descriptions" ( 1943: 388).

Much of the controversy, however, has been generated by the portrayal of Mongkut, still revered in Thailand as a wise monarch who maintained independence and helped guide the kingdom into modemity. In the Hollywood musical version, Yu1 Brynner played the king, radiating masculinity, but given to tantrums and rages. Onejurung writer commented that "the small, slight, and saintly king, who would stay up al1 night to preach to his wives, would have been horrified with his new image" (Wilson 1976: 1 83). The irrepressible Prajuab Tirabutana wrote that pictures of Brynner in a magazine "made my ears burn hot ... it was through these pictures that people al1 over the world would know Thailand." She wondered where the director of the movie got his ideas on bchaviour from. "His house might be located near the mental hospital," she speculated, "and he might have got used to those manners so he told the actor to copy them from himself" (1958: 38).

The movie "The King and t", like the books it was based on, was writtrn For dramatic effect rather than historical veracity: the musical has Leonowens present at the king's deathbed, whereas she had in fact lefl the country two years previously. In many ways, however, this film treatment perfectly transposed Leonowens' imaginary kingdom ruled by a petty and temperamental tyrant with a flagrant disregard for al1 non-royal humanity. In the first view she offered of him, he was surrounded by "many prostrate, mute, and motionless forms" and was 58 "petulantly screaming" (Leonowens 1988 [1870]: 57). In her books she waxed eloquent on the chi ldishness and cupidity of the Siamese and the ostentatious and barbarous splendour of the royal court and its ruler.

Some of Leonowens' harshest invective against her employer, the king, was reserved for what she perceived as the slavery of the women of the inner palace: his "harem", as she referred to them in the title of her second book. In her mind, "Polygamy - or, properly speaking, concubinage - and slavery are the curses of the country" (1 953 [1873]: 8), and in her writings she frequently conflated the two. Leonowens found the institution of polygarny disgusting, and her rhetoric reached lofty heights as she tried to convey her horror at the situation of the king's wives and concubines: for them, "the sickening hideousness of slavery", "bandage", "pain, defonnity, darkness, death, and etemal emptiness" in "gloomy cells" ( 1988 [1870]: 104); al1 "have the appearance of being slightly blighted" by their confinement inside the royal residence (1953

[1873]: 90). Many of the vibwettes in her books centred around women regaling her with startlingly eloquent pleas for assistance in helping them escape their miserable lives in the palace.

Leonowens constructed an orientalist analogue to the late nineteenth century English

élite women's discourse on male vice and female virtuel6, recreating a familiar and sensationalist

English fear on alien soil. Siamese men in general, and Mongkut in particuiar, were portrayed as

16The title of an article by Judith Walkowitz about élite Englishwomen's construction of male and female sexuality in response to the notorious Contagious Diseases Act, which attempted to halt the spread of venereal diseases by forcibly testing and treating prostitutes while ignoring the men whose bodies linked prostitutes and middle class wives. As Walkowitz pointed out, the imputation of virtue to women and vice to men was problematic: it highlighted men's culpability, but erased some women's agency in choosing prostitution as a viable economic profession, and focused public attention on sensationalist and relatively uncommon problems like white slavery, rather than the pli@ of the working class in a changing Btitain (Walkowitz 1983). 59 geedy and lustful, and women as either sweetly and innocently adoring of their "masters" or bitterly resentful of their "slavery". She took men's polygamy and women's monogamy for granted, recording approvingly the story of a wife who, when her husband fell in love with one of the king's dancen, schemed to obtain that woman for her husband, though without success.

Leonowens related the story on seventeen pages of narrative told to her by a female palace dancer, Choy. Choy recounted how a man had fallen in love with her, and soon after a woman, Boon, became her slave. Boon did not at first reveal to Choy that she was the man's wife, but did tty to help Choy escape to join the man outside the palace. The plot was discovered and Boon confessed to Choy, who "marveled at the geatness of the woman" ( 1953 [1873]: 1 19, as did the judges at her trial. The story ended with both husband and wife being put to death

(107ff).One can't help but wonder what was so admirable about a woman who would sacrifice her own life to allow her husband to be with a woman he had only seen a few tirnes and hardly spoken to. Equally remarkable was Leonowens' ability to understand, let alone remember, such a long speech in a Foreign language. "As soon as Choy left me," Leonowens wrote, "I hurried home and wrote down her narrative word for word, as nearly as I could; but 1 encountered then, as always, the almost insuperable di fticulty in finding a fit clothing for the fervid Eastern imagery in our colder and more precise English" (1 19). She should have given herself more credit: her narratives are nothing if not fervid and imaginative, though she strains her readers' credibility with her insistence that they are mie, word for word.

Leonowens' Siam was really the palace, and she neglected to mention that the majority of people in the country never entered this élite enclave. The plight of the women who did, however, was unlikely to have been as grim as Leonowens suggested. For female commoners and slaves, at least, accommodations, food, and clothing were of much higher quality than they 60

would have been familiar with, and many must have felt honoured to serve a monarch viewed as

semi-divine. For dite wornen the palace was one of the only places to gain an education and the

accomplishments required to make a good mam'age, and many daughters must have gone there

willingly. Some may have found their situation confining and restrictive, and al1 would have to

go to the king's bed chamber if he summoned them, but Mongkut, unlike his predecessors,

al lowed women who had not had children by him to leave the palace if they wishedI7, an

innovation Leonowens left unremarked.

Outside the small circle of the palace, women remained as active and vital in Siamese

economic and social life in the nineteenth century as they had been in the seventeenth. The 1883

Bangkok postal directory supplies evidence that in that year many women were property owners and that they were active "in al1 sectors of the economy, from the royal palace, to professional

life, to the main centers of manufacturing, marketing, and commerce" (Wilson 1990: 87). Arthur

Fredenck Neale, who lived in Bangkok in the 1840s, acknowledged women's vigour at the same time as he denigrated them:

The Siamese women though utterly devoid of any moral principle are, to do them justice, excellent housewives; they toi1 from sun-rise to sun-dom for their husbands and children, cooking, washing, sweeping, and employed upon sundry other household jobs ...The wives of the poorer class of boatmen are often toiling al1 day, paddling a heavily laden canoe up and down the river, striving to eam a few pence ... (1 986 [1852]: 157)

The acerbic Neale went farther, declaring "the Siamese ladies" to be "the ugiiest race of females upon the face of the globe". Interestingly, the lack of gendered attire seemed to distress him the most: "With their hair worn in the same fashion as the men, the same features, same

"A translation of this royal proclamation, promulgated in the third year of Mongkutts reign, is given in Moffat (196 1 : 150-1). 6 1 complexion, same amount of clothing, the man must be a gay Lothano indeed who would be captivated by their leering glances" ( 153). Though Leonowens claimed herself sympathetic to the plight of Siamese women, her descriptions of them were not much more flattering than

Neale's. The first women she met were the wives and concubines of the Kuluhom, or prime minister as she referred to him, and they descended on her like "a bedlam of parrots ...inost of

[whom] m ight have been positively attractive, but for their ingeniously ugly mode of cl i pping the hair and blackening the teeth" (1 988 [1870]: 19). When they suggested to her that she might rather become a wi fe of their husband than of the king, she was "struck dumb by this

"monstrous suggestion", and told them, '"I am not like you. You have nothing to do but to play and sing and dance for your master; but 1 have to work for my children'" (2 1 ).

In true orientalist fashion, Leonowens infantalized Siarnese women and trivialized their concems. In one realm only she allowed both Siamese and European women equality and a lofty maturity: "always when a woman becomes a mother ...she passes from the ignoble to the noble; then she becomes pure, worthy, honourable" (1 953 [1873]: 90). Like the matemal feminists who were to follow, Leonowens invoked a sisterhood of praiseworthy mothers that encompassed al1 women of whatever race. Yet she could not help but reveal her racism in passages such as this:

"the Asiatic races are apt to be indolent, improvident, greedy, intemperate, servile, cruel, vain, inquisitive, superstitious, and cowardly", though "individual variations from the more repulsive types are happily not rare" (1 988 [1870]: 25).

For Leonowens, it seems, the world had two hearts: a (western) heart of iight and a (non- western) heart of darkness, and Siam embodied the latter. She contrasted England (which she hardly knew) "in her light and glory, her civilization, refinement, and power" with "benighted

Siam still bound in the iron fetters of paganism, idolatry, and slavery" (Leonowens 1953 [1873]: 62 154), writing with characteristic rhetoncal flourish that "Siam is. ..a fascinating and provoking

enipa...Like a troubled drearn, delirious in contrast with the coherence and stability of Western

life, the land and its people seem to be conjured out of a secret of darkness, a wonder to the

senses and a mystery to the mind" (Leonowens 1988 [1870]: 287).

lnside the Mongkut she portrayed beat these Iwo hearts; he was, she complained, "a

provoking melange of antiquarian attainments and modem skepticism" (98), a man "clever"

enough to welcorne the teachings of the Christian missionaries yet "dazzle[d by] the golden

throne which arrested him midway between Christianity and Buddhisrn, between truth and

delusion, between light and darkness" (56). Indeed, the most provoking thing about this com plex

man may be that he was rcducible to neither stereotype: the despotic oriental barbarian or the enlightened rational scientist. As we have seen, he corn bined aspects of both orient and occident

in a way which ceded superiority to neither.

Equally vexing for Leonowens was the king's polygamy. Mongkut's numerous wives and concubines lived in the inner palace in what amounted to a srnall ci@ of wornen complete with women shopkeepers, craHs workers, and police; they were traditionally forbidden to sre any man but the king. These women were probably al1 of Asian descent, many obtained from Siam's satellite client kingdorns, though the king rnay also have been interested in obtaining afirrung addition: Leonowens wrote that Mongkut offered "enormous sums...year aRer year ... for an

English woman of beauty and parentage to crown the sensational collection" (94), to no avail. It is doubtful that this quest was quite as constant as Leonowens suggested; however, in a letter from the king to the head of his 1857 embassy to Queen Victoria, Mongkut wrote:

My only regret is that, having had the good fortune to behold the beauty of angels, you have to retum home empty-handed, for you cannot buy them and bring them back like Chinese women. Neverthelas, it might be a good idea to buy sorne of their costumes and bring them back home to dress up some of our earthly beauties here for the sake of vanety. (cited in Moffat 196 1 : 60)

According io the London Times, the embassy visited Kate Hamilton's famous London brothel,

"where one of the senior envoys... continued to dip liberally into the treasures of the two kingdoms until daybreak" (61). The press also reported that the first ambassador offered a woman who caught his eye £3000 to become his fifty-ninth wife (Blofeld 1987: 80).

Could Mongkut have been interested in Leonowens herseIf7 She did no more than hint so in a vague and veiled fashion, but Landon and, following her lead, "The King and I", had the king give Leonowens an expensive diamond ring which she, uncertain of its import, returned

(Landon 1943: 307-8). Interestingly, the very suggestion that Mongkut might have desired

Leonowens raised biographer Rlofeld's ire, who decried the possibility of such "improbably deplorable taste":

That he could ever have felt personally attracted to this, by his standards, nther elderly English widow is laughingly implausible. After all, almost al1 the young beautirs of South-east Asia were his for the asking and for a king of Siam to have carnal relations with a woman who had formerly belonged to another man must have seemed to him an utterly repugnant notion. (1987: 47)

Smithies thought that Blofeld "rightly dismisse[d] out of hand" the suggestion that Mongkut

"had designs on his children's English teacher", and echoed him in asking why the king "with as many wives (and more) as he could wish for from the fairest in the land, be even passingly interested in second-hand goods whose charms, if any, were fading" (1995: 135).

Unlike these two writers, 1 find the suggestion that Mongkut was attracted to Leonowens quite plausible. She was hardly "elderly" or "fading7', for she was only thirty-one when she entered the king's employ, and was handsome, strong-willed, and clever. Mongkut appreciated 64 these qualities in a woman: a description by a British consul of a wife elevated to queenly status

characterized her as 'hot a geat beauty, even according to Siamese conception" and mentioned

"her handsorne figure, beautiful eyes and intelligent face, but above al1 her amiable and affable

manner" as "render[ing] her very interesting" (letter from Sir Robert Schomburgk, quoted in

Jumsai 1991 : 152). Blofeld had already intimated that the king found furmg women attractive,

and so it appears at least feasible that the king could have found Leonowens an enticing and

available woman. Blofeld and Smithies dismissal of this possibility was so vehement and so

derogatory to Leonowens that Ican't hel p but wonder if they are revealing a deepseated

misogyny which found a hapless target in the vigorous and opinionated Leonowens.

1f Leonowens found Mongkut provoking, he reciprocated the feeling, refemng to her,

memorably, as "one great difficulty" ( 1988 [1870]: 280). When she left the kingdom, he told her,

"'1 am often angy on you, and lose my temper, though 1 have large respect for you. But

nevertheless you ought to know you are difficult woman, and more difficult than generality"'.

She professed herself unable to reply as her eyes filled with tears (283). Here, as in some other

instances, she betrayed her affection for a man who, even she had to admit, was "the most

remarkabie of the Oriental princes of the present century, - unquestionably the most progressive of all the suprerne rulers of Siam" (337).

Others concurred with this characterization. Sir John Bowring, goveemr of Hong Kong, visited Bangkok in 1855 as British envoy, negotiated a treaty with Mongkut, and had much

favourable to Say about the king and his rule. On their first, informai meeting he found Mongkut

"very gracious" and accessible: "1 sat opposite his Majesty, only a table being between us ...An amicable conversation took place, which lasted some time" (1969 vol. 2: 271). He spoke approvingly of the main supporters and aides of the king; the Kuiuhom he judged "a most sagacious man, towering far above every other person whom we have met - of paceful,

gentlemanly nianners and appropriate lanyage" (282). Like many contemporaryfurung, he

reserved his highest praise for the second king'" who he opined Las "a cultivated and intelligent gentleman, writing and speaking English with geat accuracy, and living much in the style of a courteous and opulent European noble, fond of books and scientific inquiry, interested in al1 that marks the course of civil ization" (vol. I : 446)

Bowing repeated the prejudices of his day in reading signs of Europeanization as symbols of progress and civil ijration. Some Europeans, however, were abashed to Rnd themselves out-civilized by the Siamese. Mellersh, captain of one of Bowring's vessels, thought it "a wonderful thing to hear the King of a Country so little known and heard of as Siam, speaking and wn'ting English better than nine foreigers out of ten who live within 50 miles of our country" (Tarling 1975: 1 18). Mellersh professed himself "astonished at the "great minuteness" with which some visitors exarnined everything about the ship and the "very pertinent questions" they asked, and concluded with some surprise that "men may be very intelligent tho' they do not Wear shirts" (108). Leaming that the second king had built a steamship, he declared, ''1 believe (indeed there is no doubt about it) that he understands more about the steam engine than 1 do, for 1 could not make a steam ençine if it were to Save my Me"

(1 20).

18Traditionally, Siamese kings appointed a uparat, or heir-apparent, who was usually a brother, son, or uncle. When Mongkut was crowned, he chose to elevate his brother Chudamani to upurur to reign jointly with him, apparently to "neutralize his powerful brother (and his small army) by holding open the possibility of immediate power as well as an enhanced chance at succession t-O the throne" (Wyatt 1984: 182). Perhaps because this man was a brother and not a son, furang were confused about his status, and usually referred to him as the second king. Relations between the brothers were strained, in part because many furung preferred the more even- tempered and Europeanized Chudamani to Mongkut. 66 The treaty which resulted from this visit was said by Bowring to have brought about a

"total change in the system of taxation.. .uproot[ing] a great number of privileges and monopolies ... held by the most influential nobles", and the Englishrnan expressed satisfaction ai his own role in this "total revolution in al1 the financial machinery of the Government" (1969

[1857] vol. 3: 226). Bowrihg's hubris and its subsequent repetition in many texts has bern recently challenged by a wetl-known historian of Thailand, who pointed out that "The envoy's excessive daims seem to have been slavishly accepted; British imperialist bias seems to have blinded historians and ...prevented a judicious and balanced assessrnent of the econornic effects of the treaty" (Terwiel 199 1 : 45). He noted that treaty negotiations and economic restructuring had been instigated by the Siamese themselves, and his re-examination revealed that intemal taxation was not liberalized in the wakc of the signing, as Bowring had boasted, but continued unabated, in part because of the ternis of the treaty iisel f, which set some tari ffs consonant with pre-treaty levels and did not specify many others. The main and lasting effect of the sibwing,

Terwiel concludrd, was a removal of protective import bamers, which soon undemined thriving indigenous industries and transforrned the Chao Phraya delta into a mono-cropping area (43-5).

Still, the endorsement of this treaty was viewed as a success by the British, and similar documents were soon signed with other European nations as well as the United States.

Placating western powers by negotiating treaties which appeared to give more than they actually did was one tactic Mongkut used to curb European expansionist desips. Another was to insist on presenting his kingdom on an equal footing with foreign powers in al1 dealings. His shrewd understanding of the process of colonization was revealed in a private address to members of a Prussian expedition: First, ships are sent out to explore the unknown parts of the world. Then other ships follow for the purpose of trading. Then merchants settle down, who are either fought by the natives or who try to subjugate the native population. In short, wars emerge out of guilt and misunderstanding on both sides. The foreipers keep extending their influence until entire empires belong to them. Nowadays there is hardly any country left for new colonies, except for Oceania and the islands of the South Sea. The Asian countries have been in a disadvantageous position since the noms of Western international law have not been applied to them. (cited in Martin 1990: 39)

Detennined to resist this fate, and like Narai before him, Mongkut strove to receive foreign envoys in a manner befitting both European and Siamese custom, ofien frustrating visitors like the diplomat Parkes, who, wanting nothing more than to conclude his mission and leave the kingdom as fast as possible, complained bitterly of delays (Jumsai 1991 : 74ff). In a letter to

Queen Victoria, Mongkut signed himself "Your Majesty's distinguished friend by race of the royalty affectionate brother", alluding to a fiaternity on their shared exalted positions (188). He wrote to Abraham Lincoln offering to send elephants to aid hirn in the civil war; the American president politely declined in his 1862 replyl".

If Mongkut himself is littte known in the west outside of the distorted lens of "The King and IV, his son Chulalongkom is even less so. In the musical movie, the boy was made king at his fatherts death, and in an alcove next to his father's body immediately abolished compulsory prostration, provoking cheers From court members and a fond look from Anna. In the dramatic cinematic version, the boy was suddenly transformed into a man, and paced the garden deep in conversation with the govemess, presumably plotting the future of the kingdom. The death of the

"Landon contended that Mongkut's "fertile brain ...conceived a service that he thought he might render the United States" and in her book provided the text of the king's offer and the president's response (1943: 129-30); she correctly noted that the exchange had occured before Leonowens came to Siam. Dow, however, had the letter written by Leonowens herself at the king's dictation; Leonowens was "shocked, in Dow's fictional incident, but "had learned the hard way" to "give in and do as she was bidden, no matter how ridiculous it might seem" (1991: 41). 68 father again freed the son to pursue the course of freedom and democracy. In reality, the fifteen- year-old was gavely il1 and Leonowens long since departed when his father the king passed away. Many thought the young monarch would die, but he survived and prospered, though power was held by a repnt until he came of age at twenty. Today Chulalongkom, Rama V, and the currently reigning Bhumibol, Rama IX, are the most revered kings of the Chakn dynasty, and their photos are found everywhrre in the kingdom. Rama V is pictured in fomal state dress with one of his wives; with a dozen or more sons ranged beside him in order of height, each decked out in tophat and tails; squatting on the porch of his palace dressed in a sumng cooking curry over a simple charcoal bumer. Though ubiquitous now, such images were rare in his day, allowing him to indulge his penchant for taking incognito trips around the country to meet and talk with cornmoners.

Chulalongkom did not enjoy defucto power until he came of age in 1873, a date which many, like historian Akin Rabibhadana (1969: l), use to divide Siamese history into a premodem and a modemizing period. Hollywood did not invent his dramatic fint proclamation: at his coming-of-açe coronation, the young king placed the crown upon his headZ0and immediately abolished the ancient custom of prostration. "At that instant all in the great assembly stood up, and 1 assure you that it was a most impressive and mernorable sight," wrote one of his brothers who witnessed the spectacle (Rajanubhab 1959: 12). It was a symbolic and dramatic demonstration that Siam was to undergo radical change during this reign, change which eschewed many of the traditional symbols and practices of power and refigured the nation in a more western idiom.

20Sinceno one is of high enough status to reach over the king's head to place the crown on it, he must do it himself. 69 An earlier and equally symbolic innovation was a visit Chulalongkom made in 1871 -7 to

Malaya, Indonesia, Bunna, and India. Never before had a Siamese rnonarch traveled so Far from rnainiand Southeast Asia. Removal of the person of the king from the centre of the polity was a radical depanure from traditional statecraft, but no il1 befell Siam during the young king's absence and the trip gave him a chance to view first hand many examples of modem administration. According to secretary's reports, while abroad he visited factories, amed forces, and public works, and was impressed with much of what he saw (Anon. 1987: 67ff). Such sights may have provided inspiration for sorne of the administrative changes which Chulalongkorn was to institute.

Many early reforms in the fiflh reign fundamentally challenged the oid order and threatened the power bases of the traditional élite. Men like the regent C'huophryu Suriwong -

"the single most important political figure in the kingdom until his death in 1883" (Wyatt 1975:

132) - had been considered reforrners in Mongkut's day, but in Chulalongkom's eyes had become huu borun, ancient heads. They had traditionally enjoyed substantial control of goods, taxes, and manpower, but decrees requiring the public auctioning of opium and gambling monopolies, centralized budgeting, and the gradua1 abolition of slaveiy began to erode this control. Though the young king's innovations may have been inspired by western administrative methods, they were publicly justified in Buddhist moral terms with which even the huu homn could not argue

(Wyatt 1984: 192).

lnstead of sending his formidable coterie of well-educated brothers to outlying provinces to rule, Chulalongkom kept them with him in the capital. Early in his reign he drew on them to form a pnvy counci! which oversaw much of the administration of the kingdom, further striking a blow to the pwer of the hua borun; by the 1890s he placed the most capable of them in charge 70 of newl y formed min istries and departments. The king, his brothers and supporters, numerous

govemment-employed foreign experts, and a growing number of educated young Siamese and

Chinese nobles embarked on a path of centralization which transfonned Siam by, for example, training a modem anned forces, rnapping the borders of the kingdom (Winichakul 1994), developing a standardized educational curriculum(Wyatt 1979, and beginning an aggressive campaign of building public works like roads, railways, and waterworks. By Chulalongkom's death in 1 9 1 0, concluded Wyatt, "The bureaucracy had become a national service instead of a series of local ones topped by the limited circle of the court" ( 144). The foundations had been laid for the tightly centralized nation state which is Thailand today.

Not al 1 was innovative, however, and Ho1 lywood fictions notwi thstanding,

Chulalongkorn was no democrat. In an 1890 decree, he deplored the paucity of educated men of noble background: "His Majesty needs many more govemment oficials...[ and] if a man has sufficient knowledge and ability, His Majesty will maintain him in govemment service without regard for his background; but if he is of good family, so much the better" (cited in Wyatt 1975:

139). Many monarchial institutions continued virtualiy unchanged. Like his father before him,

Chulalongkorn had numerous wives and concubines and many children; unlike his predecessor, he sent his offspring abroad to various foreign countries to be educated. He initially retained the position of uparat, naming George Washington, the son of his father's uporut Chudamani, as his own second king. When this man died, however, the king elevated one of his own sons to crown prince, a rank more consonant with European tradition and one which has continued to the present. Chulalongkom also provided promising young nobles and commoners with king's scholarships to enable them to study abroad; on their retum, they were virtually guaranteed important positions in the growing bureaucracy which was transfonning the country. 7 1

Chulalongkom, like Mongkut, was detennined to move as an equal among European powers, and was visibly able to do so during two visits to Europe in 1897 and 1907. Stopping in several countries to visit sons in schools and academies throughout Europe, he was received by important European leaders: photographs in the Thai commemorative volume King

Chulalongkorn of Thailand Travels Abroad (Anon. 1987) show him, regal in formal European dress, with the czar Nicholas and the general Bismarck. A grandson noted that his visits were "a real success," in part "because he could converse easily and intimately with European royalty, being the first Asian monarch to talk to them directly in English instead of through interpreters"

(Chakrabongse 1960: 254).

Chulalongkorn died in 1910, and his son Vajiravudh, the first Thai king to be educated abroad, took the throne. Wyatt characterized Vajiravudh's contribution to Siamese statehood as

"breathing life into Chulalongkorn's state and giving it a consciousness of itself, at least at an

élite level" (1984: 224). During his reig the military began its rise to power, and the historically familiar "petty rivalry of princely brothers engaged in dynastic squabbles" gave way to a new phenornenon, "a military plot by outsiders": a goup of young military officers of commoner backgrounds were arrested in 19 12 for planning a coup (227). Vajiravudh died suddenly in 1925 at 44, and Prajadhipok, Chulalongkom's youngest surviving son by the queen, took the throne.

During this period élites gained so much in power and influence that they were able to stage a successful coup in 1932; the monarchy was overthrown and a constitutional monarchy was instituted. Prajadhipok rernained in Siam for a time, but relations with the new nilers were strained, and he went into voluntary exile in 1934 and abdicated the following year. The royalty which had guided and shaped the Siamese nation for so long declined in influence and 72 importance as local and foreign-educated élites took over the reigps of leadership, a shi ft soon

marked by a name change, as Siam became Thailand.

The fmng presence in the new nation did not change substantially until the lndochinese

wars brought large numbers of foreign soldiers into the country; the demise of that conflici was closely followed by a dramatic increase in international tourism. Tounsm has become very big business for Thailand in the last tèw decades: tourist arrivals increased from two million in 1980 to seven million in 1995, an annual growth rate of almost 1 O%, and receipts from the industry over the same period climbed from USâ870 million to US$7,600 million, a 16% annual growth rate (World Tounsm Organization 1997: 14-5). The majonty offurung who visit Thailand these days do not corne to the kingdom as missionaries, diplomats, explorers, or traders, as in previous centuries, but rather as consumers of what the country has to offer, summarized with admirable alliteration by Malcolm Crick as sun, sex, sights, savings, and servility ( 1989).

Diversity, Assimilation, and Positionality

Perhaps the stnking thing for me about the Siamese world and world view as represented in the texts 1 have discussed thus far is that it was suffused with a tolerance of, and willingness to leam from, divenity and difference. Cosmopolitan acceptance was embodied in the diverse

Asian communities who lived around the island capital of Ayuthaya, their numbers swelled at tirnes by furang settlers from a variety of countries. Siamese broad-mindedness was evidenced by the fieedom of worship and proselytization granted furmg Christian missionaries; possibilities for drawing difference in and assimilating it were illustrated by the elevation of

Phaulkon in the Ayuthayan court and by Mongkut's integration of western ideas and technologies into an evolving Siamese statecraft which included traditional concepts and practices. Siamese 73 urbanity contrasts sharply with westem responses to contact with it: even the most admiring

jurung writers characterized the Siamese as simian and simple, lazy and deceitful; they rarely

accorded Buddhism acceptance and respect consonant with that granted their own religious

beliefs; and they tended to dismiss Siamese customs and traditions as superstitious and

barbarous. Traces of these views persist in the continuing popularity of productions li ke "The

King and 1", a fabulous fantasy of an oriental other that, as we have seen, bears little

resemblance to a Siam of the past or a Thailand of the present.

The material in this chapter also suggests that texts can be interpreted as expressions of

situated individuals, and 1 have shown how careful readings may reveal something about those

individuals and thei r psitionings in corn plex historical and cultural j unctures. 1 proposed, for

example, that some westem male writers of travel accounts betrayed a desire for non-western

women so unspeakable at the time that it could only be divulged in veiled fashion, through

prurient fascination and fantasy. I discemed in Leonowens' determined denigration of Siamesr

lifeways an insecurity and unease with her own marginal position on the fringes of the British empire, and discussed the success of her writings in terms of their consolidations of nineteenth-

century orientalist and feminist discourses. 1 wondered if some of the attacks upon her, when they became personal and questioned her desirability as a sexual beinç, revealed a modem anti-

feminist sentiment. My attempts to situate texts in culture and history, though speculative, are a vital step in extending my earlier theoretical discussion of gounded subjectivity and

positionality into a deeply politicized and genderized way of reading. Two

Ethnographie Preoccupations

chapter extends the discussion of the genealogy of Thai-western relations into

territory of ethnography proper. I begin with a brief discussion of mid- twentieth century American goveminental involvement in ethnob~aphicresearch in Thailand, and then move on to a thorough examination of themes which recur in much of the ethnographic literature on the country. The tirs1 set of discourses concem the apparent calntness and smoothness of Thai social interaction and theories about the origins of this serenity, its function, and what lies beneath the exterior of peaceful interpersonal relations. These themes are concemed with politeness, face, and affect; discussion here is sometimes uncomplimentary, portraying the Thai as duplicitous and larcenous, or as shallow and incapable of feeling deep emotions. The second set of discourses concern questions about the relative importance of structure, individuality, and hierarchy in the Thai social order; controversies here centre around whether Thai social organization is fluid or complexly stnictured and whether individuais are 75 free to behave according to their own wishes or constrained by formal and informal rules to

confom to expected standards. The interpretation of hierarchy is also debated, and whether the

social inequalities that do exist should be seen as benign or exploitative. The image of peaceful

and placid Thai social interaction suggested by ethnographen in the first section is challenged by the focus on power and inequality in the second, and by the existence of radical theories and

social movements which have been violently suppressed by the Thai state in the last century.

This material differs substantially from that in the previous chapter in a nurnber of ways.

The writers 1 discussed there were exposed pnmady to élite Thai li fe, and often had personal audiences with the highest personage in the land, the king, while twentieth century anthropologists have most contact and familiarity with commoners. Anthropologists are more interested in understanding and explaining the regularities in Thai modes of behaviour and interaction than discussing the racial physio~momyof the Siamese or the character and appearance of Siam's leaders. Though today manyfurung anthropologists study in Thai urban centres, as 1 did, in previous decades they generally lived for extended periods in smail rural villages; whether based in urban or rural environs, ethnogaphers enjoy a prolonged and visceral experience of everyday Thai life rarely shared by furang visitors in previous centuries. Finally, the anthropological discourse is largely modemist: it eschews ethnocentric bias and strives for impartial, scientific representations of Thai lifeways - though individual ethnographhers have not always been successful in reaching this goal, as we shall see.

The material in this chapter is important, too, in that it includes a substantial amount of material w-ritten by Thai people themselves. In the previous chapter 1 discussed Thai reactions to

Jarmg presence primarily in tems of the responses of two kings whose actions and beliefs were largely filtered through texts byjiirung. In the last century things have changed: an increasing number of Thai academics, in Thailand and abroad, have studied English-language texts,

anthropological and othenvise, and responded, in English, to what they have read. The

ethnogaphic discourses 1 consider in this chapter were initially codi fied by furung, who set their

terms, and the Thai whose writings 1 examine generally worked within the bounds laid down by

foreign experts to support, refine, or refute aspects of western theorizations. This material, then,

can be taken to reveal relationships of acadernic and cultural power and resistance, of western

discourses about Thailand and Thai responses to those codifications.

1 draw in this chapter on Thai texts, but Ido not want to suggest that insider - Thai -

views of Thai culture, personality, or social structure, simply by virtue of their insidrr status, are

more complete, correct, or important than outsider - in this case,jurung - perspectives. Thai

views are not more valid than others, but they do provide one important source for critical

commentary on English-language ethnographic literature on Thailand. Another important source

is contained in the wtitings of furmg themselves. 1 have been speaking thus far as iffurmg and

Thai were two monolithic and opposed groups, but this is not the case. As always in academic writings, debates in the ethnographic literature on Thailand are many, lively, and sometimes hanh. Furung anthropologists disagree amongst themselves about Thai culture, personality, and social structure; Thai academics differ with somefurung, support others, and dispute with each other over these same issues. 1 draw attention to and critically evaluate these disagreements and attempt, where possible, to position writers in historical context to understand how their theoretical perspectives were influenced by their academic milieu.

I think it important to acknowledge, too, that although the ethnographies 1 discuss in this chapter were largely based on studies of rural commoners and peasants, the Thai writers 1 draw from, regardless of their backgrounds, have joined the rads of the élite by virtue of their 77 education. Cornmoners and peasants remain relatively silent in these works, spoken about and spoken for, but not speaking for themselves. Thus there are subjugated knowledges in Thailand itself: views of non-élite Thai whose words and writings, if any, have not made it into the

English language. Though 1 point briefly to such knowledges, my primary focus is the English ethnographic literature on Thailand and Thai responses to it.

Affect and Expression

Before 1 commence with an analysis of ethnographic literature, 1 will briefly discuss

American govemmental involvement in scholarship on Thailand, which extended, sometimrs, to direct funding. For example, one of the earliest monopaphs on Thailand was penned by Ruth

Benedict in 1943 in her capacity as an employee of the Office of War Information in

Washington DC (Babcock 1995: 122); at this time Thailand was at war with the allied powers and peacefully occupied by Japan. Like her longer and better known Ch rysanthemum and the

Sword, Bendedict's Thai Culture and Behavior was compiled from secondary sources - al l but one byfarang - and interviews with Thai in the United States, and its stated purpose was "to investigate their way of life and regularities of their customary behavior for the use of those who will deal with them duhg and aller the wary'( 1952: ii).

Navy cultural advisor Robert Mole was even more explicit about how his research served govemmental interests; his master's thesis, published as Thai Values and Behavior Patterns, was undertaken as part of "NavyMarine Personal Response, a systematic effort in intercultural attitude improvement ...in Southeast Asia" (1973: 12). He entitled his first chapter, "Why

Thailand?", and answered by offering an "awareness that the United States is the major political- economic-military force thwarting the expansion of communism" and that "the Kingdorn of Thailand is strategically important to the total American effort in the Pacific Basin" (1 -2).

Mole's is not a scholarly work, plagued as it is by simplistic theorizing2', factual error2

plagiarism2', but it is in the University of Toronto library and is one of the few works to be

retumed when searching for references on Thai values, which is how 1 discovered it.

Most serious ethnographic work was less directly guided or funded by the govemment, but indirect influences may be inferred. John Embree's germinal article on Thailand was written

from impressions gathered during "a brief time in Thailand as a cultural affairs officer at the end of World War II" (Kirsch 1969: 39), after Japan's ignoble defeat had precipitated Thailand's retum to a western sphere of influence. Embree's paper influenced a generation of scholars from

Amencan unîversi tics who undertook intensive and long-tem village studies in di fferent regions

''~eviewed religion as "one of the strongest cultural determinants" (1973: 39) and invoked it to explain almost every aspect of Thai behaviour he identified, but his analysis was nidimentat-y, relying on a formulait understanding of Buddhist doctrine rather than practice and almost totally ignoring animism.

--Herbert') 7 Philiips' monogaph Thai Peasant Personality was deemed "excellent" but rnisnamed Thai Peasant Psychology (1 973: 66).

"Of works more penetrating and grammatically correct than his own, as this excerpt reveals:

The social hierarchy must be scanned up and down to confirm and hold one's place ...one must not forget to make side glances as someone out there may be a potential rival for higher position ... he will be given no quarter nor will he ask for any for it will be in vain ...The impermanence of such arrangements soon wilts the Westemer who has no immunity to the seemingly [sic] chaos which continues. (Mole 1973: 90)

Compare with the original, L. Hanks:

...one must look up and down the hierarchy to confinn one's position ...the wary person must not forget an occasional glance to the side, to someone standing near one's station in another group. He is a potential rival for higher station, should be granted no quarter and expects none. Occidentals, lacking immuniîy to the kind of chaos which the Thai scene pennits, wilt under the impermanence of arrangements. ( 1962: 1256) 79 of the kingdom; during this era the US was increasingly concemed with containing communism and Thailand was seen as a major American bulwark in Southeast Asia. Interestingly, much of this research falls under the theoretical rubric of culture and personality: were Americans more cornfortable with psychologicai than politico-economic explanations for Thailand's acquiescence to Japanese occupation or the possibility of its falling prey to the Chinese "red peril"? Several prominent American anthropologists who studied Thailand dunng this penod - Lauriston Sharp,

Herbert Phillips, Charles Keyes, Michael Moennan, and Steven Piker, in particular - were censured by the Amencan Anthropological Association (AAA) in 197 1 because of their alleged involvement with American counterinsurgency efforts in Thailand during the 1960s and 70s. A recent reassessment of the "Thai land controversy" suggests that the govemment's courting of anthropologists was generally more enthusiastic than their responses to it and that some of these ethnographers initially cooperated with the govemment in an attempt to effect change on bureaucratie structures and approaches from within, only to abandon these efforts when their

Çutility became apparent. Still, the accusations raised a furore in the discipline and led to the formulation of more stnngent AAA ethical guidelines for anthropological research (Wabin

1992).

How did ethnobvaphic literature portray Thailand? The image of the Thai as smiling, polite, and hospitable figured in many anthropological texts, and has become a standard cliché:

Tourkm Authority of Thailand posters which grace the walls of many Thai restaurants in

Toronto feature Thai, usually women, kneeling and smilingly proffering food or offerings; the slogan for the "Year of Tourism" when 1 was in Thailand was ''The Land of Srnile""; the title of

"~hefinal "s" of English plurals is ofien overlooked by native Thai speakers and is one common marker of what 1 cal1 "Thenglish, the unique blend of Thai and English which many fumng and Thai in Thailand use to communicate. In a study of communication patterns between Thai and 80

a book by British historian W. A. R. Wood was Land of Smiles (1 935). Smiling politeness has

usually been interpreted by anthropologists as functional for social hannony: sociologist Niels

Mulder charactcrized the Thai propensity to smile and be charming and polite "as a means of

smooth and pol ite presentation of self' which helped to ensure confl ict-free interactions ( 1 990:

ix), and anthropologist Herbert Phillips dubbed the "ubiquitous politeness" of the villagers he

studied a "social cosmetic" which serves to maintain smooth social relations ( 1965: 66).

Drawing on metaphors of theatre and make-up, such constructions suggest that smiles are masks

donned for social interaction, and raise questions about what lies behind their smooth surface.

Ruth Benedict, in her Thai Culture and Behavior, had a benign view of Thai psychic

life. In keeping with her general methods of study, she looked to the basic "unit of Thai life", the

biological family (1 953: 18), for her cxplanation of Thai character, and she discemed "a long

and remarkably permissive in fancy" which allowed a "psychic security which makes possible

Thai cheerfulness, easy conviviality, and non-violence" (44). Her Thai exhibited a "careless self-

reliance" and "enjoyment of life" as gneral characteristics (22, 33). This picture of childhood

security was contradicted by psychological anthropologist Steven Pi ker (e.g. 1968, 1 969, 1 97 5),

who thought the first years of a Thai child's life "dominated by almost unqualified indulgence"

which "ends suddenly and, from the child's point of view, unpredictably, at the age of two or

three, because of a new pregnancy or economic reasons". The lessons leamed from these early

experiences, he argued, "endure and form a matrix" which "define or 'determine"' for the child

"the world's general characteristics", particularly its uncertainty. Piker's villagee were portrayed furung in Thailand, Cohen and Cooper surmised that a cornmon patois did not develop; rather "each mixed couple or small group develops a private patois of its own" which reflected "the particular linguistic cornpetence of its members". He hypothesized that the "temporariness" of encounters, coupled with the intimacy of sharing a private patois, precluded standardization and institutionalization of Thenglish (1986: 553). 8 1 as anxious and careful in "virtually al1 their interpersonal relations"; they were "wary of the

intentions of others" and approached "interpersonal involvement with considerable caution and

suspicion" ( 1968: 39 1 ). Psychologist Barton Sensenig disputed Piker's findinçs, arguing that by

linking mental dispositions to birth order, Piker implied that those who had younger siblings

would have a geater mistrust of others than those who did not. After administering

questionnaires to a hundred high school students and their families in Chiang Mai, Sensenig

found that "there is no sigificant difference in trust scores between children with younger

siblings and those without younger siblings" and that distrustful behaviour was not "an irrational

residue from an early childhood experience", but rather the result of "a rational attitude of

caution" about "real motives and feelings" in a society that valued "social cosrnetics" to

"maintain smooth interpersonal relations" ( 1975: 1 16-7).

Herbert Phillips? in his psychological profile of inhabitants of the "Comell village", Bang

Chan", concurred that though villagers viewed interpersonal relationships as fraught with

"unpredictability and undependability7', their "major anxiety" was "matters pertaining to survival and the physical and material well-being of the individual" (1965: 38, 183). Here is a clue to the ease and security Benedict discerned: the Thai she interviewed in the US were most likely élite members, and their life situations would have differed from those of Piker's or

Phillips' villagers. The Thai population has increased dramatically in this century, from just over

9.2 million in 1919 to 55.5 million in 1990 (National Statistical Office 1997: 15), and poverty and landlessness has grown arnonç rural villagers. Economic and psychic secuity, though not

'5~small settlement just north of Bangkok which served as a study site for a generation of researchers fiom Comell. 82 synonymous, are not unrelated, and adults' anxiety over their inability to support children and aging parents must communicate itself to children somehow.

The parameters of the social cosmetic of politeness are oflen analyzed in terms of vocabulary, in particular krengjui, jui yen, and choei, dubbed social smoothing values by Thai psychologist Suntaree Kornin (1 990). The first two contain the word jui, usually translated as heart but having the connotation of temperament (J. Hanks 1965: 82). Krcng jui has been translated as "feeling bad to bother others" (Wichiencharoen 1976: 126); "feeling considerate for another person, not want to impose or cause other person trouble, or hurt hisher feelings"

(Komin 1990: 162); "self-effacement", "humbleness", and "avoid[ing] intruding upon or embarrassing others" (Phillips 1965: 1 84,4940); or simply "awe" (Mulder 1990: 56). Mole's rendering, "respect for superiors with humility and obedience to authority" ( 1973: 74), implies that only inferiors feel kreng jui, an interpretation disputed by Thai psychoiogist Komin:

the concept of kreng jui cuts across the dimension of superior-inferior, as well as intimate or farniliarity-unfamiliarity dimension, even husband-wi fe, and close fnends observe some degree of krmg jui. A Thai knows how far he should go in displaying the degree of krmgjui in accordance with different prrsons, different degrees of familiarity, and different situations. But definitely, it is a basic social rule to be kreng jui. ( 1990: 167)

./ai yen translates literally as "cool heart", and has been interpreted as "~ei~conirol"

(Mulder 1990: 56), "calm, easy-going, not easily excited" (Komin 1990: 175); "not being anxious when con fronting problems ... not getting angry easily. ..not becoming easily excited or emotionally disturbed" (Podhisita 1985: 40). Its opposite is the negatively valued jui ron, "hot heart". To be jai yen is to remain choei or choci-choeiZ6,defined as "no response... not wanting to

'6Thai adjectives are often doubled for emphasis. 83 give any response as a means to avoid making negative answer or making any clear position"

(Komin 1990: 18 1 ) or as "indifferencz" (Mulder 1990: 56). Interestingly, Phillips' translation -

"being quiet ...feeling strongly about a situation but expressing nothing, assuming an attitude of

indi fference or non-involvement" ( 1965: 60, 50) - implies strong affect kept in check, yet he also claimed that the Thai "do not live at, and rarely reach, a high emotional pitch" (60).

Thai social scientist Titaya Suvanajata took issue with this latter contention, arguing that not showing emotion should be distinguished from not feeling it and that Phillips confused the surface appearance of placidity with intemal calm. "Thai clearly differentiate the observable from feeling behavior", or action from emotion, and do not need to bring the two in line ( 1976:

1 76). According to Thai political scientist Adul Wichiencharoen, containment of emotion is preferable to its expression if its articulation will cause discord:

If [Thai] have to choose between politeness and sincerity, they will probabiy choose the former ... If this. ..is employed for deceitful purposes or personal gain, it is considered morally deplorable and should not be practiced. However, if one does it just for the purpose of politeness, not wanting to disappoint of [sic] hurt others, avoiding creation of aninosity [sic] against oneself it is justifiable. ( 1976: 126-7)

PhiIlipst research supported this finding, revealing an "ovenvhelming agreement an the part of the villagers about the desirability of hiding one's feelings" (1965: 169).

Chai Podhisita, an anthropologist and former monk, linked social smoothing values to

Buddhism, in keeping with his view that "if we take away the Buddhist component, there is little to Say about [Thai culture]... the orientation towards Buddhism is all-important and all- pewasive" (1985: 30). He found that "typically Thai values" likejui yen were "probably related to Buddhist doctrine" which understands life as suffering and advocates equanirnity and detachment as practices to avoid suffering and pain. Social smoothing values leave the 84 responsibility for hurting others on the shoulders of the perpetrator, the one who will reap the

demerit incumbent upon their actions (40ff). Psychologists Sensenig and Komin, however, took

a more empiricist view. Sensenig compared 44 Christian and 44 Buddhist students, matched by

school, "father's occupation, father's education, and whether he was raised in the town or a

village", and found ''absolutely no significant differences... on any oîour sixteen personality

variables" ( 1975: 1 10). Komin, on the basis of a survey which asked more than a thousand Thai

to rank a series of adjectives in order of importance to themselves, found no statistical

correspondence between values like jui yen and Buddhism (1 990: 175). She derided the use of

Buddhism as an "all-purpose, blanket label" for Thai society (l4), a practice which Thai social

scientists Namsirichai and Vichit-Vadakan have labelled the "equation of Buddhism wi th Thai- ism".

Phillips thought "the cosmetic of politeness" to be "one of the most 'civilized' modes of social interaction" because it structured behaviour in ways that respect the dignity of others and allow easy, uncomplicated, and undisturbing interaction ( 1965: 66). By contrast, many Thai stress that there is more than Feelings at stake in smooth social relations. Namsirichai and Vichit-

Vadakan see "considerable tension hidden behind a facade of smiling faces'' in Thai social interaction, "covert but real aggressiveness" in relations between fnends, and a gneral

"competi tiveness and determination" which is ''ofken unrecognized becausr of the outward appearance of placidity, gentleness, subtlety, and permissiveness" (1973: 83). Wichiencharoen invoked the Thai saying "a man could die because of his mouth": a person could respond to a slight with violent, even murderous, anger (1976: 129). Komin explained this type of response as arising out of a sensitive sense of self: Thai people have a very big ego, a deep sense of independence, pride and dignity. They cannot tolerate any violation of the 'ego' self Despite the cool and calm front, they can be easily provoked to strong emotional reactions, if the 'self or anybody close to the 'self like one's mother and father, is insulted. Basically, it boils down to the question of 'face' and 'dignity'. Violation to the 'ego' self cannot be tolerated. ( 1990: 16 1 )

Where Thai see physical danger lurking beneath the surface of smiling self-presentation,

a number of furung discem other sinister possibil ities: larceny, lies, and laziness. Embree

considered "the uner insecurity of physical property" to be "an important fact in Thai life"

( 1950: 1 87). Benedict concluded her study by asserting that "the Thai identi Fy psychic security

with not being a dupe" (1952: 45), while Embree thought that "To tell a lie successfully, to dupe

someone else, is praiseworthy in Thai society", though having the lie discovered is not ( 1950:

186-7). "The typical Bang Chaner excels at the an of indicating agreement with people ...and

then ...doing precisely what he wants, oflen the exact opposite of that to which he had agreed",

opined Phillips, though, he added, no duplicity was intended (1 965: 79). Piker wrote of being stnicli, as "any visitor" would, by "the spontaneity of the villager ...the casual ease with which encounters are initiated and terminated; the frequency with whiçh a vi llager simply.. .walks off a job (wage work) if it doesn't please him or if he desires more pleasurable activity" ( 1 968: 3 89-

90). Embree and Benedict concurred: "Work is not regarded as good in itself," opined Embree,

"[and] a good deal of attention [is] paid to things which give enjoyment" (1 950: 190) while

Benedict characterized the Thai as "indolent rather than hard-working" (1952: 44).

By contrast, during my stays in Thailand in the late 1980s and in 1991 -2,i was ofien struck by how hard many Thai did work. My first friend in Bangkok was a teenager fiom han, the northeast, the poorest part of the countiy. Like many impoverished rural people she had migrated to an urban capital in search of income, and had found it at the guest house where 1 met 86 her. She had been employed there for two years, and worked eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, with a nap and shower break in the afiernoon. She got three days holiday a year at

Songkran, Thai New Year, and received room and board and Can.$6O a month, half of which she sent home to her family. Her board consisted of a bed in a room shared with three other employees; in many cases, it is simply a mat on a floor. She had no welfare benefits and no chance of promotion.

The imputation of laziness to such people seems incredible unless it is placed, as Anne

McClintock argues it must be, in a firmly rooted historical tradition which defines labour in particular ways and associates poverty with sloth. This "intricate discourse on idleness... emerged.. .to sanction and en force social discipline, to legi timize land plunder and to alter habits of labor ...[It] is, more properly speaking, a discourse on work - used to distinguish between desirable and undesirable labor" (1995: 252). Native labour for colonial plantations, for example, is labelled productive, while work perfonned to fulfill kinship obligations is interpreted as evidence of shifilessness and laziness. In this view, the impoverishment of native lives is a consequence of work habits rather than structured global inequal ities, and colonialism is justified as a necessary disciplining of workers. However, purported laziness could also be interpreted as native resistance to such discipline: an employee who is dissatisfied with the demands of work can engage in what James Scott (1985) has called foot-dragging: moving slowly, "forgetting" to complete a task, falling sick, and so on.

The discourses of character 1 have heen discussing are generalizing: they construct the

Thai as a homogeneous nation with a universal set of attributes, ignoring regional, social, cultural, class, and pnder differences among Thai people. These discourses produce a Thai character opposed, if only implicitly, to a western one: polite versus honest, Buddhist versus 87

Chri~tian~~,lazy versus productive, and so on. They have become popular discourses: their ternis

are endlessly repeated in guide books forfurung and reinforced in popular media for Thai. The

Thai govemment too has worked to formulate a discourse of Thai-ness to uni@ the Thai people.

Chulalongkom's sons and hein, Vajiravudh and Prajadhipok, both articulated strong nationalist

sentiments on the basis of religion, history, language, and culture (Wyatt 1984: 223ff); the

govemment of Phibul Songkram in the 1930s and 40s attempted to solidify and legislate what

Thai-ness entailed. Thai historian Kobkua Suwannathat-Pian's excellent biography of Songkram divides his cultural refoms into those aimed at the interior and the exterior of the Thai people.

The "exterior aspect" of the refoms was "basically Western in origin" and was directed ai molding publicly visible performances like dress, social etiquette, hygiene, cornportment, and

"particularly the act of kissing goodbye or of greeting one's wife before and after work". By contrast, the "interior aspect" of the refoms was directed at "the mind and was "fimly founded on patnotisrn, traditional values in accordance with the teachings of Buddhism, and the desire to be Thai" ( 1995: 108, 128). These discourses of Thai-ness, like anthropologicai ones, were homogenizing, and Songkram attempted to draw al1 who lived within the boundanes of the Thai nation into one fratemal group, ignoring the geographical, religious, ethnic, and economic differences that divide Thai people. These powerful nationalist understandings work together wit h popular and academic views of Thai and furung character to produce two separable and opposed groups of people, and many Thai I have talked to easily reproduce these stereo.pica1 discourses of identity and difference.

27Thisis the western version; in Thailand 1 was often asked, confusingly, if 1 was Christian or Catholic, an interesting comment on how Protestant missionaries of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were able to insert their sects into the Thai imaginary as truly Christian, and render their Catholic rivals as other. 88

Yet as 1 talked with Thai 1 found that many also slipped effortlessly into a discourse of character which evidenced a great degree of diversity and difference between individuals and that did not rest on a monolithic conception of Thai-ness. When 1 spoke of Thai orjirrung styles of behaviour, they resisted, saying that it depended on an individual's character. These vague and unsystematic conversations may reveal a terrain analyzed by anthropologist Jane Hanks. She described some Bang Chan inhabitants' views of character as being influenced by "merit, heart, habit, and winycrn" ( 1965: 84). Merit, a Buddhist notion, reflects karma, kum, and has both economic and emotional dimensions: "Persons of great ment are long-lived, intelligent, successful, highbom, wealthy in worldly goods, and compassionate ... Persons lacking in merit suffer poverty, disease, misfortune and a lowly earth-bound existence" (80). Heart or temperament,jui, is revealed by characteristic responses, and Thai has a rich vocabulary for

States of the heart and differently-hearted people. Though given at birth and relatively resistant to change, jui can be tempered by habits of behaviour lrarned from parents, teachers, monks, or the Buddha, and thus children are not as responsible for bad actions as those who taught them bad habits. N'inyun, or spirit as my Thai teacher translated it, "produces emotional reactions, such as anger, love, and hate" (78) and alone of al1 the factors is unchangeable. Such diverse determinants, uneasily reduced into the term character, suggest a Mde and complex range of possibilities for understanding and analyzing individual styles of action and response. Thus, in answer to the query, "How do Thai (orfuru;ig) behave?", many Thai told me, "It depends on the person."

I believe that Jane Hanks was uncovering traces of an old tradition of character which was founded on concepts of heterogeneity and difference, not homopneity and identity. Her short but insightful discussion showed that the understandings she documented were steeped in indigenous Buddhist and animist language and world view and not in the modemist and

nationalist rhetonc of Thai uniqueness and identity. Though the more recent discourses are

encouraged and given ernpirical backing by firang anthropologists' characterizations of Thai

culture and personality and by modem media representations of Thai andfurung in Thailand and

abroad, the older understandings seem to linger in uncodilied and unsysternatic form in the

words of the Bang Chan villagers who spoke with Hanks and the urban Bangkok and Chiang

Mai Thai who frustrated my attempts to codify and unify under the mark of race or nation.

Structure and Power

From the 1950s through the 70s American ethnographies of Thailand werc dorninated by a paradigrn whose roots can be found in Embree's article, "Thailand - A Loosely Structured

Social System", first published in 1950. The tone of the piece is impressionistic and anecdotal, reflecting the brevity of Embree's stay, his lack of formal research in the kingdom, and the cultural contrasts with Iiis primary research site of Japan (Kirsch 1969: 39). In the paper Embree presented his notion that Thai culture is "loosel y integrated or "loosel y stmctured", "si pi fying a culture in which considerable variation of individual behavior is sanctioned", in contrast with more "tightly woven" cultures of Japan or Vietnam. Ethnographie evidence for this daim was sparse; one of the few examples he used to illustrate "the almost detemined lack of regulari ty, discipline, and regimentation in Thai life" was of three fiends who, walking together, made "no attempt to keep in step or to swing the ansin rhythm ... each individual walk[ing] along as if he were alone" (,1950: 182-3). Embree considered this conduct an instance of an individualism integral to niai society: each person acted of his or her own accord, and what sanctions there 90 were on behaviour were "observed freely by the individual - he acts of his own will, not as a

result of social pressure" ( 1 84).

Tliough it didn't gibe with my mernories of, Say, the elementary school 1 lived next to in

Bangkok, where, each rnorning, identically clad and shom students assembled to sing the

national anthem and do calisthenics before filing off to class to chant their lessons in unison,

Embree's formulation was influential, and researchers who had rnuch geater farniliarity with

Thailand echoed hirn. Phill ips characterized Bang Chan villagers as "first and foremost, free and independent souls" who exhibited an "extraordinary tolerance for nonconfomity, personal deviance, failure, or the inability of individuals to live up to standards". If they behaved in pattemed ways, it was "hecause they want to, not bccause others expect it of them or because the situation dernands it" ( 1965: 60,67); Moerman found the behaviour of Thai ~ue?'villagers

"difficult to predict" (1966: 167). Wichiencharoen, in his article on "Social Values in Thailand", listed individualism as a "national characteristic", and defined it as 'bot want[ing] to be bothered by others and not car[ing] to be involved in other peoplrs' affairs", "not want[ing] controlied by others", "lov[ing] freedom", and being "seifish" ( 1976: 125).

Evidence which contradicted this view of Thai society was downplayed and peripheralized by many of these writen. Steven Piker, for example, contended that "the structural dimension" of "the widely noted Thai individualism" was "the almost complete absence of enduring, functionally important groups in rural Thai society", and he relegated

?'The Lue are one of a number of groups who have emigrated fiom China in the last few hundred years and settled in the northem Thai highlands and, until recently, denied Thai citizenship. They are set apart hmthe majority lowianders by dress, language, and religion, exhibiting a cultural difference which has made their villages popular destinations for tourist treks. A principal cash crop for many of these groups has been opium, so they have corne under govemment scrutiny because of American-led efforts to stop a heroin flow from Southeast Asia. agglomerations he couldn't ignore - "the Buddhist monkhood and the nuclear or slightly extended family" - to parentheses ( 1968: 39 1 ). Phillips used similar conventions to de-emphasize corporate organization: he argued that Bang Chan had no groups "(other than the family).. . which might impose a sense of obligation on the villagers, or to whose noms or functions the villagers might have to conform", and relegated the two "minor exceptions:... a monastery lay committee..[and] reciprocal work poups ...[for] rice transplanting and harvesting" to a footnote

(1965: 22 n. 6). Moerman did recognize a "few social groups and categories" in the village he studied, but thought that they did little to en force "uni form behavior7'because they were so "easy to enter and leave" ( 1966: 167). The impression gamered from these formulations is of a highly fluid and unstructured social fabric peopled by individuals, each similarly strong-willed and following their own desires but - somehow - managing to interact harmoniously.

Anthropologist Hans-Deiter Evers attacked "Writers.. .addicted to the 'loose structure' concept" and enumerated a number of "durable and functionally important groups" which they had "completely ignored": "Schools and Buddhist associations, govemment officiais, members of the police, the military forces, and lately insurgents" (1969: 119). Namsirîchai and Vitchit-

Vadakan pointed out that Amencan scholars had overlooked horizontal relations which "are as operational as their vertical counterparts in the forming of social contacts and bonds". They cited as one example cliques or factions formed by "class graduates of the same school, university, or military academy", and considercd that these horizontally related goups "occur at al1 levels and in al1 phases of Thai social life" ( 1973: 84). These exainples suggest goupings ernergent with modernization, but those peripheralized by Phillips and Piker - the monkhood, the extended family, monastery lay cornmittees, and reciprocal work groups - are likely of much greater historical depth. 92

Suvanajata provided another kind of challenge to Embree's paradigm, disageei ng wi th

the suggestion that "individualism in walking" was a Thai characteristic ( 1976: 183). He

suggested that we observe Embree's three Thais a little longer, as they met "their boss or teacher

or elder relatives" and formed a wu;,placing their hands together and lowering their heads in a

traditional gesture of respect. We would see them modify their actions in accordance with social

principles which stress hierarchy and respect by subordinates for superordinates. Subordinates,

unlike status equals, "would not dare to walk shoulder to shoulder with the superior but they will

walk behind". Thus, Suvanajata concluded "Embree's observation is true in the case

of...friends ...[but] the regimentation of Thai interaction will depend on status" ( 1976: 1 75).

Anthropologists from Comel l theorized the inequal ity to which Suvanajata poi nted by

drawing from evolving studies of peasant societies, emphasizing the importance of patron-client

bonds in Thai social relations. In his ethnography Phillips gave a lengthy quotation from Foster's

definition of the dyadic contract, and argued that it "applies almost perfectly" to his research site

( 1965: 94-5). Lucien Hanks asserted that "With the probable exception of the bond between

husband and wife, every liaison between people takes on some foms [sic] of this patron-client

relationship". He described how in seminars Comell academics developed the concept of entourage, "a group focused on a single person", to explain the Thai social formation.

Entourages were individualistic in that each client's link was directly to the patron rather than through other clients, and voluntaristic in that any party could terminate the relationship at any time without recrimination (L. Hanks 1975: 200).

In tortured English, Suvanajata put bun khun at the root of many such reciprocal obligations: 'Bun Khun' is a psychological binding and requires an exchange relation. 'Bun Khun' will emerçe whenever an alter has done a personal favour to an ego ... the ego realizes the alter's favour aims at him as an individual self not as any body would deserve it but a particular one. Through a personal-touch-appreciation, the ego fells [sic] in debt and obligate to retum the favour ...Whoever enters into the 'Bun Khun' relationship and do not observe it he will be blamed. ..[and] ostracism is applied by his social counterpart. The intensity and scope of the sanction depend on the status of his counterpart and informations coverage of his failure to observe. ( 1976: 1 8 1 -2)

Suvanajata's representation of the hun khun relationship makes clear that, though fomal contracts may not be involved, the obligations are nevertheless serious, and cannot be wa.I ked away from as easily as Hanks implied. Hun khun relations, involving what Suvanajata cal 1 s

"personal-touch-appreciation", most ofien occurs in exchanges between status equais (Podhisita

1985: 39), but superordinates may foster a hun kltm relationship to bind their subordinates more closely to them. Although Suvanajata wrote that hun khun was "never founded by foreibm scholars" (1 8 1 ), Phillips used the term several times, translating it as "good things requiring reciprocation". In Phillips' rendering. however, the recognition and repayment of hun kiwn was always voluntary and optional, even the hun khun of parents to children (1965: 85), a view contradicted by longtirne American resident Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel, who professed shock at observing an elderly parent with Alzheimefs cared for by hired help instead of children and

çrandchildren, as would be the case in Thailand (1993: 51).

The overemphasis on looseness, fluidity, individualism, and lack of corporate structure which characterized the scholarship of anthropologists of Thailand like Phillips, Piker, and L.

Hanks is partially explainable by the theoretical milieu in which they wrote. Structural- functional studies of Afncan societies like the Nuer had described social organizations based on 94 unilineal descent gr~ups~~;ethnographies of lndia had shown how caste permeated relations in that area. But Southeast Asian societies in general and Thailand in particular had no such easily discemable and classifiable institutional principles of social organization. Embree's article, which used the lan yage of structural-functional anthropology, seemed to sclve the puzzle of what held Thai saciety together, though the impression it gave was of a society with no structure at all. Patron-client bonds and the entourages they engendered were extensions and refinernents of the loose structure paradigm, descnbing the structure of social units in a society that appeared to these researchers to have no corporate groups of any kind, kin or work related.

Lucien Hanks explored the ways in which Theravada Buddhisrn provided cosmological justification for social stratification in Thai society. Hierarchy is integral to the Buddhist world view, and the entire universe is conceived as a vast and ordered series of realms inhabited by devils, humans, and devas or angels. Beings, reborn through a succession of lives, move up and down these realms in accordance with their karma, km,and relative shares of merit, hirn, and demerit, hup. In the earthly domain, one's station in life is detemined by kum, and the king, as evidenced by his lofty position, enjoys the largest share of bun. Yet an individual's status may change drarnatically in the course of a lifetime: "The king might gant title to commoners as easily as a master could free his slaves. On suffering defeat, king could become slaves with little to comfort them for once having held power". Alongside merit, argued Hanks, was a

"second factor operating in the social order": power. Power "may belonç to anyone", but only ment makes it effective. Thus merit and power can corne to coincide with time: though the

"It is interesting, for example, to read Charles Keyes struggle to articulate what bound the northeastem village he studied together and gave it its "apparently matrilineal c haracter7' in the absence of unilineal descent groups; the answer he amved at is matrilateral pst-marital residence (1975). 95 throne may be seized with violence, it can only maintained through virtuosity and justice ( 1962:

1252-5).

Sociologist Niels Mulder had a different view of the linkages between religion and power which he offered in a book that atternpted "to penetrate and look behind the projection of appearance ...to ...the subjective importance that the Siamese or Central Thais themselves attribute to their actions" (1 990: ix). He argued that the Thai separated their world into two conceptual domains: that of goodness, khunci, and that of power, dech. Kltunu is the field of

Buddhism, mother's love, morality, and home life; dech is the sphere of animism, spirits, amorality, and the outside world. The two realms exist in a relationship of complementary opposition, and between them is what he called the realm of interpenetration, characterized by community, d/~umnrurajuh- the Sukhothai ideal of the righteous Buddhist der- and reciprocity.

At the extremss lie, on the one hand, the ultimate refuge of self-annihilation and nirvana, nihhun; and on the other, chaos. Mulder schematically represented the Thai cosmological world as he understood it on a chart (32-3).

Mulder noted that Buddhism is not a religon, "but rather a path that cultivates goodness and morality as instruments leading to wisdom, equanimity, and ultimately to liberation". In his teachings the Buddha stressed that he could only offer practices like meditation to decrease suffering and hasten the path to nihban, and he encouraged each person to test and confirm these practices for him or herself. Popular Thai Buddhism, however, is not so much concemed with meditation and non-attachment as with the accrual of bzrn. Common practices to increase one's share of bun include giving alms to monks, ordination (for men), observing precepts, and offering flowee and incense to Buddha figures. Customary animistic procedures to ensure protection from malevolent supernatural spirits include the utilization of amulets, tattoos, and blessings, and the placation of spirits of place, jm tlzi, with offerings and prayers3'. Mulder interpreted such diverse practices as attempts "to ensure safety and auspiciousness... in a world that is overlaid with power" (28). Power loomed large in Mulder's Thailand: it was "the mosl spectacular, beguiling, and central manifestation of Thai life," and the accommodations the Thai make to it "reveal the essentially animistic substratum of the Thai mentality" (16). It is animism,

Mulder believed, rather than Buddhism, that underlay and explained Thai behaviour, and he referred to popular religious practices as either wholly animist or as Buddhist animist (28) - a surpt-istng conclusion from one seeking to lay bare the "the subjective importance that the ...Thais themselves attribute to their actions", since the overwhelrning majority of Thai consider themselves Buddhist.

Mulder focused on religious activities in his discussion of ment making; Frank Reynolds thought giving to make merit "most important and effective" when "directed to the Buddha andor the sunghu" ( 1990: 7 1-2). However, Katherine Bowie discovered that the northem villagers she spoke with had a more "liberal interpretaiion" and used "the phrase rl~urnbun (to make meri t) to refer to a wide range of good deeds and good actions occumng throughout everyday 1i fe". Most reveal ing to her was vil lagers' "compassionate treatment of the poorest among them, the beggars": she never saw anyone refuse food to or heard anyone Say anything dcrogatory about beggars. Beggars seem syrnbolicaily linked with monks: in giving to beggars people oFten used the same words and gestures as when providing alms for monks. Buddhist ment making "imposes moral pressure on the wealthy to be generous" and so is a "weapon of

"~lrnostevery Thai property has a miniature house on a pillar in one corner, wherein lives a localized spirit who can aid or trouble hwnans. 1 often saw clerks in front of a large one at Mah Boon Krong Shopping Centre in downtown Bangkok, kneeling with a few sticks of incense and wui-ing before beginning their work day. the weak", and the histol-y of peasant rebellions shows that "the threat of physical force lies in reserve". In urban Thailand, 1 often heard people talk of feeling pity - sot~gsun - for others, and they did things for other people because they pitied them2'. As Bowie pointed out, feeling pity and giving chanty "maçk[s] inequality with a veil of legitimacy". From a Buddhist perspective, economic disparity is functional: the poor provide an ideal field of merit for their supenors, who gain hun by helping them while keeping them in their place (1998: 471,475-6).

Mulder's schematically divided Thai religious world was reproduced in the reah of interpersonal relations: he contrasted the world of home and family "infomed by benevolence, trust and protection" with the outside world "of strangers, power, and suspicion...infomed by the power to rule, to compel, and to relish". Each is structured by hierarchy, but to the small circle of trusted intimates "one shows geenuine responsibility and invests real friendship and kindness", while toward distant perçons "one shows only one's extemal presentation and invests only honour and prestige" (1 990: 65-6). In between lies a circle of friends, peers, and classmates with whom one is not very intimate, but interacts in an informal, relatively relaxed way (71).

Mulder's formulation nicely integrated a recognition of social stratification with an acknowledgment of interpersonal insecurity, and recognized that people could find refuges from this uncertainty in friendships on one hand and family on the other.

firong anthropologists, schooled in western ideals of equality, were interested in why the Thai acquiesced t0 unequa1 patron-client relations. Benedict judged the Thai passive "by nature" and unlikely to move as a mass against authority and arbwed that adults "accept easily subordinate positions in a hierarchy which was first presented to them in infancy as based on

"One wornan even told me she had mamed herfarang husband because she pitied him for suffering from love for her. 98

relative açe in the farnily" (1952: 37,44). Mothers form their children's hands into a wui from

early childhood, laying a haptic foundation for gestures of obeisance which were comforting, not demeaning, in their resonance, and thus Thai "figuratively ... feel their mother's hands pressed over theirs in al1 hierarchal behavior" (28). Piker thought that early lessons in uncertainty

"endure and form a matnx" which "define or 'determine'" for the Thai "the world's general characteristics"; he identified dependency and reliance on a patron, the pursuit of immediate pleasure, and the lack of need for personal achievement as traceable to the "perceptual sets" or

"general and comprehensive 'definitions of the situation"' acquired in early childhood (Piker

1968: 393-5).

Akin Rabibhadana wrote a thesis while at Comell that explained patron-client relations through a historical study of the late Ayuthaya and early Bangkok periods. Rabibhadana argued that control over people was more important for the Siamese polity than suzerainty over terri tory, and that the monarch did not exercise his dominion over the mass of villagers, the phior cornmoners, directly, but rather through the intemediary of nui or lords. The relationship of nui and phmi was that of client and patron, enshrined in law: any plzrui found unattached to a nui was considered an outlaw and assigned to serve the king ( 1969: 82), and male phrui3' owed months of annual corvée labour to their nui or to the king. Vertical distinctions were elaborately codified through bestowal of gradedyor or titles, as well as in sukJNiri rankings probably originally correlated to land-holding and by Ayuthayan times to the number of people under one's control. The sukdina gading was numencal, and ranged from infinite for the king and 100,000 for the uporut down to five for thui or slaves (Rabibhadana

32Bothsexes held the status ofphrai (Rabibhadana 1969: 37), but only men were subject to corvée obligations (Rabibhadana 1975: 96 n. 7). 1975: 102). Sumptuary laws prescnbed the type of cloth or hat and insignia of rank such as umbrellas and betel boxes for officials at each level. Though vertical ties penneated the Thai social fabric, horizontal links remaincd less developed, at least in the upper echelons: Ayuthayan provincial govemors, usually close junior relatives of the king, were not allowed to fratemize together, and even visiting one another was considered treason (1969: 27). By the early Bangkok penod kings began to keep the princes, their brothers, in the capital, but horizontal alliances were still viewed with suspicion. In Rabibhadana's opinion, "[the] relationship of superordination-subordination pervaded the whole society in every level from top to bottom. It was, and perhaps still is, the key relationship in the structure of the society" (92-3).

The formal ranking system that gave hierarchy its legislative backing was abolished by the end of the fiflh reig, but the "restraints in manner and speech" which Rabibhadana (97) identified as an aspect of subordination are still very much in evidence. Histonan Tenviel, for example, noted that "ln big gatherings of Thai officials it is simple to spot the one with the highest rank: it is he who speaks fairly loudly and moves about with aplomb. At the arriva1 of an even higher-ranking person, a role switch is performed instantaneously" f 1984: 37). The persistence of such habits of dominance and deference in the absence of legislation has led

Terwiel to argue that it is fniitless to link modern patron-client relations to nui-phmi interactions, and that rather than looking to ''formal structures", the analyst should examine

"informal rules" like "attitudes, shared behaviour, values and symbols" to explain the apparent histoncal continuity (35). Terwiel betrays a rather superficial understanding of the nature of disciplinary power, I think, for Foucault agued convincingly that formal desare most effective when they are intimately imbricated into the body; when thoroughly ingrained, legislation is unnecessary, and habits persist. 1 O0

The hierarchical ranks so finely graded by Siamese polities were more than bureaucratie, and impacted on everyday life through a dispositional element which has a long history; de la

Loubère noticed three centuries ago that "If there are several Siamese together, and there unexpectedly comes in another, it frequently happens that the posture of al1 changes" (1 969

[1693]: 56). The "informal rules" Terwiel points to are aspects of a long-standing habitus, a well-established corpus of dispositional elements which every Thai understands. Guide books wam westemers not to touch people's heads or point one's fert at people, formalizing for the stranger actions that Thai perform without thinking. Istill sometimes bend down slightly when walking past a seated older person, exhibiting a trace of the deference 1 leamed by example during my years in the kingdom. The now defunct mi-phrui relationship does not explain the existence of such habits, but it does aid in the understanding of how they became so deeply embedded into the everyday life of the Thai.

Rabibhadana's analysis gave historical depth to the investigation of the social structure of hamlets iike Bang Chan. In the 1950s the "Comell village" was 32 kilometres from Bangkok

(and is probably now engulfed by that sprawling metropolis) and had been joined for over a century by a small canal to one of the capital's major waterways, Klong San Seh (Phillips 1965:

14-5), ensuring that its subjection to the central govemment was direct and concrete. Aaributes of village life which American researchers in the 1950s and 60s identified as resulting from loose structure, individualism, and child rearing practices - the lack of enduring corporate groups and the prevalence of patron-client relations and entourages - can from a historical perspective be seen as enduring and legislated features of central Thai social structure. Rabibhadana's analysis strengthened Comell researchers' growing contention that patron-client bonds were a fundamental aspect of Thai social relations and encouraged thern to view these hierarchical relations as functional and benign.

Rabibhadana put a favourable gloss on aspects of the Thai social structure like slavery and hierarchy. He deemed the translation of rlmt as slave "very unfortunate" because Siamese thuf and western slaves occupied very different situations ( 1969: 109). Of the several classes of thut, only one was absolute in a western sense, and most could redeem themselves for an amount fixed by law. Though rhor could be sold as objects, they were also legal subjects, and owned and inherited property, entered into contracts, and had access to the courts ( 106). Many apparently sought to become rhur to avoid onerous corvée duties incumbent upon them as phi.Some tht were involved in debt bondage- they sold themselves for a fixed amount and then continued their lives as usual, paying interest to their buyers each rnonth. There was no market where slaves were bought and sold, and the Thai spoke of helping, c/tuuy, rather than buying, seic, to refer to the procurement of rhur ( 1969: 109- 1 1 2)j3.

Rabibhadana put a siniilar yloss on patron-client relations, considering the relationship of king to their nobles and nul to theirphrui to be based, "in the last analysis", on reciprocity.

Patrons were required to protect followers from overly onerous work obligations as well as in lepl disputes, while inferiors had to "&ive@fis" and "render services" to their superiors ( 1 78).

If a patron did not fulfill his obligations - was not "cairn, kind, gnerous, and protective toward them" (1975: 109) - "the client was free to seek a new patron" (1969: 182). The nui's fear of losing hisphrui, coupled with his dependence on their @fis for his survival(1975: 1 1 l), ensured that he would "perform his customary role" of protector ( 1969: 182).

33~heinstitution of hat was gradually phased out during the reign of Chulalongkorn. Phillips echoed Rabibhadanats interpretation of hierarchical interactions in his discussion of the two bases of modem Thai employer-employee relations - contractual and sentimental:

The former involves the exchange of a sum of money for labor fulfilled. The latter involves an array of behaviors expressive of the employer's concem for his [sic] retainer: feeding him well, not making him work too hard, treating hirn like a younger sibling or "adopted child, recognizing his birthday, or buying him small gifis if possible. Interestingly, the subordinate's obligations to his superior are considerably less explicit and social psychologically less demanding: he must simply respect and obey him. (1 965: 77)

When Phillips asked villagers to complete the sentence, "The best way to treat a subordinate is 2,the majority mentioned speaking nicely, feeding well, and not making the work too arduous, in that order ( 153). The patron or the boss who takes care of his or her subordinates eams their loyalty; the one who doesn't loses them.

These renderings of the Thai social order make inequality seem benignly functional, and make no mention of any exploitation or emmiseration of those lower down on the hierarchy. A more critical view of patron-client relations is provided by radical Thai histarian and linguist Jit

Pournisak. His Marxist-inspired history, published under the pseudonym Somsamai

Srisudravama, stingngly condemned the structured inequality of Siamese and Thai society, which he analyzed in terms of a transition from a slave to a sukdirru system. The sukdinu systemY, he argued, allowed "the Land-Lords", the nui, to exercise economic power by

"controlling the fields as the principal means of livelihood, political paver by wielding "power

34TranslatorCraig Reynolds uses spelling and italicization to distinguish two meanings of this word: sakdinu designates a premodem forma1 ranking system, while saktina is used by a modem radical discourse which "stands in critical relation to the present order and may even aim to displace it, particularly such saktina remnants as the monarchy and the Buddhist monkhood" (1987: 152). 1 will follow the Thai language in retaining a single spelling and my own convention in italicizing the Thai terni. 1 O3

and influence of human beings as determined by the size and number of landholdings", and

cultural power by requiring the phroi to "accept them as supenof' and "emulate, imitate, and

praise their customs". Poumisak exhaustively documented the "exploitative tricks" and

"deceptions" used to extract labour, products, and money from "the masses" and rnaintain their

impoverished dependence (Srisudravama 1987: 46).

Rabibhadana's hi story, which emphasized reci procity between nui and phroi, was the

obverse of Poumisak's, who saw Siamese history riven with exploitation: "Make no rnistake

about it ...one small group relied on its power to control land as a device for the oppression and

exploitation of the masses" (51 ). Wherc Rabibhadana decried translation of ihut as slave,

Poumisak took the opposite tack, integrating English ternis into his Thai-language history.

Reynolds' useful reading of Poumisak's histoiy explicates the use of Marxist terminolog!y in

contexts which at first glance seem forced. For example, Poumisak argued that "the greatest"

middle class revolution against the sukdinu was the French one (49), and he assimilated the sukdina to the feudal systern by giving the English terni in brackets after the Thai. Reynolds read this identification between scrkdina and feudalism - "On the face of it ...preposterous" - as both dragging the foreign tem into the Thai language and pulling the Thai word away from its older meanings and thus "consolidat[ing] Thailand, rather than Europe, as the sovereign self and

mak[ing] Europe the 0ther7' ( 1987: 159).

Poumisak's history did not extend to the modem era, but Thai radicals, like the former

Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) member Gawin Chutima ( 1990; see also Wedei i 983), have retained the translation of sukdinu as feudal; Chutima interpreted "a patron-client aîtitude", "a hierarchy of social relations based on inequality", and obedience to supiors as evidence of a sakdinu ideology which "still exists strongly today" (1 990: 55, 19). Thai academics probably 1 O4

recobmize Rabibhadana's history as a refutation of a tradition of cntical scholarship; English

readers might have a harder time realizing the context, for he never acknowledges the existence

of that other thread of historical interpretation.

Benedict's "quiescent mass of villagers", Rabibhadana's "reciprocity between patron and

client", Komin's "social smoothing values": these interpretations of Thai history and culture

promote a view of Thailand as a smoothly functioning entity untroubled by dissent or strife. In

fact, there is a long and bloody history of critique and dissension in Thailand which belies the

smooth smiling face presented in ethnography and tourist posters alike. This subjugated history

derives from challenges thrown up from non-élite segnents of society to élite domination of

power and privilege as the Thai polity has changed from an absol ute monarchy to a constitutional one; one response of segments of the Thai intelligentsia to these challenges has

been to attempt to define and mold Thai character to respect and acquiesce to evolving hierarchical structures of power.

Rama VI (r. 19 10-25), the tirst Thai king to be educated abroad, articulated a nationalism on a triad of nation, religion, and monarchy (Vella 1978) which invented traditions (Anderson

199 1 ) to maintain a strict hierarchy with the king ai the apex (Wyatt 1984: 229). The change to a constitutional monarchy in 1932 was neither particularly violent nor radical - historian Craig

Reynolds refers to it as an "event" rather than a "revolution" (1 984) - and has not resulted in a radical democratization of Thai politics. The coup leaders had been educated abroad and professed radical democratic ideals, but access to the highest echelons of Thai politics has remained "restn'cted essentially to the social strata of soldiers and bureaucrats that had taken charge in the 1930s" and "tied to the use of force and patronage". The "monotonous succession 105 of coups, dictators, and ngged elections" which has characterized Thai politics since the 1950s has not brought about a radical democratization of Thai political life (Wright 199 1 : 3 12-3).

What has chanpd, according to Wright, is that "popular opinion" has "finally become a si~mificantfactor in detemining the course of national policy" (3 13). The most spectacular and bloody events in this century have been led by students dissatisfied with élite, particularly miliiary, domination of politics. For example, on October 14, 1973 - in Thailand one need only mention the date and rnonth, not the year, to recall the event - massive student protests against the dictatorial Thanorn government gave way to riots; buses and buildings were bumed and hundreds were shot before the heads of state resigned (1 98-2 1 1 ). A democratic flowering followed, and Poumisak's text, banned afier being hurriedly published in 1957, was rediscovered and redistributed (Reynolds 1987: 39). In 1976 Thanom returned from exile; protests ensued, and again, on October 6 - "another date which requires no mention of year to distinguish its place in Thai history" - hundreds of protestors were killed, thousands arrested, and the rnilitary once again seized power. "Having leamed the hard way the futility of peaceful demonstrations,"

"thousands" of dissidents fled to the jungle to join the CPT (Wright 1991: 256), just as Poumisak had afier his release from jail in 1964 after six years incarceration (Reynolds 1987: 36).

Poumisak was shot in 1966 by Thai security forces (38), as were many radicals in the next decade. In the 1980 the Thai govemment began a campaign to "use every available rneasure through every medium ...to win people back from the comrnunists", including amnesty for those who surrendered (Chutirna 1990: 42); middle class educated Thai who never fit in with the

Chinese-oriented peasant-based CPT retumed from their jungle insurgency.

In 1992 students again took to the streets to protest military involvement in politics. In this case, a newly elected coalition govemment was unable to agree on a prime minister, and 1 O6 eventually asked General Suchinda, one of the leaders of the 1991 coup, to take the post; though he had repeatedly said he wasn't interested in becoming premier, he accepted. In May - the month is known as "Black May" in Thai - public protests at this appointment, widely viewed as undemocratic, reached a peak; in shock, my partner and 1 watched scenes on the Toronto news of people being shot on the Street outside our former Bangkok apartment. AFter several days of protest and at least fi fty confinned deaths, the king intervened in an uncharactenstically public manner: international broadcasts showed Suchinda and an opposition leader, Chamlong, crawling before the monarch, who chided them for fomenting Thai violence against Thai and called on them to work towards conciliation. Two days later, Suchinda resiped (Jackson

1993a).Though military interference in politics was not ended in the wake of this dramatic protest, for the first time in Thai history a large portion of the growing middle class joined in the demonstrations to express their dissatisfaction with military élite domination of govemmental process (Phongpaichit 1983).

Heterogeneous Visions

I would like to cal1 attention to scattered moments in this chapter at different Ievels of analysis and in different contexts when the discussion has tumed on questions of difference. At an rxtreme level,furung understandings of Thai culture, personality, and social structure are founded on an irnplicit contrast between Thailand and the west, a contrast which, at its most nonnalizing and universalizing, implies the complementary existence of a hornogeneous western self and a Thai other. The Thai govemment has at times erected similar monoliths of national identity, though these have been shaken by moments of rebellion and bloody repression. 1 characterized this Thai discourse of self-sameness as modernist and nationalist and contrasted it 1 O7

with an understanding of selves as vanously and diversely structured which 1 read as revealing

suggestive traces of an older, indigenous discourse of character.

On another ievel Embree, Philiips, and others characterized the Thai as individua istic

souls pursuing their own goals, each on his or her own unique path but all, somehow,

functioning smoothly together. Here difference is located in the bodies of each and every Thai

person, rather than between Thai and furung as a whole. Itind this formulation unconvincing, and believe that when it spills over into discourses of duplicity and laziness it betrays its origins

in a colonialist preoccupation with productive work and discipline which is motivated, ultimately, by western desire to exploit the labour of the non-west. Far more compelling for me are analyses which differentiate among the Thai on the basis of relative rank in a hierarchy that, though historically elaborately and formally codified, persists today in informa1 habits of deference as well as in formal inequalities of wealth, status, power, and education. Analyses like

Rabibhadana's describe the juridical antecedents of modem social hierarchy in Thailand, but

Foucaultian perspectives demonstrate mechanisrns whereby these legal codes become imbricated in the bodies of the Thai, to Iive on long after the judicial systems which supported them have been superseded. In addition, Foucault's preoccupation with power and resistance reminds us not to accept hierarchical relations uncritically; the missing and murdered bodies of modem dissidents reinforce the importance of maintaining a cntical perspective on hierarchical and unequal social relations.

Finally, discussions of politeness and smooth social interaction ofien differentiate between intemal affective life and external behavioural expression. Furmg anthropologists - and, in my experience, many farung living in Thailand - can mistake outwardly polite behaviour for inner cornpliance, and may even read equanimity as evidence of childish simplicity, 1O8 equations which many Thai commentaton dispute. Having experienced first-hand blasts of ire and nideness aRer I have unwisely challenpd or criticized a Thai person - even a social

"inferior" - and having seen Thai back away in real fear when they realize they have angered another, 1 believe Phillips' contention that the Thai rarely experience strong emotions to be wrong. Many of the Thai in this chapter assert that outer cornportment should not be taken to reveal anything about affect and emotion, rendering into acadernic ternis what a number of Thai told me in conversation: "You cannot know what others are thinking." Three

Sexual Permutations

extends my genealogical project into the domain of gender studies. 1

a critical evat uation of feminist arguments about whether Thai culture subordinates wornen, and, if so, how. The literature approaches this topic from many angles, discussing women's roles and representations of women in religion, production, reproduction, law, linguistic convention, and noms of public comportment and sexual expression. Though the range of approaches is broad, these writings, like the ethnographic literature reviewed in the previous chapter, tend to homogenize Thai wornen and view them as subject to the same discursive and practical constructions and limitations no matter what their social position. I suggest instead that distinctions must be made between Thai women, most obviously between members of the élite and cornmoners; the former enjoy geater status, wealth, education, and leisure but less freedom of movement and involvement in productive life than the latter. The tendency to homogenize is shared by the literature on prostitution, an institution often mentioned 110

as a primary site of female subordination in Thailand but which I consider so complex that 1

separate it from rny general discussion of gender to analyze on its own. After evaluating vanous

explanations for the existence of prostitution in Thailand, 1 follow some of the literature in

distinbwishing women whose clientele is Thai from those who servicefumng, and explore

opposed suggestions that prostitutes are victims of exploitation by family, culture, and tourist

conglomerates and that they are entrepreneurs niaking rational li fe choices in di fficult economic

circumstances. Finally, 1 tum to a different kind of gender analysis, discussing instances when

men behave like women and women behave like men and how these transpnder moments are spoken of in popular Thai as well as academic discourse.

This chapter is a complement to the previous two. It extends the examination of the discursive colonization (Mohanty 1988: 61) of Thailand by the West into the realm of gender, an area where critical debates are sharp and polemical, and where the issues are often of personal significance for the analysts themselves, many of whom in this case are Asian women. This chapter updates the historical discussion of gendered and sexualized power through an analysis of prostitution, the most common late twentieth-century site of intimate sexual contact between

Thai and farang. It widens the ethnogaphic exploration of Thai social structure by showing how men and women are positioned differently in Thai culture and society. And it recasts the distinction between intemal "tmth" and extemal expression through a considention of public gender performances which are understood by Thai as determined by gendered hearts rather than sexed anatorny.

This chapter contains an uneasy juxtaposition of two approaches to the study of gender, one which focuses primarily on women's roles and positions in society and the other which draws attention to moments when both females and males engage in gender transgressive behaviour. The first is the more common in feminist studies as a whole, but can become

problematic when women are portrayed as powerless victims of men. The erasure of women's

agency is particularly disturbing in the context of cross-cultural study, since it often cames the

implication either of a universal sameness in women's situation regardless of cultural and

historical context or of western superiority in the treatment of women. 1 try to mitigate these

tendencies by viewing Thai men and women as engaged in relations of power and resistance and

by contextualizing thrse relations in a detailed understanding of Thai culture, society, and

history. The second approach to the study of gender is less well-established in feminist theory,

perhaps because it sugests that gender itself cannot be adequately analyzed by looking at the

roles of biologically defined females; discussion in this second set of discourses often extends

into the realrn of minority sexual orientations. At its most extreme, this approach views bioloby

as irrelevant to the study of gender, which is understood as wholly socially and culturally constructed (eg Butler 1990). 1 do not take such a severe position, but 1 do believe that adequate analysis must take account of a variety of male and female gender possibilities. 1 have found that paying attention to aitemate gendered and sexuai positions in the Thai interpersonal world gave me a nuanced understanding of Thai notions of self and personhood and enriched my analysis of

Thai social relations.

Men, Women, and Power

One of the Rrst things I noticed about Thailand was the visibility of women in public life.

Women managed the first two language schools 1 worked for, and al1 my first students were female: a trio of vivacious women 1 taught dunng lunch-hour at their large govemment-run utility office; a bevy of gigggling teenage schoolgirls I helped with English on weekends; a 112

middle-aged and well-coifed owner of an import-export Company 1 instructed at her office in the evenings. My impressions of female visibility and activity confirm the persistence of a pan-

Southeast Asian "pattern of relatively high female autonomy and economic importance" which dates back hundreds of years (Reid 1988: 629) and which our sixteenth-century visi tors have already remarked upon.

Non-élite women have been vitally involved in economic and public life for centuries, paddling boats about selling produce, engaging in agicultural labour, and, more recently, owning property and swelling the ranks of wage labourers. Thai governrnent statistics listed a total 1995 labour force of 33 million, of which 15 million were women (National Statistical

Otfice 1997: 55); Thailand has one of the highest rates of female labour force participation in the world, though women tend to be clustered in the lowest wage brackets (Thitsa 1980: 9-1 1 ).

While 1 viewed women's vital and public contribution to Thai economic life as positive, however, visitors to Siam in previous centuries interpreted it rather differently, seeing it as evidence of an appall ing and heartlcss disregard for del icate ferninine constitutions.

The image of economically productive women is more true of cornmoners than the élite; the wealth and affluence of the latter's households did not require their labour for survival. "The

Wives of the People managng al1 the Trade do enjoy a perfect Liberty. Those of the Nobles are very reserved" observed de la Loubère in the seventeenth century (1969 116931: 73), and even today élite women have access to education and leisure but less freedom of movement than commoner fernales. Still, élite women of ability have engaged in extraordinary acts and received unusual rewards. The sixteenth century Queen Suriyothai and her daughter led forays against enemies besiegîng the capital city (Wyatt 1984: 9 1); the nineteenth century Queen Saowapha acted as regent during King Chulalongkom's tour of Europe, as did the current Queen Sirikit Il3

when King Bhumibol was ordained for a bief period (Kabilsingh 1984: 72-3). Currently the

popular Princess Sirindhorn enjoys the newly created position of crown princess, equal in status to her brother the crown prince. Ability and status count more than gender in Thai hierarchy, and today ambitious and educated élite women attain top positions in the business world.

Wichiencharoen noted that furmg were ofien surprised to see Thai women engaged in extra-domestic labour, something the Thai "are used to. Thai women work just as hard as Thai men and, sometimes," he admitted, "even harder." He considered women's involvement in the work force an important characteristic of Thai society, and labelled it, somewhat misleadingly,

"female activism" ( 1976: l47), but he speculated that its impact on the future of Thai society could be dire. In Wichiencharoentsview, as Thailand develops along the path of industrial societies, "the number of members in the family is being forced to reduce" by a "rigid" household economy - 1 assume he meant the difficulty of supporting a large family - and children are increasingly sent to day care or left in the care of servants who "do not have so much love for the child as the mothers". Children, inadequately loved and improperly socialized, could

"become confused about the criteria for their behaviors. Consequently, they behave according to what their instincts dictate them rather than to what is appropriate". The end result could be that

"human civili7ation which has been accumulated for thousands of years might be destroyed"

( 1 54-5)!

These dire predictions contradict Wichiencharoen's acknowledgment of the historical extent of women's economic work and the commonality of the nuclear family in Thai society.

Thai women have managed to combine productive and reproductive work for centuries, and they have done so in part by working together as female kin. This is inadvertently evinced in

Embree's article, "Thailand - A Loosely Structured Social System", which at first glance appears gender blind. Embree related how in a family "with which first hand contact was had in

Bangkok", the father had left his wife and children and married another woman; one of the sons had fied the country into exile, leaving his own child in the care of his grandmother and taking a second wife abroad. "When infonned of this [latter] development the mother and sisters were interested but not surprised," reported Embree, and explained the value of the anecdote to his analysis thus:

The point here once more is that the structure of the family is a loose one, and while obligations are recognized, they are not allowed to burden one unduly. Such as are sanctioned are observed freely by the individual - he acts of his own will, not as a result of social pressure ...the political exile, while under no obligation to keep in touch with his mother in Bangkok, did so when the opportunity ofFered because he wanted to. (1 950: 184)

Embree seemed not to notice that it was the men who were unburdened by obligations in this situation and the women - wives, mothers, grandmothers - who shouldered the family responsibil ities: his use of the masculine pronoun is peculiarly appropriate. Women's lack of surprise at men taking second wives could reflect their acceptance of "loose family structure", as

Embree contended, but may simply reveai resigned recognition of their male relatives' irresponsible be haviour.

Embree continued, and inadvertently revealed rather more about his gendered assumptions than about Thai social stnicture: "By contrast, if some individual - ofien a woman - wishes to be uncooperative with other members of her family, she can become very difficult."

His evidence here was the behaviour of the queen, King Chulalongkom's principal wife, on the return home of one of her sons, Chakrabongse. The prince had been schooled for several years in

Russia, and while there had taken a Russian wife. The queen, contended Embree, ".vhould have received her daughter-in-iaw, but as a woman she did not wish to, and there was an end to it. A year later, however, she softened and did" (1 84-5; emphasis in original). Embree did not mention that the king also shoufd have received his son's new wi fe, but refused (as a man?);

Chulalongkom, unlike his wife, did not relent, and never met his furung daughter-in-law?

Embree's omission of the king's reaction is startling, for in this case it was the mon who was more uncooperative and stubbom than the woman.

Of the modem writers who, unlike Embree, make gender a central aspect of analysis, many argue that women are subordinated in Thailand, and invoke a number of factors to back up this claim. Several Asian women w-riters (for example Vietnamese Truong IWO: 138-56,

Burmese Thitsa 1980: 5-7, and Thai Kabilsingh 199 1 : 1 5-7) provide evidence from legal codes that, for example, forced daughters to accept their parents' choice of husband and, until the late

1800s, allowed a husband to sel1 his wife and children into slavery. Less often mentioned is that after the 1860s daughters' rights of refusal of a marriage were enshrined in law (by Mongkut of

"The King and I" fame) or that women, too, could seIl themselves and their children, though apparently not their husbands, into slavery. In general Siamese law treated the sexes fairly equally: sons and daughters inherited equally, and either spouse could easily dissolve a mam'age.

When a union was dissolved the wife received two-thirds of the esiate during the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries and a third in the nineteenth (Kabilsingh 1 984: 72).

35~hestoiy is related with some ski11 in The Twain Bave Met, an autobiography by Chula Chakrabongse, the child of this union. According to Chakrabongse, his father did not ask his parents' permission to marry the Russian, "his reason being that if they had refused to give their consent, he would not be able to marry her; but as they had said nothing, he could do so" (1956: 61). He must have known, however, that according to Siamese law his marriage disqualified him from taking the throne. Chula Chakrabongse was educated in England, married an Englishwoman himself, and has several publications to his credit. His sister-in-law and daughter have recently collaborated on another version of the family history, Katya and the Prince of Siam (Hunter and Chakrabongse 1994), which in a refieshing twist places the Russian woman at the centre of the tale. Il6

The most conspicuous legal difference between the sexes was in the area of chastity and polygamy. A man's right to polygyny and the relative status of his wives was enshrinrd in "The

Law of the Three ~eals"? This document admonished women "not [to] let more than one man gain access to her body" and spelled out three categories of wives: principal, a woman whosc parents had consented to the mamage; rninor, a woman or women who entered into a union with a man already mamed; and slave (Hantrakul 1988: 1 16). Adulterous women could be divorced and had no rights to the marital property, though adulterous men were not legally penalized

(Thitsa 1980: 6). These laws were superseded in 1905, but the most discriminatory legislation was adopted in 1935 and was modeled on westem legal codes. Married women were banned from owning or selling property, obtaining a passport, or traveling abroad without their husband's permission (7). Most of these constraints were dropped in 1976, but women rnamed to foreigners are still barred from buying pr~perty'~.In addition, a man may file for divorce based on a woman's extra-marital relationship, but a woman has to prove that her husband is supporting another woman as a wife before she can divorce on the grounds of adultery. As

Hantrakul noted, this meant that it would be "alrnost impossible for the wife to plead her husband's adultery with a prostitute who is ipso facto the wife of no man" (1988: 1 18).

Foucaultian analysis looks at law as a productive naminç and bringing into discourse of practices and proscriptions, and thus examines legal codes as one way to understand the social construction of men and women. Though a fruitful route for analysis in westem countnes, it rnay

36Cornpiledin 1805 by Rama 1 fiorn older legal codes (Wyatt 1994: 72ff).

370neThai woman 1 interviewed had avoided this problem by not fomally registering her union with a furung; she told me, "When I wus buying u houLw,the person selling the land had to check whrthrr we had marriai. wwe ha4 I couldn 'f buy land. Rut rf we hud never rnarried, I couid" Thai men mamed to furang are not similarly restricted; an Amencan woman told me she and her husband bought land together, but "it's in his name." not be so useful in Thailand. Siamese legal codes specify minutely the rights and duties of

husbands and wives, or slaves and ownea, but some activities routineiy criminalized in the west,

like homosexuality, are not even mentioned in Thai or Siamese law (Jackson 1997: 175). Thai statutes may often serve symbolic rather than proscriptive purposes: the western-modeled legal codes of 1935 were promulgated to boost Thailand's international image as a "civilized" country

(Suwannathat-Pian 1995). Legal enforcement is notoriously poor in modem Thailand: as one writer delicatrly put it, a 'discrepancy between the law and the actual situation is common"

(Thitsa 1980: 14). The most notorious examples are of coune prostitution and polygamy: illegal, both, but cornmonplace. For these reasons arguments about women's status in Thailand are not in rny view best Framed in tems of lepl discourse.

Several w-riters (tg. Kabilsingh 199 1. Ngaosyvathn 1990, Thitsa 1 980) saw women's secondary status as deriving from Theravada Buddhism. Doctrinal Buddhism is largely gender- blind, and consists of a set of practices like meditation which are available to any individual, man or woman, to help them to reach nihhun. Beings pass through many lives, sometimes male, sometimes female, as they work through kum, the chain of consequences which each action sets in motion. According to the Traib~rnikatha'~,a human's sex in a particular life is given only at the moment of conception through the presence of a masculine or feminine "sex factor", and in the highest heavens exist hruhmu "with only a remnant of material factors" who lack any sex factor at al1 (F. Reynolds and M. Reynolds 1982: 11607,254). Biological sex in the Buddhist view is mutable and fleeting; so unimportant is it in a cosmic sense that, as Van Estenk

"Thought to have been cornposed in 1345 by the uparut and later king Lithai (Jackson 1993: 69), this is a fascinating Siamese Buddhist text which describes the structure of the cosmos, the lifeways of the inhabitants of each realm, and the actions which resulted in their being bom there. It provides the cosmological counterpart to the finely graded hierarchies of the Siamese social world, describing the Buddhist universe from the lowest hells to the highest heavens. 118 cautioned, "Nirvana, the cessation of rebirth, is beyond any consideration of masculinity and femininity, and to Say that both males and females can reach this level is, in fact, an error of understanding and a distortion of Buddhist logic" (1992: 13).

In spite of the egalitarianism of doctrine, the reality for Thai women is that sex does indeed affect their religious practice. Thai religious studies professor Chatsumam Kabilsingh, a strong advocate of feminist Buddhist reform, declared "the most positive passage regarding women" in Buddhist texts to be "when the Buddha declared that men and women have equal spiritual potential" (1991 : 33). Popular Thai Buddhism views being boni a woman as indicating a lesser store of hun than being bom a man, though this belief has no basis in doctrine (31 ). The linkage between maleness and hun may stem from the fact that becorning a monk, the most directly meritous act for a Thai Buddhist, is barred to wornen. The Buddha reluctantly instituted an order of nuns after repeated pleas by his stepmother (28), but the line of ordination from this ancient institution has been lost"".Thus no Theravada countries today have a nunhood, a situation which Kabilsingh argued works against Thai women. She pointed out that the monkhood provides men with a prestigious removal from everyday life, absorbing and providing sustenance and education to poverty-stricken males and allowinp a çoncentrated pursuit of spiritual practice, benefits denird Thai women. Mue chi, shaven-headed white-robed ascetic women, may have undergone ordination into an order of nuns, the Rhikkuni Sungha, but because this group has only survived in Mahayana Buddhist countries, women so ordained are not recogized by the Thai order of monks, the Bhikkhu Sangha. More commonly mue chi undergo an informal, private ceremony - if any at al1 - to welcome them to their status, and are thought of

390rdinationrequires a sufficient number of correctly consecrated monks or nus of the proper tradition: Theravada. The Sri Lankan Sunghu, for example, lasre-established in the eleventh century afler a pet-iod of tunnoil through ordination by Siamese monks. 119 as laywomen. Like laypeople, mue chi follow eight precepts, while monks observe 227. In her survey of Thai mue chi, Kabilsingh found poverty a real problem for many, exacerbated by the fact that they are banned from collecting alms. She discovered that those who lived in monasteries often spent a considerable portion of their time cooking for and serving monks, while those who had separate compounds could devote the bulk of their time to spiritual study and practice. She concluded that the fomal re-establishment of the Rhikkuni Sungh could only benefit Thai women (55-66).

Khin Thitsa also studied mue chi and discovered several reasons why women took white robes and entered temples. Most came from poor families, and thus lacked opportunities outside monasteries to study and improve themselves. They wanted to avoid the hardships they saw their mothers and mamed sisters suffer (1983: 30). Interestingly, most complained of "severe problrms conceming menstruation ... Both sex and chi ldbirth were seen by them as undertakings requiring physical strengh, a certain degree of physical durability which they felt they iacked."

Thitsa read their illnesses as "some indication of their lack orease in assuming fernale roles as ordered by society" and their entrance into a life of Buddhist practice as a turn to traditionally accepted methods for relieving physical and mental suffering (23-4). While monks spend the bulk of their time on Pali and secular studies and ritual duties, mue chi and laywomen tend to focus their efforts on meditation, a more individualistic pursuit, and also an area "still relatively free of state control and male authonty structures" (26).

Women also have important roles in everyday Buddhist life outside of mue chi status. It is prinianly women who engage in the "highly valued (Keyes 1991: 94) accumulation of ment by daily offering alms and attending to the needs of monks (Kirsch 1975a: 184), which led Keyes

(1986: 86) to characterize Thai women as "the nurturer[s] of the religion". Mothers are explicitly 120

recognized in ordination ceremonies as receiving much of the merit their sons accrue by joining

the monkhood, and in one northeastem village people said that "a novice in his first year makes

merit for his mother" (Tambiah 1970: 102-5).

In non-Buddhist religious Me, farmers throughout the kingdom engage in ntuals to pay

homage to "a cluster of female deities" (J. Hanks 1964: 1 52), including Mue Posop, the goddess

of rice, Mac. ï'horunee, the gddess of land, and Mue Nam, the goddess of water. The name of

each contains the word mue, mother, and homage to these matemal figures carries symbolic

resonance with reverence for the goodness of mothers which Mulder found such a stnking aspect

of Thai culture (1 992: 19). In Mulder's structural analysis, "the primary symbol of moral

goodness" was a woman's devotion to her children, and thus women were located squarely in the

realm of goodness, khunu, along with Buddhism, morality, compassion, and the safe haven of

the home. In a relation of complementary opposition stood the realm of power, Jechu,

"aggressive and largely masculine", extra-domestic and political, and shading off into the

animistic world of amoral spirits (1 990: 25). Mulder criticized as "really boring" the sizeable

Thai literature eulogyzing mothers and portraying them as 'ihe symbol of virtue and sacrifice, of podness and forgiveness" (l992: 75). Yet Mulder's own formulation, though not boring, was highly idealized, and his schema of sexual symbolism remained static and overly rigid.

A more nuanced analysis was provided by Penny Van Esterik, who remarked on the fluidity of masculine and ferninine symbols in Southeast Asia. She cited the example of the nugu, the snake which sheltered the Buddha as he attained rnlightenment under the ho tree.

As a servant and protector of Buddhism, the is a suitable symbol of masculine potency and the power of the forces of nature. As the embodiment of water and the underworld, it is also a symbol of fertility and exhibits feminine aspects. The w,like other key symbols of Theravada Buddhism, is an example of the interchangeability of masculine and feminine fom. Even some Buddha images display a gentle androbyny. ( 1992: 1 3)

In Van Esten k's rendering, masculine and feminine symbols are both complementary and reversible, not simply or easily opposed. Mulder's strict structuralism seemed unable to take account of such subtleties.

Likewise, Muldefs analysis could not shed much light on women's activities in the spirit realm, for him the apotheosis of amoral masculine power. He acknowledged the existence of female spirit mediurns and "female witches who deal with or rnanifest evil power" but left them unexplored and untheorized, relegated to a footnote (1990: 27 n. 2). A number of writers have analyzed Northem Thai spirit propitiation and fleshed out its gendered character. Spirits are of several types: guardians associated with a geographical area such as a house or a city, ancestors of domestic matrilineal descent goups, and individuated spirits of past, usually male, heroes

(Thitsa 198% 10). The former are found throughout the kingdom, while the latter two are restricted to the northem region, which has a tradition of strong matrilines and matrilocal pst- marital residence. Ancestral spirits promoted family well-being and caused hann only when neglected or when an unmarried female household member was touched by a man, who appeased them by paying a fine (Muecke 1984: 463; Singhanetra-Renard 1994: 4-5). In the last few decades these domestic spirit cults have been declining in importance, which Thitsa read as an indication of weakening authority of female lineage elders and a breakdown of the traditional

Northem Thai structures of female authority. Concomitant with this breakdown has been a rise in professional spirit mediurnship, a realm almost completely dominated by women "ridden", in the Thai idiom, by the spirits of ancient, often royal, heroes (1983: 3 1; see also Wijeyewardene

1986: 156-9). Mulder viewed possessing spirits as quintessential embodiments of amoral saksir power, but Wijeyewardene found that they explicitly cast their plight in Buddhist ternis by

explaining that they remained on earth and took possession of a living person to atone for past

demeritous acts (1 5 1 ff). Once again the analytical distinction between Buddhist and animist

practices breaks down in practice.

A woman sipalled potential possession by incurable i llness and "wild behaviour

inappropriate to her sex - shouting, cursing, kicking, for exainple" (Thitsa 1 983: 3 1 ). Both Thitsa

and Wijeyewardene described women entering possession changing their dress, language, and gestures to conform to the gender and status of their possessor, and interpreted commoner women's use of élite men's garb and language as challenges to the gender and status hierarchirs which characterize Thai lire. As healers and clairvoyants, women were directly connected to supematural and spiritual powers usually monopolised by monks and male spiritual specialists.

In possession, [a woman] breaks through the normal confines of womanhood, asserting by speech and action her presence in society. A young woman "should" be demure, soft and delicate in word and dred, taking up little space in the public arena. The same wornan under possession is transformed into an assertive, aggressive social "male". (Thitsa 1983: 32)

Thitsa took the metaphor of possession literally, arguing that in becoming a medium a "wornan takes possession of her body", declaring her presence in a dramatic and unmistakable way.

The fertile symbolism of male-fernale opposition has inspired yet anotherfirang anthropologst to construct a mode1 of gendered Thai socioreligious life. Kirsch contrasted men's concentration on spiritual and political pursuits with women's (and Chinese men's) preponderance in economic affairs and concluded that men and women had different

"occupational specializations" - in effect, a sexual division of labour (1975a: 176). In Buddhist polities rulership is intimately tied to Buddhist notions of righteous and divine kingship (F. 123

Reynolds 1975), and Kirsch argued that it is this "interpenetration of the moral hierarchy and the political hierarchy [which] drives men toward political achievement" if they have no aspirations for religious pursuits (1 975a: 189). Women, "disadvantaged with respect to religious achievement" ( 1 87), are left with the residual, and non-prestigious, business of economic achievement.

In a different kind of symbolic analysis, some writers look to conceptions of male and

îemale character in assessing wornen's status. In doctrinal Buddhist ternis people have no self or nature, and pass through many lives, soinetimes male, sometimes female, as they work through the causal chain of consequences (karma, km)that every action sets in motion. In popular tems, beauty, wealth, success, compassion, and, tellingly, maleness in this life evidence good kum from past lives. As Jane Hanks pointed out in her discussion OF Thai views of character, wornen are expected to have weak spirits (winyun)and tender hearts (jui), to be compassionate and caring, while men are thought to have strong spirits and hard hearts, to be bold and active

(1965: 81). Ruth Benedict was blunt in her assessrnent of such differences, singling out "male dominance" as one of three "Thai characteristics" discussed toward the end of her monograph

(the other two were "enjoyrnent of life" and "cool heart") (1952: 34-44). Though bnefly conceding "the freedom of Thai village women and the wives of officiais" (40) - presumably women's public visibility and integration into economic life - she invoked Thai sayings, proverbs, and games to show that women were conceived of as the passive and weaker sex, men the active and stronger. She did not specify, however, whether it was the fact of sexual differentiation itself, or the characteristics imputed to each sex that counted, in her view, as male dominance. 124 Thai linguist Navavan Bandhumedha covered similar ground to Benedict but drew rather different conclusions in her article "Thai Views of Man as a Social Being", a general survey of

Thai lin yistics which included a discussion of sexual difference"'. Sidestepping thomy philosophical issues, Bandhumedha "does not touch on the question of whether languap determines how a person views the world but assumes that language is an indication of a nation's total thinking and feeling process" (1985: 86). She argued that as a penonal characteristic, sex, along with age and social status, was an important factor in determining such linguistic conventions as pronoun usage. But sex had a wider sibmificance: like Benedict, she quoted sayings and proverbs to show that "In the Thai view, the activities and the mental and moral characteristics of male and female are sharply differentiated. A man is supposed to be strong, aggressive, and dominant, whereas a woman is considered weak, passive, and gentle" (95).

Adjectives had different meanings applied to men and women: ho ri su^ for a woman meant

"innocent, virginal", for a man "not guilty"; a woman who had had many "illicit sexual relationships" was considered siu klzon, "[gone] to min", while the same expression was applied to a man who "leads a bad life, like being a gambler, assassin or a drunkard" (96), with no connotation of sexual misconduct.

Did this mean that Thai women "are only men's sex objects", she asked, construing this question to refer to 'bover-emphasison the physical appearance of women"? Her answer was no: though the i kt of words for female beauty was "virtually endless... much longer than.. .[those]

article 1 find particularly interesting because its author used the opportunity to transform a general survey contribution in an edited volume into an exposition of sexual difference in Thai culture, and because she implicitly critiqued some western feminist views of gender and cultural difference. Bandhumedha's gender-mindfulness is a refieshing contrast to the gender-blindness of many writers on Thailand, and her conclusions raise questions for analysts gappling with the dynamics of sexual difference in the kingdom. applicable to men ...the Thai appreciate good looking people regardless of their srx", and in stories beauty was an attribute of heroes as well as heroines (104). Van Esterik provided a useful antidote to Bandhumedha's ahistorical flattening in her discussion of the Thai ideology of beauty. Van Esterik acknowledged the Buddhist equation of beauty with good kum and pointed out that knowledge of herbal cosmetics was an important part of women's traditional lore and

"link[ed] into the indigenous health system of massage and herbal cures". In modem Thailand, however, women's traditional knowledp has been colonized by an "immense western cosmetics industry". The cultural space of the beauty contest, oriçinally held at village fairs and involving young women in sarongs and family jewelry walking demurely around temple fairgrounds, has been transmogified into a papant with a bathing suit cornpetition, con~mercialendorsements, and a cash prize (1989: 16-8). Bandhumedha's simple assertion that beauty is appreciated in men and women is insufficient to understanding the dynamics of beauty and its manifestations in

Thai culture and history.

Bandhumedha noted that Thai litenry heroes were "smart, efficient, and good at fighting" but also had a "good appearance". Similarly, a heroine was beautiful and "must have some ability, too. For example, she should have talent in cooking or making embroidery" (1985:

105). Such talents made sense, as Bandhumedha saw it, for they were an integral part of women's social role:

In former Thai society, there was a stnking contrast between the social functions of men and women. A man's function was to make decisions when necessary, eam income for his family, and protect his family and nation. A woman, on the other hand, did not have to eam a living since that was the man's duty, but she had to look afier his needs, rear his children, and do household chores. At the present time, many women have careers, Single women eam their own living and mamed women also contribute income to support the farnily. Yet, Thai people still admire women who run their household efficiently. Duties connected with reproduction and the rearing of children still belong to women, whereas tasks related to the support and protection of the farnily still belong to men mainly. (98)

Having reviewed her data, Bandhumedha decided that differentiation alone was not sufficient evidence of male domination: "al1 that can be concluded is that women are perceived as being di fferent from men and suited for different roles" ( 106). Her judgement that difference need not imply domination is an interesting one, made al1 the more intriguing by the fact that it is made by a Thai and thus can be taken as an implicit criticism of western feminists' (e.g. Benedict's) pronouncements about gender in Thailand.

We should not accept Bandhumedha's conclusions blindly, however, simply because she is Thai. In places she is simply wrong. For example, her contention that "In traditional Thai society" a man was "protector of his woman and provider of her needs" and she his supportive helpmeet at home (1985: 106-7) is an interesting, if inaccurate, idealization of a mythical past which romanticizes élite life. Her assertion that Thai women's duties centre around reproduction has ment, particularly if reproduction is broadly defined. Reproduction has rnany facets: biological - pregnancy, birth, and lactation; systemic - the bboverallreproduction of a particular social formation"; and social - the "reproduction of labour itself' through (women's) domestic labour and their socialization of children (Hams and Young 1981 : 1 13-4). Thai women are deeply involved in each of these types of reproductive labour.

Non-élite Thai women's productive labour can be seen as an aspect of their social reproductive work. Women traditionally controlled family finances, a duty which Ma jorie

Muecke pointed out "was managerial, with the household rather than the individual as the basic economic unit ...women çamed the responsibility to make ends meet, especially when men in the household could not do so" (1984: 464). The difficulty of supporting a family made women's contributions vital to the maintenance of households; in this century the advent of private property and a money economy, requiring the purchase of essentials like foodstuffs and building materials previously gathered from the natural environment, has only made wornen's work more indispensable. Women contribute not just as wives and mothers, but as daughters and sisters: like my friend the waitress, wornen who work in a wide variety of occupations, including sex trade workers (Phongpaichit 1982: 24; Wahnschafft 1982: 437), regularly send a substantial portion of their eamings home to support aging parents and younger siblings.

1 do believe Thai women are subordinated in rnany ways, particularly in the control they are expected to exercise over their sexuality. Women arc expected to be .sup/~urh,a word which encompasses a wide range oof haracteristics psitivel y valued in Thai culture: pot ite, charm ing, not loud or boisterous, and well-dressed in neat clothes which do not reveal too much of the body. For women, being suphurh cames the additional connotation of chaste and careful of their bodies; they should not to place themselves in situations where their virtue might be compromised, and single women in particular should never be alone with a man. Mariage is informal, not always legalized or accompanied by religious ritual, and divorce is common.

Women are not looked down on for engaging in serial rnonogamy. But promiscuous behaviour is disapproved of for women far more than for men, who may visit brothels and keep mistresses with impunity. Even sex trade workers, however, may return to their villages and marry without sanction if they have fulfilled their filial obligations by using their eamings to support their families (Phongpaichit 1982: 49). Many Thai recopize that poverty drives women to prostitution, and feel pity, not scom, for those forced into it.

In disparate realms, Thai women seem overdetermined by their roles as biolo~gicaland especially social reproducers. They provide alms for Buddhist monks and sons for the 128

monkhood; goddesses give humans rice, land, and water. Women engage in paid and unpaid

labour to support themselves and their parents, children, and siblings. In the Thai view, women's

tender and compassionate natures make them perfectly suited to provide nurturing and caring.

Compassion and nurtunng are highly valued in Thai culture (Van Esterik l992), and women's

embodiment of these qualities earns them respect and gratitude. A mother's reanng of children is

seen as the ultimate sacrifice which can never be repaid (Mulder 1992: 74-77). However,

nurturing is not solely a feminine quality: ideally al1 Thai should be nurturing and

cornpassionate. In hierarchically ordered Thai society superiors routinely support subordinates

with food, giRs, and beneficence.

Prostitution

No discussion of women's status in Thailand or of Thailfurmg relationships can avoid

the hoary topic of prostitution. The subject of much sensationalist journalism, though Iittle scholarly attention, domestic and tourist-oriented prostitution are widespread throughout

Thailand. Statistics on exactly how many women and men are involved in sex work are not available, as it is difficult to compile accurate statistics on any aspect of Thai social life, doubly so on officially illegal prostitution. A recent literature review gave estimates of 700,000 prostitutes in Thailand in 1984, involving 29% of al1 women aged 15 to 49; and 2,820,000 in

1989 - 10% of the total female population - including 800,000 girls under 16 (Sitthiraksa 1992:

94-5). The 1989 computations are hiçh. Kabilsingh reported that the figure "generally accepted by many organizations dealing with the problem of prostitution" was 700,000 to 1 million; the total population of Thailand is about 50 million (1991 : 73). 1 provide these estimates to illustrate that, whatever the actual number of Thaï involved in the sex trade, it is clearly high. 129

Sorne writers (like Phongpaichit 1982: 3-5; Thitsa 1983: 35) have attributed prostitution

in Thailand to exogenous influences: the substantial immigration of Chinese men in the

nineteenth century created a demand for prostitutes in urban areas which was fueled in the mid-

twentieth century by Arnetican military personnel, brought to the area by involvement in a

succession of wars. Such imputation to foreig sources "reflects displacernent of accountability

to non-Thai" (Muecke 1992: 895) and construes the Thai as a "simple people" who were

"compted" by outsiders, thus erasing an indigenous prostitution industry with deep historical

roots (Hantrakul 1988: 130). Astute observer Simon de la Loubére, for example, reported on the

presence and provenance of seventeenth century prostitutes in Ayuthaya:

Jealousie is amongst [the Siamese] only a meer opinion of Glory, which is greater in those, that are most highly advancrd in Dipity... The Siamese Lords are not less jealous of their Daughters ihan of their Wives: and if any one commits a fault, they sel1 her to a certain man, who has the privilege of prostituting them for Money, in consideration of a Tribute which he pays the King: Tis said that he had six hundred, al1 Daughters of Oflicers in esteem. He li kewise purchases Wives, when the Husbands sel1 them, being convicted of Infidelity. (1969 [1693]: 73-4)

In de la Loubère's telling, élite and adulterous women's lot was very different from the "perfect

Liberty" of (non-adulterous) commoner women and the "exceeding':" love their husbands felt for thern (74,SO). Hantrakul reported that prostitutes in previous centuries were recruited from the

ranks of slave women and subject to tax, and that the abolition of slavery in 1905 saw a "sudden growth in prostitution" as former slaves sought employment there (1988: 1 17).

In this century foreign influences created additional dernand for the already existing prostitution industry. The Vietnam war era in particular has been singled out as a period when

"Prostitution as an occupation grew dramatically from its Thai-based, more or less stable clientele to an increasingly large and fleeting dependence on foreibmers" (Richter 1989: 85). Prostitutes and their clients bccame more publicly visible: Thitsa recalled that Bangkok in the

1960s "craw!ed with GIS and with Thai girls'" attempting to imitate Arnerican women ...with

miniskirts, black fish-net stockings and boots" ( 1 980: 1 5). The wi thdrawal of Amencan troops in

1976 did not cause a withering away of foreign-oriented prostitution as tourists began to take the

place of GIS.

Pre-twentieth century Siarnese legal codes specified minutely the punishments meted out

to adulterous women and the fines payable by men who seduced women - varying according to

her rank - but prostitution was not proscribed by law until 1960 "after centuries of toleration"

(Hantrakul 1988: 122). The "Prohibiting Prostitution Act" defined prostitution as "giv[ing]

sexual services for money on a regular basis to several men", but the 1966 "Entertainment

Places Act" permitted the provision of "special services" in desigpated venues, and so today

sexual services are offered in a variety of establishments like bars, restaurants, coffee shops,

discotheques, massage parlours, and karaoke lounges (1 19). Less obvious to the non-native, but

at least as numerous, are what Hantrakul dubbed "traditional brothels... contained within an enclave, confined to a cluster of hack-streets... well-known for prostitution among the locals

but ... unnoticed by vi~itors""~.Catering to a local clientele, these brothels in her opinion are vital

"The use of the terni "girl" to refer to Thai women involved in prostitution is ubiquitous and, in my view, demeaning. Even the authors of the book By Women, For Women, an evaluative report on women's groups in Thailand, occasionally refer to "bar girls" instead of "women" in the section on Empower, a self-help group for sex workers (Tantiwiramanond and Pandey 1991: 128-33).

42 In an interview with Jackie Pollock, an AIDS educator, teacher, and outreach worker at Empower Chiang Mai, a dropin centre for sex workers, I asked for a rough estimate of the percentage of women working with furung versus Thai, and she said, "This week? Itd say there's a lot more women working with foreigners." There had been a police crackdown and most brothels had been ternporarily closed; this sent many women to bars servingfarong to look for clients. She estimated that in general, for every woman working with foreigners (îaruizg and other Asian), there were four working with Thai. This was in the popular tourist destination of 131 to the continuation of prostitution in the country because they are "more ancient" and "provide access to the mass of Thai males of the middle and lower classes" ( 12 1 ). Owners and employees in such illegal establishments provide pay-offs to compt police to stay in business; recent govemmental and police efforts have focused on "freeing" child prostitutes rather than wiping out prostitution altogether. Hantrakul's description of the reform institutions where "freed women and girls are housed, however, revealed that the female inhabitants are treated like prison inmates and given vocational training which prepares them for little more than domestic service ( 125-8).

A number of writers (like Truong 1983: 538; Boonsue 1989: 32; Phon~~aichit1982: 6) have located the histoncal and cultural roots of prostitution in gendered standards of sexual morality and the traditional élite practice of amassing of wives and consorts. There is a historical continuity in the standards of male sexual morality which have permitted men to pursur many partners in the context of polygamy or prostitution, yet there is a vast difference between wives

(mw)and mistresses (miu mi,little or rninor wives) on the one hand and prostitutes on the other.

The sexual relationships of mistresses and wives include aspects of lonpvity, ernotional connection, biological reproduction, and monogamy - for women at least - which are not enjoyed by prostitutes. Hantrakul argued that Thai culture di fferentiated women on the basis of their chastity, vilifying the prostitiite as unchaste while allowing "a woman who gives sexual services to only one man [to] rightfully and culturally carry the honuurable title of a virtuous wife". She pointed out too that some Thai women were willing to tum a blind eye to their husbands'

Chiang Mai; most small villages have a massage parlour, bar, or hotel offering sexual services to an exclusively local clientele. Even my partner's tiny dusty village located along one unpaved lane off a local northern highway had a karaoke bar with hostesses, though this was an innovation of recent decades. When he was a boy, he said, men had gone to the hotel in the village tive miles down the road. 132 dalliances with prostitutes because they considered such interactions less threatening than those with mistresses ( 1982: 1 19).

The negative image of prostitutes as promiscuous and immoral may be tempered by a more positive cultural construction of the women as dutiful daughters. Pasuk Phongpaichit, in an

Intemational Labour Organization-sponsored study of fi fty massage parlour "girls" in Bangkok, found that the majority were from impoverished northem and northeastern îarming families with many dependents, and "Most of them had lefi because of the pressure of poverty" ( 1982: 14). All sent money home "to supplement the inadequate amounts available to the family for living expenses, while siblings' school expenses also fiyred prominently" (22). In villages

"people. ..stressed that they admired the girls for...showing a proper filial responsi hility for looking after their parents in old age" (49). Though in one northeastern village older people thought sex work immoral and young men expressed a fear that women who had lived in urban centres would become too sophisticated to marry, in four northern villages the poor "attached no real social stigma to the girls who went South" and several men said they would take a former prostitute for a wife (47-8). Afer leaving sex work, then, at least some women can return to village life, marry, and raise children.

Though most of the women Phongpaichit interviewed did not tell their families exactly what they were doing in Bangkok, saying they were "working in service occupations" (24), she found it "difficult to believe" that parents did not know their daughten' true occupations (53).

Her anecdote of a man who showed photos of his daughter in Hong Kong with foreigners yet said she worked in a restaurant and expressed pride in her for making money and buying her family a house, land, and buffalo illustrates the interest parents have in evading the truth about their daughters' situation (63-4). Hantrakul was critical of "excuse[ing] parents and praise[ing] the dutiful daughter" and thus "leav[ing] unquestioned ...the parental control of the daughters' sexuality which is an important aspect of the power relations between parents and daughters in the country" (1 988: 13 1-3). Muecke noted that the decline in the Northern ancestor spirit system

"that desipated unmamed daughters' sexual behavior as the barorneter of the family's moral and social standing, and cause of sickness in the family" coincided with a nse in prostitution which

"restores to parents the opportunity to regulate daughters' sexual activity" and receive the benefits thereof (1992: 898). Truong, writing on sex tourism, dismissed filial duty as a

"glorification of sacrifice for the household" which served to "ustify" prostitution (1990: 128).

Besides the push of family obligations, there is a strong economic pull into prostitution.

Though income levels varied with establishment and a woman's looks, Phongpaichit estimated that women could earn twenty-five times more in prostitution than in other occupations (1 987:

19, 8). Some litcrature on prostitution in the West arbwes that women end up in prostitution after being sexually, physically, or verbally abused in the home, but Phonb~aichitfound that the Thai wornen she spoke to "were definitely not runaways". She summed up her findings thus:

[Women] were not fleeing from a family background or rural society which oppressed women in conventional ways. Rather, they were engaged in an entrcpreneurial move designed to sustain the family units of a rural economy which was coming under considerable pressure. They did so because their accustomed position in that rural society allocated them a considerable responsibility for eaming income to sustain the family. The retums available in this particuiar business, rather than in any other business accessible to an unskilled and uneducated penon, had a powerful effect on their choices. Our survey clearly showed that the girls felt they were making a rational decision within the context of their particular social and economic structure, and they could not escape fiom it. (74-5)43

43 The Economist construed Phongpaichit's conclusions to indicate that women chuose to work in the sex trade. The magazine reported that critics of Thailand's sex industq were calling on the govemment to shut down brothels but that "Such dernands, though sincere, assume that this is what the young ladies want", a view "challenged, they claimed, by her monograph. A quotation Careful analysis should not lump al1 women engaged in sex work together as prostitutes,

but differentiate between them; this is often done on the basis of clientele:furung versus Thai. I

asked Jackie Pollock of Empower about this distinction, and she pointed out that clientele varied

on the bais of place of work: bar or brothel. "Nearly al1 the customers in bars are foreibmers, not

necessarily f~rung:maybe Japanese or Taiwanese. Most of the customers in brothels are Thai,

with increasing numben of foreigners going into cheap brothels," Pollock told me. The working conditions in these two types of establishment are "very diffewnt," she continued. Women in

bars are employees; thus "they have a working time, and outside that working time a life." Those

in brothels "are owned" and ofien confined in the premises, so they had no leisure time or outside life. Women who work in bars can pursue an education or trade and leave the industry more easily than those in brothels, who might work for years to pay off a debt, only to find themselves sold io another establishment and a whole new debt incurred. Child prostitutes are more likely to be working in brothels and hidden from public view, especially since the Thai govemment has focused its efforts on prosecuting those who procure and offer children's bodies for ses.

Academic investigations of tourist-oriented prostitution in Thailand include the very different analyses of Thanh-dam Truong and Erik Cohen. Truong is a female Vietnamese-boni

Dutch social scientist whose Sex, Money and Morality is one of the few book-length treatments of Thai sex tourism; Cohen is a male Israeli sociologist who has written numerous articles on

ftom the book, including the concluding sentence above, was reproduced, and the accompanying photograph of exotic dancers was captioned "Entrepreneurs at work" (Economist 1989). The reader was lefi with the impression that prostitutes were willing entrepreneurs, rather than poverty-stncken rural women forced by circumstances to work in the sex industry. 135 tourism and on Thai prostitutes and theirfurung clients. Truong's analysis was macro-level and detailed the institutional structures of global capitalism, international tourist conglomerates, and

élite control which have led Thailand to aggessively promote tourism. Cohen's viewpoint was micro-level and focused on the interactions between women and their clients and the lingistic and emotional confusions and miscornmunications their relationships engender. Truong was flatly condemnatory of sex tourkm and the exploitation of Thai wornen for furung sexual pleasure and dite profit; Cohen was more cautious, pointing to ambiguity in power relations and even the possibility that individual women could be exploiting their male clients.

Truong characterized her work as analyzing the "cognitive and institutional structures" which allowed sex tourism to flourish in Thailand. By cobmitive structures she meant structures of meaning and categorization, and she used Foucault to analyze this realm of power, which she referred to as "subjective". However, she considered his approach insufficient for a thorough analysis because he "avoided" tying his "notion of power ...to production", a rnove that in her viçw was necessary to analyze the "objective" realm of power, institutional structures ( 1990:

88). Thus she turned to neo-Marxist theory to understand how women's labour was incorporated into the sphere of relations of production and exploitation, and accepted the neo-Marxist tenet of infrastructural determination, which in her terminology meant that the subjective is determined by the objective.

Truong's analysis of the objective realrn - institutional structures - provided a useful del ineation of how prostitution functioned in the Thai socieoeconomic system. She viewed prostitution as a capitalist transformation of "an indispensable activity within al1 foms of production": women's reproductive labour, which she defined as procreation, sexual pleasure, and domestic labour. Tradi tionally organized by kins hip relations, reproduction suffered from 136

economic and social dislocation under colonialism and then capitalisrn, forcing some women to

sel1 their sexual labour for wages (75-7). Their reproductive work became a commodity which

community and state utilized "to ensure the maintenance and renewal of the working capacity of

functionally single worken without social responsibility towards prostitutes as a subordinated

category of workers" (82)? The rented wives (miu clwo in Thai) hired by American soldiers

stationed in Southeast Asia - "functionally single men", in Truong's apt characterization -

provided al1 the domestic services of "real" vives; when the military personnel were

demobilized, businessmen and male tourists took their place. l'ruong convincingly documented

how airlines, hotels, and govemments in Thailand and abroad profit from the formally

unacknowledged sale of Thai women's reproductive labour in the context of tourist and business

travel.

Her analysis of the subjective realm - structures of meaning - was weaker and rnarred by

factual error and theoretical supeficiality. She consistently misspelled Theravada as Therevada

in her discussion of Buddhism, and erroneously asserted that one of its major doctrines was

"atman (the law of the transmigration of the eternal soul)" ( 132), using phrasing that suggested

Buddhists believe in an essential continuity of a "soul". This is a preposterous undentanding of

Theravada Buddhist philosophy, which rests on a tenet of unuttu, non-self, a concept diametrically opposed to ulmun. Truong refused to understand Thai prostitution in its cultural context, arguing that attempts to explain it in terms of "poverty, or ...women's autonomy to make

U~houghshe refers to neither, both Leopoldina Fominati and Luise White make similar arguments. Fortunati's theoretical The Arcana of Reproduction analyzed prostitution and housework as two of capitalism's strategies for ensuring the reproduction of male labour power (1995). White's anthropological study of prostitution in colonial Nairobi argued that prostitutes "sel1 as transactions al1 that is legitimately available in mamage" - food, companionship, bathwater, and sex - and that "prostitution ... is domestic labour; it is illegal marriage" (1990: 11). 137 decisions" were ill-founded and should be dismissed as bids to "lepitimize" prostitution and

"overcome [clients'] feelings of guilt" (1 80). Though her research incl uded "unstnictured discussions with clients, prostitutes and their managers" (x-xi), she never quoted from these conversations in her book, and instead made her case against sex tourism on abstract and theoretical grounds, completely eliding the words and perspectives of the prostitutes themselves.

Indeed, Truong allowed no place in her analysis for a view of prostitution as anything other than the exploitation of Thai women: al1 her arguments were made in ternis of the power of men and male-run institutions to control wornen's lives, and she gave women no possibility of agency or resistance. Truong thus diverged radically from her two main theoretical inspirations, Foucault and Marx, both of whom were centrally concerned with the possibilities of hurnan action in the face of structural constraints: Foucault said that he "tried to analyze changes, not in order to find the rnaterial causes, but to show al1 the factors that interacted and the reactions of people"

(1988b: 14), while Marx famously wote that "men [sic] make their own history, but ...they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves" (1977: 300). The approaches of these two towering and original thinkers are so different that 1 think Truong's attempt to many them is problematic, but they are united in their cognizance of the existence and central importance of human agency to social analysis, a recognition that Tmong, unfortunately, did not share.

Erik Cohen's approach was rather different. He published a number of articles based on a study conducted during two two-month periods in 198 1 and 1987 in a Bangkok soi (lane); his research included "observations and in-depth interviews" with "several dozen" of the "several hundred Thai women" who lived in the soi and "denve[d] their livelihood from tourists and other foreigners", as well as interviews with "a large number of farungs in and outside the soi" 138

(1993: 157). The women were migrants, primarily from the northeast"; in their twenties or early

thirties, they were a little older than women working with locals. They were often mothers, and had left their offspring from previous relationships with relatives in the northeast. Al1 sent

money home to families, "although the actual remittances seem to be smaller than they claim", in Cohen's estimation; most were offended by being called sopltenee, prostitutes, and said they were "working with foreigners". Cohen deemed thcm "in a sense, the élite of the trade: their Iife- chances, work conditions and incorne are incomparably better than those of most women working with local clientele". Independent businesswomen, they kept a portion of money from each drink a custorner bought them, and, after paying the bar "take out money" - which Jackie

Pollock called "bar fines" - to leave with a client, kept whatever they eamed from him off the premises. Several lived with Thai partners, but because these men "exploit the women, but do not usually control them, protect them or hustle customers" Cohen concluded they "cannot be described as pimps" ( 157-9).

Unlike women who worked in bars and massage parlours with Thai and Chinese men, women working ~'th~rungsornetimes engaged in what Cohen called -'open-ended" encounters: "a kind of relationship between a prostitute and her customer which, though it may start as specific neutral service, rendered more or less indiscriminately to any customer, may be extended into a more protracted, diffuse and personalized liaison, involving both emotional attachment and economiç interest" ( 160). In an early article, Cohen constructed a typology to di fferentiate relationships based on the degree to which the attachrnents were rnotivated by

4s Northern women are thought more beautiful by many Thai because they tend to have lighter skin and sofier, more "ferninine" ways; thus when working as prostitutes tend to serve a local clientele. Northeastern women are darker skinned and more assertive, and thus generally fare better with furung. emotional versus economic interest: mercenary, "a form of pure 'economic exchange"',

affectively neutral; staged, "'essentially a fonn of 'economic exchange,' but camouflaged as

'social exchange' or even love [as t]he girl feigns attachment and intentionally leads on her

partnef'; mixed, involving both economic and social exchange "and even love", but

"fluctuating" between the two and hence the "most unstable" type; and emotional, "dominated by the emotional involvement of the partners, with economic interests on the girl's part playing only a minor or subdued role". Most protracted liaisons between Thai "girls" and furung were, he suggested, rither staged or mixed, rarely emotional. Though he admitted that "some experiencedfurung.~ go so far as to feip emotional involvenient [in order] to involve the girl ernotionally [sol that she will be willing to stay for free", the "crucial variable" For Cohen in defining a relationship was "the extent of the girl's emotional involvement and her readiness to sacrifice her econornic interests to it" (1 982: 4 15-7). In his reading, Thai women in the sex trade are unwilling (unable?) to forego economic interests; "highly adept at staging attraction to their customers". they "exploit with consummate skill" the emotional vulnerability of the "isolated middle-aged individuais" who fall in love with them. Thus, he concluded, "sex-tourisrn may indeed engender the sexual exploitation of local women on the macro-social level; but on the micro-social level of interpenonal relationships, the state of affairs may often be inverted - the local women actually exploiting the foreigers" (1 986: 1 16, 124).

1 appreciate Cohen's refusal tu reproduce simplistic understandings of the power dynamics between prostitute and client and his attempt to open up the relations of power and resistance between them in a way that permits women some possibility of exercising power of her own. 1 am troubled, however, by the way he made women's commitment paramount to understanding the relationship, implying that men's feelings and behaviours were insignificant. 140

In a recent article Cohen has atîempted to recti@ this skewed perspective. He characterized his

original typology of relationships as "essentially etic ... i.e. one constructed by an external

observer" and as such a view that "disregards the emic conception ...i.e. the manner in which it is

interpreted in Thai culture" ( 1993: 165). Clearly, for Cohen etic meant a furung point of view,

ernic a Thai one. Yet the furung viewpoint he characterized was hardly a disinterested or

generalized one; it was the view of afururg man trying to make sense of his relationship with a

Thai sex worker. Cohen's analysis, though couched in abstract westem social science language,

did not offer the perspective of an "extemal observer" and was neither dispassionate nor

impartial. Like the furung men he interviewed, the social scientist interpreted women's

"willinbmess" to "sacrifice" their "economic interests" as the "crucial variable" which indicated their true feelings; the quality of the man's affective involvement seemed an insigmificant variable which was not important for defining the relationship.

Cohen went on in the later article to offer what he considered an emic version of his earlier typolo~y,taking account of the interpretations of the Thai prostitutes - typographically rendered by the sociologist as "women" at last. Mercenary relationships are "frequently

tictitiously assimilated to the culturally more acceptable gift-relationship" with payrnent seen as

"a kind of gratuity", allowing women to "dissociate" themselves from "ordinary prostitutes",

"display.. .Thai opportunism", and possibly "'open up' the initial brief encounter into a more protracted liaison". In staged interactions the woman "fakes feelings, ernotions or sexual attraction. ..expressing a culturally induced motive to please her sexual partner... [and] a Thai cultural theme - an obligation of those lower in the social hierarchy to please those higher".

Mixed relationships bring Thai and westem notions into direct conflict: the "substitutive" westem view of remuneration and emotion implies that greater affective involvernent is 14 1

signalled less demand for material benefits, while the "additive" Thai view interprets heightened

generosity as increased esteem and love. "The woman in such cases is in a state of emotional dependence on her partner, rather than in love, in the Western sense - but her feelings cannot be

said to be faked." Finally, in the emotional type "material benefits cease to be a sibmiïicant

factor", and the relationship "depends primarily or exclusively on the mutual infatuation of the

partners" ( 1 993 : 1 65-6).

Perhaps a truly emic view - and a woman who exemplified Cohen's worst nightmare - was offered by the Thai prostitute Malee in her autobiography Tiger Claw and Velvet Paw

(1 986). She began her career as a sex worker by dancing for Gls, and later developed her speciaiization: "Europeans, Amencans, Australians and New Zealanders - the 'romantics"'. Her work involved attempting to "stimulate the generosity of [her] romantically-minded punters as much as possible" by making them fall in love with her and "play[ing] at being in love". In this endeavour she saw herself as "following in the footsteps of the hetaera, the cocette, the geisha, the mistress - and many a housewife." She noted that hers was demanding work, ofien requiring her to maintain the facade of a holiday love affair 24 hours a day, sometirnes for weeks at a tirne.

She noted, however, "the strain of a relationship based on commercial values" could be

"reduce[d]" if she "managed to find partners with a little elegance and style", a comment which suggests that Cohen was wrong to read affect and economics as shictly opposed: Malee did not love her partners, but she did not hate them either, and in fact preferred it when she was able to find something attractive about them. Malee unashamedly defended her choice of profession: she had no "pangs of conscience or doubts" about her behaviour, she said: "Why should I have any?" (130-4). She saw herself as "a small businesswoman with a skilled service to offer" (165); 143

she worked hard for her money, delivered what she was paid to, and was proud of being able to

combine romance with independence and material security.

Since the 1980s discussions of prostitution in Thailand inevitably tum to the topic of HIV

infection. Mark Bonacci, a psychologist who has worked with Empower on AiDS education,

reported that the Thai Ministry of Health divided the spread of the virus in Thailand into three

phases. From 1982 or 83, "foreibm tourists and dmg abusers" visiting the country "for the sex trade and cheap heroin" introduced the AlDS virus to Thailand. By 1987, "HIV seropositivity

increased exponentially in Bangkok among IV drug users" and the workers at the "'lower-class' brothels" they frequented. By 1989, because "most Thai male prostitutes are bisexual or primarily heterosexual" and "a large percentage" use intravenous drugs, "heterosexual transmission becarne the main conduit for the spread of the virus". This remarkable reconstruction blames the introduction of HIV onfarang and its spread on drug usen and male prostitutes; Fernale prostitutes seem to be innocent carriers of the virus, and their male clients - unless "lower class" "dmg users" - are absent altogether. Bonacci did not dispute this hypothesis, and reinforced it by suggesting that high HIV infection rates reflected the fact that

"in Thai culture it is considered very poor taste to express disapproval of anyone else's behavior", whether that behaviour involved homosexuality, intravenous dnig use, or prostitution

(1992: 65-7). This characterization of how HIV spreads omits mention of how "normal" and

"respectable" Thai - like middle class men - become carriers of the virus and introduce it to the society at large; such a characterization encourages a pathologization OF people who develop

AIDS, suggesting they contracted the virus through sexual contact with "undesirables" like the poor, drug users, or male prostitutes. The fear of AIDS has led the Thai govemment to contemplate crirninalization of

homosexuality (Jackson 1989: 272) and mandatory testing of foreigers, though neither course

was adopted. "A researcher at one of the country's leading hospitals" as well as "feminist

crusaders" blamed foreign sex tours for the spread of HIV in Thailand and called for the

abolishment of these tours, but again the government "stopped short of taking any direct steps to

curb or control sex-tours", prefemhg instead to attempt to "redirect" tourisrn and 'de-emphasize

sex as a principal attraction for foreign tourists" (Cohen 1988: 474). Indeed, the presence of the

virus in Thailand was not publicly acknowledged until mid 1987, halfway through the official

"Visit Thailand Year"; thoughjùrung are popularly thought to be "the original source" of HIV in

the kingdom, the govemment feared that publicly acknowledging the incidence of

seroconversion could "scare away the tourists" (Cohen 1988: 469,473).

In spite of the Ministry of Health's contention that furring, drug users, and male prostitutes are the principal sources of HIV infection in Thailand, the Thai govemment's moves to limi t infection through public education of male patrons of brothels and bars suggest that such men are recognized as a major vector introducing HIV into the general population. 1 asked

Jackie Pollock of Empower about prostitutes' awareness of HIV and its prevention and about the effectiveness of public education progams in Chiang Mai. She suggested that government initiatives have reached into the brothels and to the women working in them.

Women who've been working for a while have a high level of information and knowledge, at least about transmission and protection. Chiang Mai has the 100% condom use program. Every brothel in Chiang Mai which is on the public health list, which are the ones we know, has sips saying they only accept customers who use condoms. Condoms are there, given by the government to the brothel owners free; they're given to the women when they go to STD clinics free. Ofien brothel ownen sel1 condoms to customers, so it's in their interest to give the customer a condom. So most often, the condom goes to the bedroom with the woman. Though Pollock sugpested that condoms were virtually ubiquitous in the brothels, she pointed out that their mere presence did not make them effective. "lt depends on the place, the woman, the man," Pollock told me, "whether the condom's used. lf the women are new, if the man's opening [her] virginity, the condom won't be used for sure." She said that women could refuse to serve customers who didn't use condoms "if they don? have a debt and they've been there long enough and they're Thai". The large numbers of illegal Burmese refugees in Chiang Mai brothels did not have the luxury of refusing customers, for if they were tumed over to the police thcy would be deported back to ~urma.'?So a customer turned away by a woman with bargaining power would "more often than not ...just go to another woman in the brothel who hasn't got that power". Pollock said that "women generally want condoms to be used more", but also told me why women might sometimes prefer to forego them: if they have STDs and "are hurtiny, condoms just make it sorer; [and] condoms often make the men take longer". So public education campaigns and otficial condom use programs, while important, cannot halt the spread of the HIV virus in Thailand.

Thai prosti tutes seem overdetennined by their çender: in the literature on prostitution and the view of Thai I have talked to, Thai men who pursue relationships with tourists and receive gi fis from them are not Iabeled as prostitutes if their furung corn panions are women, only if they are gay men. Thai men punuingfurung women are rnerely doing what men dot and are not denigrated for it; in fact they are sometimes congratulated for making a good catch". Thai

J6~ediareports in Thailand when 1 was there said that women deported to Buma were killed on re-entry to stop them spreading AIDS, surely a powerful incentive to shut up and put out.

"Several of rny Thai partner's fhends who sought advice fiom him on how they could gta farung girlfnend of their own. women simply walking on the street with a malefortng friend or colleague, on the other hand, are assumed to be prostitutes; Thai female friends told me they did not like to be seen in public with jàrq men for this reason? Thai prostitutes seem overdetermined by their race: Cynthia

Enloe pointed out that American soldiers based in Europe are spoken of as "having (local) girlfriends", while those based in Asia "see prostitutes" (1989: 84), making clear the racist assumptions that lie behind the classification as a prostitute. Thai prostitutes, likr al1 Thai women, seem overdetermined by their roles as reproducers in the social and systemic, though not the biological, sense. Poverty-stricken rural households rely on their remittances for survival, and women's acquiescence to cultural definitions of their worth as dutiful daughters reinforces familial hierarchies of power and non-élite constructions of women as family rice-winners.

Women's nurturance of tourkts, traveiers, and workers penits men to serve as productive capitalist workers, and allows the maintenance of a state stnictured by global economic systems into a service-oriented vacation paradise.

In the end prosti tutes emerge for me as women constrained by adverse econom ic circumstances into making employment choices which, though less than ideal, are understandable and even reasonable. Women are pressured, but not forced, to make these choices by culturally important obligations to support their families, and they are indirectly encouraged in their paths by the Thai state, the tourist industry, and the individual Thai and

"A young Arnerican woman dropped by Empower one nfiemoon when 1 was there to talk about prostitution, a subject that she obviously found disturbing. She wanted to know if Empower provided psychological counseling for women, a suggestion we found rather odd. Then she told us that she made a point of approachingfurang men with Thai women and lecturing the men for their involvement with prostitution. I was appalled by her assumptions that all Thai women with furung men were prostitutes and seemingly somehow damaged by that fact, and I cringed to think of her haranguing couples 1 knew who had been together for years. I was so speechless that I did not ask her if she ever tumed her indignation to farang women like myself who were involved with Thai men. farung men who enjoy sexual access to their bodies. Refusing the Thai cultural valuation of

female chastity, sorne women seem able to gain the upper hand in relations with their customers and parlay prostitution into a lucrative and successful career while retaining a strong sense of self-worth and pride. I find Hantrakul's conclusions applicable to the situation of many adult

Thai prostitutes:

The evidence of widespread involuntary or forced prostitution in the country and abroad is slim. More and more prostitutes - even those who are forced by their parents - have shown strong detemination in stepping into the profession. Sex is hamessed to an economic end. Men are seen as targets, a source of income. ( 1988: 132)

Gender Benders

1 want now to tum to a different type of gender analysis. Let me begn by discussing the formulation put fonvard by Gayle Rubin in her germinal article "The Traffic in Women". Rubin coined the terni "sedgender system" to refer to "the set of arrangements by which a society transfoms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied" (1975: 159). Sex is biologically based, and classifies humans into two categories on the basis of physical characteristics, primarily geenitalia. Gender is "a socially imposed division of the sexes" which transfoms biologically defined into culturally desipated masculine and feminine beings and which "requires repression: in men, of whatever is the local version of 'feminine' traits; in women, of the local definition of 'masculine' traits". Gender is also

"a product of the social relations of sexuality" which "entails that sexual desire be directed toward the other sex". Gender, then, is productive in two ways: "male and female it creates them, and it creates them heterosexual" (179-80). 147 Rubin's twin poles of gender rest, in the final analysis, on biological sex. The concept of gender was formulated to allow a nuanced and vaned understanding of women's positions in culture and society not based on their supposed biological givens, but it frequently stands in for and even falls back into sex as it is taken to speak only about biologically defined men and womenJ". Heterosexuality and its abjected opposite, homosexuality, have been constructed, in the modem West at least, on the mode1 of sexual difference, and they classiS. people on the basis of object choice: same or opposite sexed.

Madyn Strathem criticized the restriction of pnder to the ground of bioloby. She argued instead that

Gender imagery faces two ways. On the one hand it affects the identity individuals claim, and influences the evaluations of men's and women's activities; on the other, notions of maleness and femaleness receive input fonn specitic cultural concems ...Insofar as the latter is true, gender is not just 'about' men and women but 'about' other things as well. ( 198 1 : 177).

She discussed ways in which New Guinea Hagen gender imagery, as a powerful "ranking niechanism", interacted with other socinlly salient distinctions like "rubbish" versus prestige and personal versus social concems, and how the actions of individuals of either sex are sometimes understood as typical of those of the opposite sex. Hagen notions of gender, in Strathem's view, are "about" much more than men and women. Strathem's useful intervention helped me think about the times in Thailand when 1 found the linkage of sex and gender unraveling.

Gender transgressions during ritual and initiation rites are ethnographically rather common, and Thailand is no exception. Fernale mediums, possessed by male spirits, use

49 This is mein popular contexts as well: I recently filled out an application which asked for my "gender" and gave me two choices of answer, F and M. 148 masculine clothes, gestures, and language; male mediums, even if possessed by male spirits, are said to be effeminate in daily life, and may Wear feminine clothes and make-up (Wijeyewardene

1986: 1 53ff). Before undergoing ordination into the monkhood, men rnay Wear make-up and feminine clothes for a day as they are paraded around the village prior to their initiation ceremonies, a practice which Keyes interpreted as an acknowledgment of the ambiguity of monk's sexuaiity - masculine but celibate (1 986: 73-4).

On a more everyday level, people who belie the well-defined set of expectations about mascuiine and feminine characters are recognized and accepted. The tender-hearted compassionate woman rnay be more common, but "no traits ...are strictly limited to one sex or another ... Wornen are not always mild. Many are independent and forceful in personality. If their heart is not pntle they are notorious in ability to curse". One Bang Chan man spoke of his daughter's strong winyun, spirit, with pride: "'She is hot, stmng, and independent! She says 'No!' with conviction!"' One boy was said to have "the habits of a girl", and his father did not buy him the masculine toys the other boys had (J. Hanks 1965: 79-81 ). These anecdotes reveal a recognition in rural village Thailand that gender identity may not correspond wmthbiological sex and that behaviour varies based on the complex interaction of the cornponents of character, not sirnply on gender or sex.

A more radical unmooring of gender frorn sex was revealed to me rather early in my stay in Bangkok at a birthday party a Thai fiend invited me to. The host and guests were al1 female, and my Friend, the host, pointed out to me that most of the women were in couples made up of a rom and a der, from the English tomboy and lady. The clee had long hair, make-up, and feminine clothes, as many smart young city women do in Thailand: their gender fit dominant expectations.

The tom had short hair, jeans, shirts with collars, no make-up, masculine body language: they were gender crossers. My fnend obligingly went around the table for me, labeling the women rom, dee, tom, der5', though 1 didn't have much trouble telling them apart. She told me she didn't think she was a tom or a da,though her short hair and pants made her look more like a lem.

After the Party, 1 startcd looking more closely at people in public places and discovered a substantial number of gender-crossers of both sexes who at first glance "passed" remarkably well for the gender they performed; often only voice pitch gave them away. Gender-crossing is more common in urban areas - one woman told me it was "fashion" in Bangkok - but 1 have seen men wi th make-up, long hair, and feminine attire in tiny villages in the countryside in Thailand as well as in the Philippines. 1 have not noticed female gender-crossers in such settings.

ir«m and Jee are not indigenous gender categories of long standing, as the English derivation of the labels suggests. Visitors to Siam in previous centuries (for example Scliouten

1968: 144, Bowring 1969 vol 1 : 132) noted that men and women dressed similarly in a sarong and sometimes a cloth about the chest and wore their hair short; from behind, it was difficult to tell the sexes apart. By the late nineteenth century the élite began wearing western clothing, but styles for cornmoners, particularly in rural areas, did not change substantially until the mid twentieth century. In the 1940s the government of Phibul Songkram, concemed that Thailand appear 'civilized in the international arena, engaged in an aggressive campaign to suggest, then legislate, that people Wear western-derived dress: pants or shorts, shirts, and hats for men, skirts and blouses for women (Suwannathat-Pian 1995: 108). A postering campaign admonished

''This kind of intimate disclosure to a relative stranger is common. As any farumg who has spent much time in Thailand knows, people are not shy about revealing, or asking about, personal details. Thai often commented on my clothes, wanted to know rny marital status (and then why I wasn't married), asked my age and salary - one way they quickly determine the amount of deference and respect they should show each other. As afarung, 1 warranted a fair amount of deference: my "inferiors" did not always automatically assign me a kin term as they would do another Thai, and sometimes called me mm,an honorific for foreign women. people not to go out "in public or on the street" with upper bodies bare or "wearing only

undergarments"; women were instructed to Wear their hair long and not to carry things on their

heads (fig. 10, my translation). Though the govemment-legislated dress code was criticized at

the time, it has had a lasting impact on Thai fashion, and Thai historian Kobkua Suwannathat-

Pian dubbed the sumptuary drive "a resounding success...The government managed, within a

very short period, to transform the 'exterior' of Thai society through its modem dress campaip"

( 1 19). This transformation of sumptuary custom must have allowed tom to publicly express their

gender in the ways they do, for the dress and hairstyles they adopt are thoroughly modem.

The Songkram government transformed the surface appearance of Thai people - their

dress, eating habits, posture, and so on were scrutinized and molded to make them look more

"civilized. ln a similar manner tom mold their surfaces to make thernselves appear more

"masculine". Their male counterparts, kuthoey, seem more likely than rom to have their sex

surgically altered5'; though expensive, such procedures are available and relatively safes'. Both

rom and kuthory are popularly thought of as "inverts" - "psychologicai hermaphrodites" in Peter

Jackson's words (1997: 170): rom have a man's heart in a woman's body, kufhoey a woman's heart

in a man's body. They rework their appearance to perform the role of their gendered hearts, not

their anatomy, suggesting that hearts are more important than genitalia in structuring behaviour

51Perhapsa reflection on the ease of the procedure itself as one surgeon crudely put it in a documentary on sex reassignment surgery, "lt's easier to build a hole than a pole."

52While1 was in Thailand an extraordinary incident occurred which was wiclely reported in the local papers. A Mfe, enraged about her husband's alleged affair, cut off his penis while he slept and threw it out the window - several years prior to Loreena Bobbit. He and helpful neighbours could not locate the missing member - they thought chickens had eaten it, the papers said - so they rushed him to the hospital without it. Luckily, a sex change operation was being performed at the same time, and the severed penis from the patient was attached to the injured man. This mesorne story belies the common image of the sweet submissive Thai woman and reveals that Thai doctors are indeed the masters at male sex reassignment surgery that they are reputed to be. 151 and gender identification. Indeed, the popular view suggests that for Thai tom and kuthoey are not gender-crossers at all, but people whose pnder doesn't "match" their bioloby. The Thai language recognizes biologica! sex in distinguishing phtrying, people with vaginas, from phuchui, people with penises (Van Esterik 1992: 13), but popular conceptions accord people gendered liearts as well. Though dominant noms of gender performance are recognizable to jurung and seem to rest on the twin poles of gender that Rubin identified, secondary but highly visible alternatives suggest that non-genital gender constructions are equally possible.

Yet even the gendered heart does not completely determine gender performance, which may Vary within the course of a single day. A tom who lived in my compound in Chiang Mai bound her breasts, wore her hair cropped short and never wore make-up; at home she donned a man's sinplet and shorts. But she was pragmatic too: six days a week she put on her unifonn, a pink skirt suit, to go across the compound to work in the offices of our landlord, a Christian organization. Rosalind Morris dubbed this kind of pnder-switching, often within the course of a day, gender plasticity ( 1994: 18; see also Jackson 1997: 169). 1 don't know how this particular woman was treated at work, but take it a testament to Thai tolerance that she remained in her apartment, and her job, for the year I was living there. In general 1 found sanctions against gender-crossers in Thailand mild by western standards: amusement, avoidance, disapproval.

Thai, likefurung, usually assume that sexual object choice will reproduce dominant heterosexual noms: those gendered masculine will choose those gendered ferninine as partners, and vice versa. Many Thai I met seemed confused about homosexuality: they knew it existed, but when we talked about it, they tended to shake their heads in amused perplexity and ask what exactly two people do in bed together - the proclivity to equate sex with heterosexual penetrative intercourse being common in Thailand and the West. 1 criginally interpreted rom and &c to be 152

"real" lesbians retrogessively mimicking heterosexual noms, and wrote in my journal aHer the

birthday Party, "How are they different [from lesbians] except in their dress?" 1 celebrated the

appearance of these apparent lesbians, even if they cast themselves in the "outdated" (in my

view at the time; but see Joan Nestle 1987) mode of butch-femme. In popular Thai thinking,

however, these women, and their male counterparts, are not homosexuals at all; they are people,

like any other, who have a "natural" attraction to the opposite gender, with the startling

implication that tom, like dw, are just "normal" women who fall in love with someone of the

opposite gender. For the dee, the object of their affections could as easily be a biological male as a female. However, several people told me that rom and karh~eyare to be pitied, for the ones

they love will one day find a "real", "proper" partner - a heterosexual lover - and they will be leR with broken hearts, suggesting that tom and karltoey remain temporary and less-than-serious

partners for the normatively gendered.

Peter Jackson Found that literary, filrnic, and self-representations of kufhoey replicated this scenario, and speculated that "the 'sufferingt of living with a broken heart and the impossibility of finding lasting true love would appear to be the culturally ordained fate of ku~l~oeys"(1 997: 174). Interestingly, Erik Cohen alluded to a similar finding, though in the context of an analysis of Thai prostitutes and their furung partners:

It is common for a girl to get quite deeply involved in a love-relationship with one of the first furangs whom she rneets. The trauma of breakup of the relationship or of the separation after the departure of her boyfinend usually provokes a personal crisis, which eventuates in a more guarded or discriminating attitude towards furungs. ( 1982: 42 1 )

Jackson speculated that the broken heart was the fate of the kathoey, Cohen that it was the consequence of inexperienced prostitutes' naivete as they stmggled to reconcile mercenaiy and 153 emotional interests. However, it seemed to me that the discourse on broken hearts was more

common than that, for on numerous occasions friends and interviewees narrated for me stories of the loss of their own first loves and the broken hearts they endured as a result. Though I often heard these accounts from women, L. Hanks and Phillips report on a young Bang Chan man who descnbed the broken heart he received as a teenager when his relationship with a young woman was stopped by her disapproving parents (1961 : 639). The ubiquity of such stories, told by karhoey, wornen, and men, suggests that they invoke an idiom which has w'de currency in modem Thailand, and which, I suspect, has deep historical and cultural roots.

How do kuthoey and tom function in the Thai sedgender system? Recent theories of gender as performance (notably Garber 1992 and Butler 1988, 1990) have interpreted transvestites and homosexuals as embodiments of disruptive possibility who throw binary gender and heterosexuality into question. Rosalind Morris argued that the Thai case is quite different.

She hypothesized a originary "system of three sexes" on the basis of evidence "admittedly sparse and uneven" (1994: 20), primarily a recently translated northern origin myth, the

Pathamamulamuli. The tale, cast in a Buddhist idiom, recapitulated eariy Tai mythology and related how the ancestral couple created three children from the elements, a male, a female, and a hermaphrodite (Peltier 199 1 : 202-4). To Moms, the Pathamamulamuli suggested an ideal moment of three primary material sexes, and thus a "third" which was not a mediation and possible escape from binarity, as Garber and Butler have it, but a natural and essential originary beingS3. Noting that the 'Wird, the hermaphrodite, was not physically described and is thus impossible to identify precisely, Morris assimilated the Pathamamulamuli hermaphrodite to the

53~contention that, if tme, implies tbat Garber and Butler's theories remain tied to the very binarity of sex and gender that they were trying to dismantle (Moms 1994: 22). 154 catqory of kullioey. She initially read the myth as a potential indicator of "a tradition of sexual and gendered identities incompatible with Western binarism" (1994: 20-2). In a later rethinking, she "reluctantly" surrendered this "vision of labile possibility", arguing that kurhoey as "an historically existent category - and not just some mythical or ideological figuration" has

"probably never entailed the disruption of the maielfemale binary", instead being "contained within" maleness ( 1 997: 62).

Kuihoey probably originally si pi fied hermaphrodites or cross-dressers of ei ther sex, but in modem Thai usage it is used to refer almost exclusively to male transvestites or transsexuals

(Jackson 1997: 170). Moms read this occlusion of females as "an ideological feat of some significance", an indication that the category of kufizoey has been appropriated and naturalized by a Thai patriarchy "which polices the boundaries of maleness while insisting on access to femaleness". In modem Thailand, where "the prerogative of the naturalized cross-dresser is now a male one", kcrri~r~eyare males "who enjoy access to the female domain" and "usurp the female body". The silences of niai and furung narratives on female cross-dressers and lesbians, like the lack of indigenous vocabulary for them, "give voice to an ideoloby in which femaleness is so thoroughly naturalized as reproductive capacity that cross-dressing is not permitted to alter the sexual identity of a wornan". Unlike men, who could "cross gender lines within the confines of a single life", women were always women: the female body was "relatively immutable" and femaleness as reproduction "inviolable, irreversible, and unified ( 1994: 24-6). Later she admitted that "nonreproductivity" for women could "find other forms and sites of expression" outside that of kuthoey, but rernarked that "very few" of them were "institutionally visible"

(1 997: 62). Moms suggested that in contemporary Thailand the indigenous "system of three genders" exists alongside a newly emergent and western-derived "system of four sexualities" which "renders both maleness and femaleness as natural identities which are either realized or transgessed in sexual practice". She found lesbianism again trivialized and minimalized in a number of ways, including "linguistic poverty". Male homosexuality was "legitimated by the term Ien suwuut (playing [with] lovers) as a full expression of romantic love" while lesbian sex was referred to as "[enpheuun (playing [with] friends)", "veiling" female homosexuality as

"'mere' friendshi p". Women were subject to alamist discourses which linked "extrareproductive sexual experience" - lesbianism and prostitution - to genital deformation, a kind of "medicalized terror... uniquely applied to women, male sexual desire being deemed natural and irresistible"

(1 994: 29-3 1 ).

Peter Jackson did not quibble with Moms's assertion that the restriction of kuthoey to men was an effect of Thai patriarchy, but did dispute her absorption of kuihoey into the category of man. Jackson contended that the salient opposition in Thai constructions of masculinity was kurlioey versus "man" - the inverted commas sibmifying for him the sedgender category plztrchoi, not the biological category male. Kuihoey and "man" were "polar opposites, nuclei for two constellations of sexual noms and gender characteristics regarded as being mutually exclusive and as constituting a male's sexkender identity". "Man" was a valorized category, kuthoey vilified. Jackson referred to karhoey as "the negation of manhood ...the Thai 'un-man"', and attributed to them a pivota1 role in the construction of masculinity: a male knows he is a "man" because he is not a kuihoey. Kuihoey were not like "men" in "dress, speech, or demeanor"; unlike "men" (and like "women", phuying), they occupied the subordinate (penetrated) role in sex acts; they did not many and father children (1997: 171 -2). 156

Jackson's analysis of magazine columns by "the 'Dear Abby' of problem-hounded Thai hornosexual men and wornen" (1989: 6),Go Paknam, showed that Paknam distinguished males who penetrated other males from those who were penetrated. In modem Thai slang, the penetrators are known as guy king - another English borrowing; Paknam viewed gay king as

"true men". The men they penetrated, gay y ueen in slang, passive homosexuals in Jackson's parlance, were largely assimilated by Paknam into the category of kuthoey: he assumed guy queen likely, and kufhoey always, to be effeminate and receptive in homosexual acts. Paknam viewed dee and gay king as "wayward heterosexuals" and advised them to use "concerted effort" to force themselves to confonn to dominant sexual noms; by contrast, he considered tom, goy yuern, and especially kuthoey unable to escape their sony fate (73-4).

Morris viewed the indigenous "system of three genders" and the western-derived "system of four sexualities" as irreconcilable, but Jackson perceived "considerable continuity" between them. In the indigenous system, "private sexual practice" was "largely ignored and "evade[d] cultural and legal sanction", though public proclamation of sexual preference was "regarded as highly inappropriate". The k~ithoeywas impugned for publicly breaching gender noms, but the homosexual who kept his sexual infractions private was tolerated (1 997: 176-8). The newly emergent category of gayness presents a radical challenge to this indigenous sedgrnder system

"by making public what was previously private and by seeking general approval for the conferral of masculine status upon exclusive male homosexuality". In Jackson's view gayness is not a radical departure from that system because it simply brings into the open "an overlooked 'little tradition' of masculine homosrxuality", "renders explicit what was previously implicit, and transforms into an identity what was previously a behavior" (1 87). 157

Moms too recognized radical potential in "the fusion of eroticism and public intimacy", which she glossed as western-derived princi ples of identity chal lenging the indigenous regime of face. Face is "a discourse of the gaze, a mode of disciplinarity in which subjects secure their autonomy through the careful display of proper behavior" and which "need not signify anything about intention or inner thought"; identity, in its "demand for transparency between being and act", is "deeply at odds with the pnnciples of 'facen'( 1997: 65). What Jackson saw as a simple movement of male homoeroticism from the private to the public realm, Morris understood as a radical restructuring of Thai subjectivity, calling for the subject to both look inward to define the self and turn outward publicly proclaim that truth. As Foucault made clear, this mode of subjectivization, so intrinsic to modern western cultures, is intimately tied up with regimes of discipline which in the West have seen institutions like the state and medical and psychiatric professions gain increasing power to scnitinize and punish individuals for deviations and infractions. if this is the danger facinç Thailand, then what Morris construed negatively as the

"veiling" of women's alternative sexual practices could be seen more positively as a stren@h because it may have allowed women to evade the disciplinary gaze of the state and the medical profession and live lives unscrutinized by correctional institutions.

Moms saw another radical potential in Thai gays' and lesbians' "refusals of 'face's' discipline" because the Thai nation-state has in the past "mobilized the disciplinary force of face "in the interest of cultural nationalism". The cultural refom policies of the Songkram govemment during the 1930s and 40s tricd to legislate the public performance of "Thai-ness" through "cultural policies that demanded the conformity of personal practice to newly racialized

Thai ideals" (1997: 65,58). Moms lefi unremarked the twist that these vision of Thai-ness ofien borrowed directly from the west: Suwannathat-Pian's discussion of the Songkram govemment's cultural policies showed that they were concemed with maintaining the nation's face in the international arena by giving a "positive impression" of Thai society to "foreigners, especially

Westerners", primarily by mimicking westem practices; of less concern was "the interior or mental strength of the society" (1995: 108, 128). What Moms saw as the public performance of

Thai-ness can thus be better understood as a riation exhorted by its leaders to mimic westem customs in order to look "civilized", yet retaining, perhaps, an "inner" li fe untouched by these performances.

ïi~mand kufl~ocyare more than just interesting deviations and oddities, and I believe that attention to them and popular conceptions about them help us to achieve a deeper understünding of Thai notions of gender and personhood. Tom and kufltoey reveal that what is glossed in ethnographies as a cosmetic of politeness is a deeply rooted conception of personhood, appropriately labelled the regime of face by Rosalind Moms. In the regime of face, individuals can remold their exteriors to express a gender identification given by heart, not genitalia, and be accepted at face value by society at large, a possibility which shocks westem feminists out of an easy identification of gender with biology. Sexual preference for opposite gender, not sex, destabil izes westem conceptions of identity and sexuality and their too-easy appl kat ion to differently-constructedothers. The regime of face requires the inner self to remain hidden, especially if one does not acquiesce to hierarchy and subordination or if one behaves in ways not sanctioned by the dominant society. Challenging the regime of face can be dangerous;

Wichiencharoen referred to the "inherited silence in Thai culture" which cannot be breached without putting oneself at risk (1976: 129). An understanding of rom and kuflzoey helps clan@ the fieedoms and repressions of the regime of face, and the positive and negative implications of challenging its discipline. Theory, Application, and Agency

We have seen in this chapter two rather different endeavoun to employ Foucault's approaches in the study of Thailand. Truong's attempt to use Foucault in her study of sex tourism was marred by a simplistic undentanding of his theoretical perspectives, by her desire to integrate his work into a neo-Marxist theoretical paradigm to which it is ill-suited, and by her application his "history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects" (Foucault 1983: 208, my emphasis) wholesale to another cultural setting. As the quotation from Foucault makes clear, his work was firmly rooted in the study of a particular cultural-historical context, and thus cannot al ways be fniitfully appl ied to other cultures and histones. Indeed, 1 agued that although Foucault convincingly demonstrated how legal discourses were productive of sexuality in the west, a parallel endeavour does not work in the

Thai case for at least two reasons: Thai legal codes have not named or prohibited practices like homosexuality, and the law has ofien been used by Thai govemments to demonstrate to outsiders the country's "civilized statu rather than to control the behaviour of its citizens.

Morris' utilization of Foucault is, in my opinion, more successful. She demonstrated how indigenous Thai understandings of self and subjectivity differed from those discussed by

Foucault for the west, showing how in Thailand the inner self is kept hidden and is not brought into the public realm through confession or medicalization. Her analysis of the regime of face fit well with the ethnographic understandings of politeness and social cosmetics discussed in the previous chapter and illustrated how to apply Foucault's method of analysis of pwer and resistance to cultural contexts which do not display the specific mechanisms of their exercise that he identified for the west. Finally, her description of the confrontation of indigenous 160 concepts of self and personhood with western-denved ones evinced a nuanced understanding of the different potentials for the exercise of power and resistance that each tradition engenders.

This chapter, like the previous one, has been concerneci with the subject of representation, which 1 have linked here to the topic of agency. For example, 1 critiqued Tmong for her elision of the words and experiences of the prostitutes whose lives are the subject of her book, and approved Phongpaichit for her reliance on interviews with women and villagers. In my view Phongpaichit, unlike Truong, gave the women she was writing about a space from which to engage in "that political, theoretical, self-analyzing practice" (de Lauretis 1984: 186) which allowed them to understand and rearticulate their social relations in light of their own experiences. The implications of the difference between the two styles of analysis are revealed by the fact that, while both discussed numerous historical, social, and cultural factors which pushed and pulled women into prostitution, Truong portrayed prostitutes as victims of exploitation while Phongmichit depicted them as actors making rational decisions in difficult circumstances. For me, the latter viewpoint is both more convincing and more satisQing than the tonner. Four

Siamese Connections

his chapter begins with a discussion of the ethics of doing research on human Tsubjects and my endeavours to proceed with rny study in a way that was both ethically and personally satisQing to me. 1 then go on to examine the words of my interviewees

in detail using extensive excerpts frorn our discussions. Thus this chapter exiends my genealogical discussion into the realm of those subjugated knowledges which Foucault characterized as local, particular, unsystematized, and incapable of unanimity. 1 access those knowledges here by drawing on the information nine Thai-farang couples imparted to me in

interviews. The matenal is organized around themes suggested by the conversations themselves: first encounters, communication difficulties, family reactions, past relationships, travel experiences, and so on. In discussing these prosaic topics, which might arise in dialogues with any twosome in a long-tem intimate relationship, my interviewees shared with me their 162 experiences living lives in perhaps the most intimate, immediate, and prolonged kind of Thai- furmg interaction imaginable.

The material presented in this chapter differs substantially from that utilized in the first three. There 1 examined discourses which have found their way into the public domain by way of publication, conferring on them an authontative status. Here I draw from personal, momentary, and idiosyncratic voices which derive authority from their immediacy and their subjective truth- value for the people who uttered them. The di fferences between this chapter and the others is perhaps most marked in the case of the second and third, where discursive constructions were bolstered by academic pretensions of objectivity and universal applicability to the aspects of

Thailand that they analyze. Though the writers covered in the first historical chapter also sometimes claimed that their observations had universal applicability to Siam, in their case the authoritative weight of their words rested on their actual presence in Siam rather than any objective methodology they might have used to amve at their interpretations. Such is the case with my interviewees as well, and thus this chapter might be read as an analog to that first one and a revisiting of first-hand accounting in a more contemporary, and more momentary, idiom.

What is the relation between such first-person accounts as fil1 the first and fourth chapten, and the abstract theory that figured so prominently in the second and third? Subjective interpretations are important for showing how individuals work with, redefine, and reinterpret the social and cultural phenornena which academic theories are concerned with. Subjective discounes allow us to see how particular people maneuver around and through powerful and totalizing structures of domination in ways unimaginable to investigators who focus solely on structural dimensions and ignore personal ones. ldiosyncratic utterances cannot be taken as objective verification of abstract theories, for the utterances of a few, or even dozens of, people 1 63

cannot be taken to defïnitively prove or disprove an abstract theory; they can, however, be read

as revealing the diversity of ways that people actively engage with social and cultural constraints

and seek ways to rework them on the basis of their own experience and understanding.

At the same time, the distinction between science and subjectivity can also be seen to be

a false one. Objective scientific analyses can provide an overall picture of a social reality, yet

when they are coloured - as they so often are - by their authors' idiosyncratic perspectives and

prejudices, reveal as much about the person of the writer as the external reality they are meant to

illuminate. Ethnographers routinely claim authority for their work on the basis of both utilization

of objective rnethodology and their subjective experience during fieldwork. Ethnographers in

tum are challenged by - in the case of Thai studies - native Thai, who assert that their own views

are the most correct because they aise from a lifetime spent in the culture in question; similarly,

feminists question the validity of analyses of women put fonvard by men. Rather than pitting

scientific against subjective, then, 1 would rather acknowledge that they shade into one another

and are not mutual ly exclusive. It seems to me that they work at di fferent levels of abstraction and each have a claim to legitimacy and a complementary place in an inquiry like this.

Research and Ethics

Subjective material such as that which follows is useful - and maybe even essential - to thorough analysis, but undertaking an inquiry which will provide this type of information raises particular ethical issues about which I was very concemed. 1 was not engaged in research on issues germane to national Thai or Amencan regional security, but I did want to explore the politically charged subject of prostitution, a topic about which the Thai government is very sensitive. Some researchers, like Cleo Odzer, simply pursue their research without govemmental permission: her Ph.D. thesis, "~atpong~"Prostitution: 11s Relationship to, and Effect on, the

Position of Women in Thai Society", included a photocopy of the letter the National Research

Council of Thailand (NRCT) sent her denying permission to study this topic. Though she

expressed "regret" that she was not given official sanction, she decided, "After a consideration

of the principles and factors involved", to proceed with her fieldwork anyway, and spent a year

in Thailand on tourist visas. At her field site, she related, she "perceived that disclosing my

objectives to the people of Patpong was counterproductive, so 1 decided to keep my activities

there covert. However, I did tell al1 close infonnants who took me to meet their families about

my research" (Odzer 1990: 2 10-5).

Not a very satisfactory solution to an ethical dilemma, in my view.

My research proposal focused on emotional expression and Thai-western couples, and

after it was accepted by the NRCT, 1 was able to secure a research visa for one year. In the field 1

interviewed couples about their relations with each other, always disclosing first what 1 hoped to

do and promising to disguise their identities when writing up our interviews. I gave interviewees

the option of asking me to suppress anything said during our conversations, but no one took me

up on the offer. 1 met many prostiiutes during the one or two aflernoons a week 1 spent at

Empower Chiang Mai, a drop-in and outreach centre for sex workers, but 1 never attempted to

interview them and have not used their words in this study. Instead, 1 spent my time teaching staff and members how to use their new cornputer and occasionally taught English and yoga, but

rnostly sat at the centre, talking with women, snacking, and relaxing.

Odzer's terse comment on the response of Empower Patpong to her was that the organization was "unable to help me after being told I was a researcher and they rejected my

Y~ srnail entertainment district in Bangkok which caters primarily to tourists. offer to teach English as a volunteer. 1 heard they had displayed this same attitude toward

another Western graduate student and Western professor" ( 1990: 14). Pursuing her research by

hanging around in bars and meeting Thai sex workers and their western clients, she observed

that her inforrnants "did not seem interested when she tried to discuss her work with them and

"usually looked away or changed the topic". She interpreted this disinterest as reflecting "Thai

social interactions of junior-senior relations whereby juniors do not pry into senior's affairs",

herself occupying the senior position through age, wealth, education, andfiurung status. Though

she claimed that "in al1 accounts 1 was able to protect the identities of rny informants and to keep their confidences fiom the authorities, their families, and from each other" (2 15), the book she published after her thesis was completed, Patpong Sisters: An American Woman's View of the Bangkok Sex World (Odzer 1994) featured many photos of the women she wrote about as well as the "Patpong tout" she became sexually involved with during her stay. So the people

"protected" in the thesis were later revealed.

Why did Empower refuse Odzer pmission to pursue research at the centre? The policy of the Chiang Mai branch, expressed to me in an interview with Jackie Pollock, an AlDS educator, teacher, and outreach worker there, was that Odzer's covert approach was unacceptable. In addition, Pollock suggested that even overt disclosure of objectives to research subjects could be problematic for women unfamiliar with social science:

Research can be done at Empower. There's no yes or no policy. It's done on an individual basis. But in our experience it hasn't been possible for researchers to interview women and for wornen to still be in control of what's written about them, what's done with that information. So we now feel that we, or researchers, can't explain to the women what they're going to be doing enough for women to be able to give real infomed consent on whether they want to be a part of that study, because research is so distant fiom their lives, very western, very academic. Interestingly, Pollock's comments suggested another interpretation of what Odzer saw as disinterest on the part of those she revealed her purpose to: a profound lack of understandi ng of the research process in general and of the implications of participating in her project in particular.

Pollock raised other important issues dunng our interview, issues which have troubted me too. She told me how she dealt with her own concerns about speaking for Thai sex workers when giving presentations to western groups:

I'rn womed that I'rn not going to be representing the women. What 1 do - al1 1 can do - is talk to the women before 1 give a talk and explain to them who I'rn going to talk to and what people are going to ask me, and try to get what they would Say, what would be their answers, so that 1 can feel that 1 am representing [them] as much as possible. Most of the talks 1 give are to foreign groups - if it's Thai groups, it would be [a Thai staff member] that does it - and I'rn always surprised how few people make that point. 1 always prepare such a defense, but very few people actually ask.

1 too have womed about how representative my own work is of Thai-westem relations, and indeed of Thailand as a whole. Most of my time in the country was spent in urban centres, and thus 1 am more familiar with a relatively westemized segment of the population, and it is from this group that my interviewees came. 1 chose the particular people whose words follow in this chapter because they were diverse in terms of age, sex, stability of relationship, educational background, and profession, and also because I knew and liked them. They chose thernselves, too; not everyone 1 asked for an interview assented, but the people whose words I use below did.

In their divenity they are not representative of Thai-farang couples in a statistical sense; indeed, jùrang women who have Thai partners are overrepresented in my sample, for the rnajonty of mixed couples in Thailand consist of a farang male with a Thai partner. Nevertheless, thesc 167 couples are illustrative of real possibilities for living, intcrpreting, and speaking about personal, intimate, and immediate Thai-jürang interactions.

1 interviewed the eighteen individuals whose words 1 use in this chapter as couples, together, and taped our conversations. AI1 but one of the pairs lived in Chiang Mai, northem

Thailand. We spoke mostly in English, occasionally in "Thenglish", and once rnostly in Thai - the Thai wornan in that case (therefore?) more voluble than most of her countrypeople were in the interview environment. The transcriptions 1 compiled later fiIl over 150 single-spaced pages, and from them 1 have gleaned narratives of meeting, dealing with families, traveling, living and eating and talking together, learning about each other as individuals and as bearers of diverse cultures. Interviews are edited slightly for clarity, gammar, and continuity; words in Thai were translated by me and rendered in itaiics. To help the reader keep track of the voices, I have given my subjects names; to protect their anonymity, these names are false. Also in the interests of preserving their confidentiality, 1 have kept the biographical information about them to a minimum: nationality, age at the time of the interview, and a bief description of the interview environment. As 1 did not receive explicit permission to draw froin Our interactions outside the interview site, 1 do not include that information here; as 1 do not know how many of the couples have fared since I lefi Thailand, 1 restrict my data io the information they shared with me at the time of the interview.

Unlike Erik Cohen, who thought he could discem when Thai prostitutes were engaged in

"real" emotional as opposed to "feigned" self-interested relationships with their farung clients

(1982), I make no such judgements about my interviewees. I assume that each party feels a genuine regard for their partner which they would cal1 love; this presumption of affect is supported, 1 think, by the fact that the relationship of shortest duration among them was at least 168 two years. Whether mamed, living together, or involved but living apart, each of these people

had invested considerable time and probably effort into their associations with their partners.

The degree of initial or continuing self-interest that motivated them to spend this time was

impossible for me to judge and, i think, in the end not integal to my analysis. After all, as Cohen

himself came to realize, the opposition between emotion and economics may be a western one,

and thus not particularl y appropriate to a Thai understanding of lovi ng connection ( 1 993).

Introductions

1 interviewed Wendy and Wit at their home on a srnaIl island in the south of Thailand rnuch frequented by tourists. They had been married for four years; she was 27, he 75. Neither

had been to university. Wit spoke English fairly well but was overshadowed by his loquacious wife, who often answered questions for him. They were my first interview and 1 was apprehensive as 1 appeared at their door with my tape recorder, but their friendly and communicative demeanor put me at ease and made it rasier to proceed to approach al1 the other couples who kindly agreed to let me talk with them.

Anna, an American in her mid forties, and her husband Ae, in his early fiflies, had been mamed more than twenty yean and had lived in Thailand for over fifieen. They had two children in their late teens. They were fun to interview, ta1 kative and fond of a good joke. They owned a small business and 1 interviewed them in a small alcove rit their office. People passed back and forth as we talted and Ae went off at one point to make a phone call. After we had been talking for about fifieen minutes, Ae intempted me to Say, "Okay, question nurnber one.

So much introduction. But now, question number one." "No," I said, "this is how it goes, just 169 these informal questions." "It means the whole thing will be silly conversation," he said. "That's

nght," 1 replied. And so we continued.

Gary was a 35-year-old Englishman, Gop a 30-year-old Thai. They had been involved for

four years. mamed about hvo. Both had pst-graduate degrees, hers from Germany, his from the

UK. 1 knew them fairly well, so they came to my house for Our interview. They were open and

talkative. Nina and Nong also came to my house; both 23, they had been involved in this

relationship for almost three years. They had both gone to the US, Nina's home country, for post-

graduate degrees after they had become involved. 1 had met them both and known thern for a

few months before Nina came out to me; when 1 asked them for an interview they assented with

alacrity. The frank and illuminating conversation we had about hornosexuality in Thailand and

abroad was part of what prompted me to explore the subject further for this thesis.

Susan, an Australian, 28, had bcen living with Suphot, 34, for two years. Both had

university educations. A mutual friend had suggested the interview, and I rode my bike over to

their house one afiernoon. Suphot seemed a little suspicious at first - "Mat do you wani from

us?" he asked me as we waited For Susan to finish a phone cal1 - but the interview went well.

Towards the end 1 usual ly asked people if there was anything they wanted to add, and Suphot

said, "1 don't wani to Say anything more, I just want to know about you. Now it's our time to ask

you, isn't it?" 1 assented, laughing, and he turned the tables, asking about rny Thai partner and 1,

how we met, how we lived in Canada, how we communicated, and so on.

Olive was an American, 24, Oh a Thai, 28. "I think our relationship is a little bit different

than the ones you're looking at," Olive told me, "because we're not mamed. We don't live

together. We've just known each other for a long time." They had been dating for about three

years and were together when she was in Thailand, uncommitted when she retumed to North America. She was pursuing a pst-graduate degree in Canada; he was a professional. Oh

understood English well and Olive's Thai was veiy good, so this interaction included a lot of

Thenglish. Oh had been apprehensive about the interview and had only agreed reluctantly, but at

the end of our conversation he laughed with relief and said, "Nothing secret!" and then, "Was

that useful?" 1 assured him that it was.

Tom and Tip had been living together for five or six years; he was English, 43, she Thai,

4 1 . 1 went to their beautiful teak house to interview them one moming, and ptmobbed at the

door by their four dogs. They lived w'th her niece whom they had informally adopted. Tip had a

basic education - compulsory schooling would have been four years when she was a schoolgirl -

and Tom had a college degree. Tip spoke exclusively in Thai; Tom started out speaking Thai but

sometimes switched to English when his language skills proved inadequate. They were an

interesting interview, Tom thoughtful and articulate, Tip effusively communicative. Also

grrulous were Ruth and Rit, she Amencan, 41, he Thai, 26, both university educated. They

were living with a teenage boy they had adopted. They had been involved for four years but had

spent the last two apart; she had just returned from the States a Few months before our interview.

"It said that we really wanted to do this, if we could stay together for two years without being together," she commented. They came to my house to talk with me.

Petr, 3 1, was Dutch; his wife Pong, 24, was from a fairly populous ethnic minority group, though she had Thai citizenship5! They had been mamed just over eighteen tnonths and had a ten-month-old baby son. I went to their abode in a housing development on the outskirts of

Chiang Mai to interview them; her sister and mother, who were staying with them, played with

"~ongtold me that her father had simply gone down to the local district office to get her the identification card she needed to get a passport. She didn't know the details, but she said she thought it had been no problem. 171 the baby while ive talked. Pong had minimal education but was articulate in Thai and English;

Petr had a high school education and good English. The unexpected amival of her brother partway through the interview caused her some consternation, however, and 1 cut this conversation off soon ailer and lefi.

The following table summarizes this biographical information for the convenience of the reader.

Farang Partner Thai Partner Relationship Details I Wendy, American, 27 ? Wit, 25 61 Married for 4 years Anna, American, rnid4Os ? Ae, early 50s o" Mamed for more than 20 years; 2 I teenage chi ldren IGary, English, 35 d Gop, 30 ? lnvolved for 4 years, rnam'ed for 2 INina, American, 23 ? Nong, 23 ? Involved for 3 years ISusan, Australian, 28 ? Suphot, 34 d Lived together 2 years Olive, American, 24 ? Oh, 28 d' Involved for 3 years, with extended I petiods on different continents Tom, English, 43 8 Tip, 41 ? Lived together for 5 or 6 years; 1 I informally adopted chi ld Ruth, American, 4 1 ? Rit, 26 a" Involved for 4 years with 2 years apart; 1 I informally adopted child IPetr, Dutch, 3 1 8 Pong, 24 9 Married 18 rnonths; 1 young child Meetings

In the earliest days of Thai-western relations, the furcing who formed intimate relations

with Siamese were probably al1 men who spent time in Siam. The Thai rnay have corne from any

segment of society except the very highest. for a 1657 decree banned women close to the court

from manying furang, probably in response to a romance between a Thai pnncess and a Dutch

factor (Reid 1988: 633). This early panern of contact changed by the late nineteenth century,

when Thai élite males began to be educated abroad. Scattered examples suggest that a

substantial number of these men tookjurung wives. Chulalongkom's son Prince Chakrabongse

mamed a Russian, thouçh they later divorced (Chakrabongse 1956); his brother Prince Rangsit

had a German spouse (229). A minor princess who knew Chakrabongse in Russia related in her

autobiography that the Thai diplomat Luang Prakit died in London in the 1890s, leaving behind a

European wife and two children (Kridakon 1982: 64). Princess Rudivoravan traveled to England

with Chakrabongse's son for her schooling; she was the only girl from her large family to receive a foreign education, though al1 the boys did. She did not take ajurung partner, but her brother had a German wife (Knight 1957: 5 1,205). ln the 1920s the novelist and anti-royalis~Phra Saras mamed a Frenchwoman, in spite of the fact that he had a Thai wi fe and fïve children at home

(Batson 1996: 150). Bureaucrat and nationalist Luang Wichit Wathakan mamed afwung in

Paris while he was studyinp abroad; she retumed to Thailand with hirn in 1927 and ihey had two children, but divorced six years late?"Barme 1993: 157).

Of my nine couples, only Anna and Ae had met abroad. In the early 1960s they were fellow university students in a small midwestem American town. 1 was always interested in the

56Wathakan,with his second wife, a Thai, was instrumental in formulating the Songkram goverment's dress codes. 173 stories of initial encounters, and Anna told me, "On campus, our best fnends introduced us. It was a blind date." Ae, ever the joker, said, "1 was blind, and she chimed in, laughinp, "He was blindfolded!" Anna's only knowledge of Thailand at that point derived from high school geogaphy lessons and orientalist images:

1 remember studying Thailand when 1 was in the eighth grade, because the way that it's spelled, you know, with a "th", and 1 remember we just had so much fun calling it Thighland. And 1 knew Siam, because one of my favourite songs had Siam: "1 rnay go 10 Siam, faraway places and strange-sounding names". 1 knew of that, but actually knowing what the country was like and ever meeting any Thai people, I'd never, not until I met Ae.

She had trouble understanding him at first: "It was a little di fficult for me, because I had never really been around anybody from another country that had a heavy accent except for my grandmother, she had an accent, a very heavy Geman accent." Ae had tumed this into a joke too: "On that day [of our first date], 1 carried a package of Accent - MSG - and 1 said, 'Do you prefer this accent or my accent?"'

Anna was t'irst drawn to Ae's sense of humour: "He has a beautiful smile and a wondert'ul laugh, and we were laughing al1 the time." He wouldn't tell me what he had liked about her, only saying disparagingly, "On that day, she put [on] so much make-up. Like a teenager. 1 don't likr much cosmetics." But he qualified this rather unkind remark by joking, "1 know she was excited to date such an old man." Anna claimed that for her the age difference between them - she was

19, he 26 - was more remarkable than the racial or cultural ones. "In the beginning I didn't realize how much older he was than 1 was. 1 thought maybe he's just two or three years older than me. It was interesting to have an older man interested in me. Yes, 1 liked that very much."

Still, he did come from a "faraway place" with a "strange-sounding name", and that probably attracted her as well. 1 74 The late twentieth century has seen the patterns of Thaifurmg meeting change once

again: though rnany élite Thai still go abroad for education, the exponential growth of tourism

has allowed large numbers of Thai to be able to meet furung on Thai soil. Prostitution in

particular has brought substantial numbers of Thai women in direct and intimate contact with furmg men, and marriages sometirnes transpire, though as Jackie Pollock told me, the numbers

are proportionately small. The rest of my interviewees illustrate the wide range of ways Thai and furung of diverse classes and backgrounds meet and fall in love.

Many people in Thailand meet through the tourist industry. "Wit was a taxi driver for the

bungalows 1 stayed at," Wendy told me. "She was a guest," Wit confirmed. She had liked him

because "he was cute", and she had initiated a conversation.

That wîs like the invitation to hirn and he invited me to go fishing the next morning. And then he was going on a trip around the island with some people who'd asked for a taxi to drive them around, and he asked me if 1 wanted to go. And then the boxing match. Remernber when you took me to Thai boxing? And he put his am around me. 1 almost had a heart attack, [because before that] he never touched me, never did anything, just super friendly. 1 mean, 1 didn't know if he liked me or not, 1 couldn't tell. I just thought he seemed like a really nice person.

In the tourist trade, Wit had had plenty of opportunity to meet furung before and had flirted with a few women, but told me, "Most of them were not really what 1 want." Using the cornmon English rendering of suphurb - polite - he described how the farang women he had met before were not polite: "They Wear a really short dress, bikini, walking around. Thai people don't like that. I liked Wendy because she [is] very polite. She can get along in Thai culture." Wendy supported Wit's theory of his attraction to her in her amplification of his remarks:

Iwas on holiday from teaching English in Taiwan. I had gone there with a progam and they did a lot of cross-cultural training: how to behave in another culture, specifically Taiwan but I mean it applies to everywhere. It gives you the means to learn how to handle other people's cultures without insulting them. And so when 1 came here 1 was quite conservative and 1 think he looked at me and saw somebody who behaved in a different way. It's always been my theory that that's one of the things he found attractive about me. So many other girls Wear really skimpy revealing clothing. You just can't do that in Taiwan; it's very conservative.

Here, as elsewhere in this interview, Wendy and Wit's identical answers - his brief, hers

extrnded - suggested narratives they had amved at through conversation together and were able to effortlessly reproduce for me.

Wendy explained how they had moved from seeiny each other io something more serious:

He said, "Why don't you corne and stay with me and my parents?" 1 didn't know about how if you're living with someone everyone considers you're rnarried. Nobody ever explained that one to me. 1 had no idea. If I'd known, 1 would have said no, but 1 just thought, well, they seem really liberal about a lot of things here, maybe they're liberal about that, too.

Wit had askcd Wendy a seemingly simple question which she had taken at face value, ignorant of its hidden import; by the tirne she realized what her moving in implied, she and Wit were senously involved. As she said, "Later on it tumed out al1 right, because we got rnarried anyway."

Tom and Tip had met through a mutual friend, but at first their connection was professional. Tip, who worked as a tailor, told me about their initial interactions: My yfriend used fo have me make chthes, und /~he?/~~st udied fEngii.slz/ with him. He had u purty und my friend invitrd me. My friend introduced us, hecuuse I could sew, und he wus interested, und tlzougltr thut luter /le would usk me to do some work, decorut ing, rnaking c urtain. So we mude un uppointmenl und exchungedplione numhers. I wen! und mude curtuins und stufl1;)r Ais lzouse. .4nd we wenf out togelher sornef imes. Rut we didn 'r sec. euch orhrr oflen.

1 was surprised that she would go out with a furmg man alone, something suphurh Thai women avoidSx,but she told me, "I didn't think ubout it, because I'ù met lofsof/àrung before, so I wusn'l ufruid ut dl. I t/zouglzt we couW try lo get ulong und he frienh." She had had a furung boyfriend before, she told me, but "we l?ud hroken up long ago."

Tom described what he had liked about her by using constructions that positioned her squarely as a Thai : "Her nature was typically Thai and sweet. Understanding. Yeah, it was just very light. I'd had a lot of heavy relationships before, but 1 was gadually drifting away from them." Tip had a more cynical view of his attraction:

He hutl u girlfiientl cllreucly, u furung. He told me 117ut he ulreudy lzui u girvriend, und that she would corne und sec. hiut. He IIUJlots ofgir(frrend.s. I duntt like listening IO tltuî kincl of rdk. I dontt wunt (rouble. 1 thoirglzf, " Why does he l~uve[O suy thut? I wusn'l thinking MW woidd he fogefher." We were jriends, und when he spoke like fhis, 1 didn't know why. I tliought /le wonted u conyut.st.

Tom protested, "She told me later about this, wunting u conquest. But at the time I was not aware of any of this. 1 just felt very cornfortable with her."

57~sis common in Thai, she omitted the pronoun altogether. The lack of pronouns and verb tenses was confusing for me, a non-native speaker, and 1 spent my first couple of years in Thai conversation asking "Who? When?" 1 later developed a sense for conte*, but am still faced with unresolvable instances like this one. Given the inter-sex distance and intra-sex closeness that characterizes much Thai social life, however, 1 presume her fnend was female.

5 8 Severalfurang men I knew dated supharb Thai women, but after months of being accompanied on dates by the women's sisters, cousins, and fiends, they despaired of ever "getting anywhere", and many sought out sex workers as companions. Tip said she wasn't attracted to Tom because of his age and, she hinted, his character: "I didn't think uhout [hein(: with ltirnl, hecuuw he!s ofder thun me, and I don't iike ofder men. And our tustev uren't the surne." However, she had been alone for some time and felt that she wanted a cornpanion:

I wu.s hored ofmy ive. Anything I did, I Jidn't see uny good resuft. I wunted somsone to help me in my Ife, /zef' me to see whut I shozcfd ch. I know sorneone, we aren 't very close, we meet euch other now and then, und tken we th't sec. errcli other uny more. Then I met 7im, /lhough/ ut the lime, I didn't hink funythingl, becuzîw men iike this weren't my tusle; I liked unothrr kind oj'nrun.

She never clarified what exactly about Tom wasn't to her taste, but they began to date casually, so evidently Tom got his "conquest". They eventually moved in together when Tom was transferred to teach in Chiang Mai.

Lançuage exchange is another cornmon meeting point for Thai and furung Nong workrd as a teacher and "a consultant in terms of culture7' in an intensive Thai language course. "That's how 1 got to know Nina," Nong explained. "1 got to know her from the very beginning: I got to read her application, and al1 her history and everything." When they met, Nina told me, she "had never been in a lesbian relationship" and "was in the process of figuring that al1 out", while

Nong said she "did not know" and "did not accept" her sexual orientation at that time. Nina descnbed how their relationship progressed:

We just immediately became close, since 1 think the first night 1 was there. We started spending a lot of time together. It was very gradual. Al1 of a sudden this person was corning into my mind and 1 couldn't stop thinking about her. It first became clear to me after a month and a half that I was attracted to Nong. Being attracted to someone new and beifig attracted to a woman for the first tirne, it was really hard. 1 had no idea about what she felt, and what she would think, so it was really hard to communicate this. When 1really really realized how 1 felt, we were on a study tour from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, stopping in [various cities] along the way. We were sort of giving each other little messages, saying little things to each other. One night when it was clear that we were both trying to make this contact, she told me about a relationship she had just recently had with a woman, and 1 think after that 1 realized it was okay.

Nong gave examples of the types of messages that passed between them:

I would always ask her if she missed me. 1 usually ask my female friends oflen if they missed me or not. I often asked her, but I didn't ask any other students, only her: "Did you miss me last night? How did you miss me'?" and she wouid Say, "Yeah, I missed you last night. 1 just woke up missing you. Before I went to bed 1 thought about you." That's what she said to me. Then we had lunch together, and I paid. She said, "1'11 get you next time." 1 said back to her, "I don't want anything in retum." And she said, "But 1 want something in retum." She said it in a way that, looking in her eyes, you would know that she is sending some message. So 1 kept asking her, "What do you mean? Tell me." And she'd Say, "No no, il's not time yet, be patient! Wait. 1 can't tell you yet." 1 kept asking for a couple of days, but 1 wanted the answer that 1 expected.

Several days later, circumstances threw them together as roommates for a night.

That was the first time we got to really be together. Nina never said it, never told me what she had meant until we got together in that room. Finally we were on the bed together and 1 asked her, she [hadj said she was not comfortable enough to talk to me, so I finally asked her if she was comfortable. She said she was, so 1 said, 'Tan 1 ask you why now?" She said, "Because 1 dont know if you would feel the same way that 1 do." Just that sentence, 1 sensed right away that she was telling me something, so we just began to talk about our feelings towards each other. So we got together.

Gop described how she had met Gary at a large language school where he was an administrator. "He just liked to chat with students who were waiting for class, something like that. Also once or twice you needed to teach in my class because my teacher was ill." He expanded:

There were two classes in the evening and in the break, 1 would always corne out of my office and sit around so that students who were leaving could chat to me or students who were coming in could chat to me and for a while 1 noticed a lot you were there and nobody else was, and so 1 started chatting just to you, didnft I? And then, I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but did 1 start asking you questions about Thai or something, and for a while we organized that you would corne a bit early and teach me a bit of Thai.

1 remarked that this was always a good ploy - for 1 had used it rnyself to speiid time w-th a Thai

man 1 liked - and he adrnitted, "1 can't rernember now if it was a ploy or not; probably a bit."

From there they proceeded to a few meals out, sometimes m'th a youp of classmates,

sometimes alone. Once Gop went to Gary's house for lunch and an English lesson, but "there

was no suggestion on either side that it was anything more than eating and studying," according

to Gary. "Nobody had expressed any interest in anything else." They met up on vacation in the

south of Thailand, she traveling with two friends, he in his truck, and her friends always sat in

the back and let her si t up front with him. "They didn't want to speak [English]," Gop explained.

"1 think that was the first time we started talking about what our friendship meant," Gary said.

"It started to get a bit more obvious then. But very slowly. Very very slowly." Gop was a suplicrrh woman, and they did not live together until they mam'ed two yean later.

Olive and Oh met when mutual friends introduced them at a bar. Oh was with a large goup of colleagues and friends, but "Oh's English was much better than the rest," Olive told me.

She sat with them for the evening; when she got up to leave, Oh escorted her home over her protests that she was fine alone. Phone numben were exchanged. I trkd to find out who had asked for whose number. "I think I riskd," adrnitted Oh. But he hadn't been thinking about romance, he said.

She wus rny friendl~friend and u farung. Sometimes fhey might need help or something fike fhat. And I couid help. So we tulked together on the phone .severcil t imes. asked how euch other were, what was Itappening, things like thut. We suid ifwe hadfree tirne. we 'd go und eu; together. 1 80 They met for dinner a few times, and one day they went for a motorcycle ride up the mountain

behind Chiang Mai. Olive was on the back of the bike, and told me she had sat "closer than you

normally would" to him. "I didn'r know whot ro do, rltor duy," Oh said. "Neither ~fzi.~~liJ,"

replied Olive in her excellent Thai. "lbually, I'tn y uiie .&y und I don? do unyihing / wiih

womenl," explained Oh. "hno/ sure whuf they ihink so I don? do unything" But this time they

managed to communicate mutual feelings, and so their relationship developed further.

Ruth and Rit had met because they lived close together: "1 rented a house from an artist

friend of mine," Ruth explained, "and he was living in that compound." Rit shared a house with a goup of students, and they used to visit Ruth to practice their English. "It was not only he that came; other studrnts came too. But he was the one with the most English, and every tirne 1 had a

problem 1 had to corne and get him. I needed a translator." "lt was the fire that brought us together," Rit thought. "1 had to fight the fire in the back of her house and Iwas talking in

English to everybody. 1 got stuck iri English. 1 don? know what happened to me. That's the first time 1 got stuck in English."

Rit was attracted to Ruth, but she initially rejected his advances, he told me, laughing. 1 asked her why, and she said, "The age difference. 1 was like, No, you can't do this! No! He's too

Young. Back! Back!"' and she hid her eyes and held her hand out to show me how she had tried to ward him oK Rit described when things began to change. "1 had to go to the south to see my

family. She had to go to the south to do her visa nin5? 1just said, 'Why don't we go together? 1'11

show you a place, a really nice beach that 1 love.' So 1just kind of managed everything." Ruth elaborated:

59Non-imrnigantvisas for three-month stays were readily obtainable across the border in Malaysia. Manyjiirang who live in Thailand make a regular trip to Malaysia to get a new visa: hence, visa run. We were physically attracted to each other - 1 can Say that, right? - we really didn't know each other, but there was like this thing every time we were in a room together. 1 tned to pull back as far as possible. Then we went south together, and you know, it's romantic, the beach, the moon is out, nobody's around. So then it was like, "1 think we better discuss this. What's going on here?" Not to do anything serious, just to discuss it, that there was sornething going on. But we had another element, too, another girl involved in this picture, and 1 kept on pulling back to give space for her, for him, for me. When we came back frorn the south, actually, 1 was trying to go, "No, we're not doing this." 1 came back before him and 1 found out frorn her she really cared about him. But then he said, "Hey, I don't care about her in the same way that I care about you." When he told me what was going on with him and his relationship with her, 1 said, well, this is the golden opportunity to gab him! 1 mean, really get him.

"Hey, what am 1, a piece of cake?" he protested at this construction. "Yes," she replied, "come on!"

Susan and Suphot had met through their mutual interest in and involvement with the thousands of refugees who had fled repression in the Burmese capital to the southern jungles just across the Thai border."[I was a] social worker on a Burma project with a Thai NGO ai the time," Suphot explained. "[But] l'd been working with student groups for a long time, not just

Burmese. The student movement in Asia." Susan had come to Thailand to work on a film project with her sister about refugees on the Cambodian border, and was invited by another furung to come and visit the Burmese.

Ijust found 1 had much more in common with the Burmese students than the Khmer 1 was working with, and the Khmer were being well-covered, and Burma wasn't, so 1 dumped the whole script on Cambodia and said, "Pm going to do it up here, on Burma!" We came for a weekend and stayed for a year. He was in and out of the camp 1 was in, but Ididn't recognize him because there were 300 students, so 1 thought he was just another Burmese when he came in. 1 don't know if he was even there when I was. But Iused to hear about him, and met him later. We were working in a similar area with the same group of students, so when we met we were actually introduced by Burmese students. We met there, and we arranged to meet at other camps. At first it was purely business, but afier a month or two it developed further than that. Based in Chiang Mai, they still crossed the border frequently - "but not officially", he qualified

with a laugh - to visit the camps, and their shared work and political cornmitment remained a

strong connection between them.

Petr and Pong had met at her place of work. "He came to the bar where 1 worked," Pong

told me matter-of-factly. "He came to see me every night for a week, then he went away to the

beach, and one week later, he came back." 1 asked Petr why. "1 don't know," he said with a shrug and a smile. "1 was thinkinp about her a lot. I just li ked her." 1 was curious about how he felt about her having been a sex worker, but hesitated to probe too deeply, as a friend had wamed me that he was uncornfortable about it. He did seem a little tense at this point in the interview. 1 asked Pong what she had thought of hirn. "1 see many men," she shrugged. "No feeling." Pong described the progress of their relationship, and it was obvious that Petr had been quite taken with her.

He took me out of the bar for a week and we traveted to the beach. Then he went home. He sent me a postcard. One month more, and he came back. 1 feel surprised. 1 asked him, "Why [did] you corne back?" He said he is thinking about me every day. He wanted me to stop working and stay only with him. t asked him, "You take care of me?" He said okay, so 1 stopped working. Soon, 1 [was] pregnant. So we mamed. Now here we are.

Families

Ae, a Thai man studying abroad, mames Anna, a young American woman. "What did you tell your family?" 1 asked. "It's like a wall," Ae replied. "In our communication, no such information." Perhaps Ae took the path of Prince Chakrabongse at the tum of the century, who didn't tell his parents about his Russian wife for fear they would forbid the mamage. Like that royal brood, his own small family - "just me, my mother, my grandmother" - didn't find out

about his union until he showed up in Thailand with a farung wife and a young child. He didn't

tell me how they reacted; Anna restricted herself to the comment, "Tt was hard."

Oh also adopted the tactic of saying nothing to his parents about his relationship: "I never rdd rlzsm [about Olive]. (kuully we don 'l disiscu.~things thar ore personal, privute. so I rlzink

IACY don 'l know. )"leyfre not really interestrd " He characterized his fam ily as close, though he didn't see them often. "<%)se,but they never coine ro visit me. I plions them occcrsionully, or they phone me." Olive said, "Vwe were going to murry, then rhat would he time wough to nieet ilwm." Nong concurred with this version of Thai communication patterns: "If I had a boyfriend, 1 wouldn't Say [to my family] that this is my boyfriend until one day we want to get married and that's it, that's the day we tell that this is my boyfriend. The next day he's my husband."

Nong didn't tell her parents about hrr relationship with Nina, but told me how she communicated it to them in a circumspect manner:

My family? Well, I'rn still doing it the Thai way. 1 never told them directly that I'rn a lesbian and Nina is my lover, never said that directly, but 1 Say it indirectly al1 the time. All the tirne. And 1 think that they know that we mean a lot to each other. We feel like they know for sure. My mom would like me to sleep on the same bed with her when she comes to visit, talk al1 night, but since I've been with Nina she doesn't want me to stay with her, she says, "Just go stay with Nina." Usually, my parents never knock on the door before they come in, but they would if I'rn with Nina.

She found the lack of a homosexual catrgory in indigenous Thai culture a drawback for her: "For me to come out to them, the difficulty that they will have would not be that I am a lesbian, but that they cannot fit me in. In Thai society there's a corn and a dm and I'rn not either. I'rn not a tom but I'm not a dee either." So she left her proclivities unsaid. 1 84 Nina felt accepted by Nong's family, and this unspoken approbation seemed to help both of them feel easier about not announcing their relationship.

They have completely accommodated me in the family. They came to America for Nina's graduation, and so many times sitting with her dad, not saying anything directly, but we'd be sitting and having a beer, and he'd Say to me, "You have to come to Thailand as soon as you can. You can work there and you and Nong will live together. Yourfuilw and your moihcr will come and visit you, but you can spend your life with her."

"1 think they're afraid that 1'11 go and live in America," Nong interjected. "And the other day," continued Nina, "Nong was reading her mail, and she had a letter from this guy who has an incredible crush on her and her dad said - what did he Say - ?" "He said, 'Nina doesn't like this guy because she knows that he's going to steal Nong away,"' answered Nonp. "They know," concluded Nina with a laugh.

1 was surprised to leam that not all Thai are so circumspect. Suphot simply told his mother - his father had passed away - about his relationship "directly. We're a very frank family

My family [is] quite modem, so [we] just tell directly what we are doing and whatts going on.

She never questions." Susan mentioned that she originally had a hard time interpreting Suphot's mother's reticence. "My mother's the type of person, she'll do it in a joking way, but the intention is busybody: 'What do you do? Did you go to uni? His mother never really asks questions. I said to him in the beginning, 'Isn't she interested about me?' and he said, 'No, it isntt that. It's just the way she is."'

Rit took the opportunity of seeking his parents' approval for his relationship with Ruth to break his accustomed pattern of silence:

For some time 1 didn't tell them, but when they asked about Ruth, 1 said, "i'm living with her." Helping or something. But they know, IO%, 15%, 17%, 20%, 25%, something like that, more and more and more. Then 1 decided to go home and when Igot a chance, I just sat down, "Hey, mom, I got so many things to tell you and talk with you about my life." 1 began to talk. Since 1 [was] bom, [this was] the first time I talked everything out. Never like this before. It [would] go to some level and then stop. Even now, 1 don't tell everything; 1 assume they know. I never kept it from them. They know. 1 [was] talking about everybody in my life, and I said, "If 1 choose her, what do you think?" and they said no. They just said no. They can't accept [it]. I asked why. My father just spoke up, because of the age [difference], he knows this will cause a big problem later. He knows, he says. And 1 said, "1 don't know that." But 1 promised them one thing, that I'm going to be happy. "1 promise you 1 will be happy. So let me try to run my life now." I said, "Okay, no. Never rnind." And 1 came back here to tell her the 50% that I got.

"1 expected it. It wasn't shocking. Understandable," Ruth said.

Gop told me that her mother - her father was dead, so it was another matricentric family - was wonied when she became involved w*thafurung.

At first she thought, why is Gary fumng? And she worries that we may go away and not live in Thailand. But the main one she told me is that it will be a bit difiçult to comrnunicate. She also told me that she was not sure of him, in him, and she said if in the future we divorce or don? stay together, for me it ~illbe really bad in our family's eyes.

When Gop went to visit Gary's family in England, before they were married,Gop's mother came too, "panly as a chaperone," Gaty thought. "Her mother's geat, she's just very traditional in that sort of way. I understood completely how she felt. Most Thai mothers are a bit womed when their children have çot foreign friends." I suggested this was particularly true for daughters, but

Gop demurred. "It depends on what kind of man. If his mother thinks [he] is still shy or something like that, [she'll bel afraid that somebody will cheat him and take him from her in a nasty way."

A few Thai from poor backgrounds reported that their families originally saw their furang partners as good catches. Tip told me her family initially wanted things fiom Tom. I%ey came to usk for monty, and 1 suid he wusn 't rich. They didn 't helievc nw, they thoughf I was lying, hecuuw he !Yu furmg. Farung musf be rich. No one helieved me. My family suid, " You cun huy a house or unything yoir wunf! " I su id, "kmdoesn'r huve (enough rnoney]! 1 ùon 'r wunt fo heur ihis! " ï'hey though we were c/zmfingthem. 11~we

Eventually her family accepted the situation and grew to appreciate Tom for who he was, Tip

hirn hecuuw iw!s u goodper.von. Wlten I compluin, tkey suy, 'ïam!v good ' I cun 't cornpluin ubout hirn dl now. I'm getting ungry hecuuse 1 cun't suy unything hud ohouf him!" Tom protested.

"That's maybe a little extreme!"

For Petr and Pong, her family's demands wcre a big problem. "They just want to take and take and take," said Petr bitterly. "They ask for money, clothes, a motorcycle, a house. They think wetre rich. It got so bad before that we moved to Holland for a year." Petr seemed unwilling to recognize that caring for family could be a moral imperative in Thai culture, and 1 suspected that the competing demands of husband and family must have been a strain for Pong.

"When we came back," she continued, "we didn't tell them where we lived, but they found out.

Now they corne again. Maybe we'll have to go back to Holland." As if on cue, her younger brother appeared outside the house and Pong started to cry. Petr explained in a low voice, "We sent him to Bangkok three days ago with money. We sent him away. He was supposed to stay away." Pong started to cal1 out to him, "In here, the bunkiv in lzere. You wunt tu muke u wihhawal? You wanr money? Corne in here." Her sister went oütside to talk to him, while Pong wept and Petr comforted her. It was a sad family drama, and, feeling more than a little in the 1 87 way, 1 excused myself soon after. When 1 lefi, Pong was more composed, and her brother was still standing outside, head down, smoking a cigarette.

Wendy said some families raised "a big long list of extemal, prejudicial reasons" to oppose the many mixed marriaps on the island, and gave an example which showed that one mother used the moral imperative of helping family to object to her daughter's relationship with a furmg:

A lot of families - well, not a lot, but some families - don't particularly want a foreigper. Our neighbour is English and her family's really against the marriage. Her mother specifically told her that she didn't think they should get married because if he were a good son he would be back in England taking care of his fam i ly.

Wendy herself hadn't had these problems, but said that the first tirne she met his family,

"Everybody just kind of clustered back and looked at me." But she felt they accepted her, and

Wit concurred, saying, wi th characteristic cal mness, "They dont m ind. They don't thi nk anything." She characterized Wit and herse1 f as "the reversal of the classic case, the rich foreigyer marrying the poor Asian; here it's the rich Asian rnanying the poor foreigner", saying her family "doesn't have much money" while his was "pretty rich".

Sometimes furung families don't welcome foreigners. Anna said that her father raised some objections to her mamage. "He was a very bigoted person, any race, and he knew that

Koreans that were working in the rubber plant had beat their wives. Since Ae was Asian, he was worried that he would beat me too." "But it's the opposite," joked Ae. "1 had no way to tell him,

'Sir, it's the opposite!"' "1 think 1 have more influence from rny mother," Anna went on. "On TV

[shows with] cowboys and Indians, if she thought the Indians were being abused, she'd turn it off 188 and Say, 'That's not fair, I don't want to watch that.' 1 think 1 got my influence from my mother because she never spoke against any race."

Olive's mother wasn't worried about her relationship with Oh: "She's used to me having boyfriends." Her mother came to visit and thought Oh "very nice" and "quiet, very quiet." Gary also said his family thought Gop "really sweet. Speaking Ençlish, she's quite quiet, which they like." He pointed out that he had been marriedbefore, and away from home for many years, "so

1 wasn't their responsibility any more. But 1 think they're really happy, they really like her." Tom said his relatives "al1 like her very much. My mum in particular," but mentioned that they were

"frustrated obviously by the language problem." Susan said of her parents:

They came at the beginning of this year, and - I'm not just saying this because you're here, Suphot - they came, and they both met Suphot separately - they're split up - and they both liked him. 1 think they think what we're doing is difticult, and they're maybe a bit worried about the future, security. But they really pt on with Suphot well and they're happy about Our relationship.

Ruth mentioned that she had sought advice from family and friends on pursuing her attraction to Rit. "1 wrote lots of letters home to friends and said, 'There's this guy. What do you think?' There was a vote going around." "You didn't tell me that!" Rit exclaimed. "We can discuss that later!" Ruth laughed, and continued, "Most of my friends said go for it. Maybe just two said, 'Are you sure?' My mom said go for it. She is twenty yean older than her partner, and my dad is over ten years older than his, so I figured, my mother's doing this, why can't I? Men do this; why can't a woman?"

Of everyone I interviewed, Nina faced the biggest hurdles with her family because revealing her relationship meant telling thern about her sexual orientation. 1 brought Nong home with me and they quickly accepted her into the family, not knowing that she was my partner. She was my friend who they quickly fell in love with and took in 100% as their daughter, and they talked to everybody about Nong. 1 went home at the end of the summer, and in the spring, I told them as my graduation present to them.

Nina came out to her mother first, though she told me that her mother already "knew, but didn't want to know" that she was a lesbian: "Like one day mong and Il were cooking and she said,

'You guys are just like a married couple' and we burst out laughing. But she didn't acknowledge it, she didn't want to." Nina described her parents' reactions to her news:

Mom was upset at first. We went to a Parents and Friends of Lesbians And Gays, PFLAG, thing, and at one point somebody asked her if she felt betrayed, because she had already taken Nong in, she didn't have any room to hate her because she'd already accepted her. So that was hard, I think. Later we told Dad and he wasn't thrilled. 1 mean, he's geat, considering who he is. The main thing my mom said was, you have a picture of what your daughter's going to be, and the role they're going to take in life, and al1 of a sudden that's smashed. Not only do you not know how to fil1 in the blank, but you start filling it in with everything you hear, al1 the awful stereotypes you hear. She said, "That's what Ihave in my mind, now why dont you let me meet your friends and let me see what your life is like so 1 can fiIl it in with the tnith." So she was great.

"Her family's very accepting, they just know that we are a couple," concluded Nong.

Few of my interviewees were parents; only Anna and Ae had borne children themselves.

Anna thought that it had been hard for her children to have parents from different religious backgrounds: she was Christian, Ae Buddhist - thouph as we talked he distanced himsel f from

"superstitious" practices, "not really Buddhism", that "most Thai" believed in. Anna told me, "1 think if we had given them more direction on religion, it would have made things easier now.

They would have more clear guidelines on how to behave. But we didn't think it was so important, we let them decide for themselves." 1 got the impression of troublesome teenage rebellion, but she didn't elaborate. Tip yeamed for a family: "!wunt to huvr chiidrm, huf I cun'r. 7wo yeurs cigo I wus

know if1'ii ever huve uny. I might. Rut il!$ cl~rficulf:I'm ulreudy overfirty." Children weren't as important to Tom.

1 don't really care. If 1 have children, then that's good, but if 1 don't, it's not a big problem. I'm already older. 1 think that if you have children aHer you're forty it's rather difficult, because you've had a free life for more than twenty years. But I know that Tip loves kids a lot. 1 know that every person, when they have a child of their own, loves that child. So I'm sure I'd love the child and we'd have a future together. I can see good points and bad points. 1 know that Tip wants them a lot, and so we're trying. We're talking now about going to the doctor and trying something for her to get pregnant. We don? know if we'll be able to. But we've had our niece staying with us for three years; she's almost like our own child.

LIShe!s 1 myyounger sisterls." Tip told me in response to my query. &'Irook cure oj-her when shr

wu.^ .srnuif, when shefirsr came out ofthe lmpituf, und kept Iw. Her mother came ta steol her

since she wus litrie." Her niece had gone back to her parents for several years, but once Tom and

Tip's relationship stabilized, Tip asked her sister to let the girl live with them. So Tip was able to fulfiI1 the expected role of social reproducer and provide love and nurturing to a man, a child, and a small pack of dogs even though she could not bear children of her own.

Ruth and Rit had also infomally adopted a child, in their case a teenage boy from a poor village whose parents had a hard time making ends meet. He had been staying with them for a few years, but when Ruth was away it fell on Rit to take care of him. It was a lot of responsibility for a young man finishing his university degree, and he talked about how it had affected his life. 1 really was busy because 1 took care of [him] for two years. 1 had to work, because 1 got only 3500 baht to live on. It's really big money for a student [at university], but I've got another person, another kid. 1 need at least 3000 more every month. 1 was teaching, doing translating jobs, and also research jobs, market research. My niece, my friends Say to me, "Why you tie yourself up?" Yeah, 1 tie myself up, but 1 like it. It's not only Ruth, also the kid is the person who tie me up. Soinetimes he's not happy, or maybe sick, we have to take him to the hospital or something like that. It's a lot of work. And it's going to be a problem next year. He's going to finish grade nine and [he'll] have to decide to go to vocational school or somewhere else.

There seemed to be some conflict about what to do with the boy in the long tenn. "We don? want to dump hirn, but I think there's a point where we need to do something else in our lives,"

Ruth told me. "We have a year to plan with his mother what could happen for him. We need the time, too, to be ourselves. But 1 don? think [he] will never be a part of our lives in some way."

"He'll always be some part of me7 like family," Rit concurred. "But we may need some time for ourselves. I want to have a kid, anyway." "You better hurry up, too!" teased Ruth. "My philosophy he's young enough to take care of them all. 1 can just get them out and Say, 'Here."'

When 1 asked Gary and Gop if they wanted children, she said, "No, not for now. Not for a few years." Gary elaborated:

I think we both feel the same about this - we both Say we do, anyway. In sorne ways we'd really like to, but in other ways it's such a nuisance we don't want to. If she really wanted a child, I'd be happy to do it, but if she doesn't, I'm happy not to. Which at first sounds like it's because 1 don? want to get involved çhanging nappies and al1 that. It's not that. 1just - I want to do what she wants, because no matter how much I help, it's more her than me. Plus we both love traveling. We don't even have cats or dogs. 1 suggested getting some fish at one point and she said, "Oh, you've got to clean the tank out once a week." That's when I decided we would never have children. You have to clean the tank out more than once a week with children. We both quite li ke children; there's a young boy next door that we enjoy from a distance, but it's great that when he goes to bed he's not with US. "Or when he's crying, I'rn glad he's not with us," added Gop. She seemed to feel no need to fulfill the role of social reproducer, even though they were under some pressure from family members to have children. "My relatives, my mother, his family have some influence on us too. Asking me every time [if I'rn pregnant yet]." Gop reiterated the role that children traditionally play in their parents' lives: "What's going to happen to us when we get older?" she wondered. "We'll be lonely. In Europe, 1 saw old people stay alone. Very sad."

When 1 asked about children, Susan hesitated for a moment, then said, "1 want to one day, but 1 don't see how I'rn going to fit it in!" Olive said children were "not high on my list of priorities", Oh that "1 1 ike children, but.. ." Pong told me Petr wanted to have another child

"because the govemment pays". "ln Holland we have one year paid maternity or paternity," he explained. "Even if we live here in Thailand, they will pay me a salary for one year." "I'rn not ready," Pong protested. "Need a rest!" Wendy told me that she and Wit didn't want to have kids, in spite of family pressure.

1 said [to him], "If you ever feel like you naed kids, let me know." He just doesn't seem to have the inclination. That's fine by me, 1 don't either. So many Thai men love kids; he doesn't. But we get a lot of hassle. His dad never says anything, but his mom - I think she's kind of resigned herself to fate and figured out that pressuring us isn't going to change anything. She'll ask every now and then. When she holds the neighbourts baby or sees my Australian fiend's kid she pts thrse little sad faces. But the other relatives have no compunction to pressure. He's had people asking him if he's been to the doctor. Not subtle at all. These are relatives so they're allowed to be nosy. Wit's picked up this kind of smart-ass sense of humour from my dad, which doesn't really fit in with Thai people, and one of his aunts said, "When are you going to have a baby?" and he says, "Oh, we dont have enough money for a baby;" - thatts a standard answer - "why don't you give us 20,000 baht and we'll have one now." 1 couldn't hear the conversation but 1 saw her face. Then he started laughing and she's like, "Oh, ha ha, it's a joke." 1 thought, "Don't say things like that, they're going to believe you! They're going to start giving us money to have kids!" 193

Clearly, then, not al1 Thai put a high value on biological reproduction for themselves, and those

who cannot, or choose not to, have children can still raise families.

Communication

Most of the Thai 1 interviewed spoke English well, though not al1 thefirang were

proficient in Thai. Ruth told me hcr Thai was not very good, "pretty basic"; Rit said he had

always liked English.

From when 1 was Young, I was really interested in English. 1 like Thai, t like the othrr languages, and so English is easy for me to get. 1 study frotn books and rnovies. 1 never took any courses; [in classes] itfsall patterns, it's j ust copying patterns, it's too much. 1 don? like patterns. I'rn a rebel sometimes. 1 think the way io study English is to speak it, to have a conversation. When 1 got to Chiang Mai, it seemed like I'rn in the environment of thefurung, you know, but 1 never got to talk, so 1 pushed myself to talk. The last four years, my English keeps improving. At the beginning, 1 was really bad in English. When 1 first knew her, 1 mixed up words.

But he also thought that his character helped him to leam the language. "My personality is out- going: 1 want to talk, 1 just talk." He was unapologetic about his inevitable mistakes, saying, "1 can speak, but in my Thai way: the words, the idioins that I use, are Thai."

Susan and Suphot conversed mostly in English, though he told me, "Sometirnes we speak

Thai, just to practice." Susan characterized her language capabilities as "really basic, market

Thai. 1 can get around."

1 want to study Thai, but 1 keep putting it off al1 the time. I've had ten years to do it and 1 havent done it. My excuse is always, oh, I'm working with Khmer or Karen or Burmese, so there's too many languages to leam! I've studied Burmese. I'rn not good at languages, 1 don? think, so 1 figure I'rn fighting a losing battle. But 1 do want to leam Thai, and I'm determined to do it. 1 thought I'd learn Thai better with Suphot. If his English wasnftgood, maybe 1 would. But it's really good. We cm discuss politics in English and everything. Suphot thought she ought to improve her Thai. "You should leam Thai if you stay here. So 1

don't need to make the phone calls!" "He gets pissed off when he has to make the calls," Susan

explained. Susan revealed how language had been a bamer for her with Suphot at first:

It was hard in the beginning because I'd make jokes, and a lot of them would be in Australian slang, and I'd have to explain it. It was homible because my sense of humour wasn't working, and I'd al ways relied on it. And he'd find some things funny that I didn't find that funny. 1 think now Suphot's picking up on a lot of the Australian slang, and even just things that are more funny for me. So 1 feel I can make jokes a lot and be understood. It's easier explaining it now.

The first time Olive and Oh were alone together they too had a miscommunication, Olive told me. "We wrni oui to eui und you uskcd me whu~kind o/movies I (iked." Slie laughed at the

memory. "Very scary," she continued. "1 said, 'romance or drarna,' and then 1 asked him. What did you say?" "I cun'i rctrnernhrr," claimed Oh. "Sureyotr cun. He said, 'X-rated movies,' and 1

was, like -" and she made a shocked face to illustrate how she reacted. "We didn't understand each other very well, and it was like, oh god! But now 1 understand that he was just joking."

Over time, Susan and Suphot had devised a way of cornrnunicating which they called a code. Susan explained their use of a code in political tenns: "With Intelligence around here, Thai

Intelligence and Burmese Intelligence, there are some things that we don't want other people to know for security reasons, so we'll use a code word for some person or thing." Suphot pointed out that it was also a way to have fun: "We just try to find something different, a more cnative way. So we create the new words almost every week that only we understand, other people don't.

Special words, sometimes very funny words." Susan said, laughing, This is one of our code words: baby shit. It means bland food that looks like baby shit. A lot offarang food is described by Suphot as being baby shit, no taste. It's weird, but that's our code." Anna didn't pursue language acquisition when she first came to Thailand.

1 lived in Bangkok for six years and 1 didn't speak any Thai. 1 was working with big companies and everyone else spoke English, so there wasn't that incentive. 1 didn't leam Thai until 1 came to Chiang Mai. Now I guess Ifm about 70% in conversation, but I don't read or write Thai. 1 can recobwize the letters, but that's dl. 1 can't read it. 1 do practice: every once in a while 1 get this real ambitious drive and practice every night for about an hour for about a week, and then something cornes up, and it's gone.

She related how her relationship with her two languages was niediated through her children.

1 felt that it was always best to speak with my children in English because 1 noticed when parents started speaking Thai and English that the children stop responding in English. 1 didn't want my children to lose that. 1 felt at least that's one thing I can give them: the gift of English lan~wage.When our son entered the fint grade here, Ae was really involved in his investments, and I'rn the one that taught him how to wite Thai. I couldn't read it, but 1 could see the circles are on the left and you make a little tail like this. Then after the third grade he could study by himself. Then they started putting al1 the words together, and that was just beyond me.

Her children were fluently bilin yal, but Ieamed different kinds of English at home and school.

"When they did tlieir English homework, pronouncing words in the Thai way, I'd Say, 'Honey, you know thatfs not right!' and they'd Say, 'But Mom, if we talk English like you do, our teachrr won't understand us!"' So they were really trilingual, speaking Thai, English, and the curious hybrid Thençlish.

The couple with the most problems were Petr and Pong, because the language they spoke together, English, was the native tongue of neither. "My Thai is not good," Petr said with a laugh. "We speak English, and it's fnistrating sometimes. We canft find the words." "1 studied

Dutch in Holland a little bit," Pong told me, "but 1 feel bored. Anyway, most people speak some English. It's enough." But according to Petr, their communication problems were not simply

language-based.

Sometimes she gets angry with me because 1 don't do what she wants. She thinks 1 should know, but if she doesn't tell me, how can 1 know? I'm not a mind-reader! 1 don't understand this. 1 think if she wants me to do something, she should tell me. It's easy; 1 don't understand why she can't do this. This is a big problem for us.

Severalfurung had similar problems with their Thai partners. Olive said she and Oh still

didn't always understand each other:

Ithink that we have periods of clarity and sometimes it's not very clear. We've talked about it a lot. Sometimes if 1 feel I don't understand why he's doing something, i'I1 ask him. He doesn't know my feeling, so I come out with a question like, "Why do 1 think you don't care about me?" and he's like, "How did you surmise this?" So then we have a discussion, and the answer might not come in one discussion, but as an on-ping process. But it's usually not for Oh. It's for me.

This lack of clarity seemed to cause Olive some anxiety, particularly with regard to their

relationship.

I think the one thing that would make it niore clear is if we had an understanding that was stronger about who we are and what we're doing. Because we don't. We just - if we're together here, and things are good, then we stay together. So it's not like we are together. In a western relationship 1 would have the feeling that that was the case. 1 could know that that relationship was secure unless something was said. And that's the way 1 live my life, but somewhere 1 don't feel that that's the understanding we have. This is one of the things we've discussed a lot.

Olive used the interview to bring this subject up several times and try to get Oh to define their

relationship. She probed him to speculate if they would live together if it wasn't more convenient for him to live at his workplace. Oh was good at parrying her attempts, however; he didn't volunteer much information and said, "1 don'r know" or simply smiled in response to her direct questions.

Oh's refusal to articulate a fixed view of the relationship and its direction in the face of

Olive's probing might indicate a lack of interest in committing himself to her or an unwillinpess to engage in speculation about things which cannot be fixed by words. My own experiences with reticent Thai incline me to the latter interpretation, and it seemed from Susan's description of

Suphot's communication patterns that she, too, might have a similar view:

1 think it's really different having a relationship with Suphot because there's al1 these things that with furung boyfriends I'd talk about. In the beginning, that used to annoy me, and 1 used to think, well, we're not having a real relationship because we're not explaining al1 these things to each other.

With time Susan had leamed not to try to put everything in words right away.

Especially with angr, when we've had a fight, even like yesterday a srnall fight, we just didn't speak and cooled dow. That wasn't rny style with furung guys; I'd fight it out. Now I'm finding there's merit in this way too: just cooling off, and then later saying, "I'm sorry, you had a point there." It must be something to do with the jui yen-jui mn [literaily: cool hearthot heart] thing.

She saw positive aspects in what she thought of as the Thai way, juiyen, but at the same time thought that Suphot was more jui ron or hot in their code than was usual for Thai.

We have a joke about eggs and bananas. An egg is someone who's white on the outside and yellow on the inside, a farang on the outside but Asian on the inside. Banana is the opposite. 1 always Say he's more like a banana because he's more jui ron than most Thais I've met. I think he's more hot and more willing to speak out against authority than a lot of Thais, and other people Say that too, so 1 get that reconfirmed ofien. He's more hot, but 1 don't think it's necessady fiom being around farang; 1 think it was in him already. Susan distinguished "her" Thai from other Thai, as did a number ofjurung, though

Wendy, living in a small village, differentiated Wit's family, rather than Wit himself, from

others. She said most island families didn't welcome/uru~~ginto the fold and didn't try to adapt

themselves to the presence of these strangrs. By contrast, she said Wit's farnily were "really

different", "nice", and "open-minded". She thought they were "more open" than other families

to "try different things", and "1 suspect it's because of me. That's a nice feeling, that they're

willing to change a bit to accommodate me. I feel lucky: of al1 the people I know who are

married to Thais, 1 have the least problems" being accepted by the Thai spouse's relatives.

Anna's formulation of how Ae was "so different" from other Thai was the most

unsettling for me to hear. With Ae out of the room, Anna said he had "changed so much" during his time in the US and "could never come back to the way he was":

He always has this drive in him to improve himself. He's a very straight talker, and what he says, he will do. He wouldn't come out with this absolutely ri di do^^ story of why something doesn't happen. He can't really understand this mentality, come in at 8:30, "My grandmother died." Well, they tell us this five times. How many grandmothers do you have?

Her remarks suggested that the linkage of sloth and niai-ness remained so salient for her that she could only see Ae as industrious by distancing him from his countrypeople and aligning him with hers. At the same time, she inadvertently revealed the long workdays she and Ae expected from their employees, for she considered 8:30 a late start, though when I was at the office at 4:30 for the interview everyone was still working. She also revealed what resistance to such work discipline rnight entail - having many dead gnndmothers. Some furring spoke more of rapprochement, of how they had learned valuable lessons from their Thai partners and changed in response. For Susan, being with Suphot was positive, and taught her new ways to be in the world.

1 took the bait from people a lot more and responded without thinking and was always on the defensive. Now 1 think I'rn leaming a bit to sit back; it's a slow process and, for me, very good. So I'rn getting something important out of this relationship. I'm learning to trust my instinct more than having to talk thinps out when you already know what's going on. L've found a lot of the time you go through this ta1 king process and then have a good idea. So now I'rn economizing on that and only talking when 1 feel 1 really need to. Sometimes that process can be hard, that's a con, because it's not done in the way I'rn used to doing it. But then sometimes he's surprisingly responsive to stuff, and other times not. So I'rn just feeling my way through that.

"There's less direct communication than in a farung relationship; there's less talk about feelings," was how Olive expressed this, though for her this was a drawback. Wendy said, "l've leamed a lot of lessons here that I've just applied to my life. Like: Relax. Take it easy. It's not that big of a deal."

Tom described Tip's "typically Thai" behaviours, and how they had resonated with his own character:

It's a strength that she is a Thai, because I have a great love for Thai culture, and particularly the Buddhist elements of it, and that's how 1 respond much more positively towards her as a person, compared to the character and personality of previous girlfriends. We never argued hardly. Still don't. 1 mean, occasionally, but it's one of the great things 1 Ind about Our relationship: we get along okay. There's just a lot less selfishness in her, 1 find, than in most of the females that I've had relationships with before. A sort of consideration, I suppose. 1 think Pm similar. tf I have any theoiy about this, it's Buddhism that's behind it, which 1 think influences many Thais very strongly. 1 know it does Tip, and it has done me, which is a lot of my reason for wanting to corne here. There's no use crying over spilt milk, that kind of thing. Don't feel resentful about things that don? go right: just let it go, let it go. I tend to see Thais acting that way. 1 guess I've been like that myself for a long time, so it felt good to me to be in an environment where other people did that as well. Of course there are exceptions. 1 notice my English- ness, or western-ness, at times, when 1 get fnistrated or annoyed and cannot let it go quite like most Thais seem to.

Iroughly translated to Tip what Tom had said, and she began to tell me a rather different

story, one of conflict and strife. "Wlten I livd with kim, sornetimes it wus no gootl. hecuzr.se

wdre dfirent kinds ofpeopk. We coulrln'i get uiung. He!$ ci fumng, I'rn u ïhi,und our ideus

clusl~edI thougltt we couldn't stuy together und should spfit up." She mentioned di fficulties

over money:

We ltud u problem: he wus st ingy. Hcfi~re,wlzen we hud to puy fir sornet hing /heklsuy/ "Wlzut!~~ltis? Why is this so e.xpensiva?" I nevrr llud this bcfire. Wht the hefP Ifyou usk o Mui person for something, they givr it, but we ltud to think how much everything wus, write if down. f didn 't like it. / don P like io ritink too much und get u iteuduche. We crrgud rflen.

She suggested that he caused her to lose face in front of her family:

Somet imes wwhen %m hud sometlt ing hud to suy, ltr wu uld suy ii in /ront of my furniiy. WWit h ïhui people, somet imev you ltuve busines cltuf you tulk uhout, just r hr t wo oSyou. You don 'r suy it where yuur.fumi fy con heur. mey ditln 'r iike if. n/Q uider sister suid "I cun 't listen to t his. Why clois hr suy bud t1ting.s to yo u? You

don 'r huve tu huve ~lfurung iike this. No good " She wunted us to split up. ïbm didn 'r untiersrand. But we didn't tulk about it.

Eventually, she said, she had confronted him: "I suid that T'huipeople!v lfi is nnt the sume [us furung!~].Somrtimw ifyou wunt to love u Thiund live with [hemyou huve to love their fumi fy foo. Now wr have no problem At rhr beginning, at first, wc thought in cliflirent wuys. l ùidn 'i reuiiy think wr could live together."

Tom responded to her extended harangue in a measured manner:

It's interesting that, as I said to you at the start, one of the reasons that I was attracted was that there seerned to be very few of these kinds of problems. Now she's talking about it, I can remember a few situations. 1 suppose we wipe these from the mind. For me, itls been probably the most stable relationship I've ever had. Yeah, linle blow-ups, but nothing compared to the other relationships I've had be fore.

He reiterated again that he believed this stability "comes very much out of Tip being Thai, and me having those tendencies that I also want to avoid conflict. That's probably one of the best elements of the relationship. It would be extremely difticult with a western person unless they were of the same leaning as me." But he admitted too that their cornmitment had increased w'th the passing of time.

We are very different in many respects. Qui te ofien we'll Say to each other, "Why are we together? How has it happened that we've stayed together this long?" Neiiher of us expected it. It was fairly casual at first. In fact, when 1 moved up here [to Chiang Mai], my initial Feeling was, it's time to quit this relationship and move on. But 1 yess it tumed out that what we had was a bit stronger than 1 thought at first. Even then, when we first came up here, it was an expenment. We had an understanding that we would give it a few months' trial. We hadn't been living together before that; wetd only been going out, go dom to the beach for the weekend, meet up once or twice in the week. Weld known each other about a year or more by then, so that was a big change, to live together. I1donly ever lived with one or two people before, and found it very demanding, and was very wary.

Tip said it hadn't been easy at first. She thought he had preconceptions about Thai women which she Felt she had to counter with her behaviour:

When we came io Chiung Mai, I suid I il stay iltree or four rnonilts, just fo try, hrcutrse we coulcin 'I get dong. We clidn 't love euch oilzer: we f iked tu say ilt ings fo izziri each other. We orgued ufmosi cvery day. He rhoughi thal wlzen Thui womrn are with farung, ihey don 9 fike tu do unyfhing. ïhey Iike to jus f do nothing, be huppy. I wunfed ru show him ilzut oli Thui women cire nof the sume, that I wusn'l like rhd. I hn9 wuni to live with nothing! We fived in un apurfment, btri we were looking for (i Izouse. He hud to go to work, and I would wufk uround und look for a house. Then we found one, so we fulked rogether und decided we would orgunke rhe house, and ifwe couldn't gei along, 2 would go. We hrlped each otiterjix the house up. We were busy und riredfrom uii the work. Then I siarfed fo be lonefy when he went fowork. I didn'i have unything when flte work Unfortunately for Tom, Tip was not done with her criticisms. Towards the end of our conversation, we moved on to the topic of housework. "70m doeivn't do unything ut dl," she complained. "Sometimes Thui men hefp by wusliing c1othe.s or .something ifthe womm is /ird

Hiif he does nothing." 1 expressed skepticisrn about this view of the Thai sexual division of labour, saying many people said Thai men do no housework at all. Tip, intent on her polemic, disagreed with me, claiming that "uhout 50%" of Thai men didn't help around the house.

Tom responded to Tip's criticism by first acknowledging it, then explaining himself:

That's a kind of different perspective on some things which we just have to live with. I've got a lot of work to do anyway: that is a reason that 1 don't do a loi of the housework. In other relationships before 1 have had kind of 50-50things, but when we started out together I got a pretty strong feeling about the Thai way of doing things. The man was not expected to do these kind of things. It was al1 done for me, so 1 got the feeling that it was better not to get involved. Obviously it's a bit different now we're living together. 1 would prefer that she spent less time on these things and didn't get so tired. She's been in hospital a couple of tirnes in the last year through what L'm pretty sure is a physical reaction io overdoing it, ovemork. So it does concem me. 1 guess 1 do feel guilty at times. But 1 don't think 1 do nothing here; 1 do sweep and things like this. 1 dont wash clothes and things hardly at all. She takes care of that.

"Doyou compluin?" I asked Tip. "Sometinres," she said. "You compluin!" retorted Tom,

"Listrn to -wu now: you'd think you don't want to Iive with me! II sounds like we have a lof of prohlems." I asked Tip what she did when she was angry. "1 keep ntyfie1ing.s in my heurt.

Sometirnes when Irrn in u bud rnood und someona walks close by me, I look, I look ut them. hut I

don't say unything." Tom said, "There are probably times when she's annoyed at me and 1 don't

know if 1 don? see her face to face. She won't Say anything, but if the anger goes beyond a

certain point, 1 notice in her tone of voice or just the way that she's moving around."

It's unusual in my experience for a Thai to criticize another person so openly, especially

in front of a relative stranger. At first 1 thought she was responding to the presence of two jurung, for she had spent enough time with us to know we often speak about our feelings openly.

Later 1 found out from a mutual friend that Tom had stayed out late the nighi before the

interview, dnnking with friends, and hadn't told Tip where he was, so she had taken the

opportunity of my presence and questioning to vent her feelings. This explained why, at the end

of our conversation, she gave a big smile and said, "There! I/eel hetrer now."

Housework was an issue for Susan and Suphot too, as Susan revealed:

1 can't cook; I'rn hopeless. 1 can't even cook furmg food. 1 feel a bit guilty that Suphot's a brilliant Thai cook. He's a really good cook and he's also really tidy. I'rn quite messy. I'm leaming a bit how to be tidy, otherwise he'll get angry. It may not be taken out on me, he'll just storm around the house. 1 feel that that's one way it's unequal: he's much better at claaning things up and keeping house than 1 am.

Rit told me that he and Ruth had "lots and lots and lots of fights", and Ruth mentioned

that they always fought in English. "It's just one of the ways 1 study English," he laughed. "When

I meet hisprc$essor.s," Ruth told me, "they Say, 'How is his English?' and I Say, 'Great! He fights

wonderful in English. No problems!'" 1 asked if the roots of their disagreements were cultural or

personal, and they replied in unison, "Both!" "it's really hard to separate the difference, because

it's both," Rit said. "We're starting to know now which one is which. IPwe fight about the kid, 204 it's usually cultural and not personalities. Different ways of raising kids." Ruth said, "Sometimes we have major fights saying, 'Can you stay? Can you be in this?' It's mostiy me that says it." Rit interjected, "1 never Say that. Every time it's you [that] says that." She admitted he was right:

'Tm always saying that. It's because we just don't have any time, free tirne."

Gary and Gop disagreed about whether their disagreements were based on cultural or personal di fferences. Gop believed their problems were cultural.

1 notice that my Thai fiend who is mamed to ajurung seems to have the same problems [as us], first about communication, second about culture. For example, if we go to somebody's house for dinner or [a] Party, Thai people, they think, why such a long time after you first tell the host that you're going before you can leave? Sometimes it's just boring.

Gary took the opposite view: "Most of the things you think are problems between T'hais and firrungs I think have nothing to do with that at dl. Ii's you and me. It's personal, individual. I've got wider experience, unfortunately, being married before, and 1 had just about as many confusing miscommunications before." Gary's opinion was a useful reminder to me that it is oFten easier for couples to interpret their clashes as arising from what they perceive as the most salient difference between them: a white heterosexual couple might speak of their problems as based on their sexual di fference, while a cross-cultural pair may interpret similar disagreements as evidence of disparate cultural backgrounds; in either case, fights could just as easily be seen as originating from, Say, dissimilar personalities.

It seemed that one of Gary and Gop's problems was her lack of confidence, which he said was a recent development. He mentioned several times how she had changed since he first knew her. "She used to be chatty and talkative. She doesn't speak to people on trains now," he said at one point, after she told me about meeting furung on the train. Gop thought her experiences in

Germany had affected her personal ity :

When I was at the university, 1 felt lefi alone in the group there. I hardly understood them, especially [when] sometimes they used the dialect. I had the feeling that when 1 was with somebody else who didn't speak Thai, I was left behind. It happened between [Gary and Il sometimes when we first went out together in a group. So that made me feel bad, [and] I lost confidence. Then when we came back here and went out with a group of his fiends, 1 tried to prepare myself to talk with them, but they seemed to iike to talk with him more than me. That made me feel, okay, they're not interested in me.

Gary confirmed Gop's story.

Before, in a group, she would be one of the talkative ones, but now she waits for people to speak to her. If they don't, she feels they're not interested in her, because this happened so much in Germany. It did happen a lot. But I feel that it's partly her fault now herc, thai because of that, in a group she doesn't try enough.

Nina and Nong had had a lot of problems at first, Nina told me. "Culturally and penonally, whether it's [because she's] ï'hai or it's just Nong, or a little bit of both, what she interprets as love from a partner and what 1 interpret as love from a partner in a lot of ways clashed at the beginning." Nong eiaborated:

When we were first together, I would take her around, 1 would take her anywhere she wanted to go. I would pick her up in the morning, take her there, wait for her, pick her up and take her home. She was upset, but 1 didn't understand why. She was always honest. She told me that she wanted to go places by hrrself and do things she wanted to do by herself so she would know how it's done. 1 could not understand that. I thought, to me, if 1 love somebody, 1 want to be with that person al1 the time, every day. 1 loved her and 1 wanted to be with her, and when she did not want to be with me, and was very honest about that, 1 got really angy and upset and did not understand why. When she said she loved me, 1 could not believe that it was the tnith, because if she did, according to me, she would have to want to be with me like 1 wanted to be with her. That was dificult. We were having a lot of disagreements. Even when we were in Amex-ica, 1 got upset when she had fi-iends [and] she wanted to go out, just the two of them, meeting her friends from high school and college and just chat with them. 1 did not understand. 1 thought it must have been something special. Othenvise ihey wouldn't go out, just the two of them.

But she eventually began to trust Nina and act in a new way.

1 just ~aduallyleamed. First of al], because she was very honest with me the whole time. I didn't leam directly. She always told me that this is not right, this is me, this is you, we love each other, it doesn't mean we have to be together al1 the time. She always told me that. 1 listened, but 1 never got it, never heard it. 1 learned through different things 1 was involved with at school, through my lessons. 1 put things together, and compared everything with my life and what 1 should be. Not: "Oh, these are the ways people should live, 1 should be like that," it's not like that. But 1 began to feel like 1 would be more com fortable, 1 would be happier, if 1 wasn't like this. 1 gadually learned that 1 was happier from my heart. 1 did not force myself to be like that. 1 don't even know how 1 got over it and when exactly that 1 got totally completely over it. It took some time. When we first met, 1 would give up anything for her, just to be with her. Now 1 know that she loves me, and 1 know that she will not change, because we've talked. She knows that 1 love her, and we will not change. This is a l ife-long relationship, that's how we feel. Whatever we do, in the long run we know that we'll be together.

Past Rela tionships

For both Nina and Nong, this was their first lesbian relationship. Nong talked about her past involvements and her perception of herself.

I've had boyfriends, but in a Thai way, you know. Very distant. When 1 met Nina, 1 did not know that 1 was a lesbian, and 1 did not accept that 1 was one yet, only because of how I've been taught in the Thai society. 1 could not picture myself as a lesbian. Although afier getting to know her for some time, 1 look back now and I realize that 1 have been a lesbian al1 along. I've had emotional relationships with women since I was in maybe eighth grade up until university level. An emotional relationship means that you miss another woman, itts like a lover, it's like missing a lover. We did not take off our clothes, and we were not naked on the bed together. Anything without sex. What I always thought was that we were just close friends and we liked each other a lot - we loved each other a lot - but one day we would many a man. Anybody 1 was in a relationship with, thaf s what we thought. And in the meantime, when we were together, those couple of months or several months sometimes, there would be men that were interested in us. We would go out but sometirnes when 1 went out somewhere and she went out somewhere we'd get mad at each other but we didn't know why. We wanted to know what exactly [the other one] did.

Nong felt that the closeness her culture allowed between women facilitated her developing

intimacy with Nina.

It was easy for me, maybe it was dificult for her, to be so close to another woman, because she comes from a different culture. But for me, it's harder for me to be very close to a man, you understand what 1 rnean, but easier to be close with a woman as friends. So the Thai culture gives me a chance to be with her closely without feeling bad. Without feeling that, "Uh oh! Maybe I'm a lesbian." 1 just felt, when 1 talk to her, she understands me, 1 like the way she laughs, 1 like everything. So Iwas close to her, just taking her around to the Night Bazaar and eating together and sleeping in the same bed and just putting my am around her. It was fine, because 1 was taught that that was fine to do with another woman.

Nong's remarks suggested some ways that Thai culture allowed homoeroticism to develop

without scrutiny. As 1 put it in the interview, "There's this whole culture of women being really close and having close loving jealous relationships with each other without ever having sex or

saying, 'Jtm a woman who loves women.' It's amazing, isn't it?"

Wendy had lived in Taiwan before she had corne to Thailand, and 1 asked her if she'd ever had a boyfriend there. "No, no," she said, laughing.

I've never been interested hi men who are smaller than me, you know, with smaller waistlines and generally shorter. 1 came to Thailand and went, 'Oh my god! The men here are big! They weigh more than 1 do!' The Chinese men in Taiwan are very small, very short, very tiny. They Wear their belts around twice. There are a lot of yys that go out with Chinese girls, but none of the girls 1 knew married any Chinese guys. 1 asked Wit if he had ever had any furang girlfriends. "Not really. Not this kind of

relationship." However, a few years previously his parents had arranged a mamage to a local

Thai woman. "My mom tried to make me get married when 1 was nineteen, but my dad said no."

Wendy broke in, "No, you said no. Tell the whole story. Tell the tnith." "They asked [for] a lot

of money, just the money for the girl," explained Wit, "100,000 baht not including al1 the jewelry, the wedding - and we have to pay for drinks." Wendy continued:

Well, he cornes from a pretty wealthy family, but that's still a lot of money. So, he told his mom and dad - we're going to get to the tnith here - he told his mom and dad that he didn't want to get mamed. He didn't want to many this girl; he didn't know her. So he went and stayed with his cousin and his Australian wife at their house in [the next village], every day, ail day, only going home to sleep at night, and then finally he said to his dad, "Look, I don't want to many this girl, why don't you buy me a tnick instead?" So his dad thought about it and said, "Okay, t'II get you a truck instead."

Oh had met sornefurung women through English clubs at his workplace. "One wus speciul, hul she only stuyed uhout [enduys. M+ kissed u lirrle." About Thai women, hr said,

I've never had a Thai girlfriend like Olive. I 've known [some l'hi girls/, hicf in u different way. The Thai women I've known, hyweren't redygirl/ric.nds. uIf'it!s ïhui people king boyfnend-girl friend, fheypprohubly hn't sleq together or clnyrl~ingfike tht. Muybr they do, but [it] takes a long time. And in the pu.sl, I wusn'r rruiiy interested in having a Thui girijiiend because I know that ij'u lhai womun hus o boyfiend, rhey mus( get mamed. I don't want thut.

Suphot said he had had "international girlfiiends" before Susan, "both Thai and furnng"

"1 could Say the same," Susan concurred. Gop told me she had "tried to" have Thai boyfnends before, "but they didn't try." On two occasions she had met a male forcing tourist on the train and corresponded with hem; one of them had even corne back to Thailand to visit her. Nothing developed further, however; as Gary said, "it's very dificult for a Thai woman to have a strong relationship with a foreigner who's just here for a holiday." Gary had been seeing two Thai women when his interaction with Gop started unfolding. "One of them got rid OF me, and the other one 1 ptnd of. That's the only heart I've ever broken in my life, unfortunately: I told her to go away. From the second week shetd been ta1 king about when we got married. 1 knew i t wasnlt going to work."

Tip related a conventional narrative about the broken heart she had endured when her first boyfriend had lefi her:

The/ir.st boyfriend, u i'I~ui./ loveJ him u lot. und / ncver tltought uboirl king with u~~yoneelse. / wus Young, only sixteen. bly rnother und futher didn 'r wun! mc IO morry hecuuse / wus so young so we run uwuy und Iivd together. ïkre wus u prohlem with Itisjùmily hecuuse they were Chinese and they rl?{~~ghtmen und wornen should he of u suituble uge und huckground to murry. They wunred him to murry a Chinese womun, so eventuul[y he weni ro murry one rhit his pureitts hutl ji,unJfi)r him. I thoughr he would wunt to corne huck to me uguin. / wunted him io, but he didn'i. I worked, worked und wuiiedfir him.

The first broken heart is traumatic, and like others who told me similar stories, Tip waited sorne years before entering into a new relationship.

I thoughr ifSIwusn'r with my old hoyfrienû, I didn't wunt ro be wilh unyonr. Men came und wunted to murry me but I wouldn't, hecuuse I tl~ougltrwe ciidn't know ruch other well und ifwe murricd we muy not be together long. / suid I hud to thirik about it jirst. Whik / was considering, some men said that thqwerr reudy now und didn 't wunt IO wait. if they know some womun they Iike. theyjtlst wunt tu get murried, just 1ike thut. I wus ufiaid rhut they wozrld he like the Jrst boyjiiend. I wuitedjor him for ten years. Afier thut first one. I JiJn? Iike men. Whenever unyone cume tojlirt or sweet-talk me. 1suid. 'Oh! [making a dismissive motion with her hand] It'd be better fwe were jmr frientis.' Coing Abroad

Anna had been in Thailand the longest of any furmg 1 spoke with - twenty years. 1 asked her if she had come here planning to stay for so long. "No, it just sort of happened. 1 thought we'd stay for three years and then go back. 1 always had the idea we'd stay in the States." Ae had

"a different mind", as he put it:

1 always thought that 1 had to come back. When 1 came it was a sudden trip because my grandma was very il1 and 1 thought she would pass away. So 1 fulfilled my obligation on that part. Anna joined me less than a year later; my grandmother managed to live another five years. But 1 was not happy because we were struggling in Bangkok. It was a different environment. I'm not a Bangkok person, and 1 was away for over ten years. 1 was struggling with my investments, and 1 made some wrong choices. It's a good thing that [Anna] managed to share her part by working. If 1 was without my family obligations, 1 could have gone along with Anna [back to the US], even though the subject was not raised. I could settle in any city. 1 would like to go back, but somehow there were a couple of drawbacks in my career. Unluckily enough too, 1 had a hard time to get a job in the States. Maybe at that time it was a bad economy.

1 was amazed to find out that Anna had only retumed to the US once, fifteen years ago.

1 feel really guilty about not going back, and probably the reason 1 donit p back is 1 feel so guilty! But after rny first visit, I was just so turned off by everybody. I lived here for five years, always thinking of my friends at work. 1 workrd in a small Company, and ail the secretaries were so close. I wrote to them so religiously, and you know when 1 got back there, al1 they could Say was, "Oh hi, nice to talk to you." They couldn't even break away to have lunch or dinner. They were so busy, just so caught up in their world. For my relatives, rny family, they just sort of stared at me like I was this alien from outer space. When 1 would tell them what life was like here, they would Say, "Why do you put up with it? Why don't you come back and live with normal people? Why wouid you want to live outside of America?" Afier that, 1just thought, "Gee, what the heck." 1 feel very cornfortable here. I'm happy here. This is home.

She told me that her eldest son had pne to the US to attend university. He thought he'd be okay, because he was bom there. But he was shocked at the discrimination he faced. People making fun of him, ignoring him. 1 should have gone with him, but none of us imagined it would be like that. He couldn't stick it out, and he came home. Now our youngest wants to go, but I'm not sure it's such a good idea.

Suphot had traveled more extensively than the other Thai 1 interviewed; his involvement with the student movement had taken him around Asia, Europe, and the US. He pointed out that racism could be a real problem as well as a danger:

I'm quite different. Not just like a tourist. 1 have political awareness. Whenever I go sornewhere, 1 always study about the country first, their political structure, social trends, thinps like that. For tourists, Europe is very nice. Scandinavian countnes are good for holidays. Central Europe may be good for short visits, but 1 couldn't stay For long, because 1 felt discriminated against, 1 felt like an alien. Ifm very sensitive about people looking down [on] or insulting others. Some places are very beautiful and you can wal k around but you feel insecure. For example, 1 went to East Gerrnany, and people looked not so happy; sometimes they were mad and they verbally attacked [me]. 1 didn't understand why, but 1 felt insecure, uncomfortable. i don't like the United States: it's new, everything's new. 1 think Thailand is more comfortable, very easy. Of course, everyone feels the same about their own country.

Susan said she "wouldn't mind going to Australia For a holiday with Suphot", but was concemed because she felt it was "a really racist country. Amongst my fnends it would be no problem, but

1 can just see what would go down there. 1 think he couldn't handle it, and I couldn't either."

1 asked her about staying in Thailand.

It's weird, because my interests are mainly in the countries surrounding, more in Burrna and Cambodia and even Laos and Vietnam. 1 love Thailand and I've loved it for years, but having not studied Thai fully - I leam through my sister and through Suphot's eyes. Before that, 1 really loved Thai people and I felt I had connections with them, but nothing like friendships. 1 think in Thailand it's a lot harder to establish a real fiendship. But 1 see a change over the last ten years, people are not as Fnendly, especially in places where there are lots of tourists, people just think, "Another bloody faruing!" About Suphot and 1, a lot of our conversation is about what's going on here or politics or us. 1 sometimes wonder, if he came to Australia, what would we talk about, me and Suphot? I've got friends from a lot of different areas, so Suphot'd be hangng out with lots of people, one person will be a model, the other person will be a chef. 1 can talk to them, but would Suphot be bored by their conversation? But there's always someone who cornes along here who's a farung who 1 dont expect Suphot to get along with, like two friends, waiters, who came up here, and 1 thought, "Oh, this is going to be really weird when they corne." But they al1 went biking and got on really well. 1 was quite surprised.

Rit had never been outside Thailand, but he told me, "I'm ready to fly! 1 feel Thai has really blocked me in some ways. 1 want to go out and see something else. But it's really difficult.

The money's one real factor, and getting the documents." "I'm also ready for hirn to go out,"

Ruth said. "Just for him to see how other people live. Even Malaysia or some other country nearby. It doesn't mean he has to travel far, just out, to see another country. I think you learn a lot when you go outside your own country."

Trying to maintain a relationship while Ruth was away for two years had obviously been ditricult for thcm, and made even more unfortunate when Rit didn't get a message that Ruth had postponed her Right. "She really destroyed my feelings," Rit said. "She kept saying, 'I'm not coming yet.' and I was there doing some stupid thing at the airport, waiting for her with roses."

Ruth said they would not separate again.

1 told him already that that's it, that when we go, we should go somewhere together. If we have to separate for a reason, that's one thing, but I think we should try to stay together if we're going to be together. Especially to travel. But it said that we really wanted to do this, that we should try to be together, if we'd stay together for two years without being together. If l was away and 1 met somebody, or Rit met somebody while he was here, then that should be the thing that should have happened. But it didn't. Neither one of us fell in love with anybody else, and we still had this great desire to see each other. I think we always looked forward to the point where 1 finished my work and was coming back. But there was some time in between when you were lonely, when you sort of feit the distance. That was dificult. Wendy and Wit had been to the States twice, the first time for eight months, the second

for the. She said that sometimes in smaller American towns people looked down on them.

'They dont Say anything, but you can see them looking and thinking, 'Sullying the purity of the white race.' We didn't get that in the bigger cities." She related some of the adjustments that Wit had had to make on their first visit:

When we first went it was really hard because I had to show him everything. It was frustrating; he had to leam everything. But he's much more cornfortable back in the States now. He knows how to get around, he's got a driver's license, knows how to use al1 the bank machines. Once he got it al1 figured out he felt like he had some independence and he didn't need to rely on his wife to be his mornmy ail the time.

Wendy thought they both behaved a little differently in the US.

I'm a bit freer back home. 1 don't feel like 1 have al1 the family watching what I'm doing, and talking about me. He's much more physically affectionate in the States, kissing me in public, things like that, holding my hand when we walk down the street when there's crowds of people around. He won't even do that in Bangkok. The relationship changes a little bit, but not that much.

I asked Wit his opinion of the States, and he said politely, "1 like it. Ithink it's a very nice country." With an American wife, Wit got a green card and was able to work. 'The first time 1 worked at Wendy Hamburger," he told me. "And the second time, a lot easier to get a job."

"Because he'd already shown that he'd worked," explained Wendy. When 1 asked Wit if he would like to live in the States, he replied, "Mmm - depends on the money." Wendy explained,

If we can afford our own house is his thinking. We ended up overstaying our welcome at my sister's house. He'd never lived in a suburban household, and he didn't have a due how one nins. 1 had a hard time adjusting rnyself, because it's been years and years for me. We helped as much as we could, but it just wasn't enough. So that's why he's says that if we go back, we're going to have our own house. We're both tired of watching relationships disintegrate in front of us because people feel we're taking advantage of them. Sponging off your family for an extended period of time just doesn't work out.

He said his parents could help them if they wanted to move. "His dad has looked with interest," explained Wendy. "He thought the property was really cheap, because he's used to Bangkok. If he did buy a rental property, then we can always go back and stay there."

Petr and Pong had lived in Holland for almost a year, and 1 asked Pong what she thought of it. "Boring. Nothing to do. Just watch TV. No work. It's cold, and people aren't friendly. They dontt want to talk to me, they look down on me. The food was boring." "1 lika Thailand," Petr said, "but 1 can't work here. So how can we live? In Holland I can always get work. And these family problems. 1 think soon we will go back again." Pong was resigned to the possibility of another move: "If i have to live there, okay, 1 can live, but 1 like Thailand better."

Tip had been to England once with Tom to visit his family.

I wer~tbecuzcsc I wunted [O sec Engkund, how it wus; l jus/ wun~etlIO see. lfI hutl to stay the,1 could, but I don't reuffywunt to stuy very fong. 1 g«t hord und 1 wunted fo corne home. I didn'I rdIy (ike it. I didn't like the weurl~er,und I wus bord ofthe fi~od.You wufk on the street und there!s nothing to snack on (ike ï'hui people enjoy. Tï%y onfyeut butrer und c/wese. It stinks! I didn 't wunt fo stq. When I was corning bock to Thuilun, ( didn'I eut; I wuitd to ecii in Uzuikund. He wanted me /O go hack and see hisfamily with him crguin, but ufler the jirsi rime, o year hier, I clidn't go. He weni done. We hud dogs und thirzgs io look uflfier soI couiln't go. There wus no one to look ajier the /~ou.se.

I asked Tom how he felt about staying in Thailand.

I'd like to travel to other places, but 1 can live here. t think so. I can't know how t'II feel in twenty years, but we're buying a house, thinking that wetll stay here forever. We are a Little concerned about the future; I don't particularly want to think of teaching [English] until I'm sixty, and then having nothing put by, which is what it's like at the moment. That is a problem. But l've spent twenty or more years outside of England, and al1 the jobs that I've had in England have actually been worse for me like that. I've not even been able to live comfortably there, let alone Save. So that's not an alternative for me, really.

Ruth too was concemed about her future if she and Rit stayed in Thailand. "Sometimes it scares me, tuming forty, and you're supposed to have your life insurance and social security.

When you're in America, people start to really wony it's the second half of your life, and when you get 65, what are you going to do? I'm forty and I'm not preparing anything!" Rit found this wony odd. "Look at this, the first thing she says!" he exclaimed. "I just find it interesting what she talks about first, what she wants!" "Not want," she replied, "but at home people your age,

25-year-olds, are buying life insurance, putting money away for their old age. 1 start saying, what am 1 doing here? Maybe I should be home working my butt off and putting stuff away. But I'rn not."

Gop had studied in Germany for two years, and 1 asked what it was like. "Not as good as

1 expected," she rcplied. "She's being polite," Gary broke in. "It was awful." "Not because of culture," she explained, "about work. Some colleagues were not very friendly." From Germany she went with Gary to visit his family in England. "At that time 1 thought everywhere was better than Gerrnany," she said. "lt was colder, though. Not the temprrature, but they stop the heater at night, after you go to bed. When I first was in Gerrnany 1 stayed in the domîtory, and they didn't stop the heater at night." I asked if they were going to rernain in Thailand. "Yeah, this is home,"

Gary said. "It would be nice to do a bit more travelling, and live somewhere else for a few years.

But this is home for me. I was a foreigner when I went back to Bntain."

Like Gop, Nong had done a pst-gaduate degree abroad, in her case the US. She felt that she had learned a lot about herselFand about Nina while she was there. When 1 went to America, 1 did not have culture shock the first time, because [ did not expect anything. 1 just leamed to live. And it was the sarne way coming back to Thailand. 1 had no idea what American culture was like untit 1 was in America and 1 saw other Americans and lived with them. For example, before I did not understand the concept of privacy. So 1 couldn't understand why Nina didn't want to be with me al1 the time. Then I saw that it's [because of] the way she was brought up that she was different from me. So 1 could see Thai culture and Arnerican culture and how they affect us. 1 may have difficulty [now I'rn back Thailand] with some things that I [got] used to in the past several months. For example, the phone system is not working well. In America it was so easy, yoi just pick up the phone and dia1 41 1 and you can get any information you want. Here, it's not convenient. But that's it; I'rn not dying because of it. But when 1 was in America, 1 thought it would be nice to drive to the Night Bazaar and pick up this liale thing or this present for her birthday. Something like that. Itls not serious to me.

The biggest thing she had leamed in the States was about lesbianism.

1 gained a lot of confidence in many things - for example, about being a lesbian. 1 did not know that 1 was one. When 1 was with Nina, the whole time, those months in Thailand, I still didn't know that 1 was one. 1 just knew that I liked her, thatls all. But when 1 was in America, 1 leamed that there are di fferent types of lesbian, and I could fit one, that 1 was a lesbian.

She had discovered that she could love women without being a rom or a dm. But she felt frustrated at how her pride in her newfound idrntity put her at odds with Thai culture. She wanted to be accepted in a way that seemed impossible:

1 would say [people are] ignorant more than tolerant, because there is no pride. People don't understand you. People just give you sympathy, and that's the best they can do. There's something wrong with you. It's like, I'rn [up] here, and these people are suffering, and 1 feel so bad for them. 1 am in a better condition, so I need to help. Never once that I'm with them too. Never once that I'rn part of them. Never. Therefore, talking about women's rights in Thailand, a lot of women, especially from higher social classes, do not see the need for standing up for their own rights, because they have everything they need. They're not factory workers, they're not prostitutes, so they dont see why something needs to be changed. Nina was preparing to retum to the States to attend university; Nong was staying in

Thailand to study. Both told me that they could live in either country. "1 can be happy here,"

Nina told me. "1 think what pulls both of us al1 the tirne, changing our minds, is our families.

Thatts the hardest thing nght now." "I don't care where 1 am in the world," said Nong, "because 1 believe that anywhere I am 1 can make something. 1 would like to be here as long as my parents live, though, but only because of tliem. 1 can be happy anywhere."

Oh had done a bit of traveling "in Asia. ïhe only other pluce wus AustruIiu. Working once, and one iime on a tour, but in a group with many fnends, not on my own. Australia's nice, clean, tidy. Ru1 l'd ruhr [ive in Ïïiuilund. I wo~rkln'rIike ro [ive NI uhroud so much. You AUVL' 10 he husy und rush 10 do everything. 1 dodt Iike huving to hurry u Id' For her part, Olive thought she could çtay in Thailand for a long time. "l'm very happy here. I like Thailand, 1 like the way of li Fe, 1 li ke the people, and 1 feel less and less sure about my own country. 1 dontt know what the opportunities are, 1 don7 like what I see politically. I don't miss things about home. Very rarely. When ltm ill. 1 miss soft couches. That's the only thing."

Having a long distance relationship took its toll on this couple too, or at least on Olive.

"I'm going to leave again," she said, "and I think we'll probably leave it the same way we left it last time, which is like: whatever happens, happens." 1 asked Oh if he missed her when she was gone. "If 1 know sure she will come back again, 1 dont feel very sad, very bad," he replied. "But when someone has to leave and never come back again, I feel so very sad. If 1 have a chance to see [them] again, not very sad. Okay, ifym have a chunce to mret ugain." Olive, who had expresmd anxiety about the lack of future cornmitment several times during the interview, took this final opportunity to try to get some clear statement of intent from Oh. "1 may corne back with u hushand und chifdren," she said, "und kow wotild ir he then? Nat lhe .sume.'' But Oh said he wasn't worried about this.

We never mude promises to tell or not tell. We JiJn'l suy we coz)t(/dnftIIUVB other purtners. We have the upportunity to meet olhers. If it huppens, okuy. As long us wc Iiove u good meeting, lfeel okuy. 1 wouldn 't suy unything uhout u new purtner. 1 un2 u person who isn't quick to huve strong feelings. If I think hels u good person, I wouldn 't suy unything.

Good Points, Bad Points

During the interviews, 1 asked people to tell me about the positive and negative aspects of being involved with a furung or a Thai. Tip singled out a tendency to communicate verbally as a positive aspect of her interaction with Tom: "I trust hh, hecuuse when wrnethingls huppening. hc. t~ik.~uhoz)t(t il. He tulk.~clirecffy. When WL' huve something to SUJJ, we suy il; we don'/ tell lies. Wlzen .srmeihing!s huppening /te tells me crhozct it, und I helieve him. " Si lence may be a deeply rooted ï'hai disposition, but Tip and other Thai clearly appreciated and responded well to open discussion.

Tom voiced a common cornplaint of Thai female-jiwungmale couples: "1 don't like the looks we get from people when we walk down the street. We're obviously automatically categorized as one-night-standers. We've got beyond getting upset about that every time, but if we weren't a Thai-farang couple, we would not have this problem." Tip told me it bothered hrr as well:

Sometimes l gel bored of going out with him, becmise if 7%uipeople srr u Thai wornan ralking with a furang, they ger the wrong ideu. Sornerimes 1 think fwe stuy together it will be d&&ulf, becouse we go ozil together al2 the rime, every day. Even a good Thui woman, rfshe wulks with a farung, people think de's &ad But rfu Thi mon walks with a farung, thatk good Itk not fair. I used to worry ohout this u ht, people thinking I wu.s.u hud womun. ïhey nrver think you're together, thut you eut tugether, /ive together. And my Ir/e will u1w~y.she Iikc this. Ifwe con accept this, we hn'l huve lu care wlmt people think. Now I think, never min4 I cmlive with his.

Wendy said she thought this was one reason why local Thai women were reluctant to become i nvolved with.furung men.

There are a lot of mixed mamages on the island here, far more than I've seen elsewhere. Itts very widespread. But Thai women with foreign husbands is a relatively new development. It's always been the Thai men. People look at th- Thai women with foreibw men and they think prostitute. Most local girls aren't willing to be labelled, and so they won't marry a foreigner. That's one of the reasons 1 think they have more problems. It's too bad, because they're fine girls.

The Thai man who faced similar discrimination was Rit, fifteen years younger than Ruth.

1 wony that people see me as bring her gigolo, her boy. I get mad al1 the time about that. 1 get that sometimes [miming digging someone in the ribs and winking]: "You got someone to pay for you! Good work!" That really makes me mad. 1 Say, "1 pay for myself! I pay rent. Okay, 1 pay less than you, but 1 pay." Even just now, this afiemoon, we were passing someone in the market and they said something that meant I'm her gigolo. 1 work very hard to fight this. This year is a better situation because I'm working now. I can show some of my power.

Ruth said these assurnptions happened often.

It's like, we get the house, and someone says, "Oh, Ruth, how did you get this house? How much do you pay for this house?" I Say, 'Y didn't get this house, Rit got it!" Or he'd be driving the car from the office and they'd Say, 'Oh Ruth, you bought a car." "1 didn't ptthe car; it's Rit who has the car." It's definitely the age thing, but I think it's also a farang thing, because they're alwayç seeingfurung having money.

For Olive, it was very helpful to have Oh as a "cultural consultant", as she put it. One of the things that's good is having a person that I'm very close to who's from this country that 1 can talk to about things. 1 can consult him on different issues, whether it be, "1 heard this today, and I said this, was that right?" or "1 saw this today, and 1 don't know what was going on!" and "What do you think?"

Wendy too had a culture consultant, another farung woman in the village.

One of the things that helped me with him was the fact that his cousin's wife's Australian and she'd been here a long time and knew him. Having her helped a lot, because 1 could have somebody tell me the truth - what we consider the truth - and be able to believe it. Because around here they're very into joking around al1 the time, "Oh yeah, I saw your husband in town with another girl. He's got a mistress." The tirst tirne somebody told me that 1 was really upset. 1 believed it. I ran back to her and she said, "Oh, they're just teasing. He's not like that, he's not that kind of person." She told me that they do this to joke around al1 the time, and helped me to get over some of the hurdles. And then when his brother next door started cheating on his wi fe, nobody said a word to her. No jokes, no nothing. I nalized if he were tnily fooling around on me 1 wouldn't know about it! So now 1 totally trust him. Either you trust somebody in the relationship or you don't. And 1 do.

Wendy liked Wit's dedication to their relationship. "When you start to get serious with a guy in the States," she said, "they freak out. Corne on, grow up! Relationships are relationships. When will you leam to handle it? But Wit wasn't like that at all, and I liked that about him. He got far more serious faster than I did."

Issues of trust and fidelity came up several times in the interviews. For example, Suphot said, "Many Thai girls Say that they can't trust Thai men because they might have a rnisrress." and asked Susan and I if we worried about this. We both said we weren't too concerned, and

Susan elaborated: "1 have a feeling with a furang man that he could meet someone else and run off for good. 1 don't particularly feel that Suphot would go and fuck around, to put it bluntly. 1 feel like if he did in the future, he'd go and do it and not leave. 1 might kick him out for it, though!" Tip too spoke of mistresses: One of'rny uzints was ufruid thut 7i)m would gei up to rrouhk und Imuother women, und she iold me tfhe goes unywkere, don 'r let him go long If /te goes, I sl~ouldgo froo. Muyhe l~e'flhuve sex someone wlm I1u.s AIBS, so hc. should weur u condom. I suid II~IVnot interested in th is kind of~hing,h ut she didn 't helieve me. She suid io he cureful. When I toW Tom, /le lcrughed He suicl, "Your aunt 5 cruzy!'" Her hushund!~o flirt who iikrs io have other women. and she thoirght Tom woufd he the surne. WhTom wcrs goin(: abroad, she would phone ctnd usk why I wusn 'i going too und not toforger lo give him condoms ro iuke with Aim Rzrî I know thut he isn 'î involved with unyone elsc. I trust him.

Suphot characterized his relationship with Susan very posittvely.

I've found strong points much more than weak points. One strong point is [that] it's good to have a strong partner, because Idont need ro take responsibility [for] her too much. In a typical Thai relationship, the man has to look after the girl and provide this and that for her, like a kid. But our relationship is more equal. We can share the burdens. In modem society you have to struggle a lot, so sometimes 1 have to rely on her, not only her rely on me. It's good, a kind of exchange. So this is a strong point, not a weak one.

Though Suphot differentiated his relationship from a "typical Thai" one, he spoke about Susan not as a fururzg, but as a strong person:

When I have a partner, I do not regard her as afirang or a Thai, just a human being. 1 try to understand what her character [is] like, her nature. You can't change her to br like this, like that, what you like. Just let it be. So if she is emotional, okay, that's her character. You can't Say al1farung [are] like Susan, hot and emotional like her; she is different. Even Thai girls sometimes, like my ex- girlfriends, some of them [were] very emotional, very hot. It depends on the person.

He said that hc had learned "to speak out more, to listen" from Susan, but qualified this by saying: "But 1 was already like that. 1 usually speak out. It's my character." Character, in his view, "depends on the person", not on nationality or race. 322

Olive and 1 atternpted to differentiate Thai and furung and Oh, like Suphot, refused to go along. About being with a furung, he said, '%!Y good." "Rut no( the sume us with u Nui womun,"

Olive suggested. "Oh, I fhink if!v rlze same," he demurred. 1 gave voice to a stereotype: "Well, some Thai men Say that fùrung women are more easy-going, that they don? compluin u lot if they don? get a house and a car and kids, and so it's easier to be with furung women than Thai."

But Oh did not agree. "Mmrn, how is if? t fhink /hmure T'hui people like fhuffoo. !/ deprnds on

~lteperwn."And when 1 tried to Say that he and Olive had afurung style relationship in its openness and lack of commitment, he said, "I don'i fhink so. I fhink it!v our style." These refusals of my attempts to push people into a mold of Thai or furung were useful reminders that Thai conceptions of character al lowed a richer range of variation than the simpl istic national ist stereotypes 1 and otherfirung seemed prone to.

Human Relations

In chapter one I suggested that the Thai world view was characterized by an acceptance and tolerance of diversity and difference and a willingness to leam from and assimilate aspects of western ideas and practices that seemed useful. 1 contrasted Siamese broad-mindedness to western refusals to put the Thai on an equal footing withfùrang, gant their religion validity, or see them as having anything important to teach the west. In chapters two and three 1 proposed that western anthropological and feminist gazes homogenized the Thai, constructing monolithic visions of Thailand and Thai culture, and 1 argued that these visions of Thailand rested on an implicit construction of the west as an unvarying obverse which was often a perfect mirror of

Thailand. If this is mie, my own construal is itself a western one which essentializes Thailand and the west as opposed entities. So strong was my predisposition to understand people as either 223

Thai or furung, with al1 the characteristics that 1 thought went along with these categories, that it

took me a long time to even recognize the moments in my interviews when these views were

challenged. My predilection to western-derived stereotypes was abetted by many of the jurutlg i

interviewed who were cornfortable with reproducing neat oppositions between Thai and farung,

even as they set their own partners apart from the stereotypes that they voiced.

Consider, for example, how Tom talked of Tip as bbtypicallyThai", imparting to her a sweet compliance which was not much in evidence duhg our conversation. Susan thought

Suphot more "hot" and "willing to speak out" than most Thai people, reiterating the cliché of the typically quiet and polite Thai yet at the same time pointing out that the Thai she knew best was not like that. Anna could only recognize Ae's industriousness and ambition by understanding it as a function the time he had spent abroad; she did not allow acknowledbment of his drive to destabilize her vision of the Thai as lazy and shiftless. Wendy thought Thai families did not easily accept strangers into their fotd; she considered Wit's family "very different" in their willingness to "try new things", a difference she thought might be attributable to their desire to welcorne her. Tom disagreed with Tip about whether the arguments they had were basrd on tlieir cultural differences or a function of temperarnental dissimilaritîes which could be a factor in any relationship, an important intervention that does not, in the end, challenge the contention that

Thai and furmg are different in some fundamental ways.

It took me some time to see that my Thai interviewees often took a different stance with regard to such contentions; they tended to speak of people as individuals with their own idiosyncratic ways of behaving, not as generalized goupîngs whose responses were detemined by thrir nationality. Both Rit and Suphot spoke of their own characters as out-going without invoking notions of Thai-ness or western-ness. Suphot declined to explain Susan's character and 224 behaviour in terms of her being a furung and pointed out that some Thai were similar to her:

"You can't say all farang are li ke this; even Thai girls sometimes, like my ex-girl friends, some of them [were] very emotional, very hot. It depends on the person." Oh echoed Suphot in asserting that characteristics varied from person to penon rather than from culture to culture. He did not let me pigeon-hole hirn and Olive into opposed slots and refused rny atternpt to characterize their interaction as furung style, claiming it as a style that was their own, one that they had amved at together.

There were suggestions in the interviews, too, that Thai tended to assess people on the basis of their actions rather than their essential being. Thai sometimes criticizedfurung for a lack of generosity: Tip said Tom was "stinly" because he made her "think how niirch eve~hing wm,write if down". His questioning about expenses irked her, for ''ljjmu usk u ïïluipersonjw

.st)metlting,rkey give ii." Her fami ly thought she and Tom were cheating them when thrir requests for money were turned down; Tipis sister got angry when Tom criticized her. But over time the family came to accept and li ke Tom because, Tip said, %!Y u gmdperson." Suphotfs statement that when dealing with a partner "you can't change her to be like this, like that, what you like" and that it was better "to understand what her character [is] like, her nature" suggested that in his view people reveal themselves through a repeated senes of actions over time, an understanding I think may have pneral resonance with how Thai deal with other individuals.

However, when Thai traveled abroad a number of them found themselves the target of racism, suggesting that people from western cultures tend to judge people on the basis of essential characteristics. Anna and Ae's son faced "discrimination" in the US, "people making fun of him, ignoring him". Suphot said he often "felt like an alien" in Europe and was "insecure" because sometimes people "were mad and they verbally attacked him for no discemabie reason. 225 Anna's one trip back to the States was marred by the fact that her family "just sort of stared at

me like I was this alien from outer space"; they couldn't understand why she "put up" with

Thailand and why she didn't "'corne back and live with normal people". Wendy said people in

srnall American toms sometimes stared at her and Wit with disdain: "You can see them looking

and thinking, 'Sullying the purity of the white race."'

The only time it seemed that Thai-furung unions were overtly disapproved of in a similar

way was when pnder issues came into play. Gop's mother fretted that "if in the future [Gary and

I] divorce or don't stay together" it would be "really bad in our family's eyes". Tip worried about people sceing her in public with Tom and "thinking ? wus u hud wornun"; strangers never

realized that she and Tom "mt r«gc.lher, [ive togrïher". Yet her family didn't seem so worried about her looking like a bad person: when they realized that her relationship with Tom wasn't going to result in benefits for them, "rltey weren't shy" and said it would be better if she became a prostitute.

The only man who was judged in a similar way to Tip was Rit; his parents couldn't accept his relationship with Ruth because she was fifleen years older than him, and when people saw them in public they thought he was "her gigolo, her boy". But where Tip said that people judged her harshly for her inchastity, assurning she was a prostitute and thus a bad woman, Rit revealed that people thought he was with Ruth for her money and not for love. He never said that people thought he was a bad person, and even suggested that things had improved since he'd graduateci, gotten a job, and could "show some of my power". The situation of Tip and other

Thai women with male furang partners would never change: "My lrfe wzll alwuys be like rhis," she said. But Rit, now making money, could overcome negative opinions by displaying his own power, money, and influence. 226 These difference between Thai and furung judgements may be explicable as arising out of two divergent modes of discipline that I identified, following Rosalind Moms (1997), as the regime of face versus the regime of identity. In the regime of face, individuals behave according to noms of publicly acceptable decorurn and leave their inner thoughts and intentions hidden; thus people are judged by the extent to which they confonn to accepted standards of behaviour.

According to the Thai regime of face, stingyfurung and promiscuous women are publicly revealed as behaving badly, violating noms of generosity which apply to al1 and standards of chastity which pertain to women. At a more general level, in Thailand people are judged on the basis of how they act, not their skin colour, and prolonged acquaintance allows a full picture of a person to emerge based on a long series of accumulated actions. Tip's family came to accept

Tom over time, but strangers, who don't see Tom and Tip eating together every day, do not. The regime of identity, on the other hand, demands a transparency between being and action, intemal and extemal, and, I would acid, private and public. According to western noms of identity, people have an essential being which is, in the case of race, at least, written indelibly on the skin. Thai abroad don't have to do anything, just be, for them to be subject to negative judgement; the outward marker of their skin is sufficient to sipify the inner selves. Traces of this regime are revealed by my furung interviewees who struggled to retain the mark of racial and cultural identity in the face of their own partner's deviation from it, and by me: at tint 1 could hardly hear discursive constructions which diverged from my expectations.

Perhaps nobody experîenced the deeply contradictory nature of the two modes of discipline more than Nong, whose life experiences and self-understanding straddled both. As a young woman in Thailand she was able to "be close to" another woman, "eating together and sleeping in the same bed and just putting my amaround her". Lack of probing into the private 227 realm, coupled with cultural acceptance of sarne-sex closeness, allowed her to be with other women without "feeling that, 'üh oh! Maybe I'm a lesbian."' This freedom to be with women without sanction was counterbalanced by an invisibility of lesbianism so geat that, outside of the relations of rom with dee, Nong had no concept of herself as a woman who loved women; she just assumed that one day she would marry a man.

In the States Nong began to see herself differently and to bring her inner being in line with her outer actions. She leamed discourses of identity that encouraged her to reinterpret her life experience and assert that she had "been a lesbian al1 along". In my view, leshianism is a historicall y recent and western-derived identity and not a universal human category of behaviour or predilection; thus, for me, Nong's assertion is factually incorrect. Nevertheless, I read her declaration as a powerful condemnation of a nonnalizing impulse in her culture which renders minority possibilities as either invisible or pitiful. She characterized Thai culture as "ignorant more than tolerant" of deviation because people could only "think there's something wrong with you" and feel pity. Thus what 1 glossed in my first chapter as assimilation of difference can be understood as placing deviating individuals on the lower rungs of hierarchy and allowing those higher up the ladder to gain ment in this life and thus rewards in the next for displaying compassion towards those viewed as inferior. This mode of assimilation does not involve the violent abjection typical of some western responses to behaviours, like hornosexuality, deemed deviant, but Nong usefully reminds me that this "Thai way" is not without its costs to human pride and possibility.

Moms characterized the regime of face as a discipline of "the gaze" which concentrated on public cornportment; the regime of identity seems to me to be in many ways a discipline of

"the word" which focuses on utterance. Many farang, schooled in the primacy of the word, 228 complained about their Thai partners' unwillingness to speak about the feelings and emotions they were experiencing during difticult moments in their relationships, such as when they were fighting. Petr Wped that Pong expected him to read her mind, and Olive said that the discussions she had with Oh to clarify their relationship were "for" her, not him. Susan talked about her process of "leaming to trust my instinct more than having to talk things out", suggesting that she was adapting to the regime of face; both Susan and Tom admitted they knew when their partners were angry by the "way [they] move around" or "storm around the house".

Nong revealed how much could be articulated without words: though she felt frustrated at not being able to admit openly to her family that Nina was her lover, she described how what she called 'the Thai way" - not saying things "directly" - still allowed her to communicate important information about her life; she said that she told her parents "indirectly al1 the time" about her relationship, and the anecdotes she related to me about them showed how they tacitly signalled their acceptance of a situation never verbally acknowledged.

At the same time, the interviews revealed to me that some Thai simply did not behave according to the dictates of the regirne of face: Suphot characterized his family as "very Frank" and said that he just told them "directly" about Susan. Rit took the opportunity of seeking his parentst approval for his union with Ruth to break a pattern of silence and "for the first tirne" in his life "talk everything out", though even he stopped short of saying everything: ''1 assume they know", he said - and, 1 suspect, they probably did know whatever it was he could not bring out verbally. Interesting also was Tip's revelation that she "fr~ed'Tom because "whm we IIUW somrthing to say, we say it; we don 'Z tell fies": she appreciated Tom's honesty and was able to respond in kind, suggcsting that words serve a useful function in dariQing and reinforcing what is conveyed in other ways, even for people adept at relying on non-verbal communication. Conclusion

Power and Resistance

ince the earliest western contacts with Siam in the seventeenth century,jurung Shave been engaged in a process which Said (1978) identified as orientalist, defining Siam in distinction from the west in order to exercise power over it. In many cases, orientalism led the way to and justified colonization; though Thailand is virtually unique among non-western countries in never having been overtly occupied, confrontations and interactions with the West have leR indelible marks on the kingdom. Much of this thesis has been concemed with describing the contours of these marks and the responses they have engendered from the

Thai in a wide range of contexts.

In the l68Os, a period of intensive interaction between Siam and the West when many fumng visited the kingdom and Siarnese first traveled to Europe, farumg portrayed Siamese in their texts as indolent, larcenous, and slovenly heathens, implicitly contrasting them with industious, honest, and cleanly European Christians. Furang seem to have had great difficulty 330 viewing the Siamese as intelligent and rational beings on the same level as thernselves, and even when they found something to admire in the habits of the Siamese, they tempered their praise by comparing the Asians to apes or children. Anna Leonowens (1980 [1870], 1953 [1873]) in the

1860s reiterated many of these same conventions, but added a new wrinkle by sharply dividing the Siamese by sex. In her texts Thai men, exemplified by the king, Mongkut, emerge as rapacious and lustful, while the women retain the mark of childish, if charming, simplicity. Such grossly ethnocentric judgements are largely absent from ethno~aphicwriting of the twentieth century, but are still sometimes recalled in characterirations of the Thai as lazy pieasure-seekers unwilling to commit to long-term wage labour or as passive individuals incapable of feeling deep emotion. Echoes of Leonowens' depiction can sometimes be discerned in feminist writing on Thai women, especially prostitutes, who are construed as innocent victims of unscrupulous parents, govemmental greed, and Thai and international male promiscuity.

European assurnptions of furung superiority are repeated when Siamese and Thai individuals are deemed admirable because of their openness to western influences. For example, the seventeenth century king Narai was depicted in travel accounts as an intelligent man worthy of respect in part because of his curiosity about and interest in the west. Ln the nineteenth century

Mongkut visibly dernonstrated his westemization through a facility with European languages and a living space filled with western technological gadgetry, prompting Leonowens to discem in him an enlightened western aspect at odds with a primitive Asiatic side and allowing the diplornat Bowring (1969 [1857]) to compare him favourably to a proper English gentleman.

Mellersh, the captain of one of Bowring's boats, was astonished at the pertinent intelligence of the shirtless nobles who visited his vesse1 and abashed that one had built a steamship, a feat which he knew himself to be incapable of (Tarling 1975). Myfàrang interviewees sometimes spoke in such terms, setting their partners apart from other Thai for some quality or characteristic they admired; one even attributed her husband's ambitious drive and forthrightness, qualities she felt other Thai did not share, to the time he had spent abroad in the

US. In each case the opposition of west to non-west is maintained, even though individual non- westerners are recognized to partake of some the qualities of rational progess and civilization which are thought to be quintessentially occidental.

I have argued, following Foucault (1 980b, 1983), that power is exercised in and through relationships which al ways permit the possibi litjl of resistance, and I have found resistance being offered to westem discourses in a variety of contexts. Orientalism viewed the Thai as inferior to furung and in need of western guidance and control, so one set of responses asserts the autonomy of the Siamese, later Thai, body politic. The kings Narai and Mongkut, for example, insisted that they were peers of European monarchs, overturning a hierarchy of west over non- west and asserting instead an international solidarity of élites. Mongkut pursued European learning and technology without abandoning indigenous knowledges, instead incorporating the two together into a new kind of hybrid Siamese statecrafl which ceded superiority to neither western nor Siamese traditions. Mongkut's strategy has given way over the last hundred years to schemes which attempt to remold the kingdom and its inhabitants to makr them resemble furmg more closely . Rul ing élites have adopted western-derived legal codes and bureaucratic structures and exhorted citizens to adopt western clothing styles and hypienic practices in order to make

Thailand appear more "civilized in international eyes. These efforts reinforce western pretensions to superiority by taking the west as a mode1 to emulate, but mock them at the same time by focusi ng on cosmetic changes rather than deep structural transformation, suggesting that imitating behaviour is an adequate mode of emulation. In fact, in opting for surface alterations rather than essential transformations, Thai leaders have followed westem examples rather closely, for many derogatory judgements which early farung made about the Siamese were based on observations of their exteriors: they were simple because they wore few clothes, simian because of the shapes of their noses. Why not, then, assert equality by using a fork or wearing a shirt?

In another type of response to orientalist thinking, an increasing number of Thai academics in this century have challenged the authority of westem ethnogaphers to make pronouncements about Thailand and have refuted and reworkrd anthropological interpretations of Thai culture and behaviour. For example, Thai social scientists have contested understandings of Thai society as loosely stnictured and individualistic and described instead deeply rooted patterns of hierarchy which guide and impact on everyday behaviour in complex ways; they have opposed images of Thai as quiescent and complacent with depictions of the people as so profoundly sensitive to slights that they may respond to them with murderous anger.

Interestingly, these critiques of western interpretations suggest that somefurmg continue to read the Thai simplistically on the basis of their surfaces, mistaking politeness for lack of conflict and smiles for absence of affect. Nevertheless, when Thai social scientists, including feminists, work from within westem theoretical and disci plinary boundaries, they inadvertently demonstrate the continuing hegemonic power of westem discursive constructions.

An orientalist world view is a dichotomous one which understands westem self and Thai other as inherently and ultimately different; thus one way to unsettle orientalism is to demonstrate the existence of diversity within one side of the dichotomy. Embree's (1950) early vision of the Thai as individualistic souls each pursuing their own interests but somehow managing to get along was challenged by Rabibhadana's historical analysis (1969) which showed 233 how social hierarchy had been legally defined and enforced in the early Bangkok peiod, paving the way for a recognition of the prevalence of patron-client relations in Thai social interaction.

Phillips (1965), like Rabibhadana, gave inequality a benign gloss by rendering it as reciprocity: inferiors provide superiors with the raw materials they need for survival, and superiors give protection in return. For me, this construction reproduces a little too closely a justification of colonialism as a rational exchange of goods and services, and obfuscates the power of superiors -

élites in the Thai context, the west in a global one - to set the terms of exchange and reap the lion's share of the rewards. Poumisak (Srisudravama 1987 [1957]) refused to view structured inequality in such benevolent tems, and asserted that the Thai social structure was based on exploitation pure and simple; less polemically, Bowie (1998), discussing begging in northem villages, pointed out that the wealthy have an interest in the maintenance of inequality since according to Buddhist belief acts of charity reward the giver with meri t. One of my interviewers echoed Bowie, remarking bitteriy that Thai people feel pity for, not empathy with, those less fortunate than themselves; thus they felt sorry for her because she was a lesbian, and could not share her pride in herself. Each of these perspectives contributes to a deconstruction of a monolithic view of the Thai social order and points out how Thai are differentiated amongst themselves.

Another deconstruction to both sides of the orientalist dichotomy has corne from feminism. McClintock (1995), for example, discussed the uneasy position of white women in the

British empire, both incorporated into yet separate from the centre of European colonial power, kept silent, submissive, and powerless. Leonowens herself embodies many of the divisions that rend imperialism; she claimed a space for herself as a representative of white noble empire, but was revealed after her death to have been born into its very fringes, in lndia, the child of a 234 common soldier. Her claim to western authority, shaky at best in light of her marginal origins

and her femininity, was further eroded by the suggestion that her mother may have been

Eurasian, and thus Leonowens is rendered as not even, really, white. Misogynist writers take the

final blow, one that seems to be aimed only at women: Leonowens was, they claim, too ugly and old to have ever attracted the attention of the king. Each revelation further corrodes her

legitimacy and demonstrates how far some white men are willing to go to retain their exclusive hold on authority.

Western and Asian feminists have deconstructed the Thai side of the orientalist dichotomy, showing that men and women are positioned rather di fferently in that society.

Embree unwittingly revealed that it is men who behave according to their own wishes while women do the social reproductive work that holds families together, and feminists have discussed ways in which women are subject to di fferent restrictions and given di ffirent opportunities than men in realms like law, religion, and economics. Most glaringly, perhaps, women, unlike men, are expected to control their sexuality and are subject to negative sanction when they are thought to be unchaste; Thai female interviewees complained about being viewed as prostitutes, and thus "bad women, when they went out in public with their farang parniers.

These useful perspectives are marred by the fact that many of these writers have ignored the very real differences that do exist between Thai women. 1 have argued instead that the lives of commoner women differ dramatically fiom those of the élite: the former do a much greater amount of work, yet their opportunities for education and social advancement are more stnctly curtailed. Prostitutes, often spoken of as the most downtrodden of Thai women, again differ amongst themselves, and while some are owned and controlled, others are independent businesswomen pursuing a living and retaining pride. In ignoring disparities among women, perhaps some of these authors are repeating a more general western proclivity to reduce difference to biology, duplicating the tendency to homogenize and essentialize difference, only this tirne between men and women instead of occident and orient. 1 believe such an inclination was revealed by the expcriences of some of my

Thai interviewees who, when abroad, encountered racism because of their skin colour; none of rny furung interviewees reported being subject to such bald discrimination in Thailand as that faced by their Thai partners in the west. In fact, 1 did not find that Thai in general leaned so readily as furung on constructions of difference as biology. For exampie, some Thai individuals of either biological sex transgess gender norrns and take on the cornportment of the opposite sex; they are popularly spoken of as having opposite-gendered hearts, suggesting that in a Thai view gender is determined by heart, not biology and genitalia. Further, these gender transgressors forni romantic attachments with perçons of the opposite gender - normatively gendered individuals - who, people Say, will one day enter into a "proper" heterosexual relationship and leave their transgressive lovers behind with broken hearts. Though still dichotomous, this view diverges radically from one that understands gender or sexuality as a function of biology: it implies that people faIl in love on the basis of gender, not biological, difference and that, because attraction is to opposite gender, not same or opposite sex, people cannot be said to be either hetero- or homosexual. As such, this view presents an implicit challenge to attempts to reduce dichotomy to biology, whether racially or sexually conceived.

An evcn greater challenge is suggested by the moments throuehout this thrsis when a non-dichotomous world view becomes visible, revealing concepts of the world which 1 have interpreted as indigenous to Thailand. Jane Hanks ( 1965) discussed how Bang Chan villagers spoke of the vicissitudes of individual character and revealed a complex set of understandings 236 which allowed for a great deal of individual variation unreducible to the rubnc of nation or race.

!discerned a similar recognition of diversity in the words of some of my Thai interviewees who refused to speak of themselves or their partners in terms of being Thai or furring and asserted instead that behaviour varies from person to person. Their responses di ffered from those of rnany of my furmg interviewees, who rehearsed stereotypes of Thai and furmg at the same time as they acknowledged their partner's individuality; they seemed to need to maintain the mark of race and nation in the face of their own partner's obvious divergence from its parameters. t have contrasted a.fÙrurg penchant to slip easily into understandings based on essential biological and cultural differences with a Thai tendency to allow individuals to reveal themselves and their characters slowly over time. Jane Hanks said that one Bang Chan youngster was not given masculine toys because he was more effeminate than other boys, while a strong-willed girl was spoken of with pride by her father, showing how individual dispositions are gadually unveiled from an early age and accepted, not repressed. A Thai lesbian 1 interviewed told how she constantly but indirectly told her parents about her relationship and how in small but sigriificant ways they disclosed their tacit acceptance of the connection to her and her partner. One Thai ramily initially disliked afàrung male for his stinginess, but eventually came to accept and respect him because of the accumulation of his good actions.

Such understandings resonate with the Buddha's insistence that the right path is one of practice, not doctrine, and with the ofi-repeated Thai injunction that one cannot know the thoughts of another, for in the Thai view it is in practical ways, and not through words, that people communicate to others what kind of people they are. By contrast, many of my farung interviewees relied on talking to gain undentandings of their relationships; one woman persisted in this habit but admitted to me that she discussed things to help herself, not her Thai partner, 337 comprehend their interaction. Other farang were leaming to rely less on words and more on non- verbal ways of knowing. And though one Thai woman appreciated the honesty and forthrightness of her furung partner for fostenng trust between them, it seemed to me that this trust had corne not just from words, but also from the length of time they had spent together and the care they had showed one another over that extended penod. It is important to note, however, that though Thai may be able to draw on indigenous cultural constructs which do not rely on essential dichotomies for t heir understandings of self and other, furung too are engaged in interpreting their lives and persona1 histories in ways which may sometimes allow them to reach their conclusions about self and other which do not rest on the orientalist division between the west and Thailand orfùrung and Thai. At least onejurung asserted that the contlicts between himself and his wife arose because of their different personalities, not their disparate cultures; his response, and those of several Thai, show that orientalist thinking, though powerful, does noi completely determine how individuals on either side cornprehend particular Thai-fuung relations.

Perhaps no type of relationship reveals the divergence of Thai andfùrung understandings and the weight of orientalism more clearly than those that occur between Thai prostitutes and their farung clients. Erik Cohen's initial typology of such relations (1982) ranged from mercenary at one end of the spectrum to emotional on the other, with the key variable being the woman's willingness to sacrifice her economic interests to affect. Couched in the abstract language of social science, Cohen's construction was anything but objective, for he rendered furang as blameless participants in these encounters, hapless and unattractive men yearning for love from pretty but wily wornen. There was little suggestion that lecherousfurung men might be exploiting Thai women for their own sexual gratification; instead, calculating Thaï females 238 exploit men's vulnerability for their own material gain. Such a formulation recal ls orientalist constructions of west as masculine and moral, east as feminine and amoral, but where early furung writers veiled desire behind prunent and lascivious fantasy, Cohen reveals the desire but has it heartlessly manipulated by its object. Where orientalism masked economic exploitation of the non-west with talk of heathenism, prirnitivity, and laziness to be overcome by contact with the civilized west, Cohen masked instances of sexual exploitation of Thai women with talk of western men's pathetic vulnerability in the face of beautiful but callous Thai women. Thai women are b~antedpower in Cohen's rendering, but it is a one-sided power against whichforang men seem to have Iittle resistance; better, 1 think, to see the women as workers resisting demands for even more labour in retum for even less remuneration. Consider that imperial powers did not relinquish their economic interests in the colonial endeavour, yet expected the colonized to welcome and leam from imperial domination: similady, Cohen seemed to feel that

Thai women should give up their need to rnake a living, and even expected the women to fall in love with theirfurung clients. Why should they? They and their families need to survive, after all. In addition, as Cohen came to realize in his second version of the typolog, faruiig behaviour may not look much like loving deportment in Thai terms.

Cohen (1 993) reworked his original schema to make it more consonant with Thai views, and though he left the continuum largely unchanged, he pointed out that the view of love and money as opposed was not shared by Thai, who see increased generosity as a sign of greater love. In hierarchical Thai society, a good superior is one who gives frequent presents, doesn't tax the inferior unduly, and is kind; a bad one is stingy with gifis, demands a lot of hard work, and speaks harshly. Thus the farang client of a prostitute who requires constant attention and service yet tries to avoid payment is behaving in Thai terms as a bad superior: being rniseriy, making undue demands, and, probably, arguing and criticizing. Making a transition from economic transaction to romantic relationship in the Thai view ought not to imply cessation of economic support, for love is expressed in part by giving, not withholding. Thus a Thai women would expect her forung partner, if he loves her, to be genrrous with her. Her relatives, if poor, will not hesitate to demand a share of the pods she is presumed to have access to because of her attachment to a furung, invoking noms of generosity and filial duty which are part of the fabric of Thai culture. Thus in such situations Western and Thai standards and understandings corne head to head, making unbearable an interaction already fraught with sexual, racial, and economic inequalities. Two of my Thai female interviewees spoke eloquently of being trapped by these dilemmas; ont: had resolved the situation by convincing her family that she and her partner had no money to spare, and reported that in time her relatives came to respect the jurung for himself; the other woman had less success, and dramatically illustrated the tensions and pains the competing demands of family and partner caused her by breaking into tears at the reappearance of a brother who had been given money and sent away. What is surpnsing is not that these conflict occur, but that individuals can overcome them and find ways to be together in spite of the potentials for power that infuse their interactions.

1 have been discussing two ways to recognize that power is not all-detennining. One juxtaposes power to resistance, thus avoiding a conception of power as an absolute possession and seeing it instead as something that flows between people and allowing possibilities for its evasion. I have discussed a number of ways that orientalist power is imbricated into discursive understandings and into human relations and various means by which it is refused, some more effective than others. The second views individuals as having agency and thus thinking about, interpreting, and reshaping their worlds in complex and sometimes surprising ways. Although niai-western relations seem to me to be made perilous with vast potentials for powrr and domination, as 1 interviewed people 1 found them to be intelligent and reflective individuals working within the structures of power that configure their lives to reshape, refuse, subvert, and rework them on the basis of their own experiences. 111 no case did anyone 1 spoke with appear to me to be wholly deterrnined by orientalist understandings, and the very diversity of the understandings they had of their lives and situations showed the wide rang of possibilities for negotiating through dominant structures of power. Thus although Thai and furung are separated from each other by historical, social, political, cultural, gendered, and sexualized gulfs deeper and more cornplex than 1 have been able to do justice to in this work, many of us have managed to reach across the chasms that divide us and make intimate human connections, even if in some cases only temporarily. 1 have tried in this thesis to map the contours of these gulfs and chasms, yet in the end I must ask myself if we are really so di fferent from each other, usjbrung, us Thai, and 1 find myself answering: in truth, perhaps not so different, not so divided, afier all. References Cited

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