/ARTS WEEKLY/ THAILAND: Modern Culture Outpacing the Past

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Stanislaus Jude Chan

BANGKOK, Jun 18 2002 (IPS) - Verita Sriratana is a normal teenager. Like her peers, the 19-year-old Thai university student wakes up early, takes a bus to her campus every morning. She takes extra classes, hangs out with her friends, goes to the movies, and chats on her mobile phone.

But unlike many in her generation, Verita is consciously aware of what she is missing out on — an idyllic “city of angels”.

“When I was younger, there was no BTS (Bangkok Mass Transit System),” says Verita, “but it was all right because we used to take things easy.”

“Now everyone’s in a hurry, and in our competitiveness in things like studying, we forget about looking around, about smelling the roses,” she adds.

Her views may also very well be those contained in Surat Osathanugrah’s new coffeetable book, ‘Vanishing Bangkok’, which represents the lingering reminiscence of a people in a megacity of 6 million people besieged by the advent of technology, and radical social-cultural change.

The 72-year-old founder of Bangkok University recalls a time when “Bangkok was idyllic, peaceful, and still free from pollution”.

With “modernisation”, Bangkok is struggling to strike a balance between trying to “keep up” with technological advancement on the one hand, and keeping its traditions and culture on the other, he said.

Chaiwat Tirapan, president of the Bangkok Forum, a civic group that focuses on urban planning and aesthetics issues in the Thai capital, looks back fondly at the time when Bangkok was known as the ‘Venice of the East’.

“We had a canal system, a tram service, and a lot of trees,” Chaiwat remembers. “But the canal was filled in, the tram was abolished, and the trees were cut down to make way for widening of the roads.”

Most of all however, he misses the carnival-like atmosphere of “fairs”, where the “community spirit” was strong and when the “old communities knew more about each other” than the frantic pace of modern Bangkok would allow.

Long has it been, since the time when it was common to see the Thais chewing on betel nuts and spitting afterward, before this tradition was banned because it was deemed disgusting.

Today however, Surat laments, “Thai youths do not even know about betel nuts, what to do with it, or where to buy it.”

Cultural and traditional Thailand has bent to the influx of technology. Where betel nut chewing was once the favoured practice, the mobile phone has taken over as the most popular mouth-associated activity, with over 34 percent of the Bangkok population subscribed to a mobile phone line, according to reports last year.

While the surge of the tourism industry is a boost to the economy, the massive hotels, shopping complexes, and office buildings often block out the sun and overshadow the simple pleasures.

It is becoming increasingly rare to see children swimming in the river, cockerel fights, or even the touching scene of an “immense family living under a bridge and selling jasmine garlands”, says Surat.

Bangkok was “exciting” in its simplicity, he adds.

“School buses? We even have school boats,” he says in reference to the ferry service to take children to their classes across the river. “And also on boats, the first Thai fast-food cooked using charcoal — before pizza was here.”

Chaiwat, an advocate of civic movements, attributes this loss of “quiet, easy-going, and green” Bangkok to an unprecedented growth in Thailand’s capital.

“People come to Bangkok (from other provinces) to study, and to look for jobs,” he explains. “Bangkok is expanding very fast, with more economic interaction, tourists streaming in, and office buildings being built.”

“Thailand’s population has grown to about 62 million, of these, one-sixth live in Greater Bangkok. Bangkok is a primate city, and attracts migrants from the other provinces,” Chaiwat adds.

With the concentration of development mainly in Bangkok, the capital has lured students, workers and visitors alike, contributing to the “vicious cycle” of felling trees and the culture, in exchange for the cold concrete jungle.

With Thailand’s economy heavily pegged to the rapidly expanding tourist industry, it is no wonder that these simple joys are disappearing.

However, Surat maintains “it is still possible to see some of these things” away from the “tourist traps”.

However, with modernisation increasing the need for economic and technological growth, many find themselves struggling to compete with each other for survival, leaving little time for the simple joys.

Regardless, Chaiwat’s Bangkok Forum is trying to “revitalise the beautiful cultural life of the old town”, to create a “cultural centre” in the capital amidst the proliferation of cold concrete.

The group’s effort three years ago to initiate the closure of a road running alongside the Chao Phraya to set up a day-long “street festival” was met with merriment.

In April this year, the Red Cross Charity Fair held at the Parliament Square affirms confidence in the setting aside of “cultural space” in the city.

“As with all cosmopolitan cities,” says Chaiwat, “Bangkok is now open for many things. We have more English bookstores, for instance, and the people are more consciously aware of issues, like pollution. Bangkok is much cleaner now.”

“But we have to invest more in other sectors,” he adds. “There has to be a fusion of traditional culture and modern culture.”

In spite of all, young Verita succinctly inspires confidence: “But of course, we love Bangkok anyway,” she says, “because this is our home.”