Working
elephants on the Mae Rim Road.
The
famous writer Ludu Daw Ah Mar said:
Where
the great elephants go
roads
appear.
Convinced
she was right, she started writing -
in
the vernacular
not
in stilted flowery
traditional
prose.
She
threw away in full view of everyone, a ball pen, given to her
by
the supposedly moderate general, now deposed
since
2004. He's now himself
under
house arrest. (Khin Nyunt, released in 2011)
An
internal power struggle, in the junta
the
permanent purge.
On
the Mae Rim Road
the
elephants
no
longer do
real
work, lifting, pulling
pushing
teak logs, worth $10,000 each
in
1982.
But
now I no longer know the price --
as
am considering divorce and no longer
talking
to
the teak man.
Since
1988, Thailand has had
a
teak export ban. The Thai general
immediately
made
an
agreement, to exploit, neighboring Burma's
teak
forests. Suited everyone fine
except
the Burmese people; the students who fled
to
Thailand after the army clampdown of 1988; the ethnic peoples
on
the border.
On
the Mae Rim Road
the
elephants entertain tourists
going
around clumsily in circles, holding each other's
tails,
gingerly in their trunks.
The
mahouts are all Karen1
have
given each elephant
a
Karen name.
The
younger mahouts are
kinder. An old mahout
has
so struck at his elephant
with
his chun probe, the edges
of
the elephant's ears, are in tatters
storm
tossed
banana
leaves. Maybe only I
see
this.
Everyone
else is too busy
rushing
around taking photos
and
clapping.
I've
read, before captive elephants
were
taught, to paint
they
were so bored
in a
western zoo
they
masturbated and tried
to
fornicate
with
the red fire hydrant.
On
the Mae Rim Road
the
elephants no longer
do
real work, but it's not bad
my
tourist guide says:
Easier
than hauling logs.
My
guide Tang who speaks
English.
Simultaneously
I am
exploring
retiring
in Thailand
but
it might get
too
sleepy, too boring
too
political and
too
dangerous.
The
elephants on the Mae Rim
Road,
no longer do real work.
They
entertain.
Maybe
some have been extras
in
the film
Suryothai.2
Kyi
May Kaung
Chiangmai,
Thailand.
12-19-2006
1 An
ethnic group living in Burma and Thailand called Kayin or Karen.
2 A
popular film, sponsored by the Thai royal family, edited by Francis Ford
Coppola and allegedly very anti-Burmese, but I did not find it so
objectionable. To me it appeared to
focus more on the court intrigues of the Ayuthia royal family and to blame them
for the Burmese invasion. Suryothai was
a Thai queen who went to war on an elephant to help her husband and was killed.
