The end of an era
Written by Writer on Friday, October 3rd, 2008
BOOK Reviews
The end of an era
Klongs
by Pamela Hamburger
140pp, 2008 Bangkok
Books paperback
Available at Asia Books and
leading book stores, 995 baht
The standard question asked by newly-arrived journalists looking for a story, an angle, a quote of Old Thailand Hands is what was it like back then - 20, 30, 40 years ago - “You know, the good old days.” And as expat farang who lived here longer than in my homeland, I told what I remembered.
The lodestone of what I remembered was that there were no good old days. To be sure things were cheaper in those days, but salaries were lower. There were fewer vehicles, but fewer roads. Inadequate sewers caused streets to remain flooded for days after a downpour. Krung Thep was infested by mosquitoes. Coups abounded, martial law declared.
With communism triumphant across the Mekhong, there was the sense that another domino was teetering, student demonstrations for democracy stamped out. What was booming was the night life. It, more than anything else, attracted visitors from abroad. Hotels were built to house them. The likelihood of war receding, the Thai smile infectious, business came in. Locals poured into the cities from the countryside. Progress, right?
What Old Thailand Hands, such as myself, overlooked was that for all too many Thais the surging economy was disastrous. This is convincingly brought out in Klongs, an illustrated tea table book (21cm x 25cm). Its author is Pamela Hamburger, wife of the Ambassador-Head of Delegation of the European Commission. The 140 pages are divided into 11 chapters, each focusing on a different klong.
Photo books about the Chao Phraya are by no means rare, William Warren’s the most memorable. But unlike them, Ms Hamburger is less interested in the river traffic and scenic views at different times of the day and more in the people living on its banks and earning their livelihood from the waterway, that is its klongs.
While the pictures taken from the Bangkok Post, The Nation and other sources, are photogenic rather than artistic, the reader not dwelling on the river is unlikely to distinguish one klong from another when this book isn’t at hand. What makes it outstanding, not to say invaluable, is the author’s interviews with those having homes there, particularly the elderly.
They, not us expat residents, are the authentic Old Thailand Hands. They remember when Krung Thep lived up to the name of the Venice of the East. The Chao Phraya was clean, river trade was brisk, cottage industries flourished, fruit and vegetables, meat and flowers, all manner of goods and herbs were sold and bought. For them they were the good old days even when floods brought unwelcome snakes.
Buddhist, Muslim and Christian neighbours lived in peace. But factories were built upriver, polluting the water. Companies manufactured what they did, turning out greater quantity if lesser quality. Roads covered one klong after another. Young men and women moved inside the cities to better themselves. The old is giving way to the new.
For the Kingdom, it’s the end of an era.
