Story published in the Chiang Mai Mail, 2002
A year in 1950, with
traveling papers in order, our family embarked upon an 18-hour train ride north
from Bangkok, that would take our family came to our new hometown Chiangmai,
Thailand. My father told us, my mother and my two brothers, that it was in the
northern rice and jungle province. On
the way into town from the train station, we discovered Chiangmai to be
surrounded by parts of the red brick, medieval-wall and by perfectly square rice
patty farms.
The nation Thailand, the romantic kingdom of Siam until 1939, is a
land of many faces, all having in common their love of country. Even though most of the people are still farmers
in small, rural villages, one visiting Bangkok or even Chiangmai, might believe
that Thailand is truly one of the fastest growing economies in the world. In 2003 I found Chiangmai to be a city of
diverse people with many interests and vocations. There are vendors in the
Night Bazaar, drivers of the tuk tuks (taxis), hill tribe craftspeople, silk
weavers, silver makers, business owners, immigrants, ex-patriots who have found
their way to this unique Asian city, and, yes, rice farmers. What I saw on my
most recent adventure to Thailand, which included time in Mae Sot, Chiangmai,
and Bangkok, was in many ways the same as I remembered from long ago—a land of
smiles and people living, working, and playing in a tropical and beautiful
place.
My name is Linda Ruth
Edwards, and I am proudly one of the earliest American residents of Chiangmai.
In 1950, at the age of six, with my parents Charles and Ruby Edwards and my two
brothers Kenneth and Henry, ages 8 and 12, we moved from the State of Tennessee,
USA, to Thailand. My father was employed by the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly as
the Tobacco Specialist, who traveled from the United States to establish an
experimental station to perfect the tobacco for the Thai tobacco industry, and
brought from America the tobacco seeds that were used for this purpose. He
wrote, for the government, the only book on how to grow tobacco in Thailand for
the cigarette industry.
To get to Thailand in those
days, you embarked on a very long trip. We flew on four-engine propeller
airliners from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Gander, Newfoundland, Canada; to
London, England; to Paris, France; to Rome, Italy; to Damascus; to Basra, to
Calcutta, India; and finally to Bangkok, Thailand. We arrived on what was
claimed to be one of the hottest days in local memory—certainly hotter and
more humid than anything we’d seen in Tennessee—and on the way in from the
airport we sat sweltering in the sun inside
our chauffeured car for over an hour waiting for a royal cavalcade to
pass. What would be the chances that
this exact situation repeated itself again when I arrived two weeks ago. After
forty-five minutes, the taxi driver
explained our lack of motion in downtown Bangkok by turning to me and
announcing: “the King of Thailand.” Within a few minutes of these words, sure
enough, a procession of dozens of motorcycles, vans, and finally, the royal
limousine with flags, indicating the special passenger!
In the winter of 1951, we
returned to the United States: we flew to Hong Kong and Tokyo where we boarded
the USS President to cross the Pacific with a layover in Hawaii before reaching
San Francisco, for some 28 days. I
clearly remember our shop going under the Golden Gate Bridge and thinking that
the smoke stacks would come tumbling
down. My mother told the story of how excited I was to see the Woolworth Dime
Store, when I exclaimed, “Yes, this sure is America.”
This was a long journey for
a little American girl, one that could hardly be believed later by some of my
classmates in rural Tennessee. When I
returned to school in the States in 1951, saying “I’ve been around the world,”
they just turned their heads and ran off to swing. That just wasn’t possible.
But it was. My grandfather had another way to explain it: “It sure does look
like Charles, with all his education, could get a job a little closer home.”
Grandfather knew well that communication meant two to three weeks of waiting on
the mail. Things have changed.
And now, after fifty years,
I am returning, with all the excitement that my parents once must have had,
minus the fear. I wanted to see the country again and see how it has developed.
Chiangmai is now not a village of 5000 inhabitants, but a city with a
population over 150,000 people, many now English-speaking. This travel is also about rediscovering some
of my roots, with more interest than ever, now that my parents are deceased (I
have returned on two other occasions).
They were the first in our family who dreamed the dream of going to the
Orient; however, the dream lives on as a second generation has found a place
under the sun. My daughter Emily, within months of being accredited as a physician,
chose Thailand, of all the countries of the world, for an international
rotation, as she finishes medical school at the University of Virginia. She is working in Dr. Cynthia’s Clinic, just
inside the Thai border near the town of Mae Sot. The clinic, begun by young
Australian Dr. Cynthia and renowned for its humanitarian achievements, services
day refugees who allowed over the Myanmar border from 6 a.m. till 6 p.m. for
medical care. There is some treatment for cases of AIDS and malaria; there are
amputations performed (from land mines) and prosthetics to be made. 800 babies
a year are born in these cinder block buildings; they have plywood delivery
tables. Some of the babies have HIV, if
the mothers did not come early enough for treatment.
The most poignant story may
be that of a little boy, less than two, who lives at the clinic, his mother
having died, his father not located, with no where else to go. The roving
medics and doctors care for him, in lieu of his parents. I wanted to experience
this amazing clinic, with Emily; this would help me know something of the way
she will be when she returns, changed forever.
During my short stay in the
village of Mae Sot of the Chiangmai province, I spent some of my days tutoring
English as a second language on the floor of a church. My children were also day immigrants, some
whose parents came over the border from old Burma just for the day, to sell in
the market or to beg. The job was the same for the children, unless somehow
they found their way to this church for the day, a house of refuge, a warm
lunch, a little schooling in math and language, and a bunch of hugs.
Everyone who travels to
Thailand, as a tourist, as a student, or as a worker, comes away changed, but
only to the extent they really get to know the people. It only takes one acquaintance to get a
taste. On a day that school was out, a little girl came up to me in the street.
As she tugged at my arm and held out her hand to beg, I looked into the eyes of
a child that had sat in my lap the day before learning her first English word
“house.” I refused, taking her hand and
leading her across the street to the mini-market. I opened the cooler and asked
her to pick something. She picked
Pepsi. I pointed to the chocolate milk and she chose white. I purchased
both, putting the Pepsi and some lunch money in her worn backpack. She smiled,
running off, thinking she would see me the next day at school. I was saddened
to think that I would not be there for her. I hope that little girl received
one of pencils and pads that my daughter would take to the school in a few
days.
Now that I am looking
backward and forward, I wonder, when Emily returns in fifty years, if this
little village will be a city, as Chiangmai is today. Perhaps all the border problems will be solved and my little girl
will have found her place under the sun of a free country.
Before moving to Chiangmai,
our family of five stayed at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok for over six weeks.
We knew then the lovely twenty-eight year old Ankana Gilwee. Ms Ankana, now the
most-tenured employee at the Oriental, is enjoying her fifty-sixth year with
the famous institution. She is the Guest Relation Coordinator and has created a
connection for my children and me to the past. Among the memories of daily life
there—far different from anything we’d known back in Tennessee—were the
spectacular presentation of food in the open-air verandah restaurant, the warm
personal service, the delightful view of the Chao Praya River and playing on
the lawn. The hot pre-monsoon weather was more tolerable with limeade drinks to
quench our hot thirst. I recall that my
older brother Henry was enthralled by the rumor that the Oriental lobby boasted
Asia’s highest concentration of spies. Our upstairs room had five army-type
cots lined up in a row with mosquito netting. This room has now become one of
the famous authors’ rooms in the historic wing.
Once we got settled in
Chiangmai, the children having been out of school for over two months, my
parents thought education was the first arrangement to put in place. My
brothers Kenneth and Henry left every morning with the driver to go to school.
I knew that Henry went to Margaret Wells’ school at the Prince Royal College;
this was a school the missionary’s wife set up for the half-dozen or so
American high school kids. I have heard that perhaps this school became The
International School. I only learned recently that Kenneth was tutored by
another mother in their home. I had already started to school in America; I
wanted to go to a real school, but there was none for a first grader. To my dismay, and I never got over it, each
day my own mother taught me my reading, writing, and arithmetic. To get myself
in the mood, I remember encircling what people called “the house made for
foreigners” several times each morning, pretending I had traveled to school
with the others. I was envious that my
brothers rode with a driver to school in the car provided for us. Doing workbooks with my mother did not seem
like real school.
On Sundays we had great
adventures. We would go the mountains
to hike up to the 600 year old Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep (temple) or we would go
swimming in the falls. I remember sliding down the slippery rocks; I’d like to
remember which nearby falls these were that we enjoyed. My brother Kenneth told me that he was
surprised that I remembered the falls outings, as he recollected that those
trips were “guy adventures.” I also remember us going on Sunday afternoons to
play at a large house with an expansive yard so big that I dreamed of that
place, even into adulthood. We would visit the few other English-speaking
families. There are names on the back of pictures, like Wells, Grether, and
Buker. I do not remember that the big house had bars over their windows, as ours
did! We were happy and not afraid, so I
do not know why we had bars over our windows.
Occasionally I played with a
Thai friend, Neeta, who lived next door to me in a teak house built on stilts.
(her picture is here) I only remember playing with my toys—just two of them
that I was able to bring. I had a baby doll with handmade clothing sewed
beautifully by my mother, and a toy sewing machine, which we took from America.
One of my father’s co-workers Mr. Auchin brought me a child-size teak table and
stool; this is probably my most treasured item in my home today. I remember my friend’s house was on the west
of ours, that our houses were on the left side of the road going to the Sutep
mountain, and that there were rice patties around , between, and across the
road from our houses. The road was
elevated above the rice patties. There
was no zoo and no Chiangmai University between the mountains and us. We were
only a short distance from the river and outside of the town walls. But my
brothers and I do not remember if we lived off the Sutep Road or the Huay Kaew
Road. What I do remember is that everything green grew around our house,
including coconut trees behind our house, a banana grove between my house and
Neeta’s, and new orange trees in the front yard, no taller than I.
One day we had a big scare
in the banana grove. It seems my brother Kenneth ran upon a snake, and we all
scattered screaming “bloody murder.” My elder brother now tells me still of
that frightening experience.
Once I picked a fruit from
one of the front yard trees, only to be terribly scolded. It was green. I ran
in the house to see if our cook Tan knew what fruit I was about to eat. Mother cut it open to find it was orange! An orange with a green skin. When I returned
in 1988 to Chiangmai, these orange trees might have been the only things that I
found remaining of where I once lived.
I still do not know exactly where I lived; but I did find a grove of
orange trees along Sutep Road and it made me wonder. People said an “American”
house used to be nearby. (I enclose a picture of the house.) I also wish to see
the spot where I once lived.
One day our father’s
co-worker friend Mr. Auchin delivered a parrot. Kenneth said it was a gift to
him, but I think it belonged to me. The friend also gave my brothers a black
dog name Myo. I remember being pals with the seven people that worked for our
family. One recollection is that of
being in the back yard where there was an open cooking fire, being offered food
that I had never seen before; it was a little difficult for a small child to
eat or to refuse—even the roasted roaches.
The man named Tam that cooked our food made homemade potato chips,
always to all our delight.
Finally, I remember fondly
what made me distinctly uneasy as a little girl—the geckos that crawled up
and down my bedroom walls every night. I must admit that, each night last week
in Chiangmai, as I prepared to turn in, I looked carefully for my old
wall-climbing friends. I only saw them once—outside.
I am home now, already
mentally preparing for my return. There is still much to learn about Thailand.
I want to take my friends. Another dimension of Thailand has already begun: I
returned with a dozen spectacular examples of the ancient art of weaving basket
pocketbooks. A new dream will unfold as
I share these art pieces with American women who appreciate the intricate work
so rarely found in our country. We all
will return.
Copyright, Linda Edwards, March, 2003. |
