Susan Kepner, thank you so much for this fascinating article. As you say, we wouldn’t really know about Leonowens’ books if it were not for Margaret Landon cashing-in on them, leading to the movies. I had dismissed them, confusing them with Landon’s romanticised & somewhat sensational story, but last year, digging around in a 2nd-hand bookshop I came across a facsimile edition of a book called “The Original Anna and the King of Siam from the Original English Governess at the Siamese Court,…. published by Trubner & Co., London 1870,” published in Thailand by Chalermnit (no date). I took it to Indonesia as holiday reading, & found it quite a superb read. It’s therefore rather wonderful to know that there is some scholarly research into the surprising life of this adventurous woman. I’ve downloaded the pdf of your long & satisfying review, as well as the article recommended by Caron Dann (thanks!!), & look forward to reading “Bombay Anna,” as well as your “Anna (and Margaret) and the King of Siam.”
BTW, I love “Letters from Thailand,” a superbly readable translation.
This is all fascinating. I’d had little idea of this aspect of Burmese modern history. The way the history tends to have been presented to outsiders, the bulk of the sufferings of the peoples of Burma, taken as a whole, has been due to ethnic conflicts (government vs. Kachin, Karen, Shan etc). Is that basically a valid perspective … or to what extent should one reconsider?
Surachai Sae Dan from the radical “Daeng Siam” group was there as well,
I have to disagree with Nick about saying that Daeng Siam is radicle. I went to the Daeng Siam meeting once and they are one of the most progressive group among the red, far from being radicle. Surachai never demand for any violence or arm struggle but rather a transferring of power in a peaceful way. To call Daeng Siam as radicle is greatly inaccurate.
Furthermore, I want to criticize Jatuporn about his speech. I think he should; stop bashing people, stop the none sense singing, and start educate people more about democracy and what kind of corrupted governing system.
The deluge is hitting the Northeastern region (the Isaans) particularly hard this very moment. Deep in debts, then the wipe-out of their crops and the damages from the deluge, certain despair and the cycle of deepening crisis of dependency among the poor indebted farmers appear no nearer to any solution.
Going deeply in debt never helps anybody . . . and certainly not those Northeastern small-time Thai farmers.
It would seem that as much as Abbhisit’s military installed regime arrests, intimidates, slanders and shoots dead the red shirts they are not going to go away. Meanwhile tales of unrestrained gross corruption are revealed almost daily as the coalition digs their snouts into the public finance trough as deep as they can stick them.
To quote Talking Heads, same as it ever was…same as it ever was…
On a related note, interesting how the elite and wannabes in too many countries feel it is their birthright to rule, whereas all they ever seem to do is corrupt the political process to suck the public finances dry. The task of running the country well seems to elude them in the stampede to fraud and corruption. But maybe I am just cynical.
Ko Hla Oo,
(4) You mentioned that according to the Panglong Agreement each state in the forthcoming Union of Burma had the right to secede. It’s not true. Kachin State has forfeited its right as it was given Myitkyina and Bhamo, the traditional Burmese territories. The Karen did not attend the conference and Chin, Mon and Arakan (Rakhine) were not yet states and they were just part of Burma Proper. Only the Shan and Kayah states are provided with the right of secession ten years after independence.
I took the train from Bangkok to Ayutthaya. The train was quite full, but at first I saw only very few redshirts. From the discussions I picked up that everyone around was a supporter of the redshirts and once they started to sing their songs in the compartment it was all clear.
Once they get off the train they put on their redshirts. I hopped onto one of the pick-up trucks full of redshirts that brought me through the endless traffic jam from the train station to the stadium.
Even though it was wet and muddy the mood was jubilant. Nothing more to add to Nick’s excellent report.
Maybe there were two fireworks. The first firework was Khun Jatuporn’s fiery speech. His rhetoric, his facial expressions and gestures are just a pleasure to study and it’s amazing how he can glue the audience’s ears to his mouth.
I made some photos from the stage and I also prepared a whole series of Khun Jatuporn’s expressions while he was speaking: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ratchaprasong2/
Ko Hla Oo,
Thank you for a fascinating story. A few fallacies:
(1) It was not Thakhin Mya who ordered the assassination attempt on Galon U Saw, but General Ne Win and Brigadier Aung Gyi to Yangon Ba Swe and U Mya Hlaing who told it to Dr Kyin Ho in Florida, USA.
(2) You mentioned U Mya Hlaing had a younger brother called U Kyin Hlaing. Why did not you mention he was the younger brother of Bo Letya (Thakhin Hla Pe) and Dr Hla Shwe (President of Rangoon University Student Union)?
(3) Thakhin Than Tun was never a Rangoon University student.
But John Francis Lee, the dead bomber Samai (detonated himself accidentally and three others at Nothaburi) was identified as hardcore Red. And the money trail indicated that dead bomber Samai was paid by someone connected to a high-ranking Peau Thai Party executive and MP, right?.
Isn’t that circumstantial enough, if not ‘smoking gun’ evidence?
For motives and violence streak, the Thai people were witness to the April-May 2010 bombing rampage, high assault rifle attacks by the violent Red radicals, with the ‘peaceful’ Reds cheering every time the M79 grenade launchers made a direct hit to some innocent bystanders. And for pure malice as motive, there was the arson rampage during the Black May 2010 rampage.
Now Mr. John Francis Lee, what could be more incriminating than all the above background reading on the Reds?
The dear departed General Khattiya, before his assassination, made some really damning confessions about the motives of the Reds (for Thaksin, by Thaksin and only Thaksin, what else?). And General Khattiya also confessed that all his activities (very violent activities) were approved by Thaksin. Even at this very moment, Peau Thai Party executive Chalerm Yubamrung openly repeatedly avers to the Peau Thai Party as nothing more than the extension of Thaksin’s persona.
So how could not anybody, including John Francis Lee (if not in denial) conclude that the current ongoing Bangkok bombings as being the handiwork of no other group, but the Red Radicals themselves?
Sawarin – good questions. Anna didn’t make a fortune from her books and speaking engagements, though she did make a living. She spent most of the second half of her life living in Canada with her daughter, Avis, and family. Never one to live extravagantly, she put just about all her energy into helping the poor and disadvantaged in Canada. She particularly championed education, especially for women. She founded NSCAD (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design) and there is an art gallery named after her there. Most of this work that she did was voluntary and there is no doubt she was a charitable and good person in this respect.
Regarding your comment about so-called “experts” – it is well made. A lot of people write about a lot of things they are not very informed about. Anna’s explanations of Thai customs and language are the weakest parts of her writing. But there is still value in her work, because of the very fact that she was an eyewitness to the domestic life of royalty, which was rarely seen by anyone from outside.
In my own writing, I never pretend to be an expert on Thais or Thailand (or even to know very much at all about them). I specialise in what has been written in English about Thais and Thailand as a way of examining “Western” attitudes, particularly those of colonialism and imperialism, to the “East”. The very terms “west” and “east” are, of course, Euro-centric. As my PhD supervisor was fond of saying, if you go east from Australia, where I live, you arrive in NZ (where I’m from)!
One of my all favourite novels is Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley. Tom Ripley is a charlatan who lies about his identity by imitating to be Dickie Greenleaf, a well educated and rich American socialite. He has obsession with Dickie, but does not fail to repeatedly forge Dickie’s signature to draw out the Greenleaf’s money for his own benefits. Towards the end of the story, with series of lies, accumulated fraud cases, and the past that catching up with him, Ripley has no choice apart from killing Dickie and a few others that have tendencies to expose his real identity.
Is Tom Ripley a hero or villain? The answer to this question is, I believe, to do with who we are, than what is right or wrong. The genius of Patricia Highsmith is that not only she had vividly created a character whom we can’t claim to know for certain, she also passed no judgement on this complex man. The reader will have to be the judge herself/himself. Initially, I was very sympathetic to Tom Ripley, a man who changed his station in life by his own talent. This came with me. I was born comfortable, but my parents – like the Sino-Thai of their generation – had to work hard to get us where we are, so to a large extent, I always have admiration to the people who “made it” by their own assiduous and industrious work/study. Having said this, there is a real difference between people like Tom Ripley and the Sino-Thai “seau puean mhon bai” (one mat, one pillow) generation of Thailand: the latter didn’t take a short cut, they didn’t cheat and were committed to lead an ethical professional life.
Perhaps, there’s a limit to which scholarship can portray a complexity of human life. Fiction has its superiority on this ground. Highsmith held a strong empathy towards her (anti)hero, but she equally captured Tom Ripley as an unethical individual. Didn’t Anna make loads of money out of her claimed expertise? Any researcher probed into her financial account? I’m sure the “education” she provided the public was far from cheap. How much she returned to the societies (not her family) that gave her opportunities in life? I’m just curious.
In a related note, Anna or the Landons weren’t the first and the last who went to Siam and came back to the English speaking world as a self-appointed “expert”, the line continues…..
thank you for the survey of books… interesting to see both right wing royalist/military extremists and modern redshirts represented
as JFL, I wonder how many readers there are, both in Australia and more importantly in Thailand
talking of readers, is there a mechanism for me to borrow these and other books from the NLA collection from Perth, through the local library service or otherwise?
Circumstantially and by motive the Bangkok bombings including the recent Nonthaburi explosion that killed four people said to include a man claimed to be a Red guard, Samai, do appear to be the handiwork of the Thai military. What is abhorrent is that the ‘civilian’ Regime condones and encourages activities of the violent Thai military and the Thai MSM mindlessly prints DSI/CRES allegations, put forth without a shred of evidence, as The Truth.
@Greg Lopez: You are absolutely correct. They don’t seem to understand that once the book is released on the internet, the cat is out of the bag and the floodgate is blown wide open. They may be able to block most Malaysians from directly accessing the “official” website for The March to Putrajaya but it will be darn near impossible to block new websites springing up to replace the blocked ones, bit-torrents of this banned book and people passing the PDF version around.
If ‘superanonymous’ says he “sees him (the Thai Prince) many nights on the Royal news”, then I must be wrong to tag the Thai Prince as invisible to the Thai public.
What about the other four points, including the immediate cessation of ongoing Bangkok bombings? I am correct on all four, yes?
Circumstantially and by motives, the Bangkok bombings including the recent unintended Nonthaburi self-detonated explosion that killed four people including a known Red guard Samai, do appear to be the handiwork of violent radical Reds. What is abhorrent is that the ‘peaceful’ Reds appear to condone or encourage activities of the violent radical Reds.
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Review of Bombay Anna
Susan Kepner, thank you so much for this fascinating article. As you say, we wouldn’t really know about Leonowens’ books if it were not for Margaret Landon cashing-in on them, leading to the movies. I had dismissed them, confusing them with Landon’s romanticised & somewhat sensational story, but last year, digging around in a 2nd-hand bookshop I came across a facsimile edition of a book called “The Original Anna and the King of Siam from the Original English Governess at the Siamese Court,…. published by Trubner & Co., London 1870,” published in Thailand by Chalermnit (no date). I took it to Indonesia as holiday reading, & found it quite a superb read. It’s therefore rather wonderful to know that there is some scholarly research into the surprising life of this adventurous woman. I’ve downloaded the pdf of your long & satisfying review, as well as the article recommended by Caron Dann (thanks!!), & look forward to reading “Bombay Anna,” as well as your “Anna (and Margaret) and the King of Siam.”
BTW, I love “Letters from Thailand,” a superbly readable translation.
Burma in Limbo, part 4
This is all fascinating. I’d had little idea of this aspect of Burmese modern history. The way the history tends to have been presented to outsiders, the bulk of the sufferings of the peoples of Burma, taken as a whole, has been due to ethnic conflicts (government vs. Kachin, Karen, Shan etc). Is that basically a valid perspective … or to what extent should one reconsider?
The Red Shirts in Ayutthaya
Surachai Sae Dan from the radical “Daeng Siam” group was there as well,
I have to disagree with Nick about saying that Daeng Siam is radicle. I went to the Daeng Siam meeting once and they are one of the most progressive group among the red, far from being radicle. Surachai never demand for any violence or arm struggle but rather a transferring of power in a peaceful way. To call Daeng Siam as radicle is greatly inaccurate.
Furthermore, I want to criticize Jatuporn about his speech. I think he should; stop bashing people, stop the none sense singing, and start educate people more about democracy and what kind of corrupted governing system.
How much of a burden is rural debt in Thailand?
Debts, Deluge, Despair and Dependency
The deluge is hitting the Northeastern region (the Isaans) particularly hard this very moment. Deep in debts, then the wipe-out of their crops and the damages from the deluge, certain despair and the cycle of deepening crisis of dependency among the poor indebted farmers appear no nearer to any solution.
Going deeply in debt never helps anybody . . . and certainly not those Northeastern small-time Thai farmers.
The Red Shirts in Ayutthaya
It would seem that as much as Abbhisit’s military installed regime arrests, intimidates, slanders and shoots dead the red shirts they are not going to go away. Meanwhile tales of unrestrained gross corruption are revealed almost daily as the coalition digs their snouts into the public finance trough as deep as they can stick them.
To quote Talking Heads, same as it ever was…same as it ever was…
On a related note, interesting how the elite and wannabes in too many countries feel it is their birthright to rule, whereas all they ever seem to do is corrupt the political process to suck the public finances dry. The task of running the country well seems to elude them in the stampede to fraud and corruption. But maybe I am just cynical.
Burma in Limbo, Part 3
Ko Hla Oo,
(4) You mentioned that according to the Panglong Agreement each state in the forthcoming Union of Burma had the right to secede. It’s not true. Kachin State has forfeited its right as it was given Myitkyina and Bhamo, the traditional Burmese territories. The Karen did not attend the conference and Chin, Mon and Arakan (Rakhine) were not yet states and they were just part of Burma Proper. Only the Shan and Kayah states are provided with the right of secession ten years after independence.
Paintbox of contemporary Thai political discourse
Nuomi, direct your question to http://www.nla.gov.au/askalibrarian/ for reference enquiries
Paintbox of contemporary Thai political discourse
David Brown, yes you can borrow no problem. Just email me anytime.
The Red Shirts in Ayutthaya
I took the train from Bangkok to Ayutthaya. The train was quite full, but at first I saw only very few redshirts. From the discussions I picked up that everyone around was a supporter of the redshirts and once they started to sing their songs in the compartment it was all clear.
Once they get off the train they put on their redshirts. I hopped onto one of the pick-up trucks full of redshirts that brought me through the endless traffic jam from the train station to the stadium.
Even though it was wet and muddy the mood was jubilant. Nothing more to add to Nick’s excellent report.
Maybe there were two fireworks. The first firework was Khun Jatuporn’s fiery speech. His rhetoric, his facial expressions and gestures are just a pleasure to study and it’s amazing how he can glue the audience’s ears to his mouth.
I made some photos from the stage and I also prepared a whole series of Khun Jatuporn’s expressions while he was speaking: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ratchaprasong2/
Burma in Limbo, Part 3
Ko Hla Oo,
Thank you for a fascinating story. A few fallacies:
(1) It was not Thakhin Mya who ordered the assassination attempt on Galon U Saw, but General Ne Win and Brigadier Aung Gyi to Yangon Ba Swe and U Mya Hlaing who told it to Dr Kyin Ho in Florida, USA.
(2) You mentioned U Mya Hlaing had a younger brother called U Kyin Hlaing. Why did not you mention he was the younger brother of Bo Letya (Thakhin Hla Pe) and Dr Hla Shwe (President of Rangoon University Student Union)?
(3) Thakhin Than Tun was never a Rangoon University student.
The ghosts of September 2006
But John Francis Lee, the dead bomber Samai (detonated himself accidentally and three others at Nothaburi) was identified as hardcore Red. And the money trail indicated that dead bomber Samai was paid by someone connected to a high-ranking Peau Thai Party executive and MP, right?.
Isn’t that circumstantial enough, if not ‘smoking gun’ evidence?
For motives and violence streak, the Thai people were witness to the April-May 2010 bombing rampage, high assault rifle attacks by the violent Red radicals, with the ‘peaceful’ Reds cheering every time the M79 grenade launchers made a direct hit to some innocent bystanders. And for pure malice as motive, there was the arson rampage during the Black May 2010 rampage.
Now Mr. John Francis Lee, what could be more incriminating than all the above background reading on the Reds?
The dear departed General Khattiya, before his assassination, made some really damning confessions about the motives of the Reds (for Thaksin, by Thaksin and only Thaksin, what else?). And General Khattiya also confessed that all his activities (very violent activities) were approved by Thaksin. Even at this very moment, Peau Thai Party executive Chalerm Yubamrung openly repeatedly avers to the Peau Thai Party as nothing more than the extension of Thaksin’s persona.
So how could not anybody, including John Francis Lee (if not in denial) conclude that the current ongoing Bangkok bombings as being the handiwork of no other group, but the Red Radicals themselves?
The Red Shirts in Ayutthaya
Keep up the good show, REDS will eventually bridge through between new and old conservative elites and built a new future of Thailand.
Review of Bombay Anna
Sawarin – good questions. Anna didn’t make a fortune from her books and speaking engagements, though she did make a living. She spent most of the second half of her life living in Canada with her daughter, Avis, and family. Never one to live extravagantly, she put just about all her energy into helping the poor and disadvantaged in Canada. She particularly championed education, especially for women. She founded NSCAD (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design) and there is an art gallery named after her there. Most of this work that she did was voluntary and there is no doubt she was a charitable and good person in this respect.
Regarding your comment about so-called “experts” – it is well made. A lot of people write about a lot of things they are not very informed about. Anna’s explanations of Thai customs and language are the weakest parts of her writing. But there is still value in her work, because of the very fact that she was an eyewitness to the domestic life of royalty, which was rarely seen by anyone from outside.
In my own writing, I never pretend to be an expert on Thais or Thailand (or even to know very much at all about them). I specialise in what has been written in English about Thais and Thailand as a way of examining “Western” attitudes, particularly those of colonialism and imperialism, to the “East”. The very terms “west” and “east” are, of course, Euro-centric. As my PhD supervisor was fond of saying, if you go east from Australia, where I live, you arrive in NZ (where I’m from)!
Review of Bombay Anna
One of my all favourite novels is Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley. Tom Ripley is a charlatan who lies about his identity by imitating to be Dickie Greenleaf, a well educated and rich American socialite. He has obsession with Dickie, but does not fail to repeatedly forge Dickie’s signature to draw out the Greenleaf’s money for his own benefits. Towards the end of the story, with series of lies, accumulated fraud cases, and the past that catching up with him, Ripley has no choice apart from killing Dickie and a few others that have tendencies to expose his real identity.
Is Tom Ripley a hero or villain? The answer to this question is, I believe, to do with who we are, than what is right or wrong. The genius of Patricia Highsmith is that not only she had vividly created a character whom we can’t claim to know for certain, she also passed no judgement on this complex man. The reader will have to be the judge herself/himself. Initially, I was very sympathetic to Tom Ripley, a man who changed his station in life by his own talent. This came with me. I was born comfortable, but my parents – like the Sino-Thai of their generation – had to work hard to get us where we are, so to a large extent, I always have admiration to the people who “made it” by their own assiduous and industrious work/study. Having said this, there is a real difference between people like Tom Ripley and the Sino-Thai “seau puean mhon bai” (one mat, one pillow) generation of Thailand: the latter didn’t take a short cut, they didn’t cheat and were committed to lead an ethical professional life.
Perhaps, there’s a limit to which scholarship can portray a complexity of human life. Fiction has its superiority on this ground. Highsmith held a strong empathy towards her (anti)hero, but she equally captured Tom Ripley as an unethical individual. Didn’t Anna make loads of money out of her claimed expertise? Any researcher probed into her financial account? I’m sure the “education” she provided the public was far from cheap. How much she returned to the societies (not her family) that gave her opportunities in life? I’m just curious.
In a related note, Anna or the Landons weren’t the first and the last who went to Siam and came back to the English speaking world as a self-appointed “expert”, the line continues…..
Paintbox of contemporary Thai political discourse
thank you for the survey of books… interesting to see both right wing royalist/military extremists and modern redshirts represented
as JFL, I wonder how many readers there are, both in Australia and more importantly in Thailand
talking of readers, is there a mechanism for me to borrow these and other books from the NLA collection from Perth, through the local library service or otherwise?
The ghosts of September 2006
Thai MSM, and trolls on the payroll of the DSI/CRES of course, mindlessly put forth DSI/CRES allegations without a shred of evidence, as The Truth.
The ghosts of September 2006
Circumstantially and by motive the Bangkok bombings including the recent Nonthaburi explosion that killed four people said to include a man claimed to be a Red guard, Samai, do appear to be the handiwork of the Thai military. What is abhorrent is that the ‘civilian’ Regime condones and encourages activities of the violent Thai military and the Thai MSM mindlessly prints DSI/CRES allegations, put forth without a shred of evidence, as The Truth.
The March to Putrajaya
@Greg Lopez: You are absolutely correct. They don’t seem to understand that once the book is released on the internet, the cat is out of the bag and the floodgate is blown wide open. They may be able to block most Malaysians from directly accessing the “official” website for The March to Putrajaya but it will be darn near impossible to block new websites springing up to replace the blocked ones, bit-torrents of this banned book and people passing the PDF version around.
Topics for future discussion on New Mandala
If ‘superanonymous’ says he “sees him (the Thai Prince) many nights on the Royal news”, then I must be wrong to tag the Thai Prince as invisible to the Thai public.
What about the other four points, including the immediate cessation of ongoing Bangkok bombings? I am correct on all four, yes?
The ghosts of September 2006
Circumstantially and by motives, the Bangkok bombings including the recent unintended Nonthaburi self-detonated explosion that killed four people including a known Red guard Samai, do appear to be the handiwork of violent radical Reds. What is abhorrent is that the ‘peaceful’ Reds appear to condone or encourage activities of the violent radical Reds.