Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) Tourist Guide


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EGGHEADS OF THE NORTH - REJOICE!
The Informal Northern Thai Group Is Celebrating its 21st Anniversary

a report by John Cadet

If you're a visitor to the capital of the North, you'll need little encouragement from us - that's to say the long-term residents of the city and of the North in general - to celebrate.

Not a bad place to be any time of the year, most of us feel. But in December, when the skies are blue, the winds wafting out of Yunnan and the wider-open spaces of China, the temperature occasionally down as low as single Centigrade digits�and with the prospect of at least another eight or ten weeks of this perfectly dry, cool, tio-enticing weather ahead of us � that�s tio as in �getting out of the city and up into the backblocks: trekking, trail-biking, mountain and rock-climbing, shooting the rapids, etc.� � if there�s any other place you�d prefer to be�well, good-luck to you and goodbye for now. We � that�s to say, we Northern residents � know when we�re onto a good thing. And a very good thing is what we feel we�re onto, this time of year.

And not just getting out into the boonies. There�s quite a bit happening here in the city. Art shows, food festivals, craft exhibitions and lots of lot rakas � sales with prices right down around their ankles. Not to mention the Winter Fair. But if there�s one event that anyone with the faintest pretension to egg-headedness is not going to miss this month, it�s the 21st anniversary celebration of the founding of the Informal Northern Thai Group, at the Alliance Francaise down on the Charoen Prathet Road. That�s to say, if they actually hold one.

�The Northern Thai Group?� did I hear you say? �And what would that be?�

Informal. The Informal Northern Thai Group. Well, let me enlighten you.

Some 30 years back there was an outfit in Chiang Mai called the Northern Thai Society. Initiated by Major Roy Hudson, who still lives here, it featured lectures on the history, sociology, ethnology, religion etc of the region, delivered by international experts in their fields � Spirit Cave in Mae Hong Son - The Lahu - The Meo New Year - and Blood-sucking Moths among the titles. But having flashed brilliantly across the night sky for approximately a year and a half, and in some 20 lectures provided a tantalising glimpse of the enormously varied research that goes on in and around this region � the NTS ceased to be: went into oblivion. No shortage of subjects, or persons willing to expatiate upon them. Organisational problems, procedural matters, that kind of thing. Not least the official requirement to get Society members finger-printed and squared up with the authorities�

At all events, ten years of silence supervened, but with mutterings off-stage � that there ought to be a follow up. If they could do it, why shouldn�t we? This is one of the world�s most interesting regions. Just look at the enormous variety of the research being done here, in one of the earliest cradles of human occupation and culture! What�s stopping us? And so on.

Until a sort of wavering momentum was generated, and a meeting of a mixed bunch of farangs more or less of the egg-headed persuasion was held, and it was kind of, sort of, more or less agreed, it wouldn�t be a bad idea to have something like the Northern Thai Society reanimated. Except that it would need to be altogether more laid-back than its predecessor, if it was to survive. Let�s call it The Northern Thai Group, The Informal Northern Thai Group � something of that sort � was the consensus. And that�s how the infant organisation came into being, between 6.30 and 10.30 p.m. on Sat. 15th Dec. 1984. Someone gave a lecture, someone else wrote up the minutes, and that was it. The INTG was up and�and�

There are always problems with voluntary outfits like this, the biggest of which is who�s actually going to do anything � organisationally. The NTS from its limbo kindly donated the chunk of money collected in dues, so a Treasurer was needed. Records had to be kept, a mailing list maintained, communications sent out, so a Secretary was called for. Most importantly a Convenor � someone fronting the meetings; ensuring the speaker was actually there at the time/date agreed on; making the introductions and giving the thanks; reconciling speaker to audience and audience to speaker etc. � a Convenor was absolutely indispensable. And you need a place to hold your meetings. So the question never entirely goes away: who�s going to do the work involved? We live, after all, in a highly entropical [sic] environment, up here in the North.

Committee members, (front) Aj. Saengdao and Hans Baenziger, Louis Gabaude, Brian Hubbard and Ron Renard. (Back l to r) Ken Kampe, Reinhard Hohler, John Cadet.

Nevertheless, once started, the meter began to tick, and lectures were given � once a month, pretty well as regular as clockwork. Peoples of Xishuangbanna - Wa Dialects in Burma - Ban Chiang: beyond painted pots and bronze bangles - Breast Milk: a report on a joint lactation project - Olde [sic] Chiang Mai Days - Kentung in the Shan States of Burma - A Vision of Chiang Mai - and so on. So that in no time at all, the Group was up against its tenth year anniversary. An illustrated Tenth Anniversary Booklet was produced, providing information about the history of the group, a list of the lectures delivered, and summaries of some of those 129 lectures.

Then we were onto the second lap. Thai Cats - Is Thai a Sexist Language?- Being a Foreign Monk in Thailand - Censorship in Southeast Asia - A Brief Survey of Lan Na History � (A panel discussion) What is the Alternative to Violence in our Multi-cultural World? - The Mekong Nobody Knows - A Christian Looks at the Buddhist Religion - Ugetsu Cinematised - The Tsunami and Its Aftermath - and Reconciliation in Southern Thailand among the offerings. No shortage of topics, of course, and no lack of variety in presentation either. On one memorable occasion a concert garden party was held on the banks of the Ping River, though more usually meetings have been and still are held at the Alliance Francaise. The slide is a hardy adjunct of the lectures, but power-point has also made its appearance, and occasionally video is shown. While the language spoken has invariably been English, the nationality of the speakers � as also of the auditors � has been a very generous sprinkling from across the global spectrum: Thai, Lao, Japanese, Chinese, Dutch, American, French, German, British among them..

So here we are then, up against the Twenty-first Anniversary of its founding, with the INTG showing no signs of faltering. The lecture given on 13th Dec. by the researcher Bonnie Brereton: Chasing Shadows: the elusive Isan Nang Talung, will be the 269th, and others are already scheduled for the early New Year. As to whether there�ll be some kind of party to mark the occasion, and if so, who�ll be invited, as yet no word has been forthcoming from the steering committee.

But that�s how it is with the Informal Northern Thai Group. If it were any more formal, it probably wouldn�t be here at all.

So whether you�re egg- or skin-headed, or somewhere in between, rejoice with us that it�s come this far! And get hold of their new booklet.