The White Shadow
Page 32
10 Curry sauce on thin rice noodles
11 A contemporary of the Buddha, Vasitthi went mad with grief at the death of her son.
12 That’s how neighbourhood night watchmen strike the hour.
13 Lengthy poem by Chit Buratat published in 1907
14 Allusion to The Pilgrim Kamanita by the Danish novelist Karl Adolf Gjellerup, derived from a Buddhist tale (Jataka) and translated from the German via English by Phra Sarapraseut into a Thai novel (Wa-sitthee) which played a seminal role in contemporary Thai literary sensibility
15 Allusion to Broken Wings, a collection of poems by Khalil Gibran
16 Female birds with human heads
17 Heavenly musicians
18 Phanom Thian’s saga of fantastic adventures running over more than twenty volumes published since 1968 and loosely based on Rider Haggard’s King Salomon’s Mines
19 Allusion to a scene in the Chinese classic The Romance of Three Kingdoms written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century in which Ma Su, having lost a strategic battle after he put his life up as guarantee to his commander in chief, Zhuge Liang, presents himself to him all trussed up ready to be punished; he’ll be executed.
20 In the early 1970s, Thai soldiers put alleged terrorists in oil drums and burned them alive.
21 A Hindu and Buddhist festival, Asalha Puja (Sanskrit) celebrates on the Buddhist side the Buddha’s first sermon and the foundation of the Buddhist Order. It takes place the day before the start of Lent, on the full moon of the eighth lunar month, i.e. usually in July.
22 Fried popover
23 A variety of aquatic plant (Lemma) looking like water lettuce
24 Musical folk drama
25 October 14, 1973, which saw the overthrow of military dictatorship in Thailand and opened a turbulent democratic period closed in turn by a coup d’état on October 6, 1976
26 High plateau and national park in the northern part of the Northeast
27 Pier next to the Royal Palace in Bangkok used for the transportation of royal elephants in the old days
28 Conscripts in charge of cutting grass for royal elephants in days gone by
29 Reverend Grandfather Waen, a famous monk in the North
30 Reverend Father Ee, a notorious monk of the Northeast; palat khik are fertility talismans shaped like fully erect phalluses
31 Popular novelists of the early twentieth century reputed for the coruscating inventiveness of their prose
32 Obese Thai comedian of the time
33 Heng Chia: name of a monkey character in a Chinese novel; Hanuman: king of the monkeys in the Ramayana
34 All-purpose polite word meaning as well good morning as good night, goodbye, hello, welcome, etc.
35 From the name of the father of the Thai judiciary system, Prince Raphee Rarcharbooridireik-rit
36 A shooting between farmers and soldiers in Sawang Daendin, in Nakhon Phanom province in the Northeast on August 7, 1965, marked symbolically for the CPT the start of the people’s armed struggle.
37 Buddhadasa (1906-1993), an influential Thai monk advocating the return to the simplicity of the Buddhist doctrine
38 Song of the Cowherd’, composed by the Indian poet Jayadeva in the twelfth century
39 Resistance group to Japanese occupation during World War Two. The expression, vulgar, means ‘kick the occupants in the arse’.
40 A bilingual play on words: sei ma koo tei in Thai means ‘If you reel my way, I’ll kick your ass’; semakute means ‘narrow, restricted’ in Japanese; the two sound the same to uneducated ears.
41 Respectively the Japanese soldier and Thai woman who are the protagonists of the best-selling, if implausible, World War II romance Khoo Kam (Star-crossed lovers), 1969, penned by Thomayantee
42 Literally, ‘Mister Handbook from a Southern Town’, pen name of the translator of Lolita
43 From Kuekrit Prarmoat’s See Phaendin (‘Four Reigns’); the first question the heroine Phloi is asked by her husband on their wedding night
44 Pali as revised by the author: ‘Sex is my refuge’ – the usual formula being ‘Buddha is my refuge’
45 Annual ceremonies for the renewal of monks’ garments
46 Best-selling author, notably under the pen name Tomayantee and extreme rightwing personality who was for a time responsible for public transport in Bangkok, a town where vehicles drive on the left and public buses are always crammed to the full
47 Demagogic and reactionary politician with a courgette-shaped nose
48 Apasara Hongsakul, the first Thai, 1965 Miss Universe
49 Beginning of a hymn to the teacher thanks to whose wisdom the student progresses in the knowledge of the Buddha
50 Name of a historically famous knife-making village in Ayutthaya
51 Bitter opponent of the Buddha
52 Name of the Buddha in his tenth existence; Choochok is the archetype of a man obsessed with material possessions.
53 Fiend of the upper hells, in the Jain mythology
54 A mountain in the north of Thailand
55 Siamese king of the end of the sixteenth century
56 Tunic worn by Thai dignitaries in the Ancient Regime
57 Suan Moak is a forest monastery in the South of Thailand founded in 1932 by Phutthathart (Buddhadasa); Santhi Asoak is a Buddhist sect which preaches simple and austere life as per the original teachings of the Buddha.
58 After erecting the white Taj Mahal, Shah Jehan had planned to build a black marble Taj Mahal but he died too soon to have its constructions started.
59 The ‘moon landing’ on the Chao Phraya river, near Thammasat university and the Royal Palace
60 Nickname given to the military-backed, ultra-reactionary and archauthoritarian civilian government in place between October 1976 and October 1977 in which all decisions were taken by a small group of advisors around prime minister Thanin Kraivichien (since then a privy councillor). Chao Phraya was the hired daily of that government and didn’t survive it.
61 Public transport van with two (song) benches (thaeo) at the back
62 Pali: Good as well as non-good, everything comes to an end.
63 Sweet made with puffed rice, pounded toasted young rice, sesame seeds, peanuts and palm sugar, and consumed mainly over Sart, the Buddhist festival of the tenth lunar month (September)
64 Fine golden threads of a mixture of egg yolk and sugar
65 Linguistic work by Dr Banjop Panthumeitha, a female scholar who wrote the first comparative study of the various forms of Thai existing in southern Asia
66 Sarcastic allusion to the main, old-fashioned characters of Four Reigns, Kuekrit Prarmoat’s saga
67 Quote from Out of Africa, by Karen Blixen
68 Festival of the full moon of the twelfth lunar month (around the end of November) when small embarkations (krathong) shaped like lotus hearts and lit with a candle each are floated on a watercourse to ask the Mother of Waters’ forgiveness for any offence committed during the past year and to make wishes for the coming year
69 New political and democratic approach, rather than military, to anticommunist fighting which resulted in the rapid dissolution of the leftist armed struggle in Thailand in the late 1970s
70 Novelist and writer of short stories (1932-1984)
71 Writer, poet, journalist, born in 1945
72 Thai painter and composer, 1903-1969
73 Mark indicating a silent letter; also, infliction of capital punishment