Anna’s marriage came when she was 18, not to a dashing young officer but to a lowly 22-year-old clerk whose name was not Leonowens but Thomas Leon Owens. He did not seem to hold any job for long and the couple was constantly on the move; Dr. Bristowe never did pinpoint the precise birthdates of Louis and Avis and finally concluded that they must have taken place on board a ship or perhaps in Australia, where the couple lived for a time. At some other unknown point, Leon Owens changed his name to Leonowens, and the doctor did find a record of his death in Malaya: of apoplexy, in Penang, on May 8, 1859, where he was listed as a “hotel master.”
Anna was already busily burying this past when she arrived in Singapore and was eventually so successful that not even her own children ever penetrated her disguise. Among other things, this required a complete break with her sister Eliza back in India, a step she may have been doubly glad she took—given the social prejudices of the time—if word ever reached her that Eliza’s eldest daughter married a Eurasian. As thorough as ever, Dr. Bristowe traced that family, too, and made the engaging discovery that the youngest child of the union—that is, Anna’s grand-nephew—ultimately became the actor Boris Karloff, of Frankenstein fame.
Adept as it was, Anna’s performance may not have been flawless, at least during her time in Bangkok. This would explain her notable failure to become a part of the small British colony of merchants and consular officials. “The consul and his two assistants,” writes Dr. Bristowe, “came from good families and she must have been quite unable to sustain her pretenses of breeding either in her manner of speech or in her manners for them to have taken no notice of her.”
The only respectable foreigners willing to take her at her word were American Protestant missionaries, particularly Dr. Dan Beach Bradley, their senior member. They gave her the friendship and support she needed so badly and in return she adopted their prejudices, especially concerning royal polygamy, about which Dr. Bradley had strong feelings. The inventions and distortions of her books may have been partly designed to boost sales, but they were also aimed at convincing her missionary friends that Anna Leonowens was truly a virtuous Christian, worthy of their trusting kindness.
Dr. Bradley also appears in “The Reverend Goes to Dinner” earlier in this section.
—JO’R and LH
After leaving Thailand, Anna spent some years in America, where her books were written, and eventually settled in Canada with her daughter. There she died in 1916 at the ripe age of 85 (not 82 as her family and friends thought), still playing, by now with accomplished skill, a role that might have challenged the best of her later impersonators.
William Warren, a native of Georgia, has lived in Bangkok since 1960. He is the author of Thailand, Seven Days in the Kingdom, and The House on the Klong, and he has been called “the dean of English-language authors in Thailand.”
Thais consider the head the most important and honored part of the body; and, conversely, the foot is the most degraded. Touching anyone on the head is a great insult. Even a friendly pat on the head, or tousling someone’s hair, is only done between brothers, sisters, or the closest friends—and, even then, only if there isn’t too big a difference in age.
The late Phya Anuman Rajadhon, in his monograph “Thai Traditional Salutation,” throws some interesting light on this question of the head. He says the Thai deems his head sacred, probably because it is the seat of an individual’s kwan or vital spirit which confers strength and health. The kwan is very sensitive, and if subjected to indecorous behavior it will feel injured and leave its abode in the body to stray somewhere in a forest. While the kwan is absent, its owner will suffer a weakening of his “dignified splendor” followed by bad luck and ill-health.
With such an idea handed down from generation to generation over a very long period of time, the sacredness of the head is deeply embedded in everyone’s mind. If the hand that touches another’s head is that of a woman, the man will instantly lose his “dignified splendor,” for a woman’s hand is acutely adverse to the kwan.
This explains why Thai people, especially men, refuse to walk beneath a clothesline on which female clothing is hanging, especially lower garments such as sarongs or skirts, for fear their head will be touched by them. So when women’s clothes are hung out to dry a very low clothesline is used, and everyone walks round it instead of under it.
And while we’re on the subject of walking round something or somebody, if anyone—even a young child—is lying on the floor resting or asleep, no Thai will ever step over such a prostrate person, no matter how much of a hurry he’s in. Again, it simply “isn’t done.” One must always walk round—never step across.
—Denis Segaller, Thai Ways
CAROL HOLLINGER
Where the Footnotes Went
In which a young Foreign Service wife discovers the secret of a culture—and her elusive master’s thesis—in a single phrase: mai pen rai.
IF YOU ASKED A CHILD TO CONFRONT HIS WRINKLED, ELDERLY future self without the intervening decades of gradual aging, that child would feel as I felt. Departure was close upon us. It was time to return home and face up to the suburban matron I had abandoned so long before in the irrational chronology clocked by the human experience.
Although published in 1965, the era of The Ugly American, the author’s impressions of Thailand are for the most part still valid.
—JO’R and LH
When I had set out for Thailand I think I was unbalanced mentally. I had had giddy intentions of living in an underdeveloped country and sharing with the natives, whom I regarded with great affection from afar, our civilization. I even studied in graduate school the technique of accomplishing this. I attended meetings of American Buddhist groups and listened to pale, otherworldly ladies discuss “non-being” and “Om.” Foreign Service officers lectured to me on methods of adjusting to strange cultures and I listened as though their word was gospel.
Thus I was somewhat prepared not to be an “ugly American,” but I was not at all prepared for the fierce reality of the East. Once there, all my absurd pretensions collapsed and I found myself deflated, purposeless, and frightened. It amazed me to find the Thai so capable, so charming, and, worst of all, so skillfully in charge of their own country. After two years of studying Southeast Asia it was a shock to discover that almost everything I had so earnestly studied was nonsense. Neither books nor professors had informed me that the Thai had a secret weapon called mai pen rai. I had not been warned that Americans crumpled by the score when they encountered the intangible atmosphere of “never, never mind.”
Near the turn of the century a Bangkok editor remarked that Siam was obviously being added to the “globe trotter’s route” for visitors were “dropping in at the rate of sometimes as many as two or three a day!”
—Bonnie Davis, “Early Siam Through Foreign Eyes,” Sawasdee
Who can chart with accuracy the whirlwind effect on a dubious scholar of mai pen rai? The slender erudition I did possess was almost immediately ambushed. For example, I read an authentic history of the T’ai people written by a respected Siamese scholar. I had often seen it used in bibliographies and footnotes by academic and specialized Western historians. The Thai edition was charmingly packed with proof from Thai mythology and acknowledged aid from the Lord Buddha. The Thai historian, Phra Sarasas, had more integrity than some of those who impressively weighted their footnotes with quotations from his book. In his introduction he says simply:Conscious of the mentality of the Thai historians I have to handle with gloves the Thai history in the Thai language. After adding the necessary salt of incredulity, I accept the records by the Thai with the most scrupulous precaution. The word history in the Thai language is Bongsavatar, which means the biography of the kings, that is to say, Thai’s own history is intended for the glorification of the Thai monarchs.
…Since a true Thai historian’s possession is almost entirely locked up in his head, are we to believe what we are told by Thai annals? Ordinary prudence would su
ggest a careful handling. The very obviousness of the aim and purpose of Thai’s own history somewhat discounts our idea of taking it as the whole truth.
The complacence with which so-called serious scholars take all the hocus-pocus that comes out of Southeast Asia appalls me. A few of the universities, among them Cornell, do a good job in publishing objective writing, but most of the writing on Southeast Asia should be labeled fiction so as not to mislead the public. From whence come the imposing battalions of statistics and historical documentation? No statistic in Southeast Asia is trustworthy (indeed, are statistics anywhere? Mai pen rai ). In addition, Thai written history dates back to the destruction of Ayudhaya by the armies of Burma only a few centuries ago. Before this the only history is the sparse account of visiting Chinese writers.
Instead of the orderly master’s thesis I had once dreamed of writing (I used to dream of pages half filled with gloomy, impressive footnotes) I now switched to composing imaginary footnotes for an imaginary thesis. They went something like this.1. (mai pen rai ), from conversations with the natives.
2. Lord Buddha.
3. Conversations of Narasuan the Great with his Sacred Cobra. Scroll Four, Royal Bangkok Museum (underneath King Mongkhut’s favorite teapot).
4. Ibid.
Current reports are equally suspicious. After meeting the correspondents and the men responsible for the stories in our most respected newspapers I regard everything in print as suspect. It isn’t because I think I know more; I am simply aware of how little anybody knows. Behind the staid, factual reports on Southeast Asia in The New York Times and the London Times I now see only the faces of the stringer correspondents who were my friends and I know where the news came from. They do a good job…the best possible…and I am not criticizing, I am merely pointing out a complexity largely unrealized by the American public. You have to be God to distinguish truth from fiction in Thailand. And on second thought I think God might have difficulty unless he were Thai.
American matrons, who played bridge all day long with other American matrons, discussed the Thai with the utmost authority. After all, they were there weren’t they? I found myself, up to my ears in Siamese around the clock, growing ever more confused. In no way but the most superficial did I ever understand the Thai. No Westerner comprehends an Oriental country because he has lived there a few years. Even those who spend a decade or so in the East and who go ostentatiously native are deluding themselves if they claim to understand the country. The delusion is complete if they think they are accepted by the Asians. Orientals are the worst snobs on earth. You are called a farang by the Thai the first day you set foot on Thai soil and the term will still apply, if your face is white, although you remain there a score of years. In the most familiar situations the unfathomable will suddenly arise, a specter to confront the smug who believe themselves assimilated. Even those who learn to speak fluent Thai find that their real friends are either Western educated or from the upper class. There are a few exceptions, but very few. There is a line beyond which the millions who are Asia sleep and eat and breed in un-American poverty and of whom the Westerner knows nothing.
Propaganda was another shock. When I left America I understood the formation of public opinion in Southeast Asia. I had had the best course possible, taught by a famous Asian expert. Two minutes at Chulalongkorn University taught me that I might just as profitably have studied the zither. Readers know enough to suspect the writer who dashes off an authoritative article on a country in which he has spent three weeks or less, but the scientific studies arouse less suspicion. Americans have a thing about statistics and are thoroughly intimidated by them. More of us should have a little Harry Truman in our makeup. The polltakers have hoodwinked the American public into thinking that their intuition is an exact science.
Let us follow the polltaker as he stalks the jungle and talks to hill tribes. Accompanying him is a bright interpreter, who is probably a graduate of Chulalongkorn and is provided by the Thai government. You would trust this boy with your sister’s honor or your last dollar, so honest of face is he. However, he is Siamese; he has a tremendous pride in his country and he has the most beautiful manners on earth. He is embarrassed for his country when villagers look blank at the mention of such key words as Communism or Democracy. These villagers are usually dimly aware that they have a king and this is about all they understand on a national level, although their community government is thoroughly understood. The interpreter dislikes disappointing the nice expert from America so he fills the massive vacuum with glowing phrases of his own invention.
A public opinion expert I know visited Thailand on his way to Laos to conduct a survey for the United States government. He spoke only English and used an interpreter. It was the first time he had been in Southeast Asia. It was the first time he had been out of the United States. I had known him in Washington and had admired him for his massive intellect and his Ph.D. in statistics.
We both attended the same dinner party upon his return from Laos. He had been in Laos for one week. It was a large garden party and individual tables for four had been scattered over the lawn. At our table were two Englishmen who had lived for years in Thailand and who had been interned in prison camps during the war. One of them politely asked my friend what he was doing in the area.
“I have been ascertaining political awareness among the Lao,” announced the learned statistician.
There was a moment of consternation. I could see by the expressions that washed over the faces of the Englishmen that, for a fleeting moment, they thought the newcomer a superb humorist. The pompousness of the public opinion expert evidently cautioned them to the contrary. An extremely fragile conversation prevailed during the rest of dinner. The story was all over Bangkok the next day.
If no one knows anything, why write a book? It is a good question. The answer is that this is not a book, it is a master’s thesis that boomeranged. It is not what I intended to write. The whole impossible thing is a sepulcher for my scholarly remains. “Very dry,” as Khun Chit said of his deceased mother-in-law, “nothing but bare bones.”
The bare bones of this renegade master’s thesis became the script of an overdeveloped American crashing head-on with an underdeveloped people. They, of course, won. I learned how incredibly provincial an American can be by starring as a horrible example. I learned, although I thought I knew it, that civilization means more than the number of television sets per capita. I learned this the hard way and I have tried in my disorderly manner to share the experience.
Because a nation is underdeveloped does not mean that it is populated by underdeveloped citizens. An underdeveloped nation is one in which the gross income per capita is too low. The term tells us nothing about the individual living in the country except that he is probably too poor. He is as developed as we are. The Thai civilization is different, not lower. I once asked a Chula science student if he would like to be the first man on the moon. He took the question seriously and after deliberation replied, “Let the Americans do it.” Was one of us brighter than the other? The answer to that question leaves me uneasy.
There is no such person as a simple man. The pathos and absurdity of human life is as complex in a tribal village as it is on Fifth Avenue. The man who lives in a thatched house on stilts has wisdom and ignorance, love and death, mirth and tears, anger and peace, youth and age in his life as we do. There is no East, no West…there are people and no one of these people is a statistic to himself.
Many otherwise educated Westerners are victims of a strange belief that the white man and not Homo sapiens is the present pinnacle of evolution. To them aborigines, pygmies, hill tribes, and dark foreigners are illustrations of an evolutionary step like Neanderthal man. At Chulalongkorn I saw boys who came from tribes which, a few decades before, were scarcely cognizant of the wheel settle down with brilliance to the study of twentieth century science. Without statistical proof I now take the stubborn position that genius, talent, and brains are a magic that may evolve
anywhere…perhaps in your home, perhaps in your neighbor’s, or, perhaps, in a lonely, backward village where a solitary youth broods in a primitive culture and dreams of events beyond his own horizon. Education not evolution finds such a boy.
One evening I attended a dinner party. There were no Thai present and the British and Americans there relaxed, as people do in a foreign country when they are surrounded by their own kind. Everybody bristled with Anglo-Saxon virtue and complained. They raved about the absolute lack of honesty, goodwill, duty toward country, and the all-around amorality of the Thai. When I protested, my friends countered with accusations of sentimentality and gullibility. I subsided, victim to majority squashing, but I wished that I could introduce them to a student with whom I had had an hour’s conversation that morning. In talking to him I had again been comforted by a realization that, although the evil in man lends itself to bigger headlines, the good in him, though scarcer, is tougher. Formerly I had believed in an environmental explanation of character, but this conviction faded in Thailand. A sober fate kept pushing Siamese into my path whose uncompromising virtue could never be explained by their ethical environment.
Travelers' Tales Thailand: True Stories (Travelers' Tales Guides) Page 11