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The Land and Its People
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Leisure Activities
A penchant for khwam sunuk.
loosely translated as "fun," combines
with a natural gregariousness to ensure
that both spontaneous and formal leisure
activities are vital parts of the Thai
village's social fabric.
Rice cultivation demands consistent
hard work, but the communal gatherings
diat result set the stage for all types of
group activities, from feasting to courting.
On some evenings, instead of going to
bed, many villagers gather around
bonfires to talk. Young people sing and
get to know one another better. Older
people chat, tell stories, and drink
homemade rice liquor, a mild or potent
brew depending on the brewer's skill
and the ingredients at hand.
Communal gatherings set the stage for many group activities
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There may be a rhyming song contest and friendly banter between
old and young as individuals try to outdo each other in composing choruses
with familiar themes. Local musicians may play reed instruments,
bamboo flutes, hand cymbals, and drums to accompany singers,
providing both inspiration and humour.
Ordinations, especially when a
number of families pool resources for a
group ceremony, are often celebrated
with similar festivity. Enormous feasts
are prepared. Electric generators may be
rented, a band organized, and a folk
dance troupe engaged to keep revellers
spellbound until the early hours with
satiric comic opera performances
featuring outrageous puns and double
entendres, sly ribaldry, and popular folk songs.
Communal gatherings set the stage for many group activities
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Throughout the year, villagers share
a common interest in gambling, travelling (pai thieo), and sports. Wilh many,
gambling is a passion. The national
lottery excites imaginations in every
province, as do cockfights and such
exotic competitions as fish and beetle
fighting. Card games are a pastime
favoured by both sexes and almost
everyone can play Thai chess.
Pai thieo by foot, boat, bus, motorbike. or rail is a favourite way to relax
when time allows. Travelling makes
the village less insular and personal
relations with family and friends are
treasured as much for the opportunities
they afford for travel as for the affection
upon which they are based.
Besides national celebrations.
there are regional festivals like the
north eastern Ngan Hae Bang Fai, or
Rocket festival, in May or June of each
year. Traditionally a time of letting off
steam, the festival's high point comes
when, amid much merry-making, villagers
fire homemade rockets, some of them
as tall as 20 metres, to ensure a plentiful
rainfall for the forthcoming rice season.
Takraw and kite flying are popular
traditional sports.
Takraw is played by a loosely-formed
circle of men who use their feet, knees,
thighs, chests, and shoulders to acrobatically pass a woven rattan ball to one
another, endeavouring to keep it in the
air as long as possible and eventually
kick it into a basket hanging high above.
(There is also a professional version of
takraw, known as sepak takraw. which
is played by learns from various
ASEAN countries in competitions.)
Takraw |
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Takraw
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Kites are flown mostly during the
breezy hot season.In addition to being
an individual pleasure, kite flying can
be a competitive sport. Opposing teams
fly male (chulu) and female (pakpao)
kites in a surrogate battle of the sexes.
The small, agile pakpaos try to bring
down the more cumbersome chulas,
while me male kite seeks to snare the
female kites and bring them back into male territory.
Kite flying |
During temple fairs, another
popular sport is the unique martial art
of Thai boxing. A form of self-defence
developed during the Ayutthaya period.
Thai boxing forbids biting, spitting, or
wrestling. On the other hand. the
contestants may punch, kick, and shove,
and unrestrainedly use their bare feet,
legs. knees, elbows, shoulders, and fists
to savage each other. A vicious kick in
the throat, an elbow smash to the eyes,
a knee in the stomach, or a whiplash kick
in the chest can immediately floor the
sturdiest opponent. Nowadays, fighters
wear conventional boxing gloves.
a somewhat humane development considering that less than 50
years ago they customarily bound their fists with hemp which
contained liberal quantities of ground glass.
Thai boxing. |
For the most part Thai cuisine is highly spiced and hot.
thanks to the addition of a variety of
chillies, large and small, some more
potent than others. The burning sensation of Thai chillies has caused much
fanning of mounts by stunned foreigners
on their first sampling, but increased
experience often brings enthusiastic
approval, as attested by the widespread
popularity of Thai restaurants around the world.
The ideal traditional Thai meal
aims at being a harmonious blend of
spicy, sweet, and sour and is meant to
be appealing to the eye, nose. and
palate. A large central bowl of rice may
be accompanied by a clear soup
(perhaps containing hitler melons
stuffed with minced pork), a steamed
dish (mussels in curry sauce), a fried
dish (fish with ginger), a hot salad
(sliced beef on a bed of greens with
chillies, onions, mint, lime juice, and
more chillies), and a variety of sauces
and condiments, of which the most
essential is nam pla (fermented
fish sauce), used as a dip. This is
normally followed by a sweet dessert
(bananas coated with sugared coconut
and deep fried, for example) and. finally,
fresh fruit (such as mangoes, durian, papaya, jackfruit. watermelon and many
more) of which Thailand boasts a year-round supply.
Food varies from region to region,
with modifications of standard dishes
and also local specialities. In Chiang Mai.
for example, the cuisine is generally
milder than that of the central region;
naem. a spicy pork sausage, is a northern
delicacy, as are certain dishes inspired
by neighbouring Myanmar.
Northeastern food tends to be
very spicy, with explosive salads and
special broiled, minced meat dishes
mined with tiny, high-voltage green
chillies. Glutinous rice is more popular
in the region than loose, boiled rice.
and exotic dishes like fried ants and
grasshoppers and frog curry are not uncommon.
Food varies from region to region
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Southern cuisine, not surprisingly,
makes delicious use of the seafood so
abundant in the region. Lobsters, crab,
scallops, fish, and squid are common
ingredients and unusual delicacies like
jellyfish salad can also be found. In the
southernmost provinces, where there is
a large Muslim community, sweet, mild,
and spicy curries abound.
Foreign foods have also found a
place in the Thai diet. Some of these go
far back into history, like the egg-based
Portuguese sweets which were introduced in the Ayutthaya period, while
others like bread and cake are more recent acquisitions.
Food varies from region to region
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To please the eye, most Thai cooks are adept at the ancient art of
fruit and vegetable carving to transform
tables into visual feasts. Originally an
aristocratic art practised at the royal
court,vegetable carving flourished
throughout the Ayutthaya period,
when a deft hand could produce a
white radish rose in a matter of minutes.
It reached its zenith during the Bangkok
reign of King Rama II when court
ladies created flowers, fish, vases,
bowls, and other decorative objects
from watermelons, cucumbers, tomatoes,
spring onions, and other unlikely garden
products. On a somewhat broader scale
the art is still practised today, and there
are few more charming surprises than
discovering tomato roses and cucumber
primroses with a local fast lunch.
Thai are very adept at fruit and vegetable carving
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