
Whiteblack, Jenny and I have been a week in Thailand and we have experienced a whirlwind of activity. The afternoon we arrived, Sunday, we decided to tour the Sunday market. Here we began to get a feel for the color and crowd, scents of spice and the aroma of many flowers — as well as the smell of exhaust and wastewater. The sound of the market is together musical and discordant: tonal Thai is spoken, shouted and sung accented by the the cries of myna birds . The market is a labyrinth of stalls selling everything from t-shirts and kitchen items to fine Thai silk and antique Buddhas, and everything in between.
Monday I launched into my joyful work: three Chalk Talks, two in hospitals and one in a school. As always, it is so rewarding to be with children and draw, and a special privilege to give something to children who are ill and in the hospital. I got a chance to make it through most of the drawings in Curious George Learns the Alphabet for one class, reinforcing English lessons. At Queen Sirkit National Institute for Child Health I received as well as gave: the children drew as I Chalk Talked and gave me their drawings. I had quite an art lesson: much of the artwork surpassed what I was offering…
Monday evening was a special treat as Whiteblack, Jenny and I dined with Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn at her palace. Jenny was fearful that my usual table manners would prevail, but I managed not to disgrace myself. Whiteblack loved the Princesse’s dogs, four of which came into the dining room at my request and ran around the table, barked, and tried to snatch food: it’s nice to know that my dog, Hali, is not the only one who does these things.
On Tuesday we toured the Grand Palace, and grand it was, a glittering city within a city, filled with past royal residences, temples, wats, statues, marching palace guards, Buddhist monks, as well as a gawking and polyglot flow of tourists. Things growing ornamented many of the buildings. Orchids overwhelmed, dozens of species with a rainbow of colors and a variety of sizes and shapes. Because we are guests of the HRH Sirindhorn, we managed to sneak into parts of the Palace that are off limits to others: the throne rooms of various kings and queens, receiving chambers for ambassadors and other dignitaries, rooms filled with gifts from the Royals of Europe, and a hall of portraits of generations of kings and queens.
The highlight, however, was the traditional arts school located in the Grand Palace and sponsored HRH Princess Sirindhorn. Here young (and some not so young) adults are provided scholarships to study traditional arts and crafts. These include flower art, embroidery, cooking, drawing and painting, wood carving, clay relief sculpture, inlay, gold leaf application, and more. The work, which requires patience and long practice, is testimony to a different vision of art than we are used to: individual’s originality is expressed in the mastery and interpretation of traditional form rather than breaking of precedent and paradigm.
This day was capped by a visit to the Queen’s Support Foundation in the old parliamentary building. Here we witnessed the most intricate and accomplished examples of the traditional art we saw being learned, works celebrating such events as the 80th Birthday of the King. We saw the products of hundreds of artisans working for up to two years on a single piece: thrones inlaid with glowing luminescent blue beetle shell and covered in gold leaf; carvings, paintings and embroideries of scenes from various Buddhist and Hindu stories; models of ceremonial ships made from gold and studded in diamond; kingly elephant saddles…
Thursday took us to another Royally supported project, this one for wastewater treatment. Ponds, grasslands, constructed wetlands and compost bins processed wastewater for many thousands and “garbage” (organic waste for compost) for many hundreds. The site is also a research center with hundreds of students working on masters and doctoral degrees in biosolids, wetland ecology, and productive uses of bio-residues — such as a project to use pond sediment for ceramics. The final release of purified wastewater is a natural mangrove full of fish, crabs and other seafood that is harvested by locals
And Friday? We flew to Phuket, which is another story…