Pira Sudham - a master storyteller

The following is extracted directly from Pira Sudham's website as a show of respect for his writings which provide an incredibly in depth view of the Isaan, the place I live and love.

Born in an Isan Village, Burirum Province, the northeastern region of Thailand, Pira Canning Sudham went through a feudal education based on rote learning and authoritative teaching in the village primary school and in a state high school in Bangkok.

While in the second year at the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, he won a New Zealand government scholarship to study English Literature at Victoria University. Having chosen to write in English, he continued to read English literature in Australia and later in England where he wrote poems, short stories and Monsoon Country, the first book of a Shadowed Country. His writings stem partly from defiance for having lived a suppressed life in the 1960s-1970s under despotic regimes and partly from a driving force, having first-hand experiences of dire needs and social injustice in Thailand.
Now he leads a solitary life in his home village where he sets up funds to provide scholarships to needy students and teaches impoverished children in and around the District of Napo at a private school he built in 1997.
Widely read and highly acclaimed, Pira Canning Sudham's literary works have become a powerful voice of the powerless.

The Isaan - A Masochistic Hell For Some

After living and traveling in the Isaan of north east Thailand for several years and meeting countless expatriates (Farang in the Thai language) scattered throughout the Isaan, some face to face, others through the anonymity allowed via various website and chat boards, a mysterious grievance has shown it's ugly head.

Some of the farangs (quite a few actually) become self proclaimed authorities on the legal and social aspects of living in a region of considerable cultural difference from their own origins. All having a different theory about how to deal with the uncomfortable differences interfering with there dreamt up view of paradise. Unfortunately many of these, often quite irrational, theories and attitudes turn their dreamed of paradise into some sort of masochistic hell where their answer to their self made dilemma is to resort to degrading the very place they elect to live in.

One asks "Why these people stay in the Isaan and spend an inordinately high percentage of their time complaining about their life styles and ridiculing the Isaan".

Of course, part of the answer is obvious. The local Isaan (the people of the Isaan are also known as the Isaan) are incredibly easy going and, by virtue of their Buddhist beliefs, tolerate some incredible rudeness and ridicule spewing out of the mouths and behavior of some of these farangs. Thus, making it self deceivingly easy to be unaccountable for such crude behavior. Once these ridiculous accusations are not refuted the poor deluded farang may then actually believe there is more than a little truth in their vitriolic tirade and convince themselves they are an even greater source of knowledge about the Isaan.

Another part of the answer, also obvious to those less prone to complaining, is the infectiously agreeable lifestyle that can be obtained at a very reasonable and low cost. Surely, not all farangs are rich but the vast majority possesses the means to live in the Isaan in a very comfortable and often higher standard of living than they would back home (wherever that may be). Some farang fail to realize how well off they are compared to the majority of the Isaan and resort to insulting the Isaan in some bizarre retaliation for the living hell they have created for themselves.

It appears, as has been suggested by many, some simply have too much time on their hands and lack any self motivation to do anything other than gather in groups of similar minded "experts".