Forest Recollections

Forest Recollections PDF Author: Tiyavanich Kamala
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824817817
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
"I stayed [in the forest] for two nights. The first night, nothing happened. The second night, at about one or two in the morning, a tiger came--which meant that I didn't get any sleep the whole night. I sat in meditation, scared stiff, while the tiger walked around and around my umbrella tent (klot). My body felt all frozen and numb. I started chanting, and the words came out like running water. All the old chants I had forgotten now came back to me, thanks both to my fear and to my ability to keep my mind under control. I sat like this from 2 until 5 a.m., when the tiger finally left." --A forest monk During the first half of this century the forests of Thailand were home to wandering ascetic monks. They were Buddhists, but their brand of Buddhism did not copy the practices described in ancient doctrinal texts. Their Buddhism found expression in living day-to-day in the forest and in contending with the mental and physical challenges of hunger, pain, fear, and desire. Combining interviews and biographies with an exhaustive knowledge of archival materials and a wide reading of ephemeral popular literature, Kamala Tiyavanich documents the monastic lives of three generations of forest-dwelling ascetics and challenges the stereotype of state-centric Thai Buddhism. Although the tradition of wandering forest ascetics has disappeared, a victim of Thailand's relentless modernization and rampant deforestation, the lives of the monks presented here are a testament to the rich diversity of regional Buddhist traditions. The study of these monastic lineages and practices enriches our understanding of Buddhism in Thailand and elsewhere.

Forest Recollections

Forest Recollections PDF Author: Tiyavanich Kamala
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824817817
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
"I stayed [in the forest] for two nights. The first night, nothing happened. The second night, at about one or two in the morning, a tiger came--which meant that I didn't get any sleep the whole night. I sat in meditation, scared stiff, while the tiger walked around and around my umbrella tent (klot). My body felt all frozen and numb. I started chanting, and the words came out like running water. All the old chants I had forgotten now came back to me, thanks both to my fear and to my ability to keep my mind under control. I sat like this from 2 until 5 a.m., when the tiger finally left." --A forest monk During the first half of this century the forests of Thailand were home to wandering ascetic monks. They were Buddhists, but their brand of Buddhism did not copy the practices described in ancient doctrinal texts. Their Buddhism found expression in living day-to-day in the forest and in contending with the mental and physical challenges of hunger, pain, fear, and desire. Combining interviews and biographies with an exhaustive knowledge of archival materials and a wide reading of ephemeral popular literature, Kamala Tiyavanich documents the monastic lives of three generations of forest-dwelling ascetics and challenges the stereotype of state-centric Thai Buddhism. Although the tradition of wandering forest ascetics has disappeared, a victim of Thailand's relentless modernization and rampant deforestation, the lives of the monks presented here are a testament to the rich diversity of regional Buddhist traditions. The study of these monastic lineages and practices enriches our understanding of Buddhism in Thailand and elsewhere.

Read till it shatters

Read till it shatters PDF Author: Thak Chaloemtiarana
Publisher: ANU Press
ISBN: 1760462276
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This book introduces readers to modern Thai literature through the themes of modernity, nationalism, identity and gender. In the cultural, political and social transformations that occurred in Thailand during the first half of the twentieth century, Thai literature was one of the vehicles that moved the changes. Taking seriously ‘read till it shatters’, a Thai phrase that instructs readers to take apart the text, to break it down, to deconstruct it, Thak Chaloemtiarana challenges the Thai literary canon from the margins and suggests ways of expanding and enriching it. Thai literature is scarce in translation and requires the skills of a scholar fluent in Thai to comprehend it. Thak is a political scientist turned literary scholar who is bilingual in Thai and English and an avid reader of Thai fiction by authors up and down the social scale. Here he offers lively insights into his favourite literary genres with fresh readings of early Thai novels, Sino-Thai biographies and memoirs of the rich and famous. ‘Thak Chaloemtiarana is an inquisitive man. Late in his career he switched from politics to literature. In these chapters, he draws on a lifetime of reading about writers and writing in Thailand over the past century. He nods towards the usual big names—King Vajiravudh, Luang Wichit, Kulap Saipradit, Kukrit Pramoj—but spends more time on those found in the lesser visited stacks of the libraries, the secondhand bookstalls, and the shelf by the supermarket checkout. His themes are familiar—Thailand and the West, Thai nationalism, the Thai-Chinese, and women under patriarchy—but the angles of vision are original. With a cast ranging from motor-racing princes through sexy Egyptian mummies and a feminist serial murderer to starlets touting breast-enhancement techniques, this book educates, enlightens, and entertains.’

Aesthetic Constructions of Korean Nationalism

Aesthetic Constructions of Korean Nationalism PDF Author: Hong Kal
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136719326
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
While most studies on Korean nationalism centre on textual analysis, Aesthetic Constructions of Korean Nationalism offers a different approach. It looks at expositions, museums and the urban built environment at particular moments in both colonial and postcolonial eras and analyses their discursive relations in the construction of Korean nationalism. By linking concepts of visual spectacle, urban space and governmentality, this book explores how such notions made the nation imaginable to the public in both the past and the present; how they represented a new modality of seeing for the state and contributed to the shaping of collective identities in colonial and postcolonial Korea. The author further examines how their different modes were associated with the change in governmentality in Korea. In addressing these questions, the book interprets the politics behind the culture of displays and shows both the continuity and the transformation of spectacles as a governing technology in twentieth-century Korea. Aesthetic Constructions of Korean Nationalism is a significant contribution to a study of the politics of visual culture in colonial and postcolonial Korea. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of Korean Studies, Culture and Heritage Studies and Asian Studies.

Thailand

Thailand PDF Author: Maurizio Peleggi
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1861894600
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Tourist brochures and travel guides depict Thailand as an exotic country with a rich cultural heritage, strong religious traditions, and a popular monarchy. Historians also contribute to Thailand’s international allure with chronicles of its unique historical and cultural continuity in comparison to the other southeast Asian countries, whose histories are stained by colonialism and nationalist struggles for independence. Thailand challenges these stereotypes with a reinterpretation as well as an introduction to the emergence of Thailand as a nation-state. The book argues that the development of Thai nationhood was a long-term process shaped by interactions with the outside world, its pursuit of civilization, and, more recently, globalization. Maurizio Peleggi’s original account investigates, among other issues, the evolution of the geographical and linguistic landscapes, changes in class and gender relations, the role of institutions and ideologies, modern cultural expressions, social memory, and the conception of the Thai national self as contrasted against the racial and cultural Others of Burmese, Chinese and Westerners. Thailandis a concise and compelling introduction to the complexities that lie behind Thailand’s exotic facade.

Creating Laos

Creating Laos PDF Author: Søren Ivarsson
Publisher: NIAS Press
ISBN: 8776940233
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
This book examines the process through which Laos came into existence under French colonial rule through to the end of World War II. Here, Laos's position at the intersection of two conflicting spatial layouts of "Thailand" and "Indochina" made its national form a particularly contested process. Rather than analyze this process in terms of administrative and political structures, the book discusses how a specific idea about a separate "Lao space" and its culture was formed.

Civility and Savagery

Civility and Savagery PDF Author: Andrew Turton
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 0700711732
Category : Asia, Southeastern
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
The text examines the changing historical discourses of social differentiation and distinction in one of the most ethnically and politically complex regions of the world, issues covered include cultural pluralism, nationalism and ethnic dispersal

A Civilized Woman

A Civilized Woman PDF Author: Susan Fulop Kepner
Publisher: Silkworm Books
ISBN: 1630418188
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
Boonlua Debyasuvarn was born to a noble Siamese family in 1911 and not only witnessed, but participated in, the great events of her century. She was talented, intelligent, and determined to make her own place in the world beyond Thewet Palace, her family home. After the 1932 overthrow of the absolute monarchy, M.L. Boonlua became one of the first Thai women to earn a university degree. As an official in the Ministry of Education, she worked tirelessly to improve education within the kingdom and represent Thailand at international education conferences. She was a greatly respected teacher of literature and was much cherished for her charm, wit, and eminently quotable remarks. Her essays on literature became the foundation of modern Thai literary criticism and her novels are now recognized as unique social histories of the times in which she lived. Lucid and sensitive, this engaging biography documents Boonlua’s life within the context of her society and the enormous changes her country was going through in her lifetime. What Others Are Saying “An intimate view of an extraordinary life. M.L. Boonlua’s passage from precocious child of an aristocratic lineage under the absolute monarchy to fiery debater in the liberal explosion after 1973 cuts across the social upheavals of twentieth-century Thailand. Susan Kepner succeeds in conveying the sheer complexity of her life, resulting in not only a fine biography and literary appreciation but also a unique essay in social history.”—Chris Baker, historian and writer, co-translator of The Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen “This is not only an excellent biography of a unique Siamese lady, but it is also a wonderful social history of Siam from the reign of Rama VI to the end of the twentieth century. Anyone who wants to understand the subtleties of Thai culture and the delicacies of personal interaction should not fail to read this book.”—S. Sivaraksa, a Thai public intellectual

Lives in Motion

Lives in Motion PDF Author: Pornrat Damrhung
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000991288
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Lives in Motion celebrates dance in Thailand, focusing on the diversity of Thailand’s dance cultures and their place in today’s world. Giving voice to eminent artists and scholars on the complex roles that Thailand is pursuing for artful movement at home and abroad, the book provides key perspectives on Thai dance traditions and practitioners. It explores the many forms and meanings in contemporary dance, changing local traditions in the country, the evolution of Thai dance on the global stage, and hybrid features of the Thai dance world. The book examines how hybridity has been integral to dance cultures in Thailand and discusses how they have actively adapted and negotiated their knowledge in relation to modernity and globalization. Developing new models, standards and sites for dance, movement and theater, dance in Thai has been advancing in innovative ways, whether it is to include fresh forms of skilled bodily movement or to expand in new arenas like tourism and online platforms. Similarly, old systems of training, which included artists’ homes, palaces, and temples, have been adapted into the new world of modern education, media, home schooling, and new community rituals. A pioneering contribution on Thai performing arts, this volume examines contemporary Thai dance cultures in the local, national, regional, and global contexts. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of dance and performance studies, cultural studies, Southeast Asia studies, and art.

Repossessing Shanland

Repossessing Shanland PDF Author: Jane M. Ferguson
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 0299333000
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The Shan have been fighting since 1958 for the autonomous state in Southeast Asia they were promised. Jane M. Ferguson articulates Shanland as an ongoing project of resistance, resilience, and accommodation within Thailand and Myanmar, showing how the Shan have forged a homeland and identity during great upheaval.

Making Democracy

Making Democracy PDF Author: James Ockey
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824827816
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Democracy in Thailand is the result of a complex interplay of traditional and foreign attitudes. Although democratic institutions have been imported, participation in politics is deeply rooted in Thai village society. A contrasting strand of authoritarianism is present not only in the traditional culture of the royal court but also in the centralized bureaucracies and powerful armed services borrowed from the West. Both attitudes have helped to shape Thai democracy's specific character. This topical volume explores the importance of culture and the roles played by leadership, class, and gender in the making of Thai democracy. James Ockey describes changing patterns of leadership at all levels of society, from the cabinet to the urban middle class to the countryside, and suggests that such changes are appropriate to democratic government--despite the continuing manipulation of authoritarian patterns. He examines the institutions of democratic government, especially the political parties that link voters to the parliament. Political factions and the provincial notables that lead them are given careful attention. The failure to fully integrate the lower classes into the democratic system, Ockey argues, has been the underlying cause of many of the flaws of Thai democracy. Female political leadership, another imported notion, is better represented in urban rather than rural areas. Yet gender relations in villages were more equitable than at court, Ockey suggests, and these attitudes have persisted to this day. Successful women politicians from a variety of backgrounds have begun to overcome stereotypes associated with female leadership although barriers remain. With its wide-ranging analysis of Thai politics over the last three decades, Making Democracy is an important resource for both students and specialists.