Asia Times: Thailand's 'story-teller of the revolution'



	August 12, 1999	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Thailand's 'story-teller of the revolution'
By Boonthan Sakanond

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - ''Once upon a time the world was all black and white. And then one day, the children discovered a forest full of colored objects - green leaves, pink flowers, black and brown berries . . .''

As he recounts one of his numerous homespun tales, the story teller himself easily slips into the same magical forest full of color he describes - far, far away, lost to everything else around him.

Welcome to the multi-colored and talented world of Thepsiri Sooksupa, who is Thailand's foremost practitioner of the ancient art of public story-telling. In addition, he is a former student leader, well-known painter, environmentalist, writer, performance artist, and cultural activist.

Thepsiri's foray into story-telling began in the turbulent sixties, when the region was in political turmoil due to war and aggression by US forces on Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

As a young, idealistic student activist, Thepsiri was agitated enough to go around university campuses in Bangkok, rousing students against the Indochina war.

''I was very bad at giving speeches in public but found that I could face any number of people while telling stories,'' he recalls with a smile, seated in the garden of his sprawling yet modest traditional Thai home in the northern city of Chiang Mai.

Thepsiri's stories at that time dwelt on the lives of peasants in Vietnam who were bearing the brunt of the war.

It was a skill that earned him great popularity among students, who were by the early seventies on the verge of revolting against Thailand's oppressive military dictatorship run by the generals Thanom Kittikachorn and Prapas Charusatien. The theme of his stories during this period was how the military had throttled all democracy, political and civil liberties of the Thais and were enriching themselves at the nation's expense.

As an activist, Thepsiri was not confined to campuses but toured the Thai countryside where the audience at some of his story-telling meets would run up to several thousand people.

''I was several times on the verge of being arrested by the police - who suspected me of being a communist - but they had no laws against story-telling,'' he remembered.

''We called him the 'story-teller of the revolution','' noted Danai, a former student activist who met Thepsiri three decades ago at one such story session in a coffee shop at the Thammasat University campus. There was a passionate earnestness to Thepsiri, he recalled, combined with the folksy, imaginative touch to his stories that made difficult political messages easy to grasp for students still cutting their teeth in the world of realpolitik.

Born in a lower middle class family in Sukothai in northern Thailand, Thepsiri, 56, went to school in Bangkok. Like many Thai children he was brought up on a rich diet of ancient Thai mythology full of demons, angels and strange magical animals - creatures that he was later to discover and parody in the society of living people around him.

''At first I read a lot of folk tales to use in my story-telling sessions but later I started making my own stories,'' he acknowledged.

Though his primary interest in story-telling was born due to his involvement in student politics, the theme of his stories often had nothing to do directly with politics. ''Most of my stories were drawn from nature - using nature as an example of how good or bad human beings could be,'' he said.

Now that Thailand is far from the days of harsh, military dictatorships and - despite its many flaws - clearly on the way to becoming a modern democracy, Thepsiri has deftly turned the focus of his stories to other larger social problems. Two of his pet themes now are environmental protection and the preservation of the cultural heritage of northern Thailand, which he says is threatened by unchecked modernization and mass tourism.

In tackling these issues, Thepsiri draws not only on his story-telling skills but his immense talents with brush and paint, an art he studied at Bangkok's Silpakorn University, famous for producing some of the kingdom's best-known painters. Most of Thepsiri's impressionistic paintings depict the beauty of nature and people as he sees it, as well as the destruction they are being subjected to by the marauding forces of urbanization.

''Thepsiri is easily one of Thailand's foremost landscape and portrait painters,'' said Panya Chaiyakam, a veteran painter and sculptor on wildlife and environmental subjects.

A student of the well-known Thai painter and art teacher Acharn Fua Haripithak, Thepsiri's work sells among his admirers and Thai and Japanese art connoisseurs at high prices. Much of the proceeds go toward the various charitable causes he supports.

But as Paisan Plienbangchang, a well-known Thai performance artist points out, Thepsiri's worth as an artist cannot be judged without reference to his numerous other activities and talents. ''It is his personality as a whole that is close to a work of art on its own and makes him an inspiration for his numerous friends and admirers,'' explained Paisan.

Among the activities that have made Thepsiri one of the most popular artists in northern Thailand are his nature camps, conducted with the help of NGOs, for children and villagers.

Most of these camps, held in the remaining forests and ecologically preserved sites around Chiang Mai, teach the importance of preserving nature and resisting the destruction wrought by consumerist city culture. The sessions are usually in the form of stories, painting classes and even dance-dramas and village fairs.

Despite his deep commitment to spreading social messages through his work, Thepsiri is quite opposed to the concept of subjugating artistic merit to the needs of propaganda. ''In art, quality is the most important aspect - even if it means producing work that most people cannot understand,'' he opined.

Among Thepsiri's abiding ambitions is to first, compile a book of stories for children, and second, write a novel. ''One Japanese friend told me sarcastically that if the Japanese did not produce comics, the Thai children would not have anything to read,'' he stated, pointing to the lack of good quality reading material for children and even for Thai youth.

Thepsiri refers to how many Western intellectuals look down on Thais because they have abandoned their traditions and adopted superficial Western culture. ''I want to revive an interest in local culture and traditions through my writing and my paintings,'' he noted.

Though decades of activism have not dampened his enthusiasm for social change, Thepsiri feels he has become realistic in his expectations of large-scale transformations in the way people behave and interact with each other.

''Unlike in my youth, when I thought nothing was impossible, I now realize that I cannot change things very much. I have turned to art as a way of creating a legacy of my hopes and aspirations. I want to die in the service of art and artistic creation.''

(Inter Press Service)

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©1999 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.

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