Future section

Next Meeting:

325th Meeting – Tuesday, August 10th 2010

 

"Buddhist Murals of Northeast Thailand: Reflections of the Isan Heartland".

A talk and book presentation by Bonnie Brereton

 

Books on mural painting in Thailand have tended to focus on works commissioned by royalty or other elite in the country’s present or past centers of power. This little volume is the first of its kind to examine a vibrant sub-school of painting in the rural heartland of the Northeast.  The murals are distinct in that they are painted on the exterior of ordination halls and their compositions give a sense of movement around the building.  The book examines characters depicted in the murals and reveals that many are, in fact, the villagers themselves as they participate in the festivals and rituals that inform their understanding of Buddhism.

 

The authors, Bonnie Pacala Brereton, an art historian and Buddhologist, and  Somroay Yencheuy, a local Isan heartland artist and scholar, combine their perspectives and approaches to produce a multifaceted and empathetic study of these lovely and lively paintings.

 

Written as an introduction to the topic, the book appeals to generalists interested in the Mekong Region as well as to scholars of art history, Buddhism, and anthropology whose focus is Southeast Asia.


In my talk I will discuss the challenges of analyzing murals at seven wats located in villages in Khon Kaen and Maha Sarakham provinces. The murals, which are found both on the interior and exterior of ordination halls, vary greatly from one temple to another in terms of quality, composition, relative scale of figures in the paintings, and themes depicted.  The talk will be a walking tour of the wats, revealing the diversity of pre-modern Lao-Isan mural painting.

 

Bonnie Brereton has a PhD in Buddhist Studies and an MA in Asian Art History from the University of Michigan. A resident of Chiang Mai, she has been doing research on Buddhist mural painting and shadow play in Isan Lao villages for the past five years.

Future Meetings:

 
326th Meeting – Tuesday, September 14th 2010


Hunting Northern Thailand’s Snakes on a Motorbike

A talk and presentation by Sjon Hauser

After completing my biology studies at the University of Amsterdam in the early 1980s, I left for Thailand to become engaged as a writer and journalist, mainly working for Dutch magazines and newspapers. I wrote some twenty books about South-East Asia and one of them, Thailand. Zacht als zijde, buigzaam als bamboe, has become a ‘Dutch bestseller’. In the late 1990s my interest in biology rekindled. Crossing the country on a motorbike for the purpose of getting information and pictures for guidebooks and travel stories, I often
came across roadkills of snakes. Gradually, studying such roadkills and spotting and photographing living snakes in the wild became an aim at its own. I am currently working on a book about the Snakes of Northern Thailand.

Summary
Until the publication of the good Photographic Guide to Snakes and other Reptiles of Thailand and Southeast Asia (1998), amateur herpetologists in Thailand could have a tough time in identifying a snake they had spotted. Due to its limited scope this Photographic Guide is unfortunately incomplete as an aid, and Northern Thailand is a little underrepresented. A number of rather common snakes in the North are missing, while some rare species only known from the far South are covered. Some of the pictures are of little help, while
the scientific names of a dozen of species have been revised in the meantime. ‘Common English names’ are often meaningless or even confusing. Despite the large number of excellent pictures included, the publication of Lai Ngu Thai (‘Snakes in Thailand’) in 2001, has not filled the gap. There are some websites with good pictures of Thai snakes, but the information is usually sketchy and sometimes wrong. Until recently, the red-necked keelback, the bite of which may be fatal, has been described as ‘harmless’ on one site. More commonly, harmless snakes are supposed to be dangerous — a non-venomous Indo-Chinese rat snake is taken for a (deadly) king cobra on one nature site.
Most Thai people know virtually nothing about snakes, which is surprising, as snakes abound in the country and are often spotted, while Thailand hosts a dozen of deadly serpents. ‘Local knowledge’, often hailed by both anthropologists and social workers, is virtually absent with regard to snakes. The cultural attitude towards snakes differs little from the one in the West:
snakes are considered the embodiment of evil.
Over 180 species of snakes occur in Thailand, and I came across some eighty of them in the North. Although the South surpasses the latter in species richness (including many sea snakes), snakes abound in the North and are important elements in the ecology and food pyramids of most habitats, such as cultivated lands (rice paddies, orchards, gardens, etc.), streams, marshes and other waters, and all types of forests. Doi Suthep-Pui National Park hosts some 50 species, while over twenty species can regularly be spotted in the city of Chiang Mai.
Despite seldom being spotted, snakes are numerous in many places. In gardens one (tiny) flowerpot snake may be present per cubic metre of soil. Large numbers of the Assamese mountain snake live in the evergreen forest of Doi Suthep at elevations from 1000-1600 metres, and on sunny days a few dozens of them may be killed on the road between Wat Phra That Doi Suthep and the Phuphing Palace alone. Dozens of chequered keelbacks may hunt fish and frogs in a few rai of flooded rice paddies.
This presentation will focus on some twenty of the most commonly encountered snakes, a number of dangerous species, and some interesting and less common mountain snakes. Furthermore I will elaborate on some taxonomic problem groups, such as kukri snakes, and the merits of studying roadkills and ‘hunting snakes on a motorbike’. All this will be illustrated with about 80 pictures of snakes.

 

Request for assistance

Can anyone loan Sjon a laptop for the evening. He has the CD but nothing to play it on. If you can help Sjon with a laptop, please contact him at shauser@loxinfo.co.th .You will probably need to arrange with Sjon to meet at the Alliance some time before his talk to make sure that your laptop is compatible with their LCD projector.

2009/10

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

 

 

Web Solution by IO-WOW