Life Of Lois

A pain called poverty

2012-01-03T17:36:00.000-08:00

I've been taking notes both in my head and on my computer for weeks but it has taken me a long time to face this topic: poverty.

I realized that this was an issue that cut close to the bone when CBC radio ran a feature on the The Current about poverty in Canada. When I heard the promo ads for the piece I stared to feel tight and anxious inside. On the day of the program, I listened and cried. I knew I had been poor but I didn't realize that it still hurt.

My story of poverty started when my parents got divorced when I was nine-years-old. As many women who experience divorce find out, the end result is poverty. My father did give us support but to split his income between two houses meant one household would end up poor and that was the one which was supporting two children.

I remember well the first house we moved into after my mother left my father; it was a small two story house with two bedrooms upstairs and a living room and kitchen downstairs- very similar to the house which I have rented for the past 2 ½ years. The only real problem with renting this house- over renting an apartment- was the lack of white goods. We had no fridge, no stove, no washer, no dryer.

It was February, snow drifted by the front and back door. That however was a boon to us at the time. The winter in combination with the space between our summer and winter storm doors served as our fridge and freezer. The missing stove was a more serious problem.

One of the things that my mother had received as a parting gift from my father's family was an old electric kettle from great-aunt Dulcie. With that kettle we attempted to cook an entire chicken. Why my mother would have bought a whole chicken when we didn't have a stove I don't know but through repeated dousing of boiled water- after several hours we ate chicken; pale white, watery, and with the texture of rubber. I can't remember any other 'boiled' dinners that winter. Not long after we moved we bought a second hand fridge and stove.

Another of my most ingrained memories of that most impoverished time from my childhood was donuts; donuts with pink and blue icing from Farmer Brown's restaurant in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

In an effort to safe money, we first rented a house in the community of Heatherton, about 10 minutes from Antigonish, which I guess afforded us a weekly treat—an evening out at Farmer Brown's.

I am guessing these forays into town took place on either Friday or Saturday nights as we were out late and would not have been on a school night. The evening consisted of my mother, sister and I sitting around a thickly varnished wooden table nursing hot chocolates like a reluctant bar patron after last call for several hours while we waited for the donut clock to wind down to midnight when every donut would be on sale for 1 cent.

We usually arrived about 10 pm and sat and watched. Were there many good donuts on the shelve? Would someone come in and steel our well-waited on donuts at 11:55 for 5 cents a piece? Some nights ended in disappointment. No donuts, or only plain remained at midnight. Other nights we would come home with 0.50 cents worth of donuts. The freezer was jam packed with donuts after such a haul and all the kids at school thought I was so lucky to have donuts in my lunch everyday.

A few years later we moved on to the next stage of life. My mother was a nurse, she had a job and never worried about working enough hours, my sister and I had access to the child support my father provided and took our friends out for lunch at the White Spot in North Vancouver where we were living in my 12th year.

We had made it through. We weren't rich but we were no longer poor and I forgot about it.

Part of my mother's divorce downfall had been that she was not a marketable product. She had a BA from St.FX but had no job experience or skills other than in the food service industry. In those first few years after the divorce my mother got her RN's and in so doing ended our time in purgatory for purgatory is truly the station many divorced women find themselves in financially; supported just enough to be called equitable by the law by their ex-husbands, and making not enough through work to keep good food in the house.

Having gone through this experience as a child I thought I would be smart enough not to fall into the same predicament. I wasn't.

Just over four years ago I came home to North America from living in Asia for 10 years. I was broke, had a 1 ½ year old and soon found myself expecting another child. I was living in my aunt's front room and wondered how things had gone so incredibly wrong.

I had a masters degree. I had worked successfully in a variety of fields inventing and perfecting skills as needed. I was a professional chameleon who had met many career challenges in a variety of different fields yet here I was; penniless.

With my family's help I pursued more education- a course certifying me in phlebotomy-which would easily find me a job in the states where I was currently living should I be able to untangle the red tape holding me back from dual citizenship—my mother is an American but left in her late teens to marry my father in Canada. Unfortunately that was a puzzle I could not solve so with a baby six weeks old and a toddler 2 ½ I returned to Canada and to my father's house.

I stayed at my father's for one month. While I was still in Massachusetts I found an apartment to rent in my home town. I was not sure if I could afford to pay the rent but at least I had an option. At that point my ex was sending me $500 a month and the rent excluding utilities was $350. I couldn't think about how we would live on that much money- I just knew I had to do it.

At this point I ran up against some ignorance regarding my situation from an old friend of mine. He thought that $500 in child support was more than enough. Had he ever tried to live on $500? Let alone with two reliant children. No of course he hadn't. He was a single white male with a good job who had grown up in an upper middle class family. His father was a banker for god sake. How could he possibly think we could survive on that kind of money.

Of course my friend expected that I would have an income in addition to the $500. What he failed to realize was that even if I had been willing to leave my less than 2 month old baby in childcare, I would never make enough money to pay for the childcare. Upon my calculations I would take home before taxes $200 after paying for full-time childcare. Out of that I would have to pay some money for gas which was at an all-time high, and buy formula for the baby, approximately $100 per month because I would not be at home to breast feed her. More than likely I would be further in the red if I went to work, not out of it.

In that first month I was back in Canada and living at my father's I saved all my money- what little there was of it, to make sure I had enough money for the deposit and first months rent on the apartment I had secured for me and my small fragile family.

At this time, my baby was always hungry. I could nurse her for two hours straight and she would still want more. I bought formula and after a two-to-three hour round of nursing feed her a four ounce bottle of formula. She gulped it back as if she were a famine struck child in the horn of Africa. At this rate she would go through a can of formula a week. As she grew this would surely increase. That would mean $100 a month just to feed this child which I should have been able to do naturally and for free.

I sought out help in the form of a breast pump which I was provided free of charge by Guysborough Kids First; a family resource organization in our area. My life revolved around feeding, then around pumping and then feeding some more. Hours a day I would have either the baby or the pump on my breast trying to increase my milk production and thus reduce my need for formula which I could not afford. After several weeks the almost round-the-clock pumping paid off and my baby finally didn't want the bottle after breast feeding. She was finally full.

In the months that followed my ex increased his child support payment to $800. To my mind this still was very little for two children and one new mother to live on. I swallowed my pride and made an appointment at the welfare office. I brought all my required documents; proof of my rental cost, power bill, and the bank statement showing the amount of child support my ex was sending. According to the government I had too much income to be eligible for income assistance. I walked out convinced that you must have to be eating dirt to qualify for government assistance to save your family.

As luck would have it, I applied for my Child Tax Benefit when I first returned to Canada; doubting very much that I would receive anything as I had not worked in the country for 10 years and had not filed an income tax in all that time. Somehow, I was granted the child tax benefit and my income doubled overnight. Things were not perfect but $1,600 is enough to live on although I really wonder how many of you reading this could do it.

Another few years went by and things were good. We lived in a decent apartment building. I still didn't have much of a job; I babysat for my cousin for a ridiculous salary all the while wondering what my experience and education could offer me in terms of employment opportunities in Guysborough.

Guysborough is an area which is often referred to as under-employed. The unemployment rate is often pegged at the same number as the out-migration rate; 15 percent. So why then, you might ask, would I move to a place where my employment options were so limited? I had education and experience- certainly I could look anywhere in Canada and find a good position. I limited myself to Guysborough for one reason and one reason only; my health.

People who know me know that I periodically have bowel obstructions. These often require hospitalization several times a year. For my children, I had to live close to my family so that my kids would have a place to go when my inevitable hospitalizations occurred. So all my education and experience was at the disposal of my cousin for $35 a day, a wage I had been making hourly as a teacher in Bangkok several years before.

Although we were comfortable in our apartment, our neighbors were uncomfortable. They called the landlord to complain about the children crying, about my dog running, about anything. I got tired of waiting for the next call from the landlord about things I could not control and I decided when a house, which he also owned, came up for rent, that I would move. I could not stand the stress of my neighbors complaining about my everyday life anymore.

The house to which I moved, is a small two story building that is approximately 180 years old. To call it drafty would be an understatement but it was livable and alleviated some stress. However, my stress was soon to be amplified. My cousin, whose children I had watched the previous year, decided two days before I was to resume babysitting for her in the new school year, that her family thought my house was too unsafe for her children to be staying there. What I wonder at is why she thought it was good enough for my children?

After the first few months it became clear that this house was going to cost me more than just my small job- it was going to cost me thousands to heat. Starting in October, I spent $400 a month on oil to heat my small house. I filled in cracks with blankets, rags, and insulating foam. Covered the windows in shrink wrap and learned to live at 60 Fahrenheit, which was not comfortable.

To save money I would walk to the grocery store in the morning to get all the best discounted meat and produce; items that were on the edge of their expiry date. I did laundry only before 7 am so as to use power during off-peak hours thus saving cents per kilowatt hour. I babysat for one child infrequently but as of November of that year I had no idea how we would make it through the winter in this house.

Just as I was considering the option of the Food Bank for Christmas, a job, a full-time, using my skills, honest to goodness job, fell into my lap.

At that point I had a job-did it mean I would work? The problem was what to do with the children? My oldest was in a pre-school program that ran everyday from 9:00 to 2:15 but she was unable to take the bus to the school. I had a babysitter for the youngest child but she could not ferry the older one to and from school—she had too many children in her care to fit them into a vehicle safely to transport my child to school. I could not afford full-time child care for two children. What would I do?

Luckily people in my community stepped in to help me. Parents and caregivers of the other students in my daughters class took her to and from school every day without fail. It was tough to ask for help but without it my family would find itself in very bad shape.

These days things are definitely looking up- I am just about to move into my own home; a purchase I made from my savings this past year. Savings derived from part-time work, supplemented by EI (employment insurance) and child support payments from my ex along with that fabulous child tax benefit. All together, still technically living just above the poverty line for a single parent, two child family in rural Nova Scotia.

Now to return to where this started- the radio show. When I listened to The Current I felt a pain that I hadn't expected. This pain was highlighted when my oldest daughter who is six mentioned in conversation, “That was when we were more poor.” Before that time I had not known that my child knew we were poor. How did she know that? How did that make her feel when she went to school? Did she know she was poor before she went to school or was it that exposure to other kids and their expectations of material goods that made her feel poor? These are things I may I never know but I hope that when she is a grown up she doesn't feel an unexpected pain when she hears about the poverty experienced by others in this country.

The moral of this story is that poverty hurts, even when it is the kind of poverty that has a car, lives in a house, not on the street, and has never received social assistance or been a client at the food bank. This poverty, the poverty experienced by many working class parents and many if not all single mothers, is endured quietly by people in your community.

What most people don't know is that most people living on the razor's edge of poverty won't ask for help. Help has to be thrust upon them. So many single mothers I know would rather cry every night from frustration and hunger rather than take someone up on their offers of help. If you truly wish to help someone in this situation you must give that help completely, not just an offer, do something without offering first; make a meal, come to babysit the children for a few hours, give a card with a few dollars. All of these actions mean far more than the well intentioned offers of help.

I was lucky and had help from my family and my community when I needed it. That help made a big difference for me and my family. If you are a charitable person and wonder how you can make a difference in the world look no further than the families in your own community. Look at what people need to make their lives better and act to help them make it happen.

The one thing that I want to leave people with about being poor is that it scars you, makes you feel ashamed of your house, and your family. You don't want to invite people to your home for fear that they will find your duct taped flooring, which prevents some of the drafts from breaking through the floor, hideous. When you do invite people in you point out your makeshift attempts to make your house more livable and laugh about the results of your efforts. The laughter hides both your pride in your innovations and the shame you feel at living in such an unfit house.

Being poor was not something I planned and not something that I or anyone else should be blamed for although often the poor are blamed for their own situations. Your made to feel like being poor is your fault, you should have made better life choices, etc. We will never know other people, we can only hope to live humanely and help others without judgement.

Rememberance Day 2011

2011-11-11T10:38:00.000-08:00

Here are more of my Remembrance Day articles for 2011.

A soldier at war's end

By Lois Ann Dort

COUNTRY HARBOUR – In January of 1944, at the age of 18 Havelock Mason, of Isaac's Harbour followed in his father's footsteps and joined the war effort. Mason starts his story with his dad, “My father, he was in WWI and WWII in the Navy. I joined in Halifax at the old number six depot and they sent me to the engineers training centre in Chilliwack, B.C.. I was there for five months for training. then I was shipped to England. I landed in Cove, England trained there a short while and then from there went over to Alstum, Belgium.”

Mason worked as a sapper, “I was a driver. They (sappers) built bridges and cleared mine fields.”

When the war ended Mason was stationed in northern Holland and became a member of the Canadian occupation force in Germany. “I was stationed in Leer, Germany. We maintained a bailey bridged – kept it open for ships to go down to the North Sea on the Ems River. The bridge had been completed in 1939 but as soon as the war started that was gone,” Mason said.

During the liberation Mason recalls his time in Holland cheerfully. “In Holland we got along A 1. In Holland they thought there was nothing like the Canadians. We used to feed a lot of them too. They hadn't too much then- the Germans had most of it. We got a ration every two weeks with cigarettes, candy, gum and we used to give the kids our gum and candy. They knew when we were getting it and they would all be there and we would give it all to them. The Canadians liberated Holland- they're not going to forget that.”

In occupied Germany the population was not as friendly but Mason said they never experience sabotage. “They weren’t as friendly as the Dutch – you couldn't blame the in a way. They were all smashed up at the time. Their homes, streets and bridges were all bombed.”

Mason returned to Canada and to depot number six in Halifax in the Spring of '45. He and his father both returned home to Isaac's Harbour. Mason spent his working life as a quartermaster on the Great Lakes, married, had children and built a home in Country Harbour. He is a member of the Antigonish Legion and attends Remembrance Day services at Cross Roads County Harbour.

Guysborough student learns WWII history through family letters

By Lois Ann Dort

GUYSBOROUGH – Alexandra MacDonald a Grade six student at Chedabucto Education Centre built her school project for the heritage fair last March around an amazing archive of letters sent from her grandfather in Europe to his aunt back in Nova Scotia from May of 1943 to Novemeber of 1945. “I like history and I wanted to learn about my grampy because I never got to see him (he died before she was born). We have all the letters that he wrote to his aunt Emma during the war,” MacDonald said.

Through reading the letters MacDonald got to know her grandfather and learn about an important part of Canadian history at the same time. “I learned where he was and he talked about how nice some of the countries were. His favorite countries were Holland and Belgium. He loved Belgium. He went through England, Scotland, Holland, Belgium, France and Germany....He was 19 when he left, he lied about his age and said he was 21 to get in. Once he got there he missed his family, he missed home. He mentioned home in every one of his letters.”

She interviewed her grandfather's cousin and best friend Frank who also served in the war. “He was 21 when he enlisted and went overseas in February of 1942 at age 22. He said he had met my grampy in Holland and they were pretty happy. They were probably both happy that they were still alive....he got back from the war in November of 1945 so that's a long time being there from 1942.”

With Remembrance Day fast approaching MacDonald encourages others to take part in the services available in the area, “Everyone should go to Remembrance Day Services. It's not very hard to do and they're so special.”

To get young people more involved in Remembrance Day she suggested, “Teachers should teach it in school more and encourage kids to go to the services and do activities about it. That is what really got me interested, that and my grandfather was in it.” Reciting and writing poems, singing songs, performing or watching a concert, creating pictures, and writing letters to veterans are just a few of the activities that MacDonald lists which peaked her interest in WWII history.

To complete her project, which included filing and summarizes the many letters her grandfather sent home, she wrote a letter to her grandfather, a man she'd never met but now knew so much about.

Dear Grampy Lowell,
I learned about you. Things like: you were a trooper, you wrote a lot of letters and you were a very nice man. You loved the countries of Holland and Belgium because they were clean. And the people were nice. You appreciated the little things in life like letters and chocolate bars. You loved your family and often thought about home. I also learned a lot about Frank, your best friend and cousin. Frank also told me about all the time you two got in trouble together and much more. You, grampy Lowell, fought for freedom, and you are my hero.

Lots of Love as Always,
Alexandra

A daughter's remembrance

By Lois Ann Dort

GUYSBOROUGH – Percy Lumsden was a proud veteran who marched every year in the Remembrance Day parade in Guysborough. Although he is no longer with us, like so many of our treasured veterans, his memory remains. Through his daughter Patsy's archival skill and interest in family history, Percy's life as a soldier and beyond has been detailed meticulously on the website rootsweb. The following are excerpts from a letter Percy wrote to his mother from England in 1944.

Dear Mum,
I received a box of chocolates from you...thanks very much. They are swell mum but are you sure that you didn't sacrifice them to send them to me. I don't want you to do that mum because you need them more than I do....By the way I got two letters from you the other night too...and one from Mrs. Hogan. I guess Joe Hogan is gone all right and I feel sorry for his mother. She thought an awful lot of him because he was the youngest of the family....He was a swell guy and was just ordinary like all the rest of us....Well mum, I guess there isn't any news, so I will close now. Thanks again for the chocolates and I hope you are getting better now.
Lots of Love From Percy

For more on Percy's life in the service visit http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~guys/Percy/percy3.html

Young veterans from modern conflicts

By Lois Ann Dort

GAGETOWN, NB. – During Remembrance Day we are asked to remember the veterans who fought for our freedoms in the battlefields of Europe and the South Pacific during WWI and WWII but it is important to also remember the men and women in uniform today who are serving in active conflict zones in Afghanistan. Ryan Toole, graduate of Guysborough Academy class of 2002 and son of Hadleyville, served in Afghanistan from September of 2008 to April of 2009. He is still in the infantry stationed in Gagetown, New Brunswich where he lives with his wife Lesley and their three children aged from 11 months to five years old. This past weekend Toole took time out from work and family to talk to The Journal about his tour in Afghanistan.

Toole joined the army in April 2003, not long after finishing High School. He said that he had always thought of the military as his best career option as he was a hands on kind of guy and didn't think college would be a good fit for him. He also had some family history that helped direct his path toward military life; his great-grandfather had served in both WWI and WWII lying about his age to get into the first war and courageous enough to enlist again in the second. “I always thought that what he did was honorable,” said Toole of his ancestor.

While still in school and already setting his sights on a military career, Toole witnessed the attacks on 911 on TV in the school cafeteria. “I remember being in the cafeteria in school and watching the terror attacks on September 11. I knew even before that that I would join the military. It felt right to do my part,” he said.

Starting a year before deployment to Afghanistan was mission specific training which took Toole to various locations across Canada and the United States. “We did work up training for more than a year... Wainwright, Alta; Texas and New Mexico....as much training as you can jam down your throat- I guess you can never have to much.”

Toole's unit was part of the provincial reconstruction unit. “When we first went there we were in Kandahar Air Field. Then we went to camp Nathan Smith in the middle of the city. We were also in Zhair and Panjwaii districts. We fought back and forth between Zhair and Panjwaii districts,” he said. “We would take people out who were going to do work like dig wells, and build schools....We would do patrols to be out there and walk around to show the people that we are there to help them and not do them harm.”

“When we were in Nathan Smith we would do quick reaction force. We would take people out to diffuse bombs, if anything happened you would go out for back up. We got a lot of IED (improvised explosive device) calls. People would call with a location and then engineers would do their thing. Or you would go back if there was more than one,” Toole said of the day to day work he performed while on base.

As for the mission, Toole is ardent in his belief that Afghans want to fight their own battles and he feels Canada's efforts in helping them to do so are appreciated. “They would really like to stand up on their own feet. If we don't help them do that we will be back there again. They (Afghan army recruits) would go out with us. They are pretty eager. A lot are good and switched on. A lot of them are pretty young....We should stay and teach them, give them skills to fight t the bad guys themselves. So they can look after themselves. I think that they are appreciative of the things that we are there doing.”

Being away from home is difficult but Toole says he would not be reluctant to return to Afghanistan. “It is one of those experiences that I am glad I had....My family is very supportive about me going too.” He admits that now having three children to leave behind, things would be harder than during his first tour where there was only one but he said, “It still wouldn't phase me. I would go back for sure.”

A war brides story

By Lois Ann Dort

BOYLSTON – While the WWII saw many men leave our shores to fight overseas, the end of the war brought many women, newly minted wives of Canadian solidiers, to Canada for the first time. These war brides came from all walks of life and from many different countries within Europe although most of them were from the U.K; the first foreign soil most Canadian soldiers landed on. Betty Dort, who now resides in Boylston, was one of the over 40, 000 war brides to come to Canada. On Friday she sat down with The Journal to describe the experience.

“I was born in South Wales. A place called Aberteleri. My mother was Welsh and my father English,” Dort said in a still recognizably British accent. But by the time the war started the family had moved to Birmingham, England; her father had migrated back home for work during the depression. As she recalls, she was 12 or 13 years old at the start of the war.

Her family suffered very little tragedy during the war according to Dort, “Everything was badly bombed in Birmingham because we had all the factories there. We were lucky,” she said when asked if her family had been hurt. “Of course we had air raid shelters and we used to have to go down, it was in the garden, everybody had one. But they weren't really bomb proof- not as such. If there was a direct hit you'd go anyway,” she says with a laugh.

The war dragged on and Betty grew up. She was a member of the British Red Cross and it was through her involvement with the war effort that she met her husband; a Canadian from Canso named William (Bill) Dort.

“He was stationed an hour away from where we lived,” Betty said. “The Canadian military hospital was there, and he was nursing. And I was in the British Red Cross so we used to be invited down there when there was socials going on. That is how I met him. '45 I think it was. They were still bringing troops in from the battles.

“He was from Canso. He was in the Royal Army Medical Corps.; Canadian medical corps. We married in '46. I came here in October of '46. I got married in June and then Bill came back before me and then I came over in October. He was still in the army then, so we stayed in Halifax for a month and then we came down to Canso.

“After a while there was nothing there, no work or anything so we went back up to Halifax. He wanted to try to get a job a Camp Hill but there was a waiting list to get in there so then, we were living on Barrington street in a bedsit and he got a job as a a security guard there on the docks. It didn't bother him cause Bill knew the army and they got used to anything.”

When Dort left home for Canada she left behind both parents, four brother and two sisters all in Birmingham. “They all came to the station when I went to London. Then we had to go to Canada House, then we had to go down to the boat train to Liverpool to get the ship. My father came with me to London. He wasn't supposed to but he would insist that he had to come with me. So I left him in London and that was the first time I had seen tears in his eyes.”

The voyage to Canada took 10 days and was a rough crossing. Dort landed at pier 21 in Halifax aboard the Letitia in late October, 1946. She described the journey,“All the different girls stuck on the ship. It wasn't births; there was just bunk beds stuck on and there were girls from everywhere on.

“There was one woman from Holland; she had a little boy. She had been married to a Dutch soldier and he had been killed. And then she had married a Canadian solider and when she got on the ship in Liverpool, she was sick all the way over. She couldn't get off the bunk. So I used to take the little boy and look after him. When we got into Halifax, pier 21, they had to take her off in ambulance and she was going all the way to Alberta. I thought, 'You poor soul, how are you going to make it to Alberta.' I often wonder how that little boy got on.”

When asked how she felt coming over to a new country far from friends and family with the exception of her husband she said, “Having that little boy took my mind off anything else. I was more concerned to mind him.

“It was a rough sea as well getting into November in the Atlantic. The ship just rolled side to side but it never bothered me. I always said if I had been a man I would have been a sailor.”

As for her expectations about her new country she said, “When your in love your not expecting anything you just want to be with them again. It wasn't a thought. I was surprised when I did end up in Canso. No indoor plumbing, no bath and things like that. We were used to all that you see...Come from a city, we had everything....But it didn't bother me.” Once in Canso they lived with Howard and Thelma Avery until their return to Halifax. “We weren't in Canso very long because there was no work and Bill wouldn't stand around doing nothing,” she said.

Some marriages that came out of the war years failed, making a new life in a new country proved too difficult for some women but Dort counts herself as one of the lucky ones to have had a husband such as Bill.

Dutch residents in Guysborough remember the occupation

2011-11-09T04:12:00.000-08:00

This is an article I wrote for this year's Remembrance Day feature in The Guysborough Journal.

GUYSBOROUGH – In May, 1940 when German troops entered Amsterdam, Guysborough resident Henri Van der putten stood with his father and a crowd of silent citizens grimly marking the advance of Hitler's army into the Dam. “I was 12 when the war started out and I was 17 by the time I got out of it. I started together with my father standing on what is called the Dam in Amsterdam, which is the main square in front of the old royal palace, and the German troops marched in. It was a very silent crowd. But that was only the beginning,” Henri told The Journal from his home in Guysborough last Friday.

Henri's wife Minke was a child of 10 living with her family in the city of Amersfoort when the Nazi forces invaded. “I remember it was in the middle of the night and my father and mother, they woke us up and there was nothing but
airplanes coming above us and that is when we knew they had invaded,” said Minke.

Life in Holland during the occupation was difficult at best. Many people died of starvation, young able-bodied men were deported to Germany as workers and almost all of Holland's Jewish population perished in concentration camps. Henri recalls, “It all depended on what part of the country you were in. People in big cities like Amsterdam and Utrecht from '43 on were denied access to the countryside. People who went out in the country to find food -- farmers were still operating in most parts -- it was actually taken from them as they came into the cities. There were guards standing on the main highways and they literally took the food from them....The upshot of it all was that in Amsterdam in particular, I don't know how many people died from hunger or being arrested or deported.... But in some places, especially in the countryside, people survived quite successfully because they had access to the food.”

For Minke and her five siblings, the meaning of the invasion slowly crept into their daily lives. “There was first the shock and we were young kids and what the heck did we know about it,” Minke said. “But we became aware of it.... We of course did not have central heating and the water was cut off. Only during the night we would have some water. So everybody was doing the laundry. Things like that were popping up. And of course we had hunger too like everybody else. I know my sister and I we walked seven/eight kilometers for the milk. Once a week we were doing that. The houses weren't heated at all so we had to go into the woods and cut our own wood there. There was a time on our streets -- they had trees, so slowly people were cutting the trees in front of the houses....all the trees ended up being cut down to keep our houses warm.”

“The schools were mainly closed. They were not able to heat them either. We had a period that we didn't go to school at all. So that was nice for us of course,” laughs Minke.

“I had four sisters and a brother. The youngest was four. Everyday you could go to one of the kitchens and you had a little pan and they would give you food in there,” said Minke while Henri interjects, “So-called food.” She laughs and said, “Yeah,” nodding in agreement. During the occupation Minke's father got sick and died. Henri's parents both survived the war.

“My parents stayed in Amsterdam and just about died,” said Henri, noticeably touched by emotion. Early on in the occupation his family moved to a smaller town where they would be better able to access food and firewood, but the German army confiscated the house and the family was forced to return to Amsterdam. After returning to Amsterdam, Henri left his parents' home to go into hiding for the duration of the war. “I had to go into hiding because of my age, I was 16 and I was tall for my age, anything that looked like an able young man was picked up and put to work in Germany.”

While in hiding, Henri worked for the underground and reported troop movements to the allied forces on the other side of the front line at the Waal River in Southern Holland. “I went into the mid-south, an area just above the river Waal there is an area there which is between two rivers; it's almost like an island. I went into hiding just behind the German line. The German line was at the Waal and the British and the Canadians were on the other side of the river. I was already working for the underground at that time in that area getting information across to the British Canadian line on troop strengths and materials.

“On the end of '44 it became almost impossible to do that. This was Christmas, the year that the Ardenne offensive was started. And the Germans were holding the line just above the river and the Canadians were sort of reestablishing their strengths for the spring. It was an awful tense time. But they depended on information from across the river to know what was going on as far as the Germans were concerned. They were getting ready for something but nobody knew what it was. We helped with that.

“In the area I was there were three young men acting for the underground. One was in a lookout post in a church which is right at the crossing of the Waal and there was a big bridge there. When you are in the tower of the church you can see the bridge; all the German traffic to the front line had to come across that bridge. I was down the line from the bridge and there was another person down the end where the Waal and the Maas (river) come together. Between the three of us we could follow the movement of where those pieces of equipment and people were going.

“Traffic in that area is only possible on the dikes. The dikes are elevated areas along the river. All in below it is not very good for heavy traffic like tanks so traffic on the dikes was watched by us. The watching was done by night, profile, against the sky you could see exactly what was going on. I was below the dike and I could see what was going by. And we knew the profile of all the things we saw and reported it across the river. It was done by transmitter for awhile until the Germans had their range finder equipment and then we had to stop that. Some was done by radio telephone and there were connections existing yet across the river and some was by patrols coming across the river, they were collecting information as well. That is how it worked.

“In '45 I went back home; June I came home. And a year later I was called up for military service and went to Indonesia for two and a half years. That was a different type of war, guerrilla warfare..and that was a totally different kettle of fish.” He returned to Amsterdam to find both of his parents bedridden.

The life of Henri's parents in Amsterdam was harsh and it was exceedingly difficult for them to find food, as was the case for most people. “My father was sickly and my mother was in bed and they had a hard time getting food. What little there was in Amsterdam; the soup kitchen.” Henri adds, “I was able, while I was hiding, to get some food to them. While I was walking to the direction of the South there was a lady going back to Amsterdam and I approached her. I was at a farm at the time, where they made cheese and I got a cheese, a fresh one, and she took it to Amsterdam for me and took it to my parents. That's one heck of an honest person because everyone was hungry.”

Henri remembers the end of the war as a chaotic time, “People were coming back form Germany who had been deported, there were many coming in from the country itself, many people were lost. The Jewish population, Amsterdam had a thriving business section that was pretty much all Jewish, the Germans they wiped it all out completely. Much of the commerce including food supply was in the hands of Jewish merchants and they were a very useful part in the working of Amsterdam. They were part of the fabric so when that was eliminated many of the people that had been working with them and who not Jewish ended up unemployed....My father got most of his clandestine food from a Jewish friend of his. Of course when he (the friend) was picked up, that was the end of that.

“By the end of the war Holland was flat-out bankrupt, machinery was gone, the industries couldn't start back up. Many people had not come home, tradesmen had been killed in Germany during the bombardment and so it was a hard time rebuilding.

“I think the country came out of it stronger for the simple reason we had successfully resisted becoming sympathetic with them. We resisted right from the beginning. There were collaborators, lots of collaborators, in all the occupied countries there were collaborators. At the end of the war many of them ended up in jail. Some of them rehabilitated. It was a time justice was not always very visible. There was a lot of revenge too. Women were the victims of that a lot. There were young girls, who went with the Germans and at the end of the war street crowds caught a few of them and shaved them bald, paraded them through the streets. It was not a good thing to do, no justice as such. But I think it was a normal reaction after what we were suppressing for so long.”

In 1954 after serving in the Dutch military in Indonesia, completing his studies and marrying Minke, Henri and his bride immigrated to Canada. They lived in several locations across the country while Henri worked for Parks Canada as a project manager and architect, retiring to Guysborough in 1989.

“The Dutch population in Canada melted away - they never formed groups,” said Henri of his immigrant experience. “They just sort of integrated. If they didn't speak the language they learned it pretty fast. Of course English and Dutch are not that far apart....They disappeared into the crowd, and that's it. We all did. It's been a learning time for many people including us.”

Party Politics

2011-09-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

As I write there are three elephants dancing on my head. Actually it's three little girls but if you have ever possessed one you'll understand what I mean.

There are squeals, shrieks and occasionally tears slipping down the stairs from the bedroom where they play.

Today we have a guest; my eldest daughter's best friend. She has come over after school today because of politics: party politics.

If you have kids, and those kids have birthday parties, you have likely been involved in party politics. Who gets invited to the party, who didn't, who forgot about it and who couldn't go due to a prior parental engagement.

My daughter had a birthday party last week, unfortunately her best friend was not there. I didn't think much about her absence as I had already asked if she was coming and my daughter said she didn't know for certain but thought she would not be able to come.

The day following the party I got a message on Facebook from the friend's mother asking me if the friend had been invited to the party. (Some background info: at the end of the school year last year both girls seemed to have had different and somewhat unfriendly accounts of their relationship.) I assured the mom that her daughter had indeed been invited, the whole class had been invited, but the invitations were not in envelopes and were sent to school without names affixed. I didn't want to spend my time addressing envelopes to each child in the class. Live and learn.

So now the best friend is over for a play date and all is right with the world. This however was not the first instance of party politics that I have inadvertently been a party to.

Several years ago I affronted a family member by not inviting a young relative to a birthday party. I hadn't really thought much about the guest list. Birthday parties in the summer are rather hurried affairs as it is my busiest time of year. But due to the offense taken I felt forced to invite the child to the party. It was an oversight that he had not been invited. But now I was aggravated. I was put in a position where I had to invite him to smooth things over in the family. I got over it. He was a great help at the party and we all had a good time but I still feel a prick of discontent over the incident.

And so it goes. I haven't any other cases of party politics in my own mothering career thus far but I remember reading lately that a friend of mine was torn because her son's birthday party turned out to be on the same day as another child in his class. What kids would go to what party?

Children's birthday parties turn out to be a lesson in diplomacy as well as planning. It's one of the things they never tell you about parenthood.

Where were you?

2011-09-13T12:16:00.000-07:00

I was in my bedroom, in Bangkok, on the phone to America. How about you? I know you know what I am talking about. It's all anybody has been talking about in this hemisphere for the past week: Where were you on 9/11?

It's been hard to escape the coverage of the 10th anniversary of this momentous event. At the time people said, “Everything will change, nothing will be the same.” In some respects that is true and in others it is blatantly obvious that for those of us living in the West things have not changed much other than removing our shoes at the airport and carrying an up-to-date passport when traveling between Canada and the United States.

There have been changes but just not the ones we typically think about. 9/11 has changed lives- ask people in Afghanistan and Iraq how it has changed their lives- surely they have been inconvenienced by more than just long lines at the airport.

When I first started to think about the question: How did 9/11 affect me personally?-I thought, “Not much.” I was living half a world away and did not experience the trauma of watching the towers collapse repeatedly on television news casts as many people in North America did. Note: another good reason not to own a TV. I may not have shared in the collective trauma, I knew no one who died in the attack either directly or indirectly, but the repercussions of the heightened fear of terrorism did affect me.

Ten years ago I was working in a DNA research lab at Mahidol medical school on the Ton Buri side of the Chao Praya River in Bangkok. I was at the lab learning how to run DNA sequences for a research project I had proposed to the authors of a book on Thai prehistoric archaeology. I had gone to the authors with a proposal to study the mitochodrial DNA of early skeltal remains and compare them with modern Thais to once and for all put an end to the discussion about the origin of the Thai people. Thais are an amalgalm of many peoples that have moved through the landscape over the centuries but I believed that they would be able to trace their genes back to the earliest known settlers through this mtDNA project.

At that point in my research, on that fateful day in September, I was just about to go to a research lab in Jakarta where I would learn how to do mtDNA extraction. It was the only lab in South East Asia at the time that was doing mtDNA extraction and they had agreed with my Mahidol backers to teach me the methodology to bring back to Thailand.

After 9/11 I was leery of going to a predominately Muslim state known to be a fostering ground for some terrorist groups. I stayed home, safe in Bangkok and redirected my studies to less dangerous field work destinations in the North East and Northern provinces of Thailand.

Staying in Bangkok meant I met the man who would become the father of my children and led to involvement in a writers group which brought about my career as a freelance journalist. So all in all- 9/11 changed my life. I wonder how many of us can look back on that event 10 years ago and describe such a line of decision making that affected our current state of being so dramatically.

There is so much more that could be said about this anniversary but I am emotionally overwhelmed by the full on coverage of it. I don't want to listen to 911 calls from the towers. I don't want to hear air traffic control. I don't want to prick my ears with the heart wrenching voicemail messages left by loved ones who leapt to their deaths from the towers. It was overwhelming 10 years ago and half a world away and is no less traumatic 10 years later.

My only hope is that the wars are at an end and fledgling democracies in the Middle East have developed roots and leaves by the time the 20th anniversary of 9/11 roles around.

38 and counting

2011-09-06T11:47:00.000-07:00

When I was born they counted my days on this earth succinctly because they feared I would have too few. Now, I am counting my time here by years and I never forget the work, medical expertise and luck that got me this far.

This year I spent my birthday working at a job I never would have dreamed I would possess, going out for supper with my children who I never believed would fulfill their ovarian encased potential, and visiting with my father, a relationship that I never thought could be this strong.

Summer is a busy time for me and the end of summer never more so. But I did find time to think..a little.

Mostly what I thought about was how I had all the things I really wished for in life. My children, my family and a job or two that might be considered a career. I also have my passion, which sometimes is stymied by work, fatigue and plain old writers block but nonetheless exists as a definable thing which I can sit down and do on any given day.

To know your passion is a unique gift. Some people don't have one. There is no overarching desire to do just one thing and enjoy the process.

I have friends, mothers mostly, who I look at and wonder where will their fulfillment come from when their chicks have flown the coop. I know people who may fill their golden years with TV reruns of great old shows they loved watching when they were in the prime of their lives. What does one do in life, as a empty-nester or a retiree if you don't have a passion?

Many people pursue passions that I can not understand. Today I read about a lady who has a collection of over 800 salt and pepper shakers. I am sure it qualifies as a passion but it's one that doesn't translate in my reality.

My passion is of course writing. There never seems to be enough time to write and when time shows up, as it has today, there seems to be no inspiration.

My free time has suddenly vanished and I must return to work but at least I have another year- just me and my passion. The gift of time to pursue one's passion is among the most valuable.

If Good men do nothing, evil will prevail

2011-08-07T17:42:00.000-07:00

There is something going on in Africa. There's drought, starvation, war; these are the things that make it into the 24 hour news cycle. The things I am talking about aren't puncturing the psyche of the mainstream media. Therefore you probably don't know what I am talking about. I am talking about racism. Racism against white Africans.

Surely, you think to yourself, she's made a typo. There aren't any white Africans. Africans; ethnic Africans who can trace their line into time immemorial, are black. But what is a person to call themselves if they were born in Africa, their parents and grandparents were born in Africa and their skin is white?

In the documentary, Mugabe and the White African, the conflict between black and white under the regime of the dictator Mugabe is shown in stark images of beaten farm workers and farmers; victims of the Mugabe land reform policy.

Mike Campbell and his family, including son-in-law Ben Freeth, have taken on a dictator in the international court of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The ruthlessness of this dictatorship knows no bounds and it is amazing that such a man as Mugabe is allowed to continue his reign of terror over a once abundant country. These people, basically anyone who is not a supporter of ZanuPF, are in danger every day that they continue to live under the regime. To stand up against a man who is willing to equate himself with Hitler and seeks to top his genocidal performance is a kind of bravery that should not be overlooked yet it has been in the mainstream press (although there was a lot of reporting on Mike Campbell's death).

This Hitler has only one objective, justice for his own people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people, and their right to their resources,.....If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold" Mugabe, Dec 2003.

Unfortunately, Mike Campbell died earlier this year due to complications from the beating he received at the hands of Mugabe thugs in 2008. His death does not cede victory to Mugabe. Ben Freeth and many other Zimbabweans continue to work against the regime. As Freeth said in the documentary, “If good men do nothing, evil will prevail.” It is hard to imagine that given such dire circumstances and certainty of retribution for anti-government actions that anyone could live up to such a high ideal but Freeth and the Campbells have been fighting the regime for years and show no signs of stopping now.

To find out more about the struggle in Zimbabwe go to Zimbabwe Democracy Now

Weight Issue

2011-08-07T16:42:00.000-07:00

I have a weight issue. My issue is that people feel that my weight is a topic for discussion. It's not. If I should happen to bring it up, which is highly unlikely, then it might be something you could comment on. But I won't so don't.

I don't talk about my weight but it seems that other people feel the need to talk about it whenever the mood strikes them. And most often their assessment of my weight is completely at odds with reality.

This little rant has been developing in my brain since yesterday when a good intentioned friend suggested that I had gained weight recently. In fact, I have lost weight recently.

My weight is not something I obsess about but it seems that others are more than willing to obsess about it for me. This winter my weight noticeably shot up over a few short weeks- something I discussed with my doctor. Note to weighty commentators- my weight, other people's weight, your own weight should only be part of a conversation you have with your doctor unless of course your an athlete performing in a weight category. But that goes without saying- doesn't it?

So my friend mistakenly told me that it looked like I had gained weight and was looking healthier these days. Not only do my skinny pants fit but I feel like hell- completely fatigued. And in point of fact I don't know anyone, no matter their size that actually wants to hear, 'Hey, it looks like you have gained weight.' Even the skinniest people I know balk at the thought of a few extra pounds. Who is supposed to receive this comment in a positive manner?

In my late teens and twenties it was always my grandfather that kept a running commentary on my weight. On one visit home he'd say I had gained weight, the next he'd say I looked too thin. The funny thing is I wore the same pair of jeans for 15 years, he usually saw me in those jeans and I can't imagine how he could have seen any slight fluctuations that may have occurred over the years.

When I went to Asia I looked forward to being tall; that didn't happen. Instead one of the first adjectives used to describe me by a Thai seamstress was big. At the time I was working out in the gym three hours a day, had just completed a certificate as a personal trainer and was in the best physical shape of my life- how could I possibly be big? There are some very thin people in Thailand but there are some big ones too- all in all it was another unwanted commentary on my weight.

Last week one of my students from last years' course came into my office for a little chat; he was back on campus and bored with no classes to attend. He told me that his year went well; he studied hard, got an 85 average, and spent three hours a night at the gym. “I lost a lot of weight,” he said. I hadn't noticed and even if I had I wouldn't have said anything.

I rarely notice people's weight and wish others would be as blind to this feature as I am. If they were perhaps our society would be less neurotic about food, our bodies and what we look like.

Sidebar: I don't notice height either. I used to think my ex-boyfriend was just a little bit taller than me; in fact he's a whole foot taller. I'd be a horrible police witness.

What I do notice is my own weight- when clothes fit or don't- that is all you need to know to get dressed in the morning and meet the world in all its weighty forms.

Note: the picture used on this post is part of Leonard Nimoy's Full Body Project

20 years

2011-06-25T04:32:00.000-07:00

It's been 20 years since I graduated from High School. This year two of my nieces and my next door neighbor are graduating. I have been getting caught up in the excitement of their graduation and their university plans. Last night was prom night and all day as I watched the hustle and bustle I was in a bad place in my head.

I had the kids in child care for the day and was supposedly working on stories for the paper but nobody got back to me and I just indulged my ennui.

I watched movies, ate ice cream and felt a pressure in my head that I could not release. I ran on the treadmill and cried; that made me feel a little better. I just couldn't get rid of the badness or figure out why I was feeling that way.

This morning, after reading over the reports on prom on Facebook and looking at everyone's comments about their own prom, I took the dog out for his second walk of the morning. Luckily the kids were still asleep and I had some time to think in the clear but uncommonly cool air of this early summer morning. Half way down the dirt road it hit me; 20 years ago during my graduation, I was miserable. It was the most horrible time in my entire life. No wonder I was feeling so pent up, angry and frustrated. That is just the way I felt 20 years ago.

Most people have happy memories of their High School graduation. That is the way it should be. For others, like me, that time was terribly tumultuous. Looking at the girls in their gowns I wonder at the stress they have been going through these past weeks. Exams, finding a dress, finding a date, etc. What if you have been unsuccessful at these things. It is a lot of stress and pressure to put on people just as they are preparing to leave the nest.

These however were not the factors that were making my life miserable 20 years ago. In March of my graduating year my mother and sister, jointly, kicked me out of the house and sent me away from my school, one of the few that I had actually been in for any length of time. I had actually spent all of my High School years there, and they sent me packing back to my home town in Nova Scotia from Edmonton, Alberta.

Although I had gone to school with the kids in Guysbrough when I was in elementary there was no making up for those lost teen years. I wasn't part of the group. Some kids tried hard to include me; I was thankful to them. I didn't blame the ones who didn't. I was mad at the adults; the ones who had put me in an impossible situation and the ones who seemed to think that I should be fine with it all or on the opposite scale; those that told me that I should not expect to graduate at all that year.

When graduation day came I wanted no part of it. I felt forced to attend by my father and grandmother. Despite threats from school officials that I would have to do another year of High School, because my course credits didn't travel well between Alberta and Nova Scotia, I graduated 6th in my class. Which ticked me off even more. The top five got read out at the graduation ceremony but I just didn't make it. I felt deliberately snubbed. They didn't take my highest grade credits because they just didn't have those subjects in the Nova Scotia curriculum.

At that point I hated the school, hated my home town, hated just about everything.

I was so relieved to start out fresh, just like everyone else, when I went to university in the fall at St. Mary's in Halifax. I loved St. Mary's. It was a comforting place for me.

From St. Mary's I went to Dalhousie although I left in my second year there and headed to Thailand where I went to yet another university and did my MA.

Those bad days seem far away most of the time. I love living here in Guysborough with my kids. I feel it is the best place for them at this time.

I have to say that I am happy the old High School was torn down. I have nothing but bad memories of that place. Now my daughter goes to the school where I went to elementary. And life was good then as it is now.

In those 20 years a lot has happened in my life. Not in my wildest dreams, when I was standing on the stage accepting my high school diploma, would I have thought I would be living here doing a job I love and raising my kids. It's been a long journey and I wouldn't wish the beginning on anyone but it all seems to have worked out.

But clearly, I still have issues.

Vagina monologues

2011-06-16T11:52:00.000-07:00

I just read the Vagina Monologues and it certainly has got me thinking. Most of what I am thinking I am not sure if I really should post on my blog but as I doubt I'll ever run for public office here it goes.

The vagina is something that I face on a daily basis-literally. I have two daughters which means I usually see it in the morning when they get up, often during story time when curious little hands roam downward to play, and during the night when covers have been thrown or kicked off and nightdresses have rolled up. (as I write this I am worried about who is going to read it, should this be public?)

As a parent I have the typical reaction to this; cover it up and get your hands out of it-NOW. What does this reaction really mean? In the living room , around the house, I want their business, that's what we call it- as in this is my business and you can't bother my business unless I say so-covered, shielded from whatever eyes might glance in the window. I'm a mother. I worry about the usual things-molestation, sexual abuse, rape. I also worry about yeast infections, bladder infections and whatever other possible medical conditions they could contract by messing about with their business.

Another side of me, watches them and feels that I should not be making feel ashamed of their bodies. I shouldn't make them feel that they are dirty, that it is wrong to touch yourself and feel good in your own body. But this road to orgasm should be explored in private not on the living room floor.

When I think about these things I remember what a friend of mine once told me; by the time she was age 8 she masturbated. Her mother and aunties knew what she was doing in the privacy of her own room and they never stopped her or told her it was a bad thing. She learned something at 8 that I wouldn't learn until my mid-20's. I really wish I had had her mother.

These days we think we are being progressive about adolescent sexuality if we give our daughters the birth control pill. Girls, like boys, have an overwhelming sexual drive and energy that needs to find an outlet. It often finds one in a not so great teenaged relationships. It is my idea that instead of talking about sex when your ready, find some one you love blah,blah, blah...that I should teach my daughters about their bodies, let them explore their pleasure centers and give them the tools, battery operated of course, to deal with their physical needs. I am sure this will not deter them from dating and teenage sex and all that that means but it will give them another source of satisfaction and allow them to hold the reins on their own sexual desires; I hope.

As for myself and my own acceptance of my business, my vagina, I am pretty sure I have started on that journey but haven't traveled as far as I would like.

When I was delivering my second child, the doctor asked me to look at my vagina in a standing mirror. He said if I could physically see the contraction I would be better able to push through them and stop at the appropriate time. Actually, when he first suggested that I should use the mirror he only asked if I would like to see the birth. I said no. I didn't want to see. It was his second comment about knowing when to push that convinced me to look in the mirror. I am glad I did or I would have missed something amazing.

The flexible future

2011-06-06T14:05:00.000-07:00

As graduation day grows ever closer for many of the young women I have come to know in my small community in the past few years I am wondering what their futures hold. I have gotten caught up in the excitement of university acceptances and moving plans; not so much in prom and graduation as I was never a fan of either of those things. As I talk to some very accomplished soon to be graduates I wonder how they will fair in a bigger pond and wonder if the big and frequently asked question of What are you going to be? is the wrong one.

Many students have an answer to that question: environmental sciences, veterinary medicine, social work etc. But in the end it may be those students who have yet to define a path for themselves that may be best prepared for their future. If the future is anything it is uncertain. The students who head off to university with a life and education plan may soon find out that the rest of the world isn't conspiring with them to fulfill their dreams and ambitions. Or perhaps, when they get to university they will be introduced to new possibilities that were outside of their sphere of knowledge before that point. They might find a new intellectual love. It would be a shame for a student to stick with mathematics when biochemical engineering started to tickle their fancy just for the sake of sticking with the plan.

These days everyone is talking about jobs, employability, and marketability. Not so long ago a university education was used as a key to the world not to the boardroom. It was once said that university was a place to explore knowledge; jobs weren't really part of the equation except to say that people who had opened their minds and learned to think for themselves often got jobs because during the course of their university journey they mastered some employable skills like time management, team work, independent study, research techniques, and critical thinking.

Of course there have always been university careers that would carry one through to a profession; doctoring, lawyering or teaching but for the most part a degree in Biology could lead anywhere. It's the streamlining and mercenary intent of university applicants and graduates that has, in my opinion, ill prepared the most recent generation when entering the workforce. They have been lead to believe that they need a plan and a chosen career path by the time they are in Grade nine so they can choose the appropriate course to get the degree that will get them the job.

In today's economic climate, more often then not, they won't get the job. Then what will they do? They are educated for no other career and have been filled with the false expectation that they will get what they want if they follow this carefully constructed plan.

I believe that an education is necessary but I decry specialization noting that some people need to specialize; we need the engineer who constructs bridges, the neurologist and many others. In general, a broad education may stand our students in greater stead than the current trend of focusing on the financial possibilities of one course of study over another.

It is flexibility, versatility and the ability to learn new things at any point in one's life that will ensure a lifetime of employment. It is said, and has been the norm for most people in my generation, that the generations following the boomers will go through several drastic career changes within a lifetime. Convincing students that they need to decide their careers for the rest of their lives in the last three years of high school is not only inane it is ill-informed and irresponsible.

I graduated from high school 20 years ago and the career and university counseling that I received at that time was woefully inadequate and completely misinformed first as to what I was capable of and second in respect to the career possibilities that I might encounter.

The first mistake was to think in a Nova Scotian context. I, like so many others from this area, have traveled, worked and settled overseas. The possibilities for employment in other countries is not something these students, I am willing to bet, have even thought about. For the graduate interested in environmental studies-has anyone informed her of the possibility of working internationally with NGO's or the United Nations? For the graduate aspiring to become a vet- does she know there is an agency similar to doctors without borders that is for veterinarians? Maybe.

My education has been broad and diverse from anthropology to bio-mechanics; my work life has been no less so. Many jobs I have had came as a result of being flexible and my ability to take on challenges and learn new things. I started teaching after my first degree, in anthropology not education, and was lucky enough to learn on the job from some great teachers who were my co-workers.

I started working as a freelance journalist due to my life long passion for words and writing that lead me to the Bangkok Women Writers Group. It was with their support and confidence in my work that I dared to submit my writing for publication. I've never studied journalism; I learned the trade on the job. A Masters degree in Thai Studies did help me develop the skills necessary to be a journalist but I pursued that educational goal for it's own sake. Whenever asked why I was taking Thai studies I would reply honestly that I was doing it for fun. It seems that all that education, that experience is paying off- without having had a plan.

I do agree that an outline for ones educational and career goals may be beneficial but only if flexibility is a built in component. Some people manage to study for one job, find that job, and work at it until retirement but those people are scarce on the ground. For the graduates of 2011 I wish them luck and hope that they learn to live with uncertainty and count flexibility as a virtue.

More on this topic -
The Young & The Jobless
There are lots of ways to measure unemployment, but one statistics stands out: There are 200,000 fewer young people ... that is, those aged 15 to 24 ... 200,000 fewer of them working today than there were two years ago.
With the university year wrapped up and the high school year ending and a new group of young people marching towards the job market, our project Shift on demographic change is looking to see where they fit in.
The CBC's Neil Sandell went to something called the National Job Fair and Training Expo in Toronto where he met young people anxious to start careers. His documentary is called The Young and The Jobless.

The pursuit of happiness

2011-05-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

So it's been awhile, it's been long enough, it's time to get out of this rut and I think I know just the thing and today I attended an event that made me even more sure of this idea that has been playing in my mind-it's a school thing.

In the past I have always fallen into a rut when I have not been officially learning anything. Acceptance of the fact that I need to be guided to knowledge took me to Dalhousie University after I finished my first degree at St. Mary's and later to Chulalongkorn University to do my Masters. A while back, several years ago, I contemplated going to school again but the time and money just weren't there. But, I did find a program I was interested in- an MA in Adult Education offered at the University where I teach over the summer ST. FX. It is a distance course which means I can work and complete my degree.

Today I attended a graduation ceremony for adult learners who have just finished a program to increase their marketability in the workforce. One man said that before he took the course he was 25, had 3 children and just didn't know what the future held for him; but he didn't feel hopeful. With this course his outlook has changed and he believes he has a future and can help his children have one too. Is there anything more powerful than that in terms of job satisfaction? Listening to this man describe his experience solidified my resolve to apply for the MA program.

The MA program has several streams, I am investigating education and community development. I ordered books from the library today to help me flesh out my application letter. I'll be working at the university this summer and have more chances to access materials then too.

When I am not learning I feel like I am sinking. Now that I have landed on my feet, I am starting to get pulled down and am looking for something more to accomplish than just surviving each day.

As to how and where I would apply this Masters degree, I am sure something will come up. Next week I have my first board meeting at the local adult learning association. There is a great need in this area for literacy and general life skills education but I am not sure this is the place I want to apply what I might learn.

So now that I have a goal, I feel better. I always need an academic pursuit to be happy.

PS: I also want an X ring of my own.

Breaking the block

2011-05-25T17:42:00.000-07:00

Is this cheating? Trying to break my writers block.

Your lofty violet heart
embraced my fathomless moonlight.
Pregnant blocks balance my nerve
while melodic rituals clamor to the surface.

I can put these words into my mouth and hold them between my teeth. I could place -I love you- on your lips and remove it with my tongue. Like small edible sugar cubes, tiny blocks, words plucked out of thin air; could be placed in candy bowls for the intellectual delight of visitors. Lofty, livid , anal, science, doctor; occupy one block. The possibilities are endless, scandalous and pornographic. They permit me to chase lewd thoughts and crack the unknowable id.

I can build towers of words and let them crash down into new more compelling patterns.

They have made me feel slightly better about this life with and without words.

I still fell some destructive force building up, about to break out and crash some dishes or make unwise relationship choices. I am hoping to dampen this down like a fire fire whose draft has been closed. I need something new in my life and am looking.

May Day

2011-04-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

For May Day I have been collecting some pictures of people at work around my area.

I got the idea to do this post by seeing a few other pictures that people had taken around town of people at work. Last year, when I was working compiling local histories, it was such pictures of people at work in their everyday lives that were the most prized finds. Work is what we do for a majority of our lives but we rarely have pictures of ourselves doing it.

Provincial Minister of Finance Graham Steele (right) at work trying to sell Guysborough folks on the governments' plan for the economy.

April Sammson from ECRL leading the kids at Kids First in story time.

Working to save lives- the firefighters did water/ice rescue training this winter.

Working for diversity and understanding at the Diversity Food Night organized by Mary Desmond in Upper Big Tracadie.

Our favorite local hairdresser, Tina.

Teachers at work, awarding their students for the years' achievements.

Local face painters working for the recreation department for Canada Day, 2010.

The wheels on the bus go round and round thanks to our driver, Alan.

Taking care of horses at the fall fair, September, 2010.

Painters at work at Antigonight.

Iron worker at Antigonite.

Guysborough Farmers Market crowd at work serving up a 'local' breakfast.

DOT workers getting the signs back up after a hard winter of snow and plow abuse.

Working at the TIANS Meet & Greet at The DesBarres Manor Inn.

Volunteers working for the Guysborough and area food bank.

At work in The Rare Bird Pub & Eatery; putting in yeast and turning the screws on this summers' refreshing Rare Bird Ale.

Teachers at work during an in-service.

Local posties at work.

Your friendly local reporter covering Volunteer Recognition Night in New Harbour.

Happy May Day one and all.

Great-Grandma Anna

2011-04-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

We always called her Anna. As a kid I never thought much of it. Always Grandpa and Anna's; that is where we went on every visit home to Massachusetts. When I was older I realized that calling Anna, Anna, was a constant reminder to her and the family as a whole that she did not belong.

Anna was my great-grandfather's second wife. My grandmother was the only child he had with his first wife, who suffered from severe depression and killed herself when she was 31? and my grandmother was 11. My grandfather was still a youngish man and remarried several years after his first wife died. Needless to say it was a rough go of it with the petulant step-daughter, aka my grandmother.

My grandmother has always been a spoiled, self-centered, malicious person. After her father remarried she moved into the house of her maternal grandparents, who as it happened, lived directly next door to her father. There she lived at arm's length from her step-mother, and I am sure, knowing my grandmother, she found ways to make Anna's life miserable from that distance.

Marriage soon followed for my grandmother; she was 16 when she wed. Shortly after she produced the first of her 10 children. Her second child came along just as her step-mother and her father celebrated the birth of their one and only child, a son, her half brother.

My grandmother, although married, did not move far from her father's home, just across the road. There she continued to pop out kids, one every two years or so. Her children never called my grandfather's second wife grandma; she was always Anna.

When I was a kid, she was still Anna. We visited my great-grandparents whenever we were in Massachusetts. There were years when we did it in secret; years when my grandmother was on a renewed war path for her step-mother.

Anna made us cakes; she was famous for them. The cakes, she once revealed, came from a mix but it was the icing that sealed her iconic status as cake maker extraordinaire. One year, when my grandmother was on good terms with her step-mother, she came to visit my family in Dawson Creek, BC carrying a cake from Anna almost 5,000 km; that's how good it was.

Anna played straight to my great-grandfather's walking side-show and boisterous personality. I heard her exclaim “Bob” and wave her hand in front of her face in disbelieve too many times to count.

My great-grandfather was a loud talker. You never had to guess if they were at home; you could hear his voice clear as a bell several houses down the street. As a result, Anna lost her hearing at a relatively young age and was forever asking you to repeat what you said. Losing her hearing was probably one of the many sacrifices she made while living with my great-grandfather.

Walking into Grandpa and Anna's house was like passing through a time warp. They had an old fridge from the 1950s, a old ringer washer and transferred their milk into the old bottles from the dairy that had belonged to my great-great-grandfather Brown; the father of the first wife. So not only did Anna live in a house that was stuck in the 50s she also lived in the shadow of her predecessor in many ways. One can not begin to think how difficult this must have been.

When visiting with Anna, she was always overly talkative about her son, Bobby, and her only granddaughter, Jennifer. In retrospect, she may have had to circumscribe her world to such a small sphere in order to deal with the ghosts of her husbands' past.

It was only in later years that I actually got to know Anna; that is after the all consuming presence of my great-grandfather had disappeared from her side. When I moved home to the United States in 2007 I visited Anna in the nursing home once a week; faithfully. She lived there, sharing a room with another elderly lady since 1999 when she and my great-grandfather were in a bad car accident, forcing them to leave their own home. It was as the world was watching the twin towers come down that I was standing in my bedroom in my apartment in Bangkok that the phone rang my aunt told me that grandpa had died.

Visiting Anna without my grandfather gave me cause to learn more about this woman that had always been a fixture in my life but had never played on the main stage. The most amazing thing that I learned was that her name wasn't Anna. When I first came to the nursing home to visit her and asked for Anna Whitney, the nursing staff looked at me strangely and then figured out I meant So-and so Whitney. I regret to say that I can't remember what her real name was. After 35 years I just couldn't transplant the new name into my brain.

Upon that first visit I asked her, “Hey Anna, why are they calling you such- and -such?” That is when I found out that that was her real name.

She was born to a Polish immigrant family. She had three sisters, one of them was her twin. At home they all spoke Polish. When she went to school when she was 4, she distinctly told me she went to school at 4, the teacher didn't know how to say her Polish name and called her Anna. It stuck for the next 85 years and it was only when she was moving towards the end of her life that she reclaimed her proper Polish name.

Being Polish, she suffered from the stereotypes and derision that people of Polish descent were prone to. And there was none more likely to hurl racial epithets at her than my grandmother; usually behind her back or at least I never saw her say it to her face but I wouldn't put it past her. Which is why it was extremely odd that during the nursing home years my great-grandmother had one other frequent visitor; my grandmother.

I often was visiting Anna when my grandmother would come, they would have a nice visit but on the way out my grandmother would usually find something negative to say about her step-mother. Maybe that is why she went to visit her; she couldn't give up her old nemesis.

When I started to visit Anna at the nursing home I made a point to change my old habits as best I could and call her grandma. After all the woman had been through, that is the least bit of respect I could show her. She knew both of my children (although she didn't always know us when we came to visit-she suffered from some dementia but not too badly) and they knew her as Great-great grandma. When we would visit her in the lounge area or in the dinning room I made a point to let people know that these were her great-great grandchildren visiting her and she would beam with pride.

In her room at the home she had a few toys and a rocking chair. The rocking chair she had gotten from her father as a gift when she was 3, now my daughter played with it. Our visits were short but they made a difference and I got to hear some old time stories.

This morning I found out that Anna died last night. I am saddened to hear this news but glad that I have this much to reflect on about her life. It wasn't easy but I always remember her having a smile on her face.

Later...
My cousin posted her obituary.

TEMPLETON – Jennie A. (Zisk) Whitney, 92, formerly of 350 Baldwinville Road, Templeton, died peacefully Tuesday evening, April 26th in Baldwinville Nursing Home, with her family at her side.

She was born in Gardner on May 7, 1918, daughter of the late Anthony and Mary (Zielenska) Zisk and had lived in Templeton for most of her life.

Jennie was a member of Holy Cross Church in East Templeton. She loved flowers and playing bingo. Her greatest enjoyment came from spending time with her family, grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren.

Her husband of 54 years, Robert A. Whitney Sr, died in 2001. She leaves two children, Robert A. Whitney Jr and his wife Carol of Templeton and Beverly L. Whitney Haley and her husband Henry of Templeton; a brother Richard Bubnel of Gardner; a sister, Phyllis Carpenter of Gardner, as well as many grandchildren, great grandchildren, great great grandchildren, nephews and nieces. Two sisters, Sophie Zisk and Regina Mahoney, predeceased her.

Funeral services will be held Friday, April 29th at 10 A.M. in Stone-Ladeau Funeral Home, 343 Central Street, Winchendon. The Rev. Joseph Jurgelonis will officiate. Burial will be in Greenlawn Cemetery, Baldwinville.

Calling hours in the funeral home will be Friday, April 29th from 9 to 10 A.M. preceding the funeral.

Memorial donations may be made to Baldwinville Nursing Home Residents Activities Fund, PO Box 24, Baldwinville, MA. 01436.

Writers Block

2011-04-22T16:23:00.000-07:00

Writing is a sadomasochist tendency that people other than other writers don't understand. I am at a bit of an impasse in my writing. I like writing short commentary-like pieces but have been uninspired lately. Not only that, but I can not find a book- fiction or otherwise- that can keep my attention. Reading is always a precursor to writing and it seems I can't even do that these days.

The past two weeks have required a lot of writing for my job. I partially blame that for my writers block. After writing 10 articles for the paper for two weeks in a row I just have nothing left. I have spent evenings watching crime shows online and feeling like a cheating spouse every morning thereafter.

Life is short. Why am I wasting it on watching useless shows when I could be writing or if not writing, at least reading. But nothing is appealing. Everything taste dull , as if I had been smoking for fifty years.

I am longing for art, for inspiration but is just isn’t there. I feel like the lack of art in my life is sucking the oxygen from the rooms where I live. I am short with my kids and just over-all ornery. Nothing is grabbing me by the writing nerve and firing the axons. I am in a funk.

So in a funk, I have decided to write about the funk. It's torturous. I am writing for a living and that is in some way living the dream. But writing for the local paper doesn't get one the recognition that a published book gets you. But I am not the book type, or at least not the novel type. I have no interests in writing a novel. I can't live outside of reality and inside my own head for that long. I have written a thesis and that was as much as I ever want to write on one topic.

For me, envisioning a book, it comes in the form of short anecdotes, maybe of the same place or topic but not a continuous story. My imagination left me in my youth and I have never been able to fully recover it although I have given it a few attempts. My blog, is in essence, my wanna-be book. But so it stands for so many other wanna-be's. In this tribe of wanna-be's, I just feel like another idiot bouncing crap off the keyboard and into cyberspace.

What is more, not only has my imagination dwindled so has my capacity for in depth, critical thought. I used to be smarter. My declining intelligence greatly alarms me. I am used to learning new things. Being out of school now for five years, the longest I have ever been away from academia, is stifling my intellect. But I don't have time to learn new things- I am trying to get through life. I am thinking of taking an online writing course but that is not the same as launching into a new field of study.

I used to write features for glossy magazines-I would like to do that again; it's the kind of writing that I prefer to read and to write. I have been so busy at the paper and with life in general that I have not had time to explore that area of writing.

In life I am at a high point, in writing a low. Or so it feels in recent days. I wish I had something to write about. Ideas flit across my mind like butterflies escaping the net. They never reach my fingertips, are never preserved in jars in the freezer of my hard drive.

Tomorrow or maybe even today will be better. Right now I just feel ANGRY.

Election 2011

2011-04-22T07:50:00.000-07:00

For once I find myself envious of the United States. Perhaps not for the obvious reasons, whatever they may be- ask an American and they will give you a long list of why the world should envy them, but for the electoral process that allows them to vote directly for their federal leader; AKA the President.

North of the border we continue to follow our 'Old Country' ways and vote for our local representatives, tabulate local results and in that way determine the leader of the country according to a system that allows national leaders to be made of men who receive far less than 50 percent of the popular vote. Canadians claim to be revered for their democratic idealism, shipping soldiers overseas to fight for and promote this ideal and even going so far as to allow free air time to the Marxist/Leninist Party of Canada. But I am left with an impossible decision for this election due to the Canadian form of democracy.

There are two federal parties that I would consider 'right up my alley'. I think I was even a card carrying member of one of them in my university days. I worked on the election campaign for said party as a high school student and have always voted for them except when Mel Hertig offered an interesting alternative in the short lived National Party of Canada in the 1993 federal election.

My dilemma comes from too much knowledge. Is that possible? I have interviewed each of my local candidates for the local paper and know that although the national leaders float my boat my choices down home do not. When I interviewed the candidates I got idiotic statements, old school statements and statements of complete ignorance of the issues. One candidate asked me what the issues were in the riding. According to the much toted vote compass being pitched by the national broadcaster, CBC, I should be voting for this guy, but I can't, no matter how much I like his leader and his party's national platform. Therein lies the problem.

Today is the first day which Canadians are able to vote in this federal election. I have been struggling with this dissonance between the federal platforms and the local candidates. I have made my decision but it is not the one I wanted to make. I don't care for the federal leader or their national platform but it won't kill me to cast this vote and my artistic license won't be taken away for voting for the dark side.

Sport, Tradition, and Women in Muay Thai

2011-04-20T11:20:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Sport as an Element of Culture

Sport, as an element of culture, has been a topic developed mainly by sociologist in the late 20th century. Studies have primarily focused on Western societies and revolved around a discourse about the role of sport in society. More recently feminist scholars have explored sport and its effect on gender relationships, female empowerment, and equality.
The body of Thai Studies literature rarely refers to sport in the context of cultural studies. Sport, in western academic literature, is clearly defined as a representation of national identity and has been analyzed accordingly. National sports are typically used to define the national character by members of the general population and serve as an indicator of cultural values. While, Muay Thai is recognized as the national sport of Thailand, it has not been included in the discourse on Thai culture by academia.
Gender studies is a major topic in the Thai Studies pantheon. Much of the coverage of gender focuses on development policies, read economics and social status. Female empowerment is the catch phrase of feminist scholars, NGOs, and international agencies working with and studying the problems of women in Thailand and South East Asia in general. No other area shows the power, potential and impediments faced by women more succinctly than sport, yet it is an undeveloped discourse.
The importance of sport based gender studies is best described by the sociologist John Horne,” Sport and the physicality embodied in sport render it a major source for the reaffirmation of gender relations…sometimes a challenge to dominant male assumptions concerning the place of sport and women’s relationship to traditional forms of sport” (1999, p.111). In what has been commonly referred to as the gender wars, sport has become a site of cultural struggle and a means of cultural resistance for women.
It is the purpose of this thesis to investigate the area of sport and its propagation from a traditional martial art form and the participation of women in sport in Thailand. For the purpose of this study I have chosen to examine the state of women in the recognized national sport of Thailand, Muay Thai. Muay Thai is a source of national pride and identity and the presence or absence of women in this fundamentally Thai activity is a telling measure of gender parity.
My exploration of Thai women in Muay Thai has lead to a literature search in the areas of socialization, religion, cultural constructions of the body, and the pollution theory proposed by the anthropologist Mary Douglas. The transition of Muay Thai from traditional martial art form to that of national sport was analyzed by the use of literature on the development of Muay Thai, international relations between Thailand and imperial powers, and the impact of globalization and modernization on the sport and Thailand in general.

1.2 Muay Thai

Muay Thai is the Thai form of martial art. It is a means of self-defense that uses all parts of the body as weapons. The history of Muay Thai is not clear but it was present during the Kingdom of Ayutthaya and the King Phra Sanphetch VIII is said to have participated in the sport. The fall of Ayutthaya in 1767 led to the export of the sport to Burma. Thai captives who were trained in Muay Thai fought at the pleasure of the Burmese monarch Mangra and were rewarded for their skill. An early textbook on Muay Thai was made during the reign of Rama III (1824-1851). After WWII more foreigners were exposed to Muay Thai and the sport became internationally known.
Muay Thai is now considered the national sport of Thailand. Some changes have been made, such as the adoption of western style boxing gloves to replace the former cotton hand bandages, now that Muay Thai is on the world stage. Muay Thai is a rite of passage for many Thai men and may be compared to entrance into the monkhood in this respect. It is the proving ground for men and boys throughout the kingdom and as one book on Muay Thai says, "…a game for the man who is proud to be a real man" ( Panya, 1999, p.244). This same text says Muay Thai is, "…a form of combat practiced by people everywhere-by children and adults, male and female" (Panya, 1999, p.15). Other then this mention of women in the sport of Muay Thai, it is clear that women are not frequently associated with the sport. In this thesis I will outline the case of Muay Thai and Thai women as actors within the ring.

1.3 Modernization in Thailand

The process of modernization in Thailand began under the the first of two well-known modernizing monarchs, King Mongkut (1851-68) and King Chuklalongkorn (1868-1910). King Mongkut is heralded as the `Father of Modern Thailand' who secured Siam's independence from Western colonialism and laid the foundations of the nation-state (Stockwell, 2000). He did so by embarking upon a policy of interaction with the western powers which included free trade treaties, land concessions, and the apppointment of foreign advisors. This strategy sought to appease the west and sponsored the selective adoption of western ideas, policies and institutions in Siam in accordance with Thai sensibilities rather than the enforcement of change by foreign rulers.
King Chulalongkorn continued in the tradition of his father and furthered the development of modernization in Thailand. He conceded territory and appointed foreign advisored, as his father had done but he took the process to another level by introducing social reforms such as the abolishment of slavery, and the wider introduction of western style education beyond the walls and blood of court and royalty. Throughout his reign, Siam was governed very much as a colony although by the soveirgn leader of the country, and was led in business and foreign relations by a western (mainly British) elite.
Thailand is ever keen to assert the historical fact that they were never colonized during the age of western imperialism in Southeast Asia. However, the country was a de facto colony administered by their own monarchs. The policies adopted by the monarchs to preserve the official sovereignty of Siam in this era led to the modernization of the kingdom. Siam was geographically situated to act as a buffer between British and French colonial interest and this as well as the rulers ability to ‘bend before the wind’ in regards to foreign policy resulted in changes in Thai society.

1.4 Gender Roles

Throughout modern history men and women have been categorized separately emphasizing the differences between the sexes to such an extent that one wonders if they are the same species. Biological differences are only the beginning. True, men and women have different physiological components but the assumptions made about the male/female dichotomy go far beyond this scientific truth. The main constructs of male/female differences are culturally fabricated. The discussion of differences between men and women is shifted from the biological sex-based differences to the sociological gender-based differences.
Boys and girls are socialized by their parents, community and school to fulfill expected gender roles. The socialization process begins at birth when a female child is wrapped in a pink blanket and the male child is wrapped in a blue one. The case in Thailand is no different than any other country in the world except instead of pink and blue blankets children are assigned gender roles in infancy by the placing of a sewing kit or writing pad and pencil respectively within the cradle (Suwadee, 2001). From the earliest time of life a Thai female is expected to play a domestic role and take care of the house and the family.
Stereotypical gender roles in Thailand have gained official sanction by the government by the promotion of slogans such as, "Men are the gates of the nation and women are the flowers" (Suwadee, 2001, p.29). The Thai government under the first reign of Prime Minister, Field Marshall Pibulsongkram in 1938 promoted this slogan. This maxim reinforced the idea that men were strong, defenders of the nation and that women were delicate, beautiful, weak and in need of protection. It became the duty of every Thai woman to look her best to help relieve the tension her strong husband endured while defending her and the country.
There is a Thai saying that men are the front legs of the elephant and women are the hind legs. Clearly this suggest the patriarchal hierarchy present in Thai society. Women are necessary to support the men but they are undervalued and unappreciated getting stuck in a most unenviable position. Where does women's Muay Thai fit into this gender stereotypical and patriarchal network? The answer is that it doesn't but women are seeking to make space for themselves in this male dominated and defined world.

1.5 Thesis Objectives

1 provide a history of the development of Muay Thai.
2 analyze the factors promoting the modernization and globalization of Muay Thai
3 lay the theoretical groundwork, which illustrates the condition of Thai women in society
4 illustrate the suppression of women in Muay Thai.
5 explore the ways and means by which society seeks to limit women's competition in the sport.
6 outline why these restrictions exist
7 discuss the motivation of women in the ring

1.6 Research Questions

1 What are the historical factors that caused the transformation of Muay Thai from a traditional Martial form to a sport?
2 How and why are women under represented in Muay Thai competition?
3 What has lead to an increase in women’s participation in competitive Muay Thai in recent years?

1.7 Research Methods

The research for this thesis was done at several locations in Thailand: Chiang Mai, Ubon Ratchathani, and Bangkok. I have pursued the strategy of participant observation in order to gain evidence to support and formulate my hypothesis. I conducted both formal and informal interviews with female and male fighters, Muay Thai coaches and Muay Thai referees.
The formal interviews were conducted with the aid of a questionnaire translated into Thai. The questionnaire posed open-ended questions, which allowed the informants to speak freely. The questionnaires were only administered to female informants and were facilitated by another female Thai informant who was a trusted member of the Muay Thai community but not herself a fighter. The questionnaire and a table of the formal interview participants’ vital statistics will be included in the appendix of the thesis.
Informal interviews were conducted at Muay Thai camps, stadiums, and competitions. I participated in camp life both as an observer and a fellow student of Muay Thai in Ubon Ratchathani and Chiang Mai respectively. I formed personal relationships with referees and coaches.
I located my female informants by conducting a telephone survey of approximately 70 Muay Thai camps through out Thailand. I had limited success in locating fighters and then resorted to a snowball sampling technique; located key individuals and asked them to name others who would be candidates for my research.
The historical review and detailed description of Muay Thais’ transformation from martial art form to sport was accomplished by reviewing documents pertaining to the history of Muay Thai and the history of Thailand in the 20th century. The process of modernization in the early part of the century and the influence of the west on Thailand is reviewed and analyzed. Research into the westernisation of sport in non-western countries was beneficial as it showed the general trend of adoption of western sport practice, ideals and games in those countries

1.8 Review of literature and Background Information

This researcher acquired data from source documents, magazines, periodicals, textbooks, web pages, newspapers, videos, television programs, and CD ROMs. The main categories examined in the review of literature are sociological and anthropological theories, history of Muay Thai, modernization inThailand, globalization of sport, Thai women, and current trends in Muay Thai.

1.9 Hypotheses

1 The transition of Muay Thai from martial art to sport is a direct result of the modernization process in Thailand from the late 1800’s to the mid-1950’s.
2 Women are dissuaded from participating in Muay Thai competition by traditional gender roles and superstitions about bodily contamination of the Muay Thai ring and boxers based in traditional culture and popular Buddhism.
3 Women’s increased participation in Muay Thai at present is fueled by the globalization of the sport and was historically a product of the industrialization process in combination with the women’s liberation movement.

1.10 Scope of Study

1 The history of Muay Thai
Modernization and globalization of the sport
2 Current female participation in Muay Thai
I limited the scope of the work to Muay Thai competitors excluding women who studied Muay Thai for self-defense or fitness purposes
3 Sociological factors inhibiting women’s participation in Muay Thai
socialization, gender roles, religion, pollution theory
4 Fieldwork conducted in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Ubon Ratchathani

1.11 Definition of Terms

Globalization –
a broad process in which markets, trade , labour relations and culture itself have attained global dimensions, that is , the forms of organizations that connect them have a global character. In the field of sport it has been the combination of the emergence of a world media system and an international sport system that has given the sports business its global character (Horne, 1999, p. 276-277).

Martial art - form of self defense using the body only as a weapon.

Muay Thai - the Thai form of martial art using all four limbs and accompanied by traditional elements such as the wai Khru and the traditional costume including the mong kon and the exclusion of any foot ware.

Popular religion - religious beliefs that do not ascribe to the canonical teachings of any given religion. May incorporate aspects of other belief systems.

Proxemics - the study of the perception and use of space by humans
Sport- Sport is an institutionalized system of competitive, delimited, codifies and conventionally governed physical practices which have the avowed aim of selecting the best competitor ( Brohm as quoted in Sleap, 1998, p. 2).

Sports are the institutionalized competitive activities that involve vigorous physical exertion or the use of relatively complex physical skills by individuals whose participation is motivated by a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors ( Coakley as quoted in Sleap, 1998, p. 2).

Sport is a physical activity that is fair, competitive, nondeviant, and that is guided by rules, organization, and/or tradition (Curry and Jiobu as quoted in Sleap, 1998, p.2).

Notes on word usage- reference to women in Muay Thai is always to be understood as Thai women unless otherwise stated.

1.12 Limitations of Study

This researcher faced limitations in both the literature review and participant observer components of the study. Language was a key limitation in both areas. Media commentary on Muay Thai in English is limited. There are several books authored or translated into English on the sport but these do not give a clear picture of Muay Thai history and rarely mention women in Muay Thai. Reference documents sited by these works are typically from Thai sources, which makes authentication difficult. Likewise television interviews and commentary on Muay Thai competitions are conducted in Thai and had to be translated or summarized in English.
Fieldwork was conducted in the Thai language with the aid of an interpreter or a taped translation following an interview. This may have caused a loss of information and a loss of other potentially profitable lines of questioning.
The limited number of women active in Muay Thai competition resulted in a paucity of research subjects. The total number of women competing in Muay Thai is difficult to ascertain and my sample of informants formed a small circle of associates. The limited size of the sample may have skewered the results of the study.

1.13 Theoretical Framework

The first part of the thesis will examine historical and traditional perspectives of Muay Thai, the path to modernization and the effects of globalization. Next I will examine the socio-cultural factors affecting women in Thailand and hence their place in Muay Thai. I’ll apply theories on socialization, gender roles, and use the body pollution theory of Mary Douglas to deconstruct the superstition that surrounds the taboo of women in the ring. Finally, I’ll examine the arrival of women in the ring and the challenges to that activity. I will examine the lives of the actual fighters, the challenges they face, their expectations and reasons for fighting etc.

1.14 Goals of Study

1Develop the academic discourse on a highly visible cultural performance in Thai society.
2 Contribute to gender studies in the Thai Studies field beyond the usual economic and development concerns.

CHAPTER II

2.1 What Is Muay Thai

Muay Thai, most simply put, is the martial art form of Thailand. According to Thai practitioners it is called the science of the eight limbs - hands, feet, elbows and knees (Panya, 1988). Outside of Thailand it is most commonly known as Thai Boxing and often the misnomer kickboxing.
Muay Thai is a method of self-defense. It uses the body as the only weapon in the art of combat. Muay Thai weapons are parts of the body, which correspond to various ancient weapons of warfare. The shinbone is likened to the staff of the pike used to both block and strike an opponent. Arms function as twin swords. Fists resemble the tip of the spear used to jab at the adversary. The elbows and knees both act as battle-axes. Finally, the feet simulate the actions of the pike, arrow, and the knife.
Muay Thai is based in an old tradition, which has been inherited from Thai ancestors. It is, in its purest form, a philosophy, science and art. Practitioners of Muay Thai undergo both physical and mental training resulting in self-discipline and self-awareness. According to Master Kimseng Taveesith, a renown teacher of Muay Thai in the reign of King Rama VI, a Muay Thai boxer should, "…behave with integrity according to the Darma, namely, to be honest, to speak only the truth, to be reliable, to behave in a moderate way by refraining from committing sins or vices”(Panya, 1999, p.C).
Muay Thai, in its current manifestation, has been described as many things not least of which is the national sport of Thailand. It is oft touted as the best system of self-defense in the world as well as being an energetic sport. Negative reactions to the frequency of blood spilling in the ring has seen it characterized as a barbarous game that should be illegal. The incessant gambling found at Muay Thai matches has lead to the sport being cited as a den of corruption. The popularity of the sport has created big business opportunities and a major tourism attraction. Finally, Thais recognize Muay Thai as a significant part of their cultural past, present and future.

2.1.1 Muay Thai History

Muay Thai has been in the process of development since time immemorial according to some adherents of the art. However, evidence for the development of Muay Thai has its earliest date in the Sukothai period from 1238 - 1377(Kat, 2001). Never static, the Thai art of unarmed combat has been refined over the centuries into the Muay Thai tradition.
The origins of Muay Thai are unclear but within the historical period it appears that its progenitor was Krabi Krabong. Krabi Krabong is the Thai method of armed combat. These two Thai martial arts were combined to create the art of Thai warfare. Muay Thai was used in turn with Krabi Krabong while in battle and used exclusively when a soldier had been disarmed during combat.
In the Sukothai period (1238 - 1377) Muay Thai was reportedly practiced at court by royalty and used to select the palace guards. It was used in combat and no special accouterments were worn, fighting was done bare-fisted. The art more fully developed in the Ayutthaya period from 1350 - 1767. During this era several of the mythic heroes of Muay Thai gained their places in Thai history including the so-called father of Muay Thai, Nai Kanom Thom. Due to the sacking of the capital city of Ayutthaya in 1767, most of the historical records about the Thai for this era come from foreign sources including the Burmese who were responsible for the destruction of the Thai capital.
According to the Chiang Mai annals in 1411 Muay Thai was used to decide the future ruler upon the death of King Sen Muang Ma. The king had two sons, Yi Kumkan and Fang Ken, who were both in contention for the thrown. After successive military battles for the crown had proved inconclusive the two brothers decided to stake their claims for the kingdom on a single Muay Thai competition. Each brother selected his own champion and it was agreed that the fighter to show first blood would be the loser. The fight was reported to have lasted several hours with both opponents appearing equally matched. Finally, Fang Ken's fighter sustained a cut on his foot and shed blood; the throne went to Yi Kumkan according to the agreement.
In the reign of King Ramathibodi II from 1491- 1529 the Thai military was restructured. In the course of this restructuring a military manual was developed, entitled The Chuppasart. The manual combined instruction on both armed and unarmed combat and influenced the development of Muay Thai.
King Naresuan the Great reigned in Ayutthaya from 1590 - 1605 and required that Muay Thai be a part of military training(“History of Muay Thai” Available From www.muaythai.com/history/index.shtml). The Burmese had taken Naresuan hostage in 1569 when he was just a boy of nine. He gained his freedom and returned to Ayutthaya in 1574 after defeating a Burmese boxer with his Muay Thai skills. Thus strengthening the future kings' loyalty to the art and the beginning of foreign exposure to the Thai art of unarmed combat.
The most famous royal supporter and participant of Muay Thai was Phra Sanpetch VIII, also more commonly known as Phra Chao Sua (The Tiger King), who ruled from 1703 -1709. During his reign all members of the military trained in Muay Thai and he himself fought in bouts. Due to the conventions of royalty at the time, touching the king was an offense punishable by execution, the king was forced to seek out fights incognito throughout his kingdom. He is known to have fought and beaten the best Muay Thai fighters the kingdom had to offer.
Next up on the historical roster of notable Muay Thai fighters is Nai Kanom Thom who later became known as the father of Muay Thai. In 1767 the Burmese took prisoner Nai Kanom Thom, a commoner, when they razed the city of Ayutthaya. Three years later in 1770 King Mangra of Burma attended a temple fair in Rangoon where many festive activities were held including Thai boxing. The King proposed a fight matching a boxer in the Thai style with one in the Burmese, which is known as Parma. Unlike Muay Thai, Parma relies mainly on the fist as its weapons. The best fighters were called upon and of the Thai prisoners Nai Kanom Tom was chosen due to his renowned skills in Muay Thai.
Nai Kanom Tom handily defeated ten of the Burmese best fighters. It must be said that as well as a different fighting style focusing mainly on the actions of the fists the Burmese were also at a disadvantage due to their attire. The Burmese fighters wore the traditional Burmese sarong, which was ankle length while the Thais wore a type of loincloth. The Thai fighter had much greater freedom of movement and a wider repertoire of movements.
King Mangra was impressed by the Thai fighter and did not spare his compliments or his royal benevolence. The King reportedly said, " Every part of this man is blessed with venom. Even empty - handed, he could defeat nine or ten opponents"(Kat, 2001, p.51). Nai Kanom Tom was granted his freedom and returned home to a heroes welcome. The legendary fight of Nai Kanom Tom was recorded in Burmese texts and is a fundamental example of the long held Thai belief that nothing can defeat Muay Thai. Muay Thai stadiums across the nation dedicate every March 17th, known as "boxer's night", to Nai Kanom Tom.
The Ayutthaya period was besotted with war and conflict. The art of Muay Thai was inevitably affected by the constant need for military training. It was during this time that the Kaad cheuk, a type of fist binding, was adopted for use in Muay Thai contest. The Kaad cheuk was made of hemp thread and was a length of about twenty meters. It was wrapped around the fighters' fist in much the same way as fighters use hand wraps today. The story of Nai Kanom Tom highlights the manner of dress of Muay Thai fighters at that time. A statue depicting the legendary "Father of Muay Thai" has the fighter wearing both the mongkon (headband) and prajied (armband). It is unknown if there is factual evidence for such a depiction of a Muay Thai fighter from this period but the mongkon is clearly part of the Muay Thai costume in the illustrations of Muay Thai fighters in the unarmed combat manual compiled under the reign of Rama III, which will be discussed below. The development of Muay Thai as a spectacle also occurred during this time as well as the practice of fighting for a purse and the custom of gambling on the outcomes of matches all of which are components of the more in depth story of the Tiger King.
The Burmese destruction of Ayutthaya in 1767 ends the Ayutthaya period and begins the Ton Buri period from 1767 - 1782 and the reign of King Taksin. In the days before King Taksin established the kingdom of Ton Buri he was Lord or Praya of Tak. While in the capacity of Praya Tak he arranged for Muay Thai competitions and was awed by a contender by the name of Tong Dee. He was so pleased by this young fighter that he conveyed upon him the lordship of a neighboring town, Kampaeng-phet. Shortly thereafter the two men went into battle against the invading Burmese. Praya Kampaeng-phet, as Tong Dee was now known, was pitted against a Burmese general when his sword broke. Despite being unarmed he killed the general using his Muay Thai skills. In the days that followed Praya Tak became King Taksin and rewarded Praya Kampaeng-phet with the lordship of his hometown, Pi-chai (Kat, 2001). From then on he was known as Praya Pi-chai Dab Hak (Lord of Pi-chai with the Broken Sword).
The last of the legendary Muay Thai heroes is Muen Plaan a royal guard in the court of Phra Phuttha Yotfa (Rama I) during the early Rattanakosin period (1782 - 1868). In 1788, two French brothers were traveling throughout Indo-China in search of prizefights. They had already defeated many opponents when they arrived to challenge the Thais. The fight purse offered by the king was set at 4000 baht and the king chose Muen Plaan to defend the honor of Siam.
The match took place on palace grounds with the king in attendance. The younger of the two French brothers was the first challenger to face Muen Plaan. He opened the fight with a powerful attack but was foiled at every assault by Muen Plaan's defensive ability. Eventually the older brother joined in the fight in an attempt to end the Muen Plaan defensive strategy. This breach of etiquette created a melee of royal guards entering the fight to aid their comrade. The Frenchmen were soon carried off and treated for their injuries by order of the king. Shortly thereafter, Muen Plaan was given that honorary rank and name by King Rama I, which means, "Knight of Destruction".

The reign of Rama III (1824 - 1851) saw the compilation of another manual of instruction in the martial art of Muay Thai. The text written on Khoi paper has many illustrations of Muay Thai techniques and poses. The fighters depicted are wearing the traditional pannung and the mongkon.
The history of Muay Thai, prior to the reign of King Chulalongkorn is difficult to authenticate. This is true for most of pre-modern Thai history. Few texts exists that can verify the numerous myths and legends associated with Muay Thai. Like many facets of Thai history, the history of Muay Thai is based on fact embroidered by oral tradition.
The reign of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V, 1868-1910) and his successor King Vajiravudh (Rama VI, 1910-1925) spanning the years 1868 - 1925 has been called both the golden age of Muay Thai and the Muay Thai renaissance and in accordance with the time divisions made thus far; the Mid-Rattanakosin period (“History of Muay Thai” Available From www.wmtc.nu). The Ton Buri and early Rattanakosin periods saw stagnation in Muay Thai innovation. The only point of interest is that, as mentioned previously, the mongkon is clearly in use.
Rama V had a great interest in Muay Thai and sponsored his subjects' participation in the art by means of Royal Command fights. Winning fighters at these events were often given military titles by the king. These titles, such as Pra Chai Choke Shok Channa (Lord Lucky-Fight-and Win), were highly respected and were a means for personal advancement in Thai society.

Rama VI was a strong promoter of the Thai martial arts in his campaign to militarize the youth of Thailand. He founded the Boy Scouts and the Wild Tigers, both of which trained in Muay Thai. In 1921, he sponsored the construction of the first boxing stadium at Suan Kularb in Bangkok. In this time of peace, Muay Thai was promoted as a means of: fitness, self-defense, recreation, martial training, and national pride. The apparel of the Muay Thai fighter is little changed during this period but the prajied is now definitely present.
I have given a brief historical account of the heroes, royal patrons, costume, and functions of Muay Thai throughout the Sukothai period down to the Mid-Rattanakosin period and here I end the historical discussion. From the 1920's onward Muay Thai, as well as Thailand in general, has been subjected to the forces of modernization. I will discuss the developments in Muay Thai from this time on under that rubric in the section of this thesis entitled Muay Thai Development in the Modern Era.

2.1.2 Muay Thai Traditions

In the art of Muay Thai aspects of traditional Thai literature and religion are found. Traditional Thai literature is mainly based on religious narratives including the ancient Indian epic the Ramayana, known in its Thai form as the Ramakian. The Ramayana, attributed to the Indian poet Valmiki, is the story of the epic struggle of Prince Rama against the demons that inhabit the domain of Langka. The abduction of the prince's wife, Sita, leads him on a voyage of conquest aided by the great monkey warrior Hanuman. The story is based in the world of Hindu gods and has been the basis of Thai traditional dance, drama, and puppetry. The influence of this story can be seen throughout Thai culture including the very title of kings; Rama.
The Ramayana epic has acquired a distinctly Thai flavor over the millennia since its creation, approximately 2000 years ago. The Ramakian version of the story has been modified to reflect Thai culture. In 1807 King Rama I wrote an account of the Ramakian that was not a translation of original Indian epic but a unequivocally Thai rendition of the tale (Hoskins, Available from http://www.mahidol.ac.th/Thailand/art/ramakian.html). The story is also represent in bas-relief at Bangkok's oldest and largest Temple complex; Wat Po next to the Grand Palace. The Ramakian is also portrayed in mural paintings in Wat Phra Keo within the grounds of the Grand Palace. These paintings were rendered in the reign of Rama III (1824 - 1851).

Characters and actions from the Ramakian are an intricate part of Muay Thai. Many of the traditional names for Muay Thai techniques are derived from the epic tale. Pra Rama Tam Gwang (Rama follows the deer), Hak Kor Erawan (breaking Erawan's neck), Mon Yan Lek (Mon supports the pillar), Bid Hang Naga (twisting the Naga's tail) and Hanuman Tawai Waen (Hanuman presents the rings) are all parts of the Muay Thai fighters repertoire of moves whose names come from scenes of the Ramakian (Panya, 1988). In addition to fight techniques, the Ramakian is reflected in the Ram Muay, the pre-fight dance ritual that will be discussed more fully in the segment detailing the rituals of Muay Thai.
The Javanese classic, Inao, has also been adapted and adopted into the Thai literary tradition. It is a romance story of a Javanese hero prince that has been known to the Thai peoples since the Ayutthaya period. The story was rewritten by Rama II in the early Rattanakosin period and has been used as a source in Thai dramas. In Muay Thai it is used, like the Ramakian, in the naming of boxing forms. Inao Taeng Kris (Inao stabs his dagger) is a term describing a defensive move used to avoid a straight punch to the face in addition to a counter measure which results in landing the fist below the opponents ribs.
Buddhism, Hinduism and Animism coalesce to form the Thai religious tradition. All three traditions are currently manifested in Muay Thai traditions, practice, and beliefs. As previously noted the influence of Thai religion can be seen in the names of the Muay Thai fighting techniques. In addition to the boxing forms related to traditional literature there is also a move called Tel Kwad Larn (Monk Follower sweeps the floor) indicating the presence of Buddhism in the Thai belief system (Panya, 1988).
Traditional religious aspects of Muay Thai are more obviously visible in the practices of body tattooing, the wearing of charms and the recitation of prayers and incantations. The belief in magic is a powerful aspect of Thai culture and a significant part of Muay Thai. Body tattoos incorporating symbols of Buddhism and written prayers were once common among Muay Thai competitors. The tattoos were inscribed by monks within Buddhist temples and offered protection to the fighter. The incantation, Gam Ban Nak Muen (Clenched fist weighing 1,000 kilograms), was frequently tattooed on the back of fighters' hands. In the present day, tattoos are rarely seen on the bodies of Muay Thai combatants.
Muay Thai fighters integrate numerous charms into their attire. These charms are believed to hold magical properties that will both protect the fighter from evil and help ensure a victorious outcome to the match. The mongkon, as noted earlier, is the headband worn by all Muay Thai fighters. At present the mongkon is removed after the Ram Muay ritual but this was not the case in the past when fights were disrupted by the need to replace a dislodged mongkon to the head of fighter(Kat, 2001, p. 70).

The mongkon is composed of either a narrow band of cloth or strands of thread woven into an oval coil about the thickness of a thumb that will fit on the head of the fighter. Within the weave of the mongkon magical letters, symbols, waahn (a type of herb) and pra-krueng (amulets) are placed. The mongkon is the property of the Muay Thai teacher and is given to the fighter for use while under his tutelage. Unsubstantiated legend also reports the use of a dried poisonous snake as the inner component of the mongkon.
The prajied is a band of woven cloth that is worn around the upper arm between the deltoid and bicep muscles. Like the mongkon, it is used to ward off danger, protect the fighter from harm and produce strength. It too contains elements believed to bring good luck and protection. The fighter may incorporate more personal items into this talisman such as his fathers' hair and /or a piece of his mothers' paa-tung (sarong) as well as pra-krueng, waahn, paa-yan (cloth with magical inscriptions) and dhagrut (bronze sheet with magical inscriptions).
The pirod is also worn around the upper arm although never worn on the same arm as the prajied. This armband made of rattan is typically worn on the less dexterous arm of the fighter. The woven rattan band is narrow and not always worn.
Small Buddhist amulets or pra-krueng are commonly used by Muay Thai fighters. They are placed within both the mongkon and the prajied. Belief in the magical powers of these Buddhist images are an intricate part of Thai culture and many Thais, other than Muay Thai fighters, incorporate them into their daily attire usually in the form of a necklace. However, it is up to discretion of the individual fighter whether or not to use pra-krueng in his accouterments whereas the mongkon and prajied must be worn. Accordingly, Thai Muslim Muay Thai fighters do not use these Buddhist accessories nor do they acquire tattoos, such as mentioned above, which is forbidden by Islamic law.(informal interview in Krabi province: Muslim Muay Thai coach)
The dhagrut is a small piece of beaten bronze or silver on which are written magical words and symbols. The metal sheet is tightly rolled while incantations are recited. A thread is placed through the scroll and tied about the waist of the fighter or within the prajied. A variant of this is the pitsamorn, which is made of palm leaf rather than metal. Again, the magic inherent in these amulets is thought to protect the fighter.
Waahn is an herb that is used by the Muay Thai fighter either within the confines of the mongkon or prajied or physically internalized through chewing the herb or drinking an infusion made from it. A fighter may also wash their bodies with the same infusion. The herbs' powers are enhanced by incantations. It is believed to increase virility and endurance.
A small piece of cloth inscribed with magical symbols is called the paa-yan. Incantations are recited while performing the process of inscription. The cloth is later incorporated into the prajied. As with all other amulets mentioned above it provides protection for the fighter and is worn during the match.
Incantations, both spoken and written, used to protect the Muay Thai fighter are based on the various religious traditions of Thailand. Buddhist incantations are used to instill magic into many of the amulets listed above as well as at the moment in the pre-fight ritual when the Muay Thai teacher removes the mongkon from the fighters' head. During the Ram Muay ritual fighters' may recite incantations invoking the name of Hanuman, the great monkey warrior from the epic Ramakian. Furthermore, some fighters may recite prayers before walking up the steps leading to the ring. As mention previously, incantations may also be tattooed on the body of the fighter.
The traditions of Muay Thai are implicitly linked to the religious life of the Thais. Muay Thai techniques derive their names from traditional Thai literature, which is based on religious narratives. The magical charms used by fighters for protection and success in the ring are imbued with magic through the use of mystical incantations based in the traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism. Believe in the magical properties of such items as the hair of one's father is rooted in animism. Tattooing, a practice now gone out of fashion for most fighters, is performed by Buddhist monks who are versed in the Brahmin tradition. Religious practices, such as these, are an essential part of the Muay Thai tradition.

2.1.3 Muay Thai Rituals

The many rituals of Muay Thai are based around a display of respect to the teacher or Khru Muay. The main category of these rituals falls under the general heading of Wai Khru of which there are four types: Yok Khru (trainee initiation), Wai Khru Prajam Pee (yearly homage), Krob Khru (teacher initiation), and Wai Khru Ram Muay (dance of homage). Wai Khru is an ancient tradition of the Thai culture, which embodies the concept that all teachers should be treated with great respect.
The Yok Khru ritual is when a teacher has accepted a prospective student. The students may have already undergone an apprenticeship period lasting a period of several months to several years in order to convince the teacher that they are a worthy student. This practice of long apprenticeship before fighter initiation has mostly vanished in the era of modernization.
The Yok Khru ritual consists of a formal request made by the student to the teacher seeking permission to become his pupil. The ritual is generally held on a Thursday, which is traditionally considered teachers' day or Wan Khru. The student offers symbols of respect to the teacher, which may include flowers, incense, candles, and money. The teacher then officially accepts the student into his care and the student pledges his duty towards the teacher in the following speech:
We have come today to worship the teacher and solemnly promise the teacher to be your honest disciples. We respect you and have complete trust in you. We will treasure all traditions, rules and everything we will learn from you. We will make your style and techniques our own. We will never think, say, or do anything that could harm the reputation of the teacher, our camp, and our mates. We swear that our words are honest and to be kept forever. Earth, heaven, and the four directions are our witnesses. We beg you to protect us always. With our bodies, our souls, and our words, we surrender to you and obey you as your disciples with the highest respect. Thus, we beg you to teach everything you know, to help us succeed, to protect us from dangers and to bless us with love and happiness, forever (Stockmann, 1979, p.22).

The students are now officially part of a Muay Thai family. They regard their teachers as their parent and the other fighters in the camp as their siblings. Life revolves around the camp and the fighter acquires a new identity including a new name assigned by the Khru Muay.
Wai Khru Prajam Pee is a traditional ceremony observed yearly throughout Thailand wherever learning occurs. According to the traditions of Muay Thai, this annual homage paying usually takes place on March 17th. A gathering of teachers and students is held and an offering of tradition symbols of respect is given to teachers of the past. Then students honor the teachers who are present and receive a sacred mark on their foreheads inscribed by the teachers with powder. Finally, all students perform a dance of homage and sacred vows are taken by all those in attendance.
The teacher initiation ceremony or Krob Khru occurs when students have acquired the necessary knowledge to become teachers themselves; the existing Khru Muay assesses this. The incoming teachers offer the traditional symbols of respect to their teachers and then are officially proclaimed Khru Muay in the following manner. The Khru Muay recites this speech while the fighters kneel before them in a position of respect known as the panom mue wai (hands in prayer positioned at chest, bent at waist:
Today is a propitious day, and this hour of good omen. You have proved yourself to be a person of virtue and knowledge, skilled in the art of Nuay Thai, to the extent that you are now worthy of becoming a teacher yourself. I therefore appoint you a newly-created Muay Thai teacher at this Krob Khru ceremony, capable of instructing others in this noble art. Always remember your duty to preserve the traditions and the art of Muay Thai. Be a person of good conduct and apply your knowledge and abilities in such a way as to benefit both yourself and the community(Kat, 2001, p.84).

Upon completion of this recital the fighters respond with their own speeches pledging to uphold the legacy of Muay Thai, the obligations to ones' teacher and the honor of their new position as Khru Muay. A mongkon is then placed upon the supplicants' head and the tradition dance of homage is performed. In the final step of the ceremony, the teacher gives the student the mongkon after the student has once more performed the panom mue wai and prostrated three times at the feet of their teacher.
The Wai Khru Ram Muay is part of all Muay Thai fighters' pre-fight rituals. The intention of this ritual is to honor ones' teacher, opponent and fight spectators. In addition to these purposes, the Ram Muay also helps the fighter concentrate on Muay Thai skills, serves as a warm up exercise, and demonstrates the graceful control of body and mind inherent in the traditions of both Muay Thai and the national religion Buddhism. In the past, the Ram Muay was used to indicate the origins of the boxer as each Muay Thai camp had its' own distinct style.
Prior to the commencement of the Ram Muay, the mongkon is placed on the head of the boxer by the teacher and then the fighter proceeds to the center of the ring where both opponents kneel and prostrate themselves three times. These prostrations or Kraab are in dedication to the popular nationalistic triad of country, king and religion. According to earlier texts, the Kraab was dedicated to the Lord Buddha, Dhamma, and teachers including parents, Kru Muay and the Kings of Thailand.

The Ram Muay or dance of homage has many variations and styles. The many movements and positions incorporated into the dance are named according to literary and cultural traditions of Thailand. The Wai Khru in the Pra Ram Gwang (Rama follows the deer) style is based on the Ramakian epic. The fighter portrays the god Rama in his hunt for Ma Reet, a fictitious deer. Yet another form of the Wai Khru is the Hong Hern (swans' flight) movement, which mimics the graceful motion of a soaring swan. There is also the Wai Khru in the Royal Salute movement, which may include positions attributed to the unfurling of a peacock tail, Narai throwing a disc and homage to mother earth.

2.2 Development In The Modern Era

Muay Thai has been in a constant state of development since the earliest days of unarmed combat. It was not until the middle of the last millenium that Muay Thai was a recognizable art form. Changes to the art of Muay Thai have been the most dramatic in the last century, which constitutes the modern era in Thailand.
The physical transformation of Muay Thai affects the equipment a fighter uses both in matches and training, the rules and regulations of the bouts, the area in which a fight is staged, and the training methods at Muay Thai camps. The modern Muay Thai fighter wears satin shorts (often emblazoned with the camp name or a sponsoring company such as M-150), boxing gloves, inner hand wraps, mouth guard, groin protector, ankle supports (worn at personal discretion), mongkon, and the prajied. In addition to this there is also the costume of the amateur Muay Thai fighter, a category of boxer which didn't exist prior to the modern period. The amateur fighter wears, in addition to all of the above accoutrements, a head guard, vest, elbow guards, shin guards, and a heavily padded body protector. Of all of these, the only recognizable portion of the traditional Muay Thai outfit is the mongkon and prajied. In the past these plus the kaad cheuk, paa nung and a groin guard fashioned from a sea shell or tree bark made up the attire of the Muay Thai fighter.
Changes to the Muay Thai attire, like most of the transformations of Muay Thai in the modern era, occurred in the inter war period during the 1920's and 1930's. In 1926 the ring death of Jia Kaengkhmen at Suan Muay Gularb provoked the introduction of boxing gloves in Muay Thai competitions(Kat, 2001). The shift from kaad cheuk to gloves was not instantaneous and took more than a decade to completely implement. It should be noted that in Britain gloves were first used in the mid-1700s but not officially mentioned in British boxing rules until 1865 in what is known as the ‘Queensbury rules’ thus demonstrating the long process of modernization of the sport of boxing in the west (Dunning, 1999).
In 1929 a metal groin guard replaced the traditional groin protection offered by sea shells and tree bark (Kat, 2001, p. 42). The gra-jap, as it is known in Thai, was imported from Singapore. Muay Thai fighters readily adopted the gra-jap due to its' safety.
By the 1930's Muay Thai fighters' were wearing western style boxing trunks during competitions. In 1937 the Department of Physical Education promulgated the official rules of Muay Thai, which included the dress code of fighters. Boxing shorts, boxing gloves, and groin protectors are included within the dress regulations as well as the traditional mongkon.
Prior to the 1920's there were few official rules governing Muay Thai. Muay Thai matches had no time limits, no weight classes, no rings, and no professional and amateur designations. When Muay Thai changed from a martial arts exercise to a contest held before a crowd of spectators, presumably during the reign of the Tiger King according to historical accounts, competitions were held in the open on the bare earth. The first permanent Muay Thai arena was opened at the Suan Gularb School in 1920, which later housed the first elevated and roped Muay Thai ring.
In the 1930's at the Suan Sanuk Muay Thai arena the modern boxing ring was created. Cloth covered the floor of the ring whereas the floor of the Suan Gularb ring was made of wooden boards covered by bamboo mats. Three parallel ropes surrounded the ring and the corner colors were standardized to red and blue.
Rudimentary time limits were placed on Muay Thai matches prior to the modern era. Fights were divided into rounds but the number of rounds was not predetermined. The length of a round was determined by an ingenious time keeping method utilizing a coconut. A coconut, with a puncture in the bottom, was placed in a jar of water. The water entered the coconut and the round was over when the coconut was submerged. Obviously, the time of rounds would vary from fight to fight due to the inability to standardize both the coconut size and the puncture dimensions. In the 1930's, when Muay Thai competitions began to employ standards, modern timepieces did the time keeping.
Weight divisions were first introduced to Muay Thai in 1928. It was not until 1950 that a fully developed ranking system with eight weight divisions was implemented. This system of divisions was developed with the assistance of an American GI stationed in the Philippines, one Major General Sullivan (Stockmann, 1979). Currently there are nineteen weight divisions ranging from mini fly weight at 47.62 Kg. (105 pounds.) to super heavy weight at 95 Kg. (209 pounds.) and upwards. Thai fighters are mainly confined within the first eight of these divisions.
These specifications as well as the addition of an official timekeeper, score keeper, and fight penalties met the international standards of western boxing according to Queensbury rules. Many older Muay Thai devotees cite the adherence to international boxing standards as the death of the traditional Thai martial art form. In the past a fighter had to face all opponents no matter the size and they trained accordingly. The addition of timed rounds is also blamed for weakening the skills and endurance of the fighter. According to international rules, many of the tactics used by Muay Thai fighters were banned. Old style Muay Thai is reported to have 108 basic techniques, more modern accounts convey a total of 60 major attack moves, yet another modern source refers to only five punches, four elbow attacks, three knee kicks, and five foot techniques (Stockmann, 1979).
The training methods used to produce Muay Thai fighters have changed over the last century due to the introduction of western products, technology, and terminology. In the years before modernization influenced Thailand and the martial art of her people one of the key pieces of Muay Thai training equipment was the banana tree. This abundant natural resource was the precursor of the punching bag. Fighters forged their kicking and punching skills against the banana stalk. Lemons were hung from trees so the fighter could practice hitting and kicking a small moving target. Small logs were rolled across the shins to increase their strength. Jumping in and out of pits enhanced leg muscles and cardiac endurance. Coconuts floating in water were used for punching practice increasing the fighters' ability to hit a moving target. In the presence of modern training equipment, these techniques have gone out of use.
The 1920's and '30's was witness to the death of the training techniques listed above. Muay Thai gyms developed training methods based on the western form of exercise using weights, punch bags and balls. At present, most Muay Thai gyms are equipt with skipping ropes, boxing gloves, punching bags, speed balls, weight-lifting equipment, and mirrors to practice shadow boxing.
Western technology and terminology has replaced the old techniques and vocabulary in Muay Thai training. As previously mentioned, fight rounds became standardized with the use of clocks. In modern training sessions stopwatches are used to time bouts and exercise routines. The nomenclature of Muay Thai techniques based in traditional Thai literature and religion has been replaced by terms adopted from international boxing.
On the social front, Muay Thai has been transformed from the sport of kings to the domain of the poor peasant. Throughout the history of Muay Thai, it was an activity that was both participated in and observed by kings. Heroes and kingdoms were made by prowess in the art of Muay Thai. The accomplished fighter could obtain noble titles and promotion within the court. Fighters could use their abilities to gain social status in the hierarchical social structure of Thai culture. In the modern era the background of the participants changed and the social status of the Muay Thai fighter fell drastically. Muay Thai is no longer actively practiced by kings or members of royalty. Generally speaking, most modern day Muay Thai fighters come from poor rural families at the bottom of the social ladder. The process of modernization has changed Thai peoples' attitude towards work i.e.: physical labor. Many Thais feel that to accomplish work by means of mental rather than physical exertion is preferable and worthy of increased social status. The Muay Thai fighter is the embodiment of physical labor; a life ruled by a rigorous physical training schedule and pay for physical combat. Thus, the combination of family background and current perceptions about physical labor in Thai society has reduced the social standing of Muay Thai fighters. Again it should be noted that this is very similar to the British experience where boxing was once the practice of the educated elite of Oxford and aristocratic gentlemen in general and now is the domain of the lower classes (Dunning, 1999).
In addition to social and physical changes to Muay Thai in the modern era, the art was further transformed into a sport by the process of commercialization. The opening of Ratchadamnoen Stadium in 1945 was the first phase of Muay Thai commercialization. The stadium could house large numbers of paying spectators, which increased the drive for ticket sales. Large crowds meant bigger fight purses and an increase in the business of fight promotions. In 1955 the stadium hosted the first televised Muay Thai bout. In subsequent years marketing of consumer products within the stadium, in the ring and on the fighters has become common place. Thai television stations carry broadcasts from Ratchadamnoen and Lumpini (opened in 1956) Stadiums. Big companies such as Caltex and the M-150 sports drink manufacturer currently sponsor these weekly programs. Food vendors, fight program hawkers, and various other economic activities surround and are supported by the stadiums.
When Muay Thai entered the big stadiums of Bangkok another traditional Thai pastime followed: gambling. The economic spin-offs of major Muay Thai competitions were further fueled by the prevalence of gamblers at the matches. Gambling has helped shape the sport of Muay Thai due to the practice of betting not only on the outcome of a match but also on the ability of a fighter to perform certain moves. The fighter is often offered a stake in the winnings for executing specified techniques during a fight. Muay Thai traditionalists cite gambling as having a negative impact on Muay Thai that reduces fighters' skills and discredits the sport due to accusations of corruption.
In the 1970's there was a resurgence of interest in Muay Thai throughout Thailand and the world. The Tourism Organization of Thailand and some independent Muay Thai associations began a drive to promote Muay Thai overseas. They distributed films and sent demonstration teams to countries in Asia, Europe and the United States. Thais petitioned to have Muay Thai as an exhibition sport at the 1976 Olympic games in Montreal, Canada but they were refused. Exhibition bouts between Muay Thai and other martial art styles such as Karate and Kung Fu were popular and helped raise the profile of Muay Thai internationally. The overwhelming popularity of Bruce Lee Kung Fu movies in the West increased the interest of westerners in all forms of Asian martial arts including Muay Thai. Finally, the presence of American service men in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War was an impetus to the increase in popularity of Muay Thai in the United States.
The U.S. policy of containment of the communist threat through out the cold war created a co-dependant relationship with Thailand, which resulted in the U.S. having strong influence over Thailand’s’ defense policy and resources. The Indochinese conflict resulting in the Vietnam War brought thousand of U.S. servicemen to Thailand in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. These servicemen were accompanied by U.S. dollars smoothing the way for U.S. troop deployment, establishment of bases and the designation of certain areas of Thailand as R&R destination for U.S. forces. In 1969 there were 48,000 American troops in Thailand (Corrine, 1984, p.36).
Stockmann (1979) gives several examples of American serviceman’s involvement and interest in Muay Thai. Servicemen were keen spectators at Muay Thai matches. They also took up the challenge to learn the art and some such as Dale Kvalheim, became well known and had great success in the ring. The sport became popular enough to sponsor the establishment of the USA Kickboxing Association in 1971 (Stockmann, 1979, p.13).
At the time of writing, there appears to be another Muay Thai renaissance. Muay Thai fights are broadcast several nights a week from Lumpini and Ratchadamnoen stadiums on local television stations as well as on cable sports channels. The cable broadcast includes English as well as Thai color commentary. There are thousands of Muay Thai training facilities in the country that forge tens of thousands of fighters. According to a recent survey there are 20,000 Muay Thai training camps in 98 countries across the globe (Nation 2/08/01). The World Wide Web is rife with sites dedicated to Muay Thai from camps and aficionados around the world. It has even reached my small home village in an isolated region of eastern Canada via satellite television.
In the push to gain global recognition and participation Muay Thai has embraced standardization and international competition. Foreign-trained Muay Thai fighters often travel to Thailand to train in the homeland of the sport and experience the Muay Thai tradition first hand. Although foreign fighters may excel in the skills and grace required in Muay Thai, it is more difficult for them to learn and accept the magic and religious aspects that are inherent in the Muay Thai tradition.

2.2.1 Modernization and Globalization

Muay Thai has undergone significant changes in the modern era. These changes are due to the influences of modernization and globalization, which have transformed Muay Thai from a traditional martial art to a sport. This vocabulary, modern, traditional, modernization and globalization, is frequently used but often misunderstood in regards to its' actual meaning and impact on society. Following is a brief definition of these terms as I use them in this instance.
The modern era in Thailand began under Kings Mongkut and Chulalongkorn. They are both well known and widely recognized as the modernizing monarchs of Thailand. Modernization as defined by C.E. Black is,"…the process by which historically evolved institutions are adopted to the rapidly changing functions that reflect the unprecedented increase in man's knowledge , permitting control over his environment, that accompanied the scientific revolution" ( Black, 1966, p.7). The scientific revolution and subsequent modernization was initially a European phenomenon that was exported to the rest of the world through colonialism. The sportization of many folk games in Europe occurred with the rise of industrialization. Thailand, though never colonized, pursued modernization and industrialization of its' own accord and sport developed in much the same way it had in Europe under similar industrial conditions.
The traditional is often only defined in contrast to the modern. It is frequently used in a negative manner indicating, static, unimaginative, rigid, and backwards thinking. In truth traditional societies are as dynamic as modern societies, the difference lies in the technology available. However, the pejorative reputation of traditionalists is due to their own incognizance of transformations inherent in the ancient practices that they claim to uphold.
Globalization is a process of economic integration on a worldwide scale that has implications for political and social aspects of life. Ever since Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase "The Global Village" in the 1960's, the implications of integrated markets and global communications have come under increased scrutiny. In recent years there have been large scale anti-globalization protests at various world trade meetings and it has been invariably blamed for events such as the 1997 economic crisis in Thailand. The globalization trend is also responsible for bringing cultures into contact. This leads to cultural exchange and development on a scale unprecedented in human history.
The terms globalization and modernization have both been additionally defined as westernization, americanization, and neo-liberalism. These expressions are politically loaded and I choose not to use them in this discussion. Thailand has been influenced by America and the West but it has also been shaped by its' Asian neighbors and regional powers such as Japan and China.
The modernization of Muay Thai occurred in the inter war period during the 1920's and 1930's. New technologies were introduced to the art which aided in its' transformation into a sport. More important than the technologies introduced was the introduction of the scientific principle of standardization. Muay Thai standards did not exist prior to this period and they were imported from abroad as a pre-existing set of rules and regulations used by western style boxing.
The standardization of Muay Thai created changes in the techniques and training styles of fighters. The Thai government, in accordance with international codes, promulgated these changes in an effort to establish Thailand's reputation as a modern country. The brutalities of traditional Muay Thai fighting as well as other Thai customs such as the practice of chewing betel nut were deemed unpalatable to western cultures. In the late 1800's and early 1900's modern was equated with western and was unquestionably desirable. The modernization process had its' greatest impact on the transformation of Muay Thai from tradition to sport in this early period of the modern era.
Muay Thai has undergone two phases of globalization, the first during the 1970's and the second from the late 1990's to the present. The first phase of globalization was due in large part to the cold war and the resulting hot war in Vietnam, which engaged U.S. troops who were stationed here in Thailand during the conflict. Many American servicemen became interested in Muay Thai while living in Thailand. Some of them trained in the country and subsequently brought the sport home to the U.S.
The 1970's witnessed an increased interest in martial arts in light of the immensely popular kung fu films of Bruce Lee. Muay Thai was promoted throughout Asia and the West in order to take advantage of this global cultural exchange. Fighters from the martial arts traditions of China, Korea and Japan all took part in matches against Muay Thai fighters. These "Battle of the Styles" were popular spectator events that generally supported the claim of Thais that no other martial art could triumph over Muay Thai.
Thais sought to popularize Muay Thai internationally in order to capture foreign currency, increase the international standing, popularity, and renown of Thailand. The globalization of economies influenced the commercialization of Muay Thai. The overseas promotion of the sport was expected to bring in foreign tourist and boost the profile of Thailand on the world stage. As noted by Hargreaves .” political elites in the constituent states of the new world order have, for some considerable time, tended to intervene in and to promote sport as an important instrument for the creation of a sense of national identity and as a way of enhancing their state-nation’s prestige and influence internationally” (2002, p.32).
The local resurgence of Muay Thai popularity during the 1970's may also be linked to a feature of globalization. The process of globalization includes the opening of boarders and may result in undermining national sovereignty. Some Thais viewed the presence of American troops in Thailand as an assault on the sovereignty of the nation. The renewed interest in Muay Thai may have been a reaction to this feeling of disenfranchisement. Once again Hargreaves notes that it is,”…clear that the transformation of nation-based sport into globalised sport may help strimulate national sentiment and provide a rallying point around which it can be reinforced and reconstructed… (2002, p.33). National pride in the sport of kings, which could not be beaten, may have been the bandage over the wounded Thai self-esteem.
In the late 1990's the term globalization took on a negative connotation and was viewed as a disastrous process, which destroyed economies and cultures. The sport of Muay Thai has a schizophrenic point of view concerning the effects of globalization; some people criticize the loss of Muay Thai traditions due to global influences on the sport while others actively promote Muay Thai in overseas markets. In many minds the cultural exchange has become a battle to maintain Thai supremacy in the national sport. It is exported as a cultural industry of Thailand and is an important source of tourism revenue.

2.2.2 Consequences of Modernization and Globalization

The shift in Muay Thai from tradition to sport was a result of the processes of modernization and globalization. The effects of this shift has changed Muay Thai into an economic activity for all those involved in the sport, spectators, promoters, teachers and fighters. It has become a means of escape from the gripping poverty in rural areas, which is itself, a symptom of the modernization process.
The drive towards modernization in the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s led to the standardization of Muay Thai during the inter war years. The standards introduced changed Muay Thai into a sport with rules and regulations instead of a martial art, which conformed only to the needs of the combat situation. Standardization and modern technology resulted n the loss of many techniques and training methods that were traditionally used in the art of Muay Thai.
According to Sage, sporting practices that have long existed in national cultures and communities are no longer isolated from global changes. They, too, have become an integral part of the globalised economic and cultural world, and widening global interdependency is profoundly influencing traditional sports practices and values” (2002, p. 226). The process of globalization opened Thailand to the world and spread Muay Thai overseas. Muay Thai became part of the new cultural industry, which commercialized Thai culture in an effort to capture foreign capital and recognition. The sport was promoted as a tourist attraction and was modified to suit western taste.
Muay Thai grew locally, within Thailand, partly as a nationalistic backlash against the forces of globalization. Local interest increased the commercial benefits of the sport resulting in corporate sponsorship of matches, increased purse prizes, and gambling. At present, Muay Thai is marketed as a cultural product in the global marketplace, promoted abroad as the only unbeatable martial art form, and cherished at home as the sport of kings.

CHAPTER III

3.1 Body, Buddhism and Socialization

Body, Buddhism and the process of socialization of Thai women are the key themes of this chapter. Theories of the body are highly relevant to Thai society, which is so noticeably concerned with the physical bodies of its citizens. Body theorems are currently en vogue among the sociological and anthropological set of scholars, which has created a plethora of theories that one may apply to any and all cultures. In this chapter I will give a brief summary of key theories of the body that help to illustrate the Thai construct of the social body.
Popular Thai Buddhism in general, maps the body and the Thai worldview. I use this term 'popular' to indicate that the Thai practice of Buddhism is intertwined with other spiritual traditions linked to Brahmanism and animism. Buddhism is a religious tradition that is greatly influenced by thoughts on and about the body. This chapter will examine the Buddhist worldview of the body and the view of the female body in particular.
The aim of this survey of body theorems and popular Thai Buddhism is twofold: to apply the fundamental elements of the bodily pollution theory promulgated by anthropologist Mary Douglas and to assess the implications the consequent worldview has on women in the sport of Muay Thai, otherwise known as Thai boxing. It is my contention that the Buddhist preoccupation with the body and its fear of bodily contamination relates directly to the restrictions placed on female Muay Thai competitors.
The issue of gender and Thai women has become of particular interest in the area of Thai studies in recent years. Books, seminars and numerous papers have been written on the position and role of Thai women in the areas of economy, politics and the family but what has come to light is that the issue of gender is the overriding factor that determines women’s access and treatment in these various spheres. In the latter half of this chapter I discuss the agents of socialization for Thai women and furthermore to postulate that in the move towards modernization the focus of socialization has shifted from the family onto the peer group.
It is here that I wish to define the key terms in the above paragraph: Socialization and Gender. Socialization is the learning process that transmits cultural content to the individual, which facilitates their successful interaction within the society. It is a process that starts at birth and continues until death. However, the most important years within the process occur during childhood and early adolescence. The agents of socialization include parents, peers, teachers, institutions such as organized religion, media and popular culture including games, folktales and literature. Gender is more ambiguously defined as many people do not make the distinction between it and biological sex. In the past, phenomenon that are now ascribed to gender were called sex-roles. At present there is a consensus among scholars on gender that it connotes the psychological aspects of behavior exhibited by the sexes. For the purpose of this thesis I define gender as a cultural construct related to biological sex representing a dichotomy of social and psychological behaviors.

3.2 Body and Buddhism

Thai society has high levels of awareness about the body and it's relation to other bodies within the society. Embodied displays of submission support societal norms of hierarchy and patriarchy. Social restraints on the body apply to men and women but there are many more restrictions placed on females. The over regulation of female bodies, the space they occupy, and the actions they perform contribute to sustaining the status quo of male dominance.
The wai is the standard greeting of the Thais. It should not be equated to the western custom of the handshake as there are rules governing the initiation, position, and return of this gesture. These rules relate to the social status of the actors. Following the rules of the wai reinforces the social structure by means of a purely physical act, which ritualizes submission to the hierarchy.
The Thais emphasize the significance of the head and feet as polar opposites of the body. The head is the top of the body and the residence of the khwan or spiritual essence. It is taboo among the Thais to touch the head of another. The khwan concept is superimposed upon other entities such as houses and villages. I believe it is also linked to the Muay Thai ring, which leads to the restriction placed on women by which they must enter the ring under the ropes rather than over them as men do (to be discussed more fully in the section dealing directly with Muay Thai).
The feet, as opposed to the head, are the least sacred part of the body. Use of the feet for a purpose other than walking is frowned upon. Feet should not be used to point at an object or person. They should not be used to push or hold objects such as doors. People must be conscious of the position of their feet while sitting so as not to unintentionally point them towards another person or sacred image such as the Buddha image or King. This brief litany on the feet exposes the body awareness necessary to all Thais in order to conform to societal precepts.
In addition to the previously mentioned bodily sanctions, women must conform to other proscriptions governing their bodies. There are restrictions on the physical space that women may occupy. Women must avoid contact with monks. While both monks and women act to uphold this precept the system of hierarchy places the burden more fully on women, as they should make way for the monks. This has implications for women whenever they leave their own homes, as they must be conscious of a monk's presence and proximity.
The study of proxemics suggests that power, status and physical space are entwined. The amount of space allocated to individuals designates who is important and who has privilege. In the Thais social context it is clear that women have less power as it is mens' territory not womens' territory that is respected. In addition to the proximity of monks, women are also restricted from some areas within the temple grounds due to the presence of Buddhist relics. This restriction is based on the argument that women may pollute and detract from the mystical power of the artifacts. The concept of body pollution will be further discussed below; at this point it is noted as the underlying cause restricting the space that a womens' body may occupy.

3.2.1 Theories of the Body

"I think therefore I am" is the quintessential phrase that expressed early theories about the body. Rene Descartes, to whom these words are attributed, believed that his mind and not his body defined him. Cartesian thought separated the mind and body implying that the body was just the house of the mind. The body, according to this idea did not influence the development of the mind. In the following centuries since Descartes espoused this idea there has been such a paradigm shift that some suggest that the body constitutes the self. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. New analysis of the body has shown that the physical self affects the mental self as well as vice versa. In the following paragraphs, I will detail some theories of the body which relate to Thai society in general and the situation of women in Muay Thai in particular.
The naturalistic concept purports that the body is the biological base on which the superstructure of society is organized. The capabilities and constraints of the body define the individual and generate the social, political, and economic relations between members of society. This view justifies the inequalities that are found within societies, which are often based on biological sex, race, and class. Such conceptions of the body are often used to justify the exclusion of women from various realms of activity including education, politics and sports. Gender inequality is cited as a direct result of females' weak and unstable bodies.
The implied weakness of the female body relates to early models of the human body, which were based on the male form. When bodies were first studied female anatomy corresponded with male anatomy and was described as a gradient of the male form. An example of this was the likening of the female clitoris to an underdeveloped penis. By the 19th century the female body became a polar opposite to the male body. Differences were emphasized and similarities not discussed. The female body was open to penetration and great expulsions either during childbirth or monthly menstruation. The weakness of such an open system with unprotected boarders seemed self-evident to many scholars of the time (Shilling, 1993). Menstruation was dubbed the eternal wound, which corresponded well with the weak women discourse.
The physical inferiority of the female body constructed by the naturalistic conception of the body was strengthened by the actions of women themselves. Many women who limited their actions according to what society deemed appropriate internalized the message of the weak woman discourse. This reaction was generally confined to the upper levels of society where women were at their leisure. The "physically inferior woman" in lower levels of society was too busy performing manual labor in industry and agriculture to be concerned with such social constructs.
Women may have helped promulgate this idea of the weaker sex in order to escape certain duties and obligations. Cases of the weaker sex argument are used to this day as any physical education teacher can attest; female students often use their menstruation as a ticket out of class. With this in mind, one must begin to question if it is the biology that creates this so-called weakness or is it actually the societies' compliance to the idea of weakness that shapes the physical body of the sex. Such questioning is answered by the social construction theory of the body.
Social constructionists conceptualize the body as the outcome of social forces, which act on and form the incomplete body. From the first breathe of life, and now with pre-natal sex determination even before, the body is culturally mapped according to gender, race, and class. Bodies are developed in ways that are seen to have value in social fields (Shilling, 1993). In Thailand this is clearly defined in terms of the male/female polarity cultivating boxers and beauty queens respectively.
The body is at the center of the nature/culture, biology/society debate. The two previous body theories are representative of these opposing views. A middle path between these two concepts is more comprehensive. The body is formed both by it's natural biological state and transformed and molded as it grows by the social forces exerted on it.
The gendered body concept promulgated by R. Connell, is useful in understanding the development of current male and female body forms and actions. He emphasizes that societies exaggerate the differences between male and female bodies. Furthermore, men and women are scripted by socialization to fulfill these bodily expectations. The idea of gender difference is embodied and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Gender training creates women who are weaker and less capable in the sporting arena.
The concept of the commoditized body in the age of capitalism and modernization explain the overwhelming concern of modern people with body image. In Thailand the shift from an agrarian based economy to that of a market-based economy has led to a shift in ideal body image. The influence of the capitalist economy has created new bodily norms often shaped by marketing. The ideal shape for the male body has become increasingly muscular and that of the female body has become increasingly thin. The new economy and the progression of women into important roles within the public sphere has led men to redefine themselves in terms of their physical appearance. The hyper-musculature that can be achieved by men is rarely physically attainable by women (due to lack of time for physical development caused by the double burden of women in regards to work inside and outside of the home). Furthermore, muscle in women is socially undesirable and few women challenge the social norm.
The body has become a source of physical capital. The body can be used to transform physical shape, size and ability into economic gain. For men there are more opportunities to translate physical capital into other forms. Men may participate in many forms of manual labour and a wide range of sporting activities for which they receive direct payment or generate social networks, which can later be translated into economic gains. Women's physical capital is less likely to be transformed into other sources of capital and is often controlled by their male relatives.
In Thailand male physical capital can be translated into great economic gain in the area of sports in particular Muay Thai. Thai women frequently translate their physical capital into economic gain through beauty contest and prostitution. The difference being that men actively work to develop their bodies and women passively keep their bodies and add to their marketability by applying work to the body's surface rather than transforming it internally.
Thai society is highly conscious of the body and how it interacts and interprets social values, hence these theories of the body have great relevance to the discourse on Thai culture. All of these ideas go some way towards deconstructing the superstitions and traditions, which limit women's participation in competitive Muay Thai. I will discuss these points further after a brief discussion of the popular religion in Thailand, which also factors into the limitations equation.

3.2.2 Popular Religion in Thailand

According to government statistics, over 95% of Thai citizens are Buddhist. However, Buddhism is supplemented by elements of Hinduism and animism, which constitute the popular religion of the country. These three religious traditions fill different roles in the spiritual lives of Thai people. Buddhism serves the social formation through the Sangha and the mutual dependence of the monks and the laity. Animism has a therapeutic function for the people's day to day lives rooted in this earthly realm. Brahminism is used in court rituals creating a supernatural aura around the King. Many Thai Buddhist incorporate these religious traditions into their spiritual lives as Buddhist temples themselves often do. Some temples contain urns of holy water, fortune telling, and monks who perform tattooing in the Brahmanistic tradition none of which are part of canonical Buddhism.
Buddhism is a philosophy that was promulgated as a reaction to Hinduism in ancient India. It has since been adopted as a religion in many regions of Asia although its' popularity in the area of its' inception is notably the lowest in the area. The Thai people adopted the Theravada tradition of Buddhism, which is also known as the way of the elders. It is distinguished from the Mahayana tradition or that of "the great vehicle" by its' use of Pali rather then Sanskrit language and it's focus on the original teachings of the Buddha as handed down from the first elders. It is also more focused on the individuals responsibility towards the ascertainment of spiritual enlightenment rather than the more altruistic goals of Mahayana Buddhism. Both traditions are based on the doctrine of the four noble truths:
All life is suffering (Dukkha)
Suffering is caused by desire (Tanha)
The cessation of dukkha
The way leading to cessation of dukkha is the Noble Eightfold Path, which consist of:
Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration (Titmuss, 1999).

3.2.3 Buddhism and the Body

The Buddhist tradition is strongly focused on the body. Therevada Buddhism, which is the form practiced in Thailand, focuses on individual detachment from worldly concerns. The physical body is often the focus of this detachment and a common source of revulsion in the Buddhist world view as evidenced by this quote from the Therigatha, a text that is part of the Pali canonical scriptures attributed to female followers of the Dhamma, verses 466-471:
Why should I cling to this foul body, impure, smelling of urine, a frightful water bag of corpses, always flowing, full of impure substances? The body is soon carried out to the cemetery, devoid of consciousness; it is thrown away like a log by disgusted relatives. If anyone were dissecting it, were to make the inside outside, even one's own mother would be disgusted, being unable to bear the smell (Hanegraaff & Kloppenborg, 1995, 168).

One must learn that the body is impermanent and that desire is linked to the body of oneself and others. According to a translation from Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu of the Kayagata-sati Sutta in the Majjhima Nikaya subsection of the Tipitaka (Pali language text that forms the doctrine of Theravada Buddhism) a monk develops mindfulness immersed in the body in the following manner:
"…if he were to see a corpse cast away in a charnel ground, picked at by crows, vultures, & hawks, by dogs, hyenas, & various other creatures... a skeleton smeared with flesh & blood, connected with tendons... a fleshless skeleton smeared with blood, connected with tendons... a skeleton without flesh or blood, connected with tendons... bones detached from their tendons, scattered in all directions -- here a hand bone, there a foot bone, here a shin bone, there a thigh bone, here a hip bone, there a back bone, here a rib, there a chest bone, here a shoulder bone, there a neck bone, here a jaw bone, there a tooth, here a skull... the bones whitened, somewhat like the color of shells... piled up, more than a year old... decomposed into a powder: He applies it to this very body, 'This body, too: Such is its nature, such is its future, such its unavoidable fate."(Tipitaka text available from
www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/majjhima/mn119.html).

Desire is the cause of all suffering and it is the goal of Buddhism to eliminate this suffering. One of the greatest bodily desires is sexual and hence the physical bodies of women are considered dangerous to men and vice versa. Both of the following verses are attributed to the Buddha in the Pariyadana Sutta of the Anguttara Nikaya subsection of the Tipitaka regarding this problem:
"Monks, I do not see any other single form that invades the mind of a man and remains like the form of a woman. Monks, the form of a woman invades the mind of a man and remains.
Monks, I do not see any other single form that invades the mind of a woman and remains like the form of a man. Monks, the form of a man invades the mind of a woman and remains" (Tipitaka text available from www.quangduc.net/English/canon/sutta/angutarra/an01.html).
However, the negative influence of mens' bodies over women has long been overshadowed by the concern about the influence of womens' bodies on men in popular Buddhism.

3.2.4 Buddhism and Women

Buddhism is often charged with being gender biased and a force contributing to continued gender inequality in the countries where it is practiced. Eminent Thai Buddhist scholar Chatsumarn Kabilsingh argues that Buddhism dealing directly with the spiritual path is free from gender bias but other teachings have been affected by the social context of both the Buddhas' time and the current period (Chatsumarn, 1991, p.24). In addition, their male interpreters may further bias the Buddhist text.
The debate over gender equality and/or discrimination has roots in the earliest period of Buddhism, during the lifetime of the Buddha himself. When the Buddha first organized the society of monks, or Sangha, no female followers of the Buddha were admitted into the monastic order. After three attempts Ananda, the Buddha's preeminent adherent, convinced the Buddha to allow females entrance into the Sangha. The female monks, or Bhikkhunis, were treated differently from their male counterparts, or Bhikkhu, from the outset of the order. The Bhikkhunis had more precepts to follow, were restricted from activities such as climbing mountains and reclusive forest meditative retreats, and were subject to the male hierarchy in which they were lower in rank than the newest ordained Bhikkku despite their own seniority within the Sangha. In fact, the admittance of women into the Sangha was said to shorten the longevity of the tradition by five hundred years. Despite these instances of discriminatory practices in early Buddhism it was, at the time, the most liberal and equal relationship in existence between men and women. It was even admitted at this time that men and women were equally capable of achieving enlightenment, a spiritual equality not present in other religious traditions of the day.
Many restrictions placed on the Bhikkhunis served to protect the women from harm or the Bhikkhu from desire. Oft cited as an example of gender bias in Buddhism is the following discussion between Ananda and the Buddha with regards to how one should behave towards women:
The Buddha: 'Do not see them, Ananda'.
'But if we have to see them, what are we to do?'
'Do not talk to them, Ananda'.
'But if we are spoken to, Lord, what are we to do?'
'Remain established in mindfulness' (Hanegraaff & Kloppenborg, 1995, p.152).

Some scholars interpret this passage as a general belief in Buddhism that all women are seductresses who would revel in the destruction of a monk's piety. Alternately, the passage may be interpreted as concern for the monk's vow of celibacy and how he may maintain it in the face of his own unbidden desire for women. Whichever interpretation, women are construed as dangerous to monks by their bodily presence alone. The danger of the female body is further extrapolated to pertain to all things and places deemed sacred. In the following paragraphs, I shall delineate some instances of the body-based restrictions and taboos placed on Thai Buddhist men and women as well as illustrate the negative image of women in popular Thai Buddhism, which reinforces the perception of female bodily pollution.

3.2.5 Thai Buddhist Tradition and Women

Women in Thailand are restricted from entry into the Sangha. As aforementioned, a female order was established during the time of the Buddha but Thai Therevada Buddhist did not adopt the Bhikkhuni tradition. The main roll of female Buddhist is to provide sons for the monkhood and alms for monks. These duties are rooted in worldly attachments based on bodily and material functions such as motherhood and economic activities, which serve to further alienate female Buddhist from the goal of spiritual enlightenment achieved by cessation of desire.

3.2.6 Popular Thai Buddhist Worldview of Women

The Trai Phum Phra Ruang, written approximately in the year 1345 AD by Phya Lithai an heir to the Sukhothai-Srisachanalai throne and later to become King, is a sermon based on the Theravada Tradition with sources from various holy texts. It was composed with the intention of making the Dhamma more accessible to the laity. The text was composed in the Thai language rather than the canonical language of Pali. Furthermore, the text was frequently used as a source of monk's sermons to the people and often the inspiration for mural paintings in Thai temples. To this day the text is studied as a pillar of classical Thai literature and is well known by the general population.
The Trai Phum Phra Ruang, which translates to Three Worlds According to King Ruang is based on the cosmological order of Buddhism. The three worlds can be loosely equated with the western conception of heaven, earth and hell or the underworld. In one section of the text entitled Female spirits a woman's punishment for various evil deeds during earthly life are detailed.
"One kind of female spirit is always naked and their bodies smell from every pore….These female spirits eat the flesh of their own children because they cannot stand the gnawing hunger. As human beings, they gave medicine to pregnant women to abort their babies….The next of the female spirits are ugly and naked. They are always hungry. When they see food and water before them and they pick out what they want to eat, the food and water turns into feces, blood clots, and pus. When they see a piece of cloth, they wish to wear it; but the cloth turns into burning-hot iron sheets when they try to cover their bodies. These departed spirits, when being human, were angry with their husbands when their husbands gave food, water and cloth to the monks and they cursed them…" (National Identity Board, 1992, p. 23-25).

The Thrai Phum is a central text in popular Buddhism in Thailand in which the major theme is the hierarchical structure of the cosmos and the position of women below men within that system. The above quotation elucidates the negative attitude toward women that is inherent in the Thai Buddhist worldview. The popular teaching of this text leads to the acceptance of this negative stereotype by both men and women. It illustrates women's evil in their propensity to kill the unborn, begrudge charity towards monks and, finally, to curse the embodiment of Buddhism, the monks themselves.
The Jataka tales are pre-Buddhist Indian folktales that were adapted to illustrate the doctrine of karma in the years following the Buddha's death. By the fifth century AD most of the Jataka stories dealt with the previous lives of the Buddha. The most famous Jataka tale is the Vessantara Jataka, which is the story of the last incarnation of the Buddha before his rebirth into the life in which he became the Buddha. In this tale, Vessantara gained great merit by giving away all his possessions including his children and wife. It demonstrates his commitment to detachment from this world by his willingness to give up his most beloved family. While however noble this action may be on the part of Vessantara it also illustrates the position of women and children as possessions of men who can not act with freewill. It is an example of the submissive image of the female, which is conceived as the ideal female in the Buddhist worldview. Vessantara's wife Maddi is quoted as saying: "From maidenhood I was his wife, he is my master still. Let him to whom so he desire or give, or sell, or kill.." (Kornvipa, 1989, p.37).
The Jatakas often operate to reinforce gender stereotypes and support the hierarchical structure of Thai society. The Gahapati Jataka portrays women as spiritually weak and intentionally seeking to disrupt a man on his path to spiritual enlightenment. This is also the theme in the Takka Jataka. The stories are depicted in popular drama, mural paintings and Buddhist sermons. The negative portrayals of women in the Jataka Tales helps to justify the restrictions placed on women by the society which are supported by both male and female Buddhist. The popularity of these stories effects the consciousness of Thai women and their self-image. They are socialized to accept subordination and oppression in return their moral goodness is visibly rewarded by outer beauty.
Apart from the popular Buddhist text that form the Buddhist worldview of women, general wisdom proclaims that birth as a female is the result of bad karma. This is never specifically written in the Buddhist canonical texts but it is assumed due to the inability of Thai women to gain merit through entrance into the Sangha and the belief that one of the highest spiritual attainments, that of a Boddhisatva, is only possible for males.

3.2.7 Women's Bodies and Popular Thai Buddhism

According to the evidence provided above, women in the Thai Buddhist worldview are often portrayed as weak, subservient, worldly and dangerous if not outright evil. The dangerous aspect of women is often manifest in their bodies either by the female forms' ability to seduce men or the polluting quality of female bodily fluids. The fear of menstruating women is not derived from canonical Buddhist text but may be related to animistic and Brahmanistic traditions incorporated into Thai Buddhism. Moreover the fear of pollution by menstrual blood is by no means restricted to Thai culture but is frequently observed in tribal cultures throughout the world (Douglas, 1966). Strictly speaking, it is the fear that menstrual blood will pollute and negate the magical powers of charms and sacred people, places and/or things that facilitates societies need to place restrictions on women. As it is impossible to know when a woman may be in this dangerous situation the result is a permanent ban on all women at all times from areas where they might cause pollution. It is through this reasoning that women are forbidden to enter some temple compounds for fear of defiling sacred relics kept within.
The order of pollution attributed to females extends to their entire bodies in the case of female interactions with members of the Sangha. Women are forbidden from touching a monk for to do so would contaminate the monk. According to John Van Esterik in his article, Women Meditation Teachers In Thailand, “Women are doctrinally polluting in their effect on monks, since any slight, even accidental physical contact between a monk and a woman must be ritually expiated" (Van Esterik, John, 1996, p.36).

Monks are restricted in their behavior towards women mainly due to fear of pollution from bodily contact with females. A monk must not sit next to or sleep under the same roof as a woman. He may not give a robe to a woman or communicate with a woman after sundown without the permission of other members of the Sangha. They must not go on a journey with women or teach more than five or six lines of the Dhamma to a woman at one time due to the supposed lack of female intellect. Many of these restrictions function to limit the power of women and sustain the patriarchal hierarchy in which men are the vessels of knowledge and spirituality and women are the material base for this worldly existence.
In the previous pages I have summarized the relationship between Buddhism, popular Buddhism and women as it pertains to the worldview of the Thais and their perception of women. I have endeavored to provide this overview to set the stage for the psychological background that frames the restrictions and limitations placed on women in the Muay Thai arena. First, I shall more thoroughly explain the overriding theory of bodily pollution that pertains to this subject matter by way of eminent anthropologist Mary Douglas's thesis on purity and danger.

3.3 Mary Douglas: Purity and Danger

According to the anthropologist Mary Douglas it is in human nature to classify people, places and things. Typically these classifications are often expressed in opposing categories such as right/left, male/female, and sacred/profane. There is a perceived danger when these categories overlap or the lines between the discrete categories become blurred. It is most often the function of ritual to maintain the separation and demarcation between these polarities.
The dichotomy of the sacred and the profane pertains to the bodily pollution fears expressed by Buddhism regarding women. Many societies have ritual behaviour concerning menstruation. Often this entails physical and or social isolation of the female during this time. The danger may be explained by the uncertain state of the female during this process. Women during menstruation may not be categorized in either of the typical female bodily states; pregnant or capable of conception. It is this blurring of the boundaries of womanhood, the danger of the transitional state, as well as the fear of bodily discharges in general that creates the perception of pollution. Pollution, or more simply put dirt, is an object out of place be it toilet paper in the kitchen, shoes on the table, or blood out of the body.
At a more basic level, all bodily discharges both of women and men are considered polluting, potentially dangerous, and dangerous to both the polluter and others that may come in contact with the offending item(s). The body should be a perfect container with no physical emissions that may weaken it. The protective power of the tattoo used throughout Thailand to ward off bad spirits is vulnerable during urination and ejaculation, both are times when a man is unleashing part of his inner strength into the world outside his body. Bodily discharges or pairings hold strong magic that can be used in black magic such as Thai love potions that may contain menstrual fluid, corpse oil, and feces. The more polluted, dirty or disgusting the substances used in black magic the stronger the spell.
Ritual is a symbolic action that relates to the sacred and sustains societal relationships and roles. Focusing on a ritual creates a framework for experience and provides a means of focus as well as an expectation of the ensuing events. An individual is construed as polluting by disregarding ritual actions and etiquette. Such anomalous behaviour threatens to collapse the structure of the society.
A parallel danger can be drawn between female members of the Sangha and women in Muay Thai. Women in these positions cause bodily pollution as a result of menstruation and threaten the patriarchal hierarchy of Thai society by crossing the ritualistic lines that divide the sexes. It is in part the spiritual basis of the Muay Thai tradition that embeds the modern sport with a worldview that restricts women's actions due to both the perception of female physical weakness and their psychological power over men. In the following pages, I will explore the implications of the Thai Buddhist worldview towards women on the sport while seeking to explain the restrictions placed on women in Muay Thai using the above pollution theory.

3.3.1 Pollution Theory and Muay Thai

Over the years superstition has developed around Muay Thai and the presence of women in or near the ring. Women are forbidden to enter the Muay Thai ring or function as coaches on the outer ring during a male fight. Nor are they allowed to touch the sacred item, the mongkon or headband, used by the fighter during a contest. The reason for such restrictions appears to be fear of contaminating the magic in the ring as well as stories of bad luck linked to a female presence in the ring prior to fight time. Similarly, women are not allowed to train in the same ring as male fighters, again due to the perception of women's strong magic endangering the magic of the male fighter. Informants have directly stated that female menstruation was the source of the perception of pollution linked to these restrictions.
Women are also required to enter the ring between rather than over the top of the ropes as their male counterparts do. This is linked to the khwan concept of spiritual essence, which is located at the top of the body, or in this case, structure. The khwan is the magic of the ring and may be defiled by females placing themselves above it. This is a metaphorical allusion to the hierarchy, which is part of the Thai social structure. Generally speaking, the Thai hierarchical structure places women below men and sacred objects such as Buddhist relics and in this case the Muay Thai ring.
Female Muay Thai practitioners are an anomaly in Thailand. This creates the state of pollution caused by marginal people who do not subscribe to societal norms. The power of their pollution, which is defined as matter out of place, has the ability to challenge the existing social structure. It creates danger in Thai society where the lines of structure in ritual are clearly defined as explained previously in the description Thai Buddhism. Women in a position of power threaten the patriarchal basis of Thai society.

3.4 Socialization

3.4.1 Group Socialization Theory

General theories on the process of socialization contend that it is facilitated by the primary social institutions of family, school and religion with parents cited as the prime socializing agents. Recently, the work of Judith Rich Harris and other psychologist has called this perspective into question. Harris, in her article entitled,” Where is the child’s environment? A group socialization theory of development”, posits that peer groups are more influential in the socialization process of children and adolescents (1995). The group socialization theory, henceforth referred to as GS, asserts that peer groups filter the input of all other socializing agents such as parents, teachers, and the mass media and then transmit what is deemed typical or approved behavior to their members. GS further details the process by describing the parent not as an individual agent but also as a peer group member of that age cohort.
GS theory is particularly applicable to the new social realities of Thailand in this age of modernization. The process of modernization in Thailand has entailed mass migrations from rural to urban areas facilitating the break up of the traditional family unit. Many rural migrants leave home in their early adolescence to work in urban areas often surrounded by hundreds of people in the same situation. The source of social support and approval is transposed from the family to the peer group.

3.4.2 Gender Socialization

The process of socialization begins at birth and now, with technologies such as ultra sound and genetic testing, during fetal development in the womb. The first question about any baby usually is: boy or girl? In the West this biological fact is symbolically infused with gender stereotypes that initially include the colour dichotomy of pink/blue respectively for girls and boys. The situation in Thailand is different not in the presence of this gendered dichotomy but in it’s material manifestation which is a notebook in the cradle for boys and a sewing kit in the cradle for girls representing societies expectations for the sexes regarding family and education.
Children recognize gender constancy; the fact that ones own gender and the gender of others will not change, at three years of age. From this time onwards they may socialize their peers in gender roles. Children learn gender roles mainly by imitation and internalization through identification with role models of the same sex. The role models may be parents, siblings and/or peers. Children generally are not directly instructed in how to conform to gender expectations but they are frequently discouraged from displaying behaviours that are culturally considered inappropriate.

3.4.3 Women in Thailand

Thai women have become one of the main commodities of Thai cultural capital. But what is it that they are selling? Picture books marketed to foreign tourist include such titles as the “Women of Thailand” along side other depictions of Thai cultural treasures such as Buddhism, architecture, and world heritage sites. In this context, Thai women are depicted as the epitome of beauty and grace, two key components of the traditionally “good” Thai woman.
The stereotypical “good’ women is easily recognized in Thai culture whether presented in drama, literature, art, the media, Buddhism, government social policy, or school texts. A list of “good” attributes for Thai women includes beauty, grace, neat, sweet smelling, polite, virginal, pure, ornamental, nurturing, dutiful, sexually faithful, self-controlled, self-sacrificing, subservient, obedient, respectful of authority, physically weak, and motherhood. Such is the standard that Thai women are expected to uphold in order to be respected members of society. Often these expectations are at odds with the social reality of ordinary woman who often have to forego the surface manifestations of this stereotype due to economic necessities. Nevertheless, Thai women are regarded as both …flowers for the bees to suck honey from and …flowers of the nation indicative of the high value placed on feminine beauty.

3.4.4 Culturally Ascribed Gender Roles

In The making of a Thai Woman, Panit Boonyavatana suggest that most Thai women would agree that the typical characteristics of a Thai woman were sweet, motherly, well-mannered, pleasing, loving (1999, p.1). This description may well encompass the characteristics of women the world over but in Thailand the role and station of mother is of utmost importance. The life of women as mothers has confined them to the private sphere of the home until recently when the industrialization process of Thailand created the need for labourers and Thai women answered the call. Still it may be seen that many of the preferred attributes of women are linked to this domestic past. The transition of Thailand into a highly materialistic culture has left a void between traditional attitudes and lifestyles and the new, often urban, reality. The new gender roles and reported equality between the sexes are much like the westernized appearance of many Thais, only an application of surface display with a traditional Thai worldview underneath.
Sila Khomchai depicts an example of this duality, between traditional and modern women, in the short story Choice of Life. The main character chooses between a woman who represented the ideal characteristics of a lady in traditional society and a modern professional woman in the capital city of Bangkok. The country girl, Wipha, is thus described,”…sweet and well-mannered…she was good at house work and administering to others’ needs. She was cool and calm…” (Suvanna 1992, p.146). The qualties of a good wife in Thai society were also discussed,” A lady-like manner, proper behaviour, and obedience were still qualities men were searching for” (Suvanna, 1992, p.146). In the end, the main character choose the city girl due to her ability to help him in the increasingly difficult modern world that is Bangkok.

3.5 Female Gender Socialization in Thailand

3.5.1 Family

Family is the initial and traditional location for socialization in Thailand, but as discussed previously this is changing although it’s still an important agent of the process in the preschool years. Children are clearly gendered within the Thai family institution. Gender roles and associated behaviours are drastically different for boys and girls. Family work is segregated with girls expected to stay at home acting as mothers’ helper while boys work in the fields, care for buffaloes and play. The girls are kept close to home and are not allowed the freedom of movement that boys posses. Due to girls proximity to, or within, the house they are under constant observation and scrutiny reducing their proclivity for independence and increasing the burden of responsibility. Boys’ activities, which take them far afield, allow for independence and fewer interactions with authority figures, which reduces their accountability.

3.5.2 Peer Group

Peer group interactions occur at school age or prior to that depending on the size of the village or social network of any given family. Children’s play is a key tool and reflection of the peer group socialization process. In a study of children’s games in a village community in Thailand, Anderson noted the boy/girl split in activities especially after the children were of school age ( 1980). Girls played games such as house, dolls, and store whereas boys played games that were more physically active and competitive as well as a game role playing ordination into the monkhood, a male only activity. She also noted that there were no games that pitted the boys against the girls although they often played similar, or the same games, side by side in the playground. Finally, in a mixed group game similar to leapfrog, the boys of school age insisted that when the girls jumped over them they mustn’t leap over their heads but across their backs. This stipulation is a reflection of the cultural constructions of taboos against females due to fears of menstrual pollution, hierarchy of males, and the sacredness of the head.

3.5.3 School

In the school environment, children and teachers actively inculcate gender roles. The children typically divide the class seating arrangement boys vs. girls. Many teachers encourage them to do so and according to GS theory the peer group assess this sanction, based on gender, finds it acceptable and therefore adopts it as their own. Consequently, teachers who counter this trend face strong opposition from the students.
Teachers frequently choose activities for students based on their gender and the expectations Thai society places on children according to their gender. They typically assign tasks requiring responsibility to girls and those requiring strength to boys. They also reinforce the “good” woman stereotypes common in Thailand emphasizing the domesticity, obedience and beauty aspects of the myth.
Thai schools indoctrinate children in gender roles by the very clothes they wear to class. All students from pre-school up to university level are required to wear uniforms to school. Girls wear skirts and boys wear shorts or pants. Girls are taught how to move properly in this attire in order to conform to social standards of proper conduct. This often limits the activities that girls can participate in without risking the revelation of their underpants and incurring social censure.
A survey of Thai school textbooks found them to uphold and perpetuate prevalent gender stereotypes. The study, published in 1983, found that more male characters than female characters were portrayed. Male characters occupied more professional fields, 72 compared with females in 23, and with greater frequency, 813 characters compared with 242 female characters (Thanitthar, 1983, p.44-43). The school text portrayed females most frequently as mothers, this being the main social function of women in Thai society. The occupational category of “father” is not even present in the list of male occupations but the category “monk”, a position unavailable to women, is cited as the most frequently held occupation for men. This is a clear demonstration of gender role stereotyping that is taught within schools that socializes women to limit their occupational aspirations and accept their role within the family as mothers.
Finally, extracurricular activities are often divided along the lines of gender. Girls are encouraged to learn various handicrafts that accentuate her feminine gentility such as fruit carving, paper folding, and needlepoint. All of these activities are related to the future domesticity of women and have no practical application. Furthermore, these activities are done without reference to others as a solitary activity. Boys activities usually involve sports such as football and takraw which facilitates group interaction, leadership, team work, competition and development of physical strength.
In sum, the Thai school system is a toxic environment for Thai women as it perpetuates gender role stereotypes that are used to reduce the opportunities available to them in life. The insidiousness of the socialization process is such that inequalities are proliferated to the detriment of the very people promoting them albeit often unconsciously.

3.5.4 Religion

According to popular Buddhist thought, beauty is a physical sign of merit. This is true for both men and women but whereas men are considered to have greater merit based on the fact of their sex alone a woman’s beauty can never be equivocated with the merit presumed inherent in the male sex. The prevalent belief of Thai women is that to be born a woman is a sign of bad karma, which requires them to make merit sufficient for three lives if they wish to be born as a man in the future.
As mentioned previously, women can not gain entrance in to the monkhood, the formal power structure of Buddhism. Although they are excluded from power, women are generally the most active in religious activities such as the giving of alms. They are expected to support the religion materially by providing food, money and their sons to perpetuate the Sangha. This exclusion of women is qualified by negative stereotypes of women in Buddhism. According to Kloppenborg in the article “Female Stereotypes in Early Buddhism” these stereotypes include:
A woman is stupid; a beautiful woman has no brains.
A girl should be a devoted daughter, and agree to the arrangements made for her by her parents and in-laws.
A woman is only concerned with her body, her clothes and her jewelry.
A woman is sensual and seductive, and should therefore be under male
control.
Children and relatives are a central concern in a woman’s life. Female reproduction is painful and having children binds women to the world of matter.
Women who are old are ugly and useless. A women’s body as an example of
impermanence and decay (Hanegraaff and Kloppenborg, 1995, p.153-154).

The character Maddi, in the popular Jataka tale Vessantara, portrays woman as property. This Jataka is the story of the last incarnation of the Buddha before his birth as Prince Sidhartha. It is touted as the Thai national Jataka and as such is key to the Thai understanding of what it is to be Buddhist (Suwanna, 1997, p.244). Vessantara practices detachment from worldly concerns by giving freely of all he has including his wife and two children. The wife, Maddi, dutifully obeys as first her children and then herself is given away like so much chattel. The tale clearly shows the authority of man over woman, the position of woman as property and the duty of women to obey their lord and master, the husband or father.

3.5.5 Popular Culture

Popular culture influences the socialization process of Thai women as it reflects both old and new gender roles on a daily basis. In this category of popular culture I include proverbs, media, fine arts, and literature. The popular culture of today’s Thailand is a pastiche of ancient legends and folklore, sexist add campaigns, stereotypical villains, and a trivialization of women in
most arenas of public display.
The most frequently quoted Thai proverb stating the relationship between the sexes is that women are the hind legs of the elephant and men are the front. This is popularly believed to indicate both the fundamental supporting role of women and their place in the social hierarchy as well as their subservience to men. Several other proverbs illustrate gender stereotypes including women’s inferiority, lack of intelligence, dependency on men for security and their duplicity. Women are buffalo and men are their masters has a clear enough meaning except perhaps to elaborate that buffalo are considered very stupid and it is a great insult to be called one. At beauty’s finish a women must turn to the charm at the tip of the ladle to maintain his interest. The fickleness and duplicity of women is depicted in the proverb three days absence and your wife is another’s.
Television is a pervasive socialization agent throughout Thailand. Even the poorest villages have access to television and the gendered lives and lifestyles they display. One key component of the Thai television experience is the consumption of locally produced soap operas. Men and women alike are addicted to watching their soaps and follow the lives of the characters religiously. The soaps depict stereotypical, one-dimensional characters with female characters falling into two main roles either the “good girl” or “the bitch”.
A Bangkok Post article entitled,”The Bitch is Back” highlights the stereotypical behaviour of the ‘bad” and “good” girl role models for Thai women in television soap operas (Bangkok Post, 11/07/99). The bitch is characterized as self-centered, short tempered, and sexy. She shamelessly pursues the male hero while tormenting the “good” girl. She wears low-cut, revealing clothes and dental-floss bikinis. According to actresses, the bitch is a much more rewarding character to play due to the fact that the “good “girl is only characterized by her grace and beauty leaving little scope for the actress. This duality of women is not a recent construct. In The Defense of Polygamy written in 1867 by Chaophraya Thiphakorawong, two contrasting yet stereotypical images of women are described. “ Women are passive and submissive; the woman yields to the mans’ sexual relations…women are jealously possessive, ambitious, and ruthless, capable of murdering their own husbands in pursuit of ambition” (Reynolds, 1977, p. 25). It dovetails well with the good woman/ bad (bitch) woman dichotomy currently represented in the Thai media.
Commercials, both on television and in print, often perpetuate gender stereotypes. Due to their highly condensed format and frequent repetition, commercials penetrate the belief system of the viewer more directly than numerous different episode containing similar but not the exact same message. Adds in the Thai media often portray women as sexual objects such as the instance where a telephone company advertised it’s sales pitch on the almost naked butt cheek of a desirable woman. Other adds depict cultural norms that demoralize women an example being a commercial where a man is beset by his wife and his mistress insisting that he choose between them.
Newspapers have gender biased reporting and frequently depict women as victims. In the case of sports reporting gender bias is prevalent the world over. In Thailand, sports in general and in particular the sport of Muay Thai, which is a rite of passage for many Thai men, is reported with a strong gender bias against women. A male reporter writing on the first Asian Women’s Amateur Boxing Championship described the Thai women in negative terms and said little regarding the actual action of the fights. A female reporter for the same paper writing about the 5th Amateur Muay Thai World Championship described the fights in terms of the action indicating the boxers tactics and punches as well as describing the female competitor as lion-hearted. The style of reporting is notably different according to the gender of the reporter with a heavy bias shown by the male writer and obviously not objectionable to the editorial staff.
Newspapers in Thailand are well known for their sensationalization of violent crime and the excessive reporting thereof. Newspapers constantly have pictures of the most recent rape or murder victim plastered over the front page with a black rectangle over the eyes of the victim intended to hide her identity. I use the pronoun her in the previous sentence as almost all of these front-page spectacles are women. This type of reporting constantly bombards the public with the message that women are victims, weak and unable to defend themselves. The message oft repeated becomes self-fulfilling and a culture of learned helplessness and violence against women is perpetuated.
In the fine arts, paintings depict women as sexual objects subject to the force of men. This is a theme in ancient paintings as well as modern works of art. The mural painting at Wat KhongKharam has scenes of the following events: women taken prisoner by men, rape of said prisoners and finally punishment of the female prisoners for their sexual indiscretion by the very men who raped them. Another scene from Wat KhonKharam in Ratchaburi province represents men giving attentions to near naked women with extraordinarily large and stylized breast while the male characters remain fully clothed. Thus the paintings in this Wat illustrates that the inequality of Thai women is a continuation of social norms from a bygone era. Furthermore, this display of gender inequality is shown in a sacred place and imbedded with the authority of that place.
Thai literature is a rich hunting ground for examples of gender role constructs. Literary portrayals of women are limited to several stylized versions, which are as follows with corresponding text as illustrative examples:
The good woman- Si Phaendin, Trai Phum Phra Ruang, A Maxim for Ladies
The helpless woman- Ramakien
The duplicitous woman- Khun Chang Khun Phaen, Phra Law, Kaoe-The Horse Face Girl
Literature from all eras incorporates these idealized visions of women. Female characters who were, “ passive and subservient were considered the ideal types in Ayutthaya periods’ literature” (National Identity Board, 1992, p.53). They were considered the property of men and expected to be obedient, loyal, and dutiful to their husbands. The story of Chanthakhorop written in the early Rattanakosin Period is a didactic text, which cautions men against the stereotypical bad or fickle woman. The tale begins, “ Here goes the tale of a wicked, treacherous woman that all noble young men should be advised against” (National Identity Board, 1992, p.81). In literature of the early 1900’s a perfect woman was described as having, “…all the good qualities of a mother in looking after her husband in times of sickness; a younger sister in time of play and joy; a wife for sexual pleasure and reproduction; a servant for her service” (Panit, 1999, p.3).
Thai literature also provides many examples of the sexual double standard regarding selection of mates and promiscuity. The following list of stories gives examples:
Si Phaendin, Khun Chang Khun Phaen, Sangtong, Kaoe-The Horse Face Girl, and the Ramakien.
The poet Sunthorn Phu best describes ideal female behavior. His advice for women, written in 1844, continues to be part of the school curriculum and is as follows:
Walk slowly. While walking, do not swing your arms too much…do not sway your breasts, do not run your fingers through your hair, and don’t talk…
Do not stare at anything, particularly a man, to the point where he can tell what’s going on in your mind…Do not run after men.
…Love and be faithful to your husband
…Be humble in front of your husband
…When your husband goes to bed, wai him at his feet every night without fail. When he has aches and pains, massage him, then you may go to sleep
…Get up before your husband and prepare water for him to wash…
While your husband is eating, sit and watch him nearby so that when he needs something he does not have to raise his voice. Wait until he finishes before you eat (Cooper, 1982, p.30).

Although many of these stories were written before the turn of the 20th century, with the exception of Si Phaendin, they have a current place as socialization agents of modern Thai women due to their ongoing popularity. These Thai literary classics are taught at all levels of education from primary to post-secondary and are often parlayed into films, television series and dramas.

3.6 Implications for Thai Women

The body is a very important sociological construct in the Thai worldview. It both forms and is formed by the culture. It is used to physically display the important concept of hierarchy and is restricted by the rule of patriarchy in Thai society. Of Thai bodies, the female body is the most restricted especially in the areas traditionally dominated by men: the Sangha and Muay Thai. Restrictions on the female body are justified by the popular Thai Buddhist worldview, which depicts women as lesser spiritual entities then men and also a danger to them.
The danger of womankind lies in the possibility of bodily pollution via menstruation and the anomalous behaviour that threatens the distinct constructions of dichotomies that support the social structure. The Buddhist canonical text as well as folk beliefs based in older religious traditions clearly display a fear of pollution by women. It is this well documented phenomenon of the embodied female menace to Buddhism that is applicable to the practice of Muay Thai and the restrictions placed on women in and out of the ring.
The process of gender socialization in Thai culture appears to be facilitated by all aspects of the females’ life. At every turn a young girl is faced with societal expectations that force her to reduce and restrict her activities, as well as her chances in life for education, career opportunities and religious fulfillment. From earliest childhood, when a cradle is adorned with a sewing kit to the viewing in adulthood of sexually exploitive television commercials and serialization of Thai literary classics like Si Phaendin epitomizing the ideal Thai woman, the gender socialization process is occurring. The world is a gendered minefield through which Thai women must gracefully navigate.
In this new era of modernity, gender stereotypes prevail but are frequently in conflict with new ideas and social situations. In the thesis entitled, “We are not our Mothers”, Mills described the conflict between tradition and modernity for female migrant workers in the Bangkok area (Mills, 1993). The disintegration of the traditional family and the substitution of peer group support systems has changed the dynamics of the socialization process among Thai youth and young adults particularly women who in the past were kept close to home under parental supervision.
Group Socialization theory is applicable to the new social realities in Thailand especially the new Thai woman who confronts modernity and its conflict with traditional Thai values and norms. Many material expressions of modernity directly contrast with the stereotypical “good” girl image and may be directly associated with the “bad “girl or bitch role model portrayed in Thai soap operas. Peer group socialization can filter and transcend these discrepancies in ways that the institutions of family, school and religion can not. Acceptance among peers is more important than within families that are geographically distant.

CHAPTER IV

4.1 Overview of Women in Competitive Muay Thai

The first impression of Thai culture that Muay Thai provides is the existence of a male dominated hierarchy. Patriarchy is a well documented aspect of almost all extant societies therefore I was interested in the individuals who not only lived outside this system but who engaged in open opposition to it: in this case female Muay Thai fighters. In the following chapter I explore my recent fieldwork in Thailand on the topic of Thai women in Muay Thai and the historical and literary depictions of woman as warrior. I also examine the political and economic forces that occurred in tandem with the entrance of women in Muay Thai. Following is an overview of women in competitive Muay Thai.
Prior to conducting fieldwork I reviewed the available literature on the subject area. This review helped me formulate the specific questions I wanted to answer with my fieldwork. I found that women were under represented in the sport of Muay Thai due to taboos that kept them out of Muay Thai rings which had a great impact on their ability to find both training and fighting venues. However, according to recent newspaper reporting there was a new push to generate first rate female Muay Thai fighters to compete internationally where the sport of Muay Thai has recently acquired great acclaim. This has lead to the creation of a small cohort of female Muay Thai fighters who were in direct conflict with a traditionally male dominated culture. This conflict has often brought the issue of gender appropriate behavior into the equation, which serves to question the legitimacy of these fighters as female members of their society.
A review of the historical and literary text provides examples of women who defy the cultural expectations and culturally ascribed gender roles for women. These historical and literary models provide fighters with legitimacy for their place as women in Thai society.
In order to focus my research I sought out social science theories that would be applicable to the situation of Thai women in Muay Thai as presented in the current literature on the subject. I identified two main areas of research: pollution taboos and gender roles. The pollution theory of British anthropologist Mary Douglas provided a clear explanation of the formation and function of taboos against women in Muay Thai. I found no one theory to clarify the capacity of gender roles in restricting women from participation in Muay Thai except a generalization by many authors that gender roles were ascribed by those in power, namely men, to maintain the status quo of male dominance.
The process of industrialization in the 1960’s and 70’s and the impact of globalization in the 1990’s to the present have facilitated the involvement of women in the sport of Muay Thai and in many other public sheres of Thai society. Analysis of the impact of these forces on society gives an explanation as to why Thai women had previously not been interested or involved in Muay Thai and how the changes wrought by these processes enabled them to enter the ring competitively.

4.1.1 History of Women in Muay Thai

Most Thai people, male and female alike, have little knowledge of women in Muay Thai, in fact most people do not even know that female Muay Thai fighters exist. This is due to the low profile that women in the sport have nationally. Recently female boxers have been sought out due to the desire to field a Thai female boxing contingent in the Olympics and the recent Asian Women's boxing tournament held in Bangkok. Thai women have been in the ring for a much longer period of time than the most recent batch of women striking out for the gold.
Women Muay Thai fighters followed their boxing brethren in the rings of Lumpini Stadium forty years ago (Sawadee Magazine, 1998). Women's fights were held at Lumpini until the spectator turn out became too low to be profitable. The women's fights were cancelled and it wasn't until the late 1990's that women came back to the ring enforce. In the intervening years women's Muay Thai was still practiced but mainly in small local venues such as temple fairs.
Over the years superstition has developed around Muay Thai and the presence of women in or near the ring. Women are forbidden to enter the Muay Thai ring or function as coaches on the outer ring during a male fight. The reason for such restriction appears to be fear of contamination. Women's bodies are considered impure due to their monthly periods and it is thought that they could pollute the atmosphere of the ring. This explanation doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, as blood is likely to be spilt in the ring during the fight. I speculate that this rationale has been adopted to hide a deeper purpose, which is to secure the male dominance over women and defend male supremacy. This fallacious belief in the harmful effect of women in the ring has required two rings at any venue where women practice Muay Thai.
The international interest in Muay Thai lead to an increased need for female fighters in the 1990's. Western women became interested in the sport of Muay Thai and were anxious to try their skills out in the home country of the sport. Foreign female fighters who came to Thailand had to be provided with worthy competitors as a matter of national pride. Young Thai women now entered the sport to compete internationally. From the late 1990's onward Thai females entered the Amateur Muay Thai World Championships.
To supply the upsurge in demand for female Muay Thai fighters, the Muay Thai Association in Rangsit opened a special woman's training camp. The camp was home to approximately 10 women fighters in the year 2000. They lived and trained at the camp many having left home villages throughout the kingdom to attend. The Rangsit stadium held women's Muay Thai fights two times a week surpassing the number of male fights they sponsored (Bangkok Post, 27/03/00) .
In 2001, a sex abuse scandal rocked the women's Muay Thai program at Rangsit Stadium. Some of the female fighters in residence there left the camp and found a new training camp at Sasiprapah Gymnasium, also in Bangkok. The defection of the fighters put an end to the promotional women's fights at Rangsit. The women's school is effectively defunct with few women remaining at the camp.
Later in 2001, ABAT (Amateur Boxing Association of Thailand) was looking for female boxers to compete in the Olympics and the Asian Women's Boxing Tournament held in August 2001 in Bangkok. Women who had a background in Muay Thai were actively recruited and sent to a training camp to hone their boxing skills. The tournament in August did not yield good results for the Thai competitors but in the future, with more time to develop, the odds will improve.

4.1.2 Challenges to Women's Muay Thai

Superstition about women in the ring creates many challenges for those women who want to participate in Muay Thai. There is an insufficient supply of Muay Thai venues for women. When women are scheduled to fight at any Muay Thai event two rings must be provided: one for each sex. Limited space and funds for a second ring may preclude any women's fight. The same conditions apply to training venues for women's Muay Thai. Furthermore, training venues are geared toward male use and rarely have separate facilities for women. The lack of female changing and bathroom facilities dissuades women from participating in the sport, hence reinforcing the exclusion of women.
Muay Thai coaches are generally men. Few women have the opportunity to become Muay Thai coaches. This phenomenon is typical throughout the female sporting world. Male coaches hold the power in the sport. Gender roles are reinforced by this situation due to the fact that even though women are training in a power sport they continue to be subordinate to the male coach.
Male coaching becomes a larger issue when the problem of sexual misconduct arises. The female fighters at Rangsit stadium were under the control of their male coach and benefactor. The coach/athlete relationship of subordination mirrors the Thai patron/client relationship, which reduces the ability of the client/athlete to refuse the patron/coach's commands. The female fighter, Salita Nakasem, at the Rangsit camp respected her coach/patron and was indebted to him for the life chances she received. In March of 2001she left the Rangsit camp and accused the camp owner of sexual harassment. The charges of sexual harassment against the coach, Amnuay Keitbumroong, a respected figure in Muay Thai circles is likely to damage her own career more than his. The coach has made counter charges against Salita and the other fighters that left the camp with her, stating that they stole from the camp and took drugs. Her new coach, Chanai Pongsupah owner of Sasiprapah Gymnasium, said "Now that she has been selected for the national team she should grow up and stop sulking about little things", making light of the incident (Bangkok Post 25/03/01). This event illustrates how female Muay Thai fighters are disadvantaged in their relationships with their male coaches. Women may choose to opt out of the sport instead of facing the possibility of being sexually exploited by their coaches.
Nationally, women's Muay Thai is virtually unknown. The profile of female Muay Thai fighters is very low and when they do get media exposure it is not taken seriously. The first coverage of women's Muay Thai I ever encountered was a photo in a local English language daily newspaper labeled "Chick Boxing". The media frequently reinforce gender stereotypes with the quantity and quality of women's sports coverage. Women's sport is given less airtime in the media and often only gender appropriate sports are covered. In the Thai sporting world the most famous and well-covered female athlete is the tennis star Tamarine Tanasugarn. Tennis is a sport that has long been accepted as a woman's game, while Muay Thai is not.
Media coverage of women in sport focuses on gender accepted roles and stereotypes. Female athletes are often described in terms of aesthetics such as graceful and artful. Women in sport are often characterize using terminology that has no reference to their athletic lives instead describing them in their roles as mothers and wives. Muay Thai is a sport that is described in terms of power, aggression, and competition; adjectives not in keeping with the accepted virtues of Thai women. In order to render this threat to traditional views less menacing they trivialize and degrade the female Muay Thai athlete by using language like Chick which alters the issue from one of sport to one of sexuality. Media coverage of female Muay Thai is skewed due the gender imbalance in the world of the media. In a newspaper report featuring a the female Muay Thai athlete Boopa Posen, the author, a woman named Yvonne Bohwongprasert, described the 16-year-old boxer as "lion-hearted" ( Bangkok Post, 17/03/01). The article also described elements of the fight;"…fierce kicks…lethal elbow strikes…old fashioned uppercuts…" ( Bangkok Post, 17/03/01). A male reporter in the Bangkok Post described female boxing in these terms:"…lacks action and grace…weaker physique…regarded as more genteel…not suitable" ( Bangkok Post. 29/08/01).
The gender bias inherent in the different styles and components of reports is clearly displayed in the two previous examples. The female reporter does not disparage, trivialize or question the appropriateness of women in Muay Thai while the male reporter does just that. The media plays a major role in forming public opinion therefore the acceptance of female Muay Thai athletes hinges on the creation of a bias free press.
Yet another challenge to women in Muay Thai is paucity of monetary rewards. Women's roles in society are diverse and they are often responsible for a variety of household and work related chores on a daily basis. The ability of women to partake in sport activities relates directly to her ability to perform all her roles and still have time to function as an athlete. Women in Thailand are significant wage earners and contribute to the family's economic welfare. Women who wish to pursue Muay Thai must benefit monetarily from the sport in order to sustain their interest. Currently female fighters receive much less money to fight in competition than men do. Accomplished female fighters receive between 3,000-20,000 baht per fight and their male counterparts several times that. Equal pay for equal work has long been the feminist mantra and applies to this situation especially as one fight is the result of hours of unpaid training.
Finally, women must overcome the lack of acceptance of female Muay Thai athletes. As I have already mentioned most people have never heard of female Muay Thai athletes, when they do they are often surprised and doubt that women can or should participate in what is acknowledged as a violent sport. As one report noted,"…female boxers seem not to have the physical strength or the skills needed for boxing. …women are still widely regard as more genteel” (Bangkok Post, 29/08/01).
Strength and skills can both be attained through training and therefore not a genuine but frequent argument against women in the sport. Gender stereotypes frequently arise to challenge the participation of women in Muay Thai. Unless women in Muay Thai gain more unbiased media exposure, conquer decades of superstition and seize coaching opportunities; acceptance of the female component in the sport will be difficult to achieve.

4.1.3 Why Fight It?

With so many roadblocks, why do women persevere and continue to train in the sport of Muay Thai? The reasons why women participate may differ from case to case but generally they have one thing in common: their socio-economic situation. Women in sport, particularly women in sports that are considered not appropriate to their gender, often have a background that does not subscribe to the status quo. Due to the fact that they already live outside accepted social boundaries, their sporting lives don't conflict with their existing social identity. Throughout the sporting world women who participate in activities that are considered consistent with male and not female attributes generally come from poor, uneducated backgrounds. Many women in Muay Thai fit this profile.
Most female boxers I interviewed were from rural farming families or self-employed urban workers in smaller centers such as Ubon Ratchathani and Khorat. All respondents had education up to grade 9 (M3) or were currently enrolled in school progressing toward this end. Many state their only occupation as Muay Thai but some had moved onto other jobs in the food service industry and given up Muay Thai as an economic activity. The above results support the economic hypothesis for participation in Muay Thai. Several informants were using Muay Thai to pursue and finance their education out side the ring indicating that Muay Thai was a means to an ends not an end in itself.
Most interview subjects are physically large compared to the Thai norm (fight weight from 60-55 Kilos) and describe themselves as fat. I posit that they don’t fit the physical description of the ideal Thai women and therefore can opt out Thai gender role expectations of female weakness and passivity. Furthermore their own life expectations often do not concur with their definition of an ideal woman which included mothers, good at house keeping, talented, modest and beautiful. Although, most of the younger informants, aged 16 and under, listed strength as a quality of the ideal woman indicating a change in gender role expectations.

4.2 History of Fighting Women

Changing time honored ideas and traditions is not easy, the best way to facilitate such a change is not to diverge radically from the past but to highlight examples from history that illustrate the current concern. Women in Muay Thai are not accepted in the traditional view of the quintessential Thai woman who is graceful, beautiful, and meek. Women who fight are not in accordance with the Thai ideal, or are they?
During the Sukhothai period there are several examples or legends of female warriors. The Queen mother and King Thammaracha III are said to have gone into battle together. Another northern women gave birth while leading an army in the stead of her husband, who was battling on another front (National Identity Board, 1992, p.11).
In the Royal Chronicles of Ayutthaya there is reference made of female soldiers. In the corvee system that operated at this time subjects of the king could be called upon to serve him as warriors, farmers, labourers etc. It is generally accepted that men would be called upon to perform military service but it appears so too were some women.
Beyond this mere mention of female soldiers there are several well-known legends of Thai women who fought against the kingdoms enemies. Most recently the legend of Queen Suriyothai has gained new popularity. This legendary Queen is remembered in a major motion picture production, popular song and a monumental statue. Suriyothai was the wife of the King of Ayutthaya in 1548 when the kingdom was under threat from the Burmese. Legend has it that she went out into battle with her husband and died while protecting the king from an oncoming attacker.
The island of Phuket in Southern Thailand is home to the legendary sisters Khunying Chand and Khun Mook. In 1785 they are said to have led Thai troops against Burmese troops attacking the island. The women fought disguised as men and repelled the Burmese forces. The king bestowed upon them the honorific titles of Toa Tep Ksatri and Tao Sri Suntorn in recognition of their valor.
A female of fighting fame is also the renowned heroine of the town of Khorat in Northeastern Thailand. Khunying Mo, later known by her honorific title given by King Rama III as Tao Suranaree, fought against Laotian forces in 1826. The Laos attacked Khorat and she was captured and taken prisoner but she escaped and went back to Khorat to lead the Thai forces. Tao Suranaree is portrayed in a monumental statue in the town of Khorat and is the subject of an upcoming feature film.
The women described above are the legendary instances of fighting Thai women. The resurrection and popularity of these stories could help redefine the role of women in Thailand. At the very least, they could serve to illustrate that women can fight as well as men and are not weak, defenseless flowers.

4.3 Female Warriors in Thai Literature

The story of Phra Aphai Mani written by Sunthon Phu in the early Rattanakosin Period provides examples of strong female characters in roles of leadership and consul. The work has been touted as an interesting commentary on the role and abilities of women in society. However, despite the forward looking attitude of casting women in the roles of soldier, ruler, military strategist and advisor the writer clearly shows that these are not socially accepted roles for the “good woman”. The following excerpts will elucidate this point.
The character Suwannamali offers to help in the war effort:
“ It is true that I am a woman, but I am quite well versed in war strategies.
……
She then bound her breast and donned a suit of diamond armor to disguise herself as a man with a sword and a dagger attached to her belt…” (National Identity Board, 1992, p.123-124).
Later in the story Suwannamali once again finds it necessary to fight in order to save the kingdom and the man she loves, Phra Aphai Mani:
“ …she assumed the guise of a man equipped with bow and arrows. Her five
hundreds-odd maids, allwearing soldier-like turbans, highly skilled in the use of the crossbows, went to pay respects to their queen before setting off for battle” (National Identity Board, 1992, p.126).

Both of these instances the women must be disguised as men before performing their martial task strongly indicating that the practice of using female soldiers was not common. In another verse it becomes clear that female participation in physical warfare was not acceptable; “ The court officials told Wali not to volunteer because fighting was not a woman’s job” (National Identity Board, 1992, p. 128).
The character of Wali, further challenges the conventional wisdom of the value of women, chiefly that value ascribed to beauty, in her appeal to king:
“ I have not a bit of doubt about my ugly appearance, but knowledge, like an unblemished diamond, is my spiritual beauty. Among your host of beautiful concubines, you can never find as learned a one as I. The reason I am humbling myself before you is that I want your fame to spread far and wide so that learned men in all disciplines would seek to come under your patronage. Should you take pleasure only in beauty and care not for the wise and learned, you would be going against traditions. I fear that the good men would never pay their allegiance to you. Pray ponder upon it if you were to be the pillar of three realms. A woman’s beauty, however delectable, is only the fuel for the flames of passion and desires” (National Identity Board, 1992, p.128).
Although challenging, Wali still adheres to some of the well-worn cliches of traditional Thai women in that she offers her abilities for the use of the king rather than use them independently. She also appeals to the kings desire to be the leader of other learned and good men, not women, indicating the low esteem that women are held in intellectually and socially.
These fictional female characters do not depict equality between the sexes, but they do exhibit the ability of women to rise above their stereotypical roles all be it against the male dominated status quo. And this, the ability to challenge prevailing norms and attitudes, is the real contribution of this story to the empowerment of Thai women.

4.4 Pollution Taboos’ Impact on Women in Muay Thai

The seminal work, Purity and Danger: an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo, by Mary Douglas postulates that dirt is matter out of place. This dirt may be something as inconsequential as books on the floor or, rather more distressing, blood outside the body. The second form of dirt has proven to be the foundation of power, ritual and pollution.
The body is promulgated as a model of all other systems. Marginal aspects of the body such as bodily fluids and body parings may be construed to contain power due to their polluting quality inherent in the fact that they are of the body but no longer part of it. Many cultures have created taboos against such marginal substances and people as a means of danger avoidance. Women have typically been the focus of these taboos due to their monthly menstruation. Menstrual blood is deemed a dangerous polluting substance and since it is impossible for a man to know when a woman is menstruating the solution is to restrict women from any arena where they might unconsciously create a threat. In the case of Muay Thai, women are exempt from male rings, as they are believed to negate the magical protective properties of the site and all other magic paraphernalia accompanying the male fighter.

4.5 The Socio-Economic Context

4.5.1 Industrialization

The process of industrialization that took place in Thailand in the 1960’s was the impetus for great social change. Panit points out that major changes in job opportunities brought about by industrialization in the 1960’s brought women out of their homes and farms and onto the factory floor to work as unskilled labour (1999, p.3). Female workers were cheaper than men and were in great demand. Formerly a woman’s place had been at home. They were described as “… highly respected mothers. They were proficient in domestic arts and were expected to rear children, remain faithful to the husband and devoted to the care of the home” (Padilla, 1974, p.2).
By the mid-1970’s Padilla observed that the “…impact of western civilization and education and economic opportunities has radically changed the social and economic situation in Bangkok and the commercialized regions of the country” (1974, p.3). As indicated here, the adoption of industrialization also meant the importation of western ideas. One of these ideas was women’s liberation.
The 1970’s saw the rise of the feminist movement in Thailand especially in the years of democracy from 1973-1976. Women’s liberation movement in Thailand was directly influenced by the west as explicitly depicted by the reference to western feminist such as Simone de Beauvoir, Margaret Mead, and Betty Frieden in the 1976 publication, Thai Women, by the National Council of Women of Thailand. (Mattani, 1988, p.119) The poem, I am a Human Being, by Kanlaya in that publication expressed the view of some Thai women that the time for equality was come.

I am a human being
I am not a flower.
I am a human being
With senses,
With a fighting spirit
As strong as yours.

I am a human being
Because I can see,
I feel pain,
I suffer,
I have a soul.
I am not a flower.
Tell every one,
do understand.

I will tell you
When you fight, I fight.
When you fall, I will lift you up.
When you run, I will lead with the flag.

O, Future,
You will prove that
I am a leader
Equal to you, walking shoulder to shoulder with you. ( Mattani 1988: 119)

The sportization of many folk games in Europe occurred with the rise of industrialization, and though it would be unwise to directly correlate the two events, it is of relevance to suggest that industrialization among other factors contributed to the phenomenon of sportization (Dunning, 1999). The push for industrialization in Thailand during the 1960’s and 70’s affected Muay Thai and those who sought to participate in the sport; namely women.
Women, due to modernization and industrialization, moved out of the home sphere and became more active in economic pursuits. Muay Thai, in it’s transformed state of sport was yet another opportunity for economic gain. Women were often forced to use their physical capital in the new materialism that gripped Thailand, to provide for their families in rural areas where cash was infrequently at hand and dependant upon the cyclical nature of agricultural life. Women were often sent by their families to work as prostitutes in the urban centers particularly Bangkok. Muay Thai could provide another means of using the body to obtain cash. In the words of one Muay Thai promoter in the 1970’s, making an honourable living in the ring was preferable to becoming a prostitute (Stockmann, 1979, p.20). According to the short story, The Fifth Train Trip, previously discussed in the section on literature and socialization, many Thai women entered prostitution during this period knowingly to provide the material wealth their families expected in the new industrial era (Suvanna, 1992).
Not long after women entered the ring in the late 1960’s, they disappeared again. During the period of democracy from 1973-1976, women’s Muay Thai was a phenomena that was known to Thai society. A female fight was nationally televised in 1973 for the first time after a international fight between Ali and Norton (Stockmann, 1979, p.20). Millions of Thai viewers saw female Muay Thai practicioners in action. However as the democratic period came to an end, Thai society shifted to the right and this included a backlash against the west particularly the U.S.A. a continuing reaction to the involvement of U.S. troops in the Vietnam War since period prior to the democratic era. Thailand rejected what it saw as western values including the more extreme versions of feminism. Part and parcel of this was the strenghtening of the female physical body. The audience, which had included U.S. servicemen, and interest in female Muay Thai waned and women’s Muay Thai continued on in small venues throughout the country unnoticed for several decades until the recent revival in the late 1990’s.

4.5.2 Globalization

Since the 1990’s, the phenomena of globalization, much maligned and ill defined, has received significant attention in the media, academia, and society(s) at large. Globalization according to Horne, “…denotes a broad process in which markets, trade , labour relations and culture itself have attained global dimensions, that is , the forms of organizations that connect them have a global character”(1999, p.276). Said phenomena was blamed for both the economic crash in Thailand in 1997 and the following meltdown of the Asian tigers. A globalized economy, however, affects more than just the stock market of any given country. The integration of economies and participation in global makets and trade affects cultures in many areas; it’s much more than the availability of CoCa Cola and other multi national name brands in local markets. Sage notes that, “Sporting practices that have long existed in national cultures and communities are no longer isolated from global changes. They, too, have become an integral part of the globalised economic and cultural world, and widening global interdependency is profoundly influencing traditional sports practices and values “ (2002, p.226).
Muay Thai is a growing international sport. There are Muay Thai training facilities in over 100 countries. The number of web sites on the topic of Muay Thai is stagering, hosted from nations around the world but predominatly from western countries such as Britain, America, Canada, Australia, and Finland(a country that has unprecedented success with its’ female Muay Thai team). The WMTC’s (World Muaythai Council), located in Bangkok, slogan is ‘One World, One Muaythai’. The annual World Amateur Muay Thai Tournament hosted as many as 54 competeing nations in 1997 ( “MB Story” Available from
http://www.muaythai.fi/english/mbstory.htm). In western countries, women participate in Muay Thai as they would in any other sport, a result of the women’s liberation movement promoting equal access and opportunity in all areas of society.
The globalization of Muay Thai has brought new challenges to the local, home grown variety of the sport. Hargreaves explains that, “ … the transformation of nation-based sport into globalised sport may help stimulate national sentiment and provide a rallying point around which it can be reinforced and reconstructed… however … globalized sport…is de-territorialised, making it more problematic for people to identify with it as an expression of their nation” (2002, p.33-34). The Thai construction of female gender roles precludes the involvement of women in such an aggressive, physical sport such as Muay Thai. Due to the international involvement of western and also many Japanese women in competitive Muay Thai, it has become a matter of honour to field Thai women in Muay Thai competitions. The desire to defend Thai supremacy in their national sport has transcended the taboos and cultural constructs which limit the opportunities of women in Muay Thai.
The impact of globalization on women’s Muay Thai is supported by the information obtained in my research. Media reports that women are being recruited to contend with the increasing number of foreign females that come to Thailand to practice and learn the sport in its’ homeland. Interview subjects had fought with foreign opponents and had traveled overseas to compete. I observed many mixed, Thai versus foreigner, female matches at the World Amateur Muay Thai Tournament in August of 2002. And a rule was promulgated at the time of that tournament that from then on, all World Amateur Muay Thai Tournaments would have a female contingent. The 2002 tournament was also the first to sponsor the use of female referees.
The increase in demand for female Muay Thai fighters has resulted in a break down of the taboos that have restricted womens’ participation in the sport over the last 30 years. In my field work, all informants reported training with men and in the same ring. One informant even fought competitively with a man. This change in attitudes towards women in Muay Thai is not universal; the major stadiums in Bangkok and many Muay Thai training facilities continue to ban women from entering a ring used by men. Therefore it seems that the persistence of the taboo against women in the ring is a matter of preference in individual cases, institutions and camps.

4.6 Impacts on Women’s’ Muay Thai

Taboos restricting women seem only to be upheld by conservative elements, people who wish to retain the traditional aspects of Muay Thai which includes the exclusion of women from the ring, within Muay Thai. Taboos are ignored in international Muay Thai competitions an example being the recent World Amateur Muay Thai Competition held in Bangkok this past August 2002. During this event female fights were held in a ring which was later the venue for male competitors on the same day.
The taboos themselves are a historical relic of the early days of modernization in Thailand. Although the restriction of women in the Muay Thai ring is often cited as a traditional practice this is a fallacy as the ring itself has only been in use since the 1930’s, therefore, if it is a tradition, it is a new one. According to the theory of Mary Douglas, I posit that the pollution taboo restricting women from the Muay Thai ring was a reaction to modernization, which created an attack on form that has been shown by Douglas as a source of pollution danger. The form being attacked is that of a male dominated and hierarchical social structure. Furthermore, women have been seen as a source of pollution danger in other Thai social arenas such as the Sangha (community of Buddhist monks) hence the concept of the polluting female was already an established paradigm before it was applied to the Muay Thai ring.
Women made forays into the ring in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s for the first time. The socio-economic context of this era lead women to pursue economic activities that they had previously been unable to participate in. Industrialization in Thailand created the need for a large unskilled work force that tapped into the female population. It soon became the norm for women to expand their interest beyond the home and into the cash economy. As industrialization spread in Thailand it was accompanied by other western ideas such as the womens’ liberation movement. The empowerment of women, the call for gender equality, and the need for women to use their bodies as physical capital resulted in some women entering Muay Thai at this time. However, under the rule of military dictatorships in Thailand from 1976 onward, the profile and proliferation of womens’ Muay Thai floundered and was removed from the public domain continuing only in small remote pockets until the recent resurgence beginning in the mid 1990’s.
According to Hargreaves, “ political elites in the constituent states of the new world order have, for some considerable time, tended to intervene in and to promote sport as an important instrument for the creation of a sense of national identity and as a way of enhancing their state-nation’s prestige and influence internationally (2002, p.32). This can be applied to the sport of Muay Thai in Thailand which is often promoted as the only unbeatable martial art form. This claim is supported by matches commonly called ‘Battle of the Styles’ in which a practitioner of another form of martial art is pitted against a student of Muay Thai.
In the 1990’s the globalization of Muay Thai brought about the need to find, train, and support female Muay Thai competitors in Thailand due to the many foreign women who were partcipating in the sport both internationally and within Thailand. The authorities promoting Muay Thai as an international sport eschewed the taboos and cultural traditions against women in Muay Thai in order to secure Thai prestige in this their national sport. The increase in the participation of Thai women in Muay Thai is clearly linked to the promotion of Muay Thai globally and the resulting nescessity to field female opponents internationally.
Now that Muay Thai has become an option for women, the question their motivation for entering the sport had to be examined. According to my reserch, women enter Muay Thai mainly as an economic activity. This point is clearly illustrated by the fact that one informant left the sport after deciding she could make more money as a food vendor. In addition to this, the demands of Muay Thai training limit the possibility of pursuing any other occupation at the same time.
Finally, female fighters largely ignore Thai gender roles to the extent that one of the female fighters interviewed was a “Tom” in an openly lesbian relationship. Many informants also described themselves as fat and none of them included beauty in their physical self-description. Beauty and motherhood are both key factors of the Thai female gender stereotype. The informants did not include in their future plans marriage or children but instead the opening of their own Muay Thai gyms, bids for the Olympics, and international boxing fame.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

I have endeavored to show in this thesis that sport is an important area of study in the field of Thai Studies. Sociological and anthropological interpretation of sport can give insight to cultural values, identity, and worldview. Muay Thai, long recognized as the national sport of Thailand, provides a good case study by which to study Thai culture in relation to the effect modernization and industrialization on the cultural performance of Muay Thai and the impact religion and the process of socialization have on gender roles and the involvement of Thai women in Muay Thai.
It was the purpose of this thesis to investigate the transition of Muay Thai from a traditional martial art form to a sport and study the small number of female Muay Thai competitors and formulate answers to the questions as to why there are so few and why those few choose to enter the sport. Exploration of these questions has lead this researcher in several directions which as a whole explain the reality of the female fighter in Thailand.
In this concluding chapter I give a brief overview the modernizaation of Muay Thai and the socio-cultural events that lead to the participation of women in Muay Thai. I examine the factors that limit the access of women to Muay Thai and explain why women participate in the sport. And I look at the most recent developments in the sport, which may be attributed to the trend of globalization in sport. Finally, I end this chapter by suggesting areas for further study.

5.1 Collective Analysis

5.1.1 Modernization

In the late 19th and early 20th century Thailand entered into the modern era. King Chulalongkorn and his successors sought to create a more level playing field between the western world and Thailand. These efforts, including sending Thais overseas for study and war, (in WWI Thailand sent troops in support of the allies to Europe), exposed Thais to western ideals and practice. Similarly the exposure of westerners to Thai culture also increased and as in many cases where the West compared themselves to the rest they deemed their own ways superior.
In order to legitimize their country and gain acceptance of western powers the Thai kings, and later civil governments, implemented measures to modernize the Thai state. The national martial art form, Muay Thai, was one such area that was deemed in need of improvement.
Muay Thai was seen by westerners as a blood sport; uncivilized and barbaric. During the inter-war years, Muay Thai underwent major changes. The fights became regulated by time of rounds, number of rounds, use of a ring, introduction of boxing apparel, weight classifications, and the introduction of western boxing training techniques and terminology. These transformations changed many of the Muay Thai traditions and can be said to have created a new sport out of an old art form.

5.1.2 Industrialization and American Influence

The industrialization of Thailand in the late 1960’s created a need for plentiful, cheap labour. That need was met by the untapped potential of the female labourer. When women entered the industrial economy they became more aware of their potential outside of the sphere of the home, where they had previously focused their life energies. The use of female labour often resulted in changing social environments; many young women moved away from home to live and work in factories. There they learned to fight for equal rights in the face of gender inequality and exploitation. The socio-economic reality of these working women promoted the adoption of ideas from the womens liberation movement from the west. Included in these feminist ideals, was the practice of breaking down and breaking into male dominated domains.
In the modern era sport has become a battleground for the war of the sexes. As a sport, Muay Thai became subject to womens’ interest and participation. On the grounds of equality, women in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s began to enter previously unavailable sports. This western phenomenon of women transcending the boundaries of sport influenced Muay Thai as it sought to gain attention on the world stage and in the general preoccupation of Thai authorities to appear in sink with western norms and values.
Thai women have been actively competing in Muay Thai for over forty years. They were very active in Muay Thai during the years of the Indo-Chinese conflict in Vietnam. The sport as a whole was greatly promoted internationally at that time with bids for an Olympic debut and trips abroad of demonstration teams of both male and female fighters. Female fights were even held in major Bangkok stadiums and televised nationally, according to Stockmann (1979, p.20). Although allowed to fight in such major venues Stockmann also noted that the women were only allowed into the ring after all the male fights were finished and the ring could be torn down after the women exited the ropes (1979, p.20). This practice ensured the sacredness of the ring for male fighters.
Gambling, a side bar to any Muay Thai match, was prevalent when women participated in Muay Thai matches. Thais bet on female fights, as did their foreign visitors of the time, American GIs. In a recent conversation with a former US serviceman stationed in Thailand in 1973, I was informed of the weekly entertainment on tap for American soldiers: female Muay Thai matches. The informant stated that every Tuesday night the local bar staged fights and the servicemen bet on the matches. The girls, they were mostly in their teens, could win 100 Baht or approximately 5 dollars US per fight. The presence of foreign troops in the area created the market for this source of entertainment and helped fuel the involvement of women in competitive Muay Thai at that time.
From 1973 onward, a backlash against American involvement and presence in Thailand developed. The student uprising of that same year was in part a result of the dissatisfaction of the students with the government involvement and cooperation with the Americans. The fall of the military government, resulted partly in the pullout of American troops. The U.S. pull out reduced the number of people gambling on female fights, and gambling not the prize purse is where the money is made in Muay Thai. In the democratic years between 1973 and 1976 women continued to compete in Muay Thai but with the re-establishment of a military regime in 1976 the interest in womens’ Muay Thai appears to have plummeted. Reduced interest in gambling on female fights produced unprofitable matches and promotion of female Muay Thai matches all but ceased. The correlation between military rule and the reduced interest in female Muay Thai may be due to a backlash on western ideaologies on womens’ liberation and a governement campaign to return to the traditional patriachial heirarchy of Thai society.

5.1.3 Globalization

The process of globalization, integration of world economies, has created resurgence in female Muay Thai. The marketing of Thai culture as a product in the world market place has spawned a great interest in Muay Thai among women all over the world. The process of women’s liberation has spread throughout the world of sport and seen the development of professional female boxing circuits in western countries. Many of these fighters have been exposed to and enchanted by Muay Thai. In a recent World Amateur Muay Thai competition held in Bangkok women from countries such as Mexico, Finland, Britain, Australia, and The United States competed.
The promotion of Muay Thai, and the involvement of foreign women in Muay Thai, has created the need to sponsor Thai female fighters. The Thais are proud of their national sport. In their efforts to promote their sport and increase their visibility on the world stage they have encountered an interesting conundrum: can foreigners beat them at their own game and transform Muay Thai from the cultural property of Thailand to a generic sport of the world? In the field of female Muay Thai this is a more legitimate fear.
In the desire to preserve the primacy of Thailand in its’ own national sport, women are being recruited to defend the nation against foreign rivals. The impact of foreign involvement in Muay Thai has once again created the market for women to enter the ring. As Muay Thai vies for greater international exposure, the profile and number of female Muay Thai combatants in the country is sure to increase.

5.1.4 Boxing Body

Recent sociological theory has focused on the body as the location of cultural action and a place to inscribe cultural meaning. I have applied several theories, namely the body as a source of capital and the body as a source of pollution, to this study of women in Muay Thai. Thai culture is highly conscious of the body, the space that it occupies, the functions it may perform in respect to societal norms and as a demonstration of prevailing hierarchies. Therefore the application of body theorems is extremely appropriate and useful in exploring the current subject matter. First I will address the pollution theory of Mary Douglas and how it is applicable to the situation of women in Muay Thai.
Women have been active in Muay Thai for more than 40 years. Although not a long time in the history of the sport, a seemingly long enough period to suppose that their profile in the national consciousness should be more substantial. This researcher found that in casual conversations with Thais that most, except for those active in the world of Muay Thai, do not know of the existence of female Muay Thai fighters. That begs the question, Why are women so underrepresented in the sport?

5.1.5 Pollution and Taboo

Mary Douglas developed the theory that dirt is matter out of place and that pollution occurs when dirt crosses the boundaries into clean categories (1966). Pollution and fear of pollution is more highly prevalent in societies with strict hierarchies, such as Thailand although it is demonstrably present in all cultures particularly in respect to women and their monthly menstruation.
Pollution is power of a negative sort. Black magic is frequently conjured with commodities that qualify as pollutants such as nail pairings, hair, and blood. The power of these materials results from their dislocation from the body from whence they came. The body as a closed system is believed to maintain a positive sacred energy that can be punctured by such dirt.
In Thailand women are seen as a source of pollution to the most sacred objects and beings within the society: the Sangha, sacred Buddhist relics and sites and any item or person imbued with sacredness. The source of their pollution is their menstrual blood. The restrictions placed on women within the Thai Buddhist system is rarely challenged by the general population.
Acceptance of the taboos placed on women are readily transferred to the context of Muay Thai which is traditionally associated with elements of Thai popular religion including Buddhism, Brahmanism, and Animism. Women pollute the magic of the ring and the male fighters; a belief that makes the participation of women in Muay Thai more difficult due to the constraints put on the availability of practice space and fight venues.
The power of the taboo against women in the Muay Thai ring varies throughout the different regions of Thailand. In central and northern Thailand the taboo appears to be in full force whereas in the northeast, the region commonly known as Essan, the taboo is generally not given much license. In this region, where a majority of my fieldwork was conducted, women and men used the same ring, sparred together in training and even had mixed sex matches. The female fighters I met there, however, did not live at the camp where they sometimes trained and when questioned about this I was informed that formerly female fighters had lodged at the camp but the practice had been discontinued due to an outbreak of sexual relations between male and female fighters.
Although the taboo prevails in the majority of Muay Thai camps and venues there are signs that this is changing as a result of globalization. In a recent international tournament a ring was first used for the female fights and later used for B class male fighters. The female fights drew considerable interest from the crowd and could not be scheduled as an afterthought to the male fights as was formerly the case in the previous heyday of female fights in the early 1970’s. The taboo on women in the ring was superceded by the necessity of the international sporting event.

5.1.6 Physical Capital

The modern age has seen a transformation of the body into a commodity. The capital advantage that can be gained by the exploitation of the body is particularly relevant in the discussion of sport in general and Muay Thai in particular.
The body has always been a means of capital in that the work it does creates a product, which is a source of income. In the case of Muay Thai the work creates no product other than the display of the body for entertainment. The body on display must however perform, and this performance is facilitated by months of hard physical training. This form of physical capital is commonly the domain of Thai men.
Thai women are world renown for their physical capital: beauty. This is translated into the sales pitch for Thai tourism, the international recognition of Thai beauty queens, and the prostitution trade. All of these elements of female physical capital have some relevance to the previously discussed importance of globalization on Thai culture. In the era of the American GI, the prevalence of prostitution among Thai women was blamed directly on this foreign market; a claim which continues to be made today although Thai men make up the majority of the consumer base of this product.
Muay Thai, and the availability of another avenue for creating wealth from physical capital, is an important aspect in the promotion of female Muay Thai. Stockmann quotes promoter Thiemboon Intrabut as saying that, “… making an honorable living in the ring was preferable to becoming a prostitute” (1979, p.20). The implication as to the commercial options available for many Thai women could not be more succinctly stated.

5.1.7 Socialization

The socialization of Thai women is performed by many institutions including family, school and religion. I contend that the process of globalization has had a significant impact on what agents have the most influence on the socialization of Thai women. The Group Socialization theory of Judith Rich Harris fits the new realities of Thai culture and helps explain how women in Muay Thai can partake in such a stereotype defying pursuit.
GS theory postulates that while the family is the primary institution of socialization in the earliest years of life, it is the peer group that becomes the most influential once a child enters school (1995). The evidence available in any two-child family supports the theory, where the siblings despite similar environments never become personality clones. Furthermore, everyone is aware of the phenomenon of peer pressure, which is not, as commonly misrepresented, an exerted pressure from others to conform to the group norm but a willingness of the child to fit in with those in their peer group.
In Thailand the impact of globalization has further increased the influence of the peer group on young Thai women. Many young Thai women now leave their family home in pursuit of work in bigger centers such as Bangkok. In such situations they are no longer under the influence of the family and conform to the norms of the peer group in which they socialize. Mills discusses this trend throughout her thesis, “We Are Not Our Mothers” ( 1993).
In the interviews I conducted with female Muay Thai competitors it was clear that although the family often supported the women’s choice to participate in Muay Thai, the attitude toward Muay Thai of their peers was an important factor as well. Some informants had friends in the sport before they decided to enter it and were encouraged by their friends to become active in Muay Thai. Others said that their friends thought it was cool to know a Muay Thai fighter. Furthermore, some informants stated that their own mother was against their participation in Muay Thai but this did not stop them from pursuing their interest in the sport indicating the reduced influence of parents on the decision making process of the young women. Based on this evidence I think that the GS theory is applicable to the case of women in Muay Thai and predict that the increasing dislocation of the family due to the effects of globalization on the Thai village will further increase the importance of peer group socialization.

5.1.8 Recent Developments

It has been several years since I started researching this topic and over that time there have been some developments that suggest the impact of globalization is creating more access to Muay Thai for women and reducing the taboos formerly so strongly associated with women in the ring.
As I have noted before, in recent international competition, the World Amateur Muay Thai Tournament held in August of 2002 in Bangkok, women fought in the same ring which later in the day provided the venue for male matches. In the past Stockmann noted that rings if used by women were always used after all the male matches had concluded and were then disassembled (1979, p.20). On the occasion of the same tournament, the International Federation of Muay Thai Amateur (IFMA) agreed to include female fighters in all the international Muay Thai Championships to be organized anywhere in the world including Thailand.
Prior to the tournament in 2002, female referees were recruited and trained to adjudicate female matches. This was the first time in the history of Muay Thai in Thailand that matches had been presided over by women. The implication of this suggests that women are making further inroads into the sport and there soon may be female coaches, which would create more equality within Muay Thai.

5.2 Topics for Further Study

As a continuation of this study it would be beneficial to research Thai women in other traditionally male dominated sports. Thai women have won Olympic medals in weight lifting, a power sport commonly associated with male athletes. There may be an interesting contrast between the participation of women in this, a western sport, and that of Muay Thai; a sport derived from the traditions and culture of Thailand.
Another interesting line of investigation may be a cross-cultural comparison of women in Muay Thai and the participation of other women in the national sport of their countries. This would be particularly poignant if the cultures examined were also Asian with a traditional martial art form.

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Appendices

Appendix I

Formal Interview Questions for Female Muay Thai competitors

How old are you?
Where is your home village/town?
How many brothers and sisters do you have?
Are you the oldest or youngest in your family?
What work do your parents do?
Where did you go to school?
What grade did you complete?
How old were you when you left school?
Please describe yourself? (Physically and psychologically)

When did you become interested in Muay Thai?
Are there other people in your family who do Muay Thai?
Did you know any other women in Muay Thai when you started to train?
Are there any women in your family who are involved in Muay Thai?
What did your friends think when you chose to train in Muay Thai?
When did you start training in Muay Thai?
Did your family support your participation in Muay Thai (financial or moral)?
Who is your coach?
Have you had the same coach throughout your career?
Please describe your coach?
How many fights have you had?
What are your results?
Where were the fights located? Town/place
What have been the benefits of Muay Thai for you?
What is your Muay Thai dream?
Has anyone ever discouraged you from doing Muay Thai?
If so for what reason?
What would you do if you did not do Muay Thai?
How much money can you make in Muay Thai?
What do you do with your money?
Have you ever done any other work for pay?

Why are there separate rings for male and female fighters?
Have you ever trained in the same ring as the men?
What do you think of the need for two rings for male and female fighters?
Has this affected you in training and competition opportunities?
What do you think of the opportunities for female fighters?

Who is your role model in life?
What do you do with your free time?
What are your plans for the future?
What is the ideal woman?

10 minutes till reality

2011-04-05T04:05:00.000-07:00

This is the writing exercise we did last night at writers group. Describe the first moments of your morning adding more sensory information

Beep beep beep. The insistent alarm drags me from the depths of early morning slumber. I open one eye and the red hot 5:45 glares at me from the milk cartons that serve as my bedside table. I hit the snooze button violently as if it was calling me to my doom not to my morning routine.

As I roll over to the cooler side of the bed the fresh sheets I made the bed with last night rustle like fall leaves indicating a high thread count and 100 % cotton quality that I know must have been a gift. I would never buy sheets this good for myself.

I listen carefully but only hear the thud of the refrigerator in the kitchen below. The children are asleep. When I strain my ears, curving them out my door, across the hall and into the next room I can create an auditory hallucination detailing each breathe of the small lives that are assembled therein.

I flip unconvincingly like a flounder on a hook, testing my pillows for firmness of resolve. They fail, deflating as my head hits dead center. I crumple them under my neck, and now lie prone staring at the ceiling. It's only 5: 50. I have time to burn or in this case smolder.

Above me are the white ceiling tiles; a reverse of the night sky. Pinpricks of black light like so many black holes confront me, uncounted and uncountable no matter how long my lazy morning persists.

There should be news on so I flick the switch to radio on the metallic red faux 50s stereo that rests on the floor by my bed. There is a satisfying click and then a slight hum before voices fill the room with news, sports, and weather. I am really only interested in the weather.

Five more minutes and I am longing for the bitter taste of coffee and decide it is time to plant myself firmly in the day. I sit up and see the green light on the air filter brightly cheering up the room. The air filter does little to fend of the dust of this old house. The filter gives off a consistent mechanical wheezing sound which is far better for it to be making instead of me producing it's human equivalent.

I find my shoes and slip my feet into their cool interiors. Now it's downstairs for coffee. Soon the lives of others will impinge upon mine. First, it's the dog then it's the children but I have wrestled 10 minutes out of the day for myself, in bed with my radio.

Thoughts on the death of Ottilia Chareka

2011-03-21T08:47:00.000-07:00

Today I have to write one of the hardest articles I have ever been asked to write for the paper; it is on the death of Ottilia Chareka.

Just now reading her obituary makes my throat tighten and brings tears to my eyes. But I have never knowingly met Ottilia. We have been teachers at the same university campus, shopped in the same stores and walked the same streets but I did not know this amazing woman. This saddens me. It's a tangible pain in my chest; knowing that I will never get the chance to meet her.

Ottilia was murdered. She was killed in her home. The accused is her husband.

When I first heard this news I tried to link it to the struggle which I have recently sought to enlighten myself about; that of women, of feminism. My first reaction was to think that people are murdered everyday and it isn't because women and men are treated unequally. After reflecting on how I would summarize my thoughts into a digestible status update for Facebook I realized- This does relate to inequality between the sexes. How many men are murdered in their homes by their partners? It is the inequality that exists between men and women that lead some men to think they can physically harm and even kill women; for women are not their equals, not as valued, not as worthy of life and freedom from abuse.

How did this happen? How is it that female lives are not given the same value?

After reading more about Ottilia, my next question was-How did she let this happen? To that I already know the answer. Even the most powerful woman can feel powerless in an abusive relationship. With mouths to feed, a job, a life- you don't want to push the envelope and tear your own life apart just to be rid of what is bad in it. In our naivete, we never believe the people we love, or have loved, could possibly do us that most grievous harm; to take our lives, to leave our children motherless.

In asking this question I am not trying to blame the victim, I am trying to show that even the most brilliant among us cannot imagine the capability of human beings to do harm.

Ottilia is leaving behind five daughters ranging in age from 3 to 23, a body of work on social justice, and a path of perseverance and goodwill that is an example for us all.

St. FX University in Antigonish released a statement. See it here.

Ottilia was part of a short documentary called the Familiar Stranger by Antigonish native Cara Jones

A Memorial Fund for the Children of Ottilia Chareka has been established at the Bergengren Credit Union in Antigonish, account number 50623-112 and transit number 80143-839. For cheque writing purposes, this can be shortened to Children of Ottilia Chareka or Memorial Fund for Ottilia Chareka.

The Bergengren Credit Union can process donations as long as Ottilia's name is in the title.

Cheques can be sent to:

Faculty of Education,St. Francis Xavier University,PO Box 5000, Antigonish, NS B2G 2W5

or to

Minnie van de Wiel, Deposit Administration Clerk, Bergengren Credit Union, 257 Main Street Antigonish NS B2G 2C1.

Donations may also be made directly to the family:

Cheques can be made payable to Missy Chareka. Mail to: 135 College St., Antigonish, NS B2G 1X9

At this time when we are thinking about her death it is important for people to see her life and her work. Some of Ottilia Chareka's papers can be found at the following sites:

Teacher Education in Online Classrooms: An Inquiry into Instructors’ Lived Experiences

CIVIC DUTY: YOUNG PEOPLE’S CONCEPTIONS OF VOTING AS A MEANS OF POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Let us walk the talk: Successes and struggles in implementing global education as a regular course at university level

Multicultural Education, Diversity, and Citizenship in Canada

Fantastic find in Sherbrooke

2011-03-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

On Monday I had the good fortune of heading down to Sherbrooke, Nova Scotia to report on a council meeting. I arrived early and took a little walk around.

The first thing I focused on was this brightly coloured bridge that stood out so nicely against our last snow fall.

I stopped into the library to say hello. I worked there last spring teaching computer classes.

Carried on and shot the Post Office. In this area of Nova Scotia we have these lovely Post Offices in most small towns and villages, all built in the early 1900s.

It was a cold and windy day. Hopefully winter's last kick, but I doubt it. I was excited to see someone outside. I asked if I could take his picture and he was more than happy to oblige.

I inquired further and discovered that he and his friends were recording an album in the studio hidden within the unassuming St. Mary's River Lodge.

I was invited inside and got to see this trio of local High School students at work on a dream.

The inaptly named band, The Inadequacies.

I was thrilled to meet these young people and find art in the making on a cold winter day. There is art all around us here in these small communities. Some times it is hidden in the High School kid doodling in their scribbler at the back of the class and sometimes it is in a room at the top of the stairs of an unimposing looking country inn.

In the small village where I live, population 992, on my street alone we have Emmy Alcorn; the artistic director of a theater company who is also a singer/song writer, Jess and Greg, two singer songwriters and myself; a writer. There is talent here everywhere you look and it is inspiring to see these young people starting out artistically.

After a tour of the recording studio I headed out again into the cold afternoon and took a few more shots around town before heading into the the council meeting.

Sherbrooke Coffee shop,The Village Coffee Grind, where I would like to while away the hours.

The 'Old' Sherbrooke Village, which is the tourism draw of this quaint little spot.

It's amazing where life will lead you when you ask a few questions.

Why I'm single

2011-03-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

I look out my window and see a man and a woman walking down the street. It's a sunny day on the cusp of spring. The snow has melted and the gravel is soft and forgiving under their footsteps. He's got a full head of white hair and is wearing a grey sweater. It's warm enough for just a sweater if you don't mind the cold and have the sun at your back. She's just at his shoulder; a deep red coat and hat pulled down over her ears against the wind. His arm is resting on her shoulder as they walk down the road.

I see them pass by the stone gate to the Manor Inn, pass the Catholic church and head down a small hill. How sweet, companionship in later years. But that arm on my shoulder; I would have cut it off by now from the discomfiture it caused me with it's uneven and continuously bouncing weight.

Cracked Facade

2011-03-11T06:53:00.000-08:00

I couldn't hold it together this morning when I heard the description on the radio of the earthquake, landslides and tsunamis affecting Japan. I cried.

I had an e-mail this morning from Tets that he and his parents are fine; I am not even sure if he is in Japan or not, but that some members of his mothers family are yet to be accounted for.

Hannah saw me crying and asked me why I was crying if, as I had told her, Daddy, Baba and Jiji were alright. How could I explain to her that this event had taken me back in time to the major earthquake I had experienced when living in Taiwan- 21, September, 1999. Over 2,000 lives were lost and we lived with aftershocks on a daily basis for about six month afterward.

It was thrilling in a horror movie sort of way, living in Taiwan at the time. You never knew when the ground would move, for how long or how strong the movement would be. Is the shopping centre your in about to collapse? Is this the last latte you'll ever have in Starbucks?

One weekend several months after the earthquake I was staying in a hotel in Taipei. I often traveled to Taipei from the smaller city of Hsin-chu to have a weekend where I could access western civilization; Starbucks, TGIFridays, English bookstores and English signs. That night in a 20 story highrise hotel I felt the gentle sway of the building like the proverbial baby in the tree top. My first thought was that no one knew where I was. I had not told anyone of my plans to go to Taipei that weekend. If the building went down, I would disappear forever. I turned on the TV and tried not to think about it.

In the Taiwan earthquake the epicenter was mid-island, but due to shoddy and prosecution-able construction practices, high rise buildings in Taipei, over 300 km from the epicenter, went down.

On another occasion I was meeting a friend in Taipei at a department store coffee shop/bookstore. As she was coming to meet me on the 10th floor, the lights started to sway and all the Chinese, usually a very loud bunch, became silent. In the midst of that silence I got a phone call; my friend was in the stairwell coming up to meet me and the lights had gone out. I answered the phone, and she said, “Earthquake?” I said, “Earthquake.”

She arrived at my table about 5 minutes later and after the Chinese all vacated the coffee shop in anticipation of more tremors, we decided to stay. It was the quietest place in all of Taiwan.

I guess I never really thought that this experience had an effect on me but today my facade has finally cracked from the stress fractures it sustained during that earthquake almost 12 years ago.

I was going to the hospital today for some blood work and decided that I would ask for a psyche consult while I was there. I got my family doctor, a lady who I really like, and felt better after having someone to talk to about how I was feeling.

During the discussion I also flashed back onto the Asian Tsunami. There are Tsunamis in Japan now too.

I was living in Bangkok at the time, December 26, 2004. It was a horrible time. The news was worse every day. Everybody knew someone affected. It was Christmas break and most foreigners who lived in Thailand, my friends and acquaintances, were taking their holidays in Southern Thailand. I was in Bangkok, at one of the Irish pubs in which my partnered played in a band. I remember watching the news break on the TV screens. There was silence and wonder as the death toll numbers started to come in.

As far as I know, I didn't know anyone directly involved in the disaster. In the days following the Tsunami my school started trying to call all the teachers, 90 plus, that worked at our school, to make sure they were all safe and accounted for. One teacher could not be reached. He was the biggest white man I had ever seen, he was over 6'6, had a shaved head and a gap toothed smile. If you didn't know him you would surely be scared by him but I often rode the skytrain with him after work and we had some nice chats as he ducked down to clear the ceiling of the train. He was a Brit and had come to our school to teach last year.

We, the teachers at Chulalongkorn Go International school, were all worried. Less than a year before another friend of ours had not come back from his beach holiday. That was Paul, I used to go for drinks with him and some of the other teachers from Go at Texas bar, on one of the small sois in Siam Square, Bangkok. Paul, had slipped in the bathroom of his rented beach bungalow, hit his head, and died. He was 28. Kimber, the teacher now missing, was 26.

The first week back at school after the earthquake was a relief. Kimber walked in for his scheduled classes and was surprised to see everyone's relieved faces. Over the holiday he had moved and when you move in such a transient world as Bangkok your phone number does not move with you.

Our school made it through without any losses to the Tsunami; no teachers, no students were lost but that was not the case at most other International Schools in Bangkok and the stories of loss spread through the teaching community. It was a grievous time. And now they will be searching for bodies in Japan, finding unrecognizable remains and living with death for many months to come.

It's been a hard morning, reliving all those terrifying moments, the months of grief and uncertainty and knowing it is all happening again and will continue to happen now and again in different places and different times. I felt bad when the earthquakes hit Haiti and Chile, but Asia is my second home. I have people there, I have lived through these things there and it ties my throat in knots. So I did the only thing I know how to do to fix this feeling; write.

Feminism, wrote a blog about it, wanna read it, here it goes

2011-03-08T18:32:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about this day for the past few weeks and have so much to say that I am unsure if it will all come out right or end up as goop.

International Women's Day first came to my attention last year, on it's 99th anniversary. What female life had I been living that I was unaware of this day, this powerful movement, this obligation that I have as a woman and as a mother of two females to fight against the inequality over half the planet faces due to what is between their legs? This year, on the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day I am going to start educating myself on the equality that we as humans deserve, righting what injustices I can, and promoting feminism by it's most basic definition: equal rights for all.

Today, like most women, I have been working. My children were under the care of other women. While at work I received an e-mail asking for a notice to be placed in the community calendar section of the newspaper. It started with:
Dear Sir,
I would like to ask.....

At first I chuckled to myself and then I came to see the not so funny underlying message; this woman, for it was a woman who wrote the e-mail, assumed that the paper, an instrument of power and knowledge in the world, was controlled by men. I decided a reply was in order and fashioned the following:
Hi Anne,
I just wanted to make a comment on your mail. It was addressed : Dear Sir- There is not one man who works on the production of The Guysborough Journal. Just a friendly note on International Women's Day.
I hope your supper is a success.
Regards,
Lois Ann Dort
production coordinator and writer

This is entirely true. There is not one man who works in our office. The graphic designer is a woman. The office admin/circulation manager is a woman. The accountant is a woman. The editor is a woman. The advertising manager is a woman. We women work together and put out a local paper every week. It is not a feminist paper, or a fashion rag; just an everyday community paper that happens to be staffed by women.

Tossing this in my brain this afternoon I started to feel that I had never really experienced the professional inequalities that are so often cited in feminist tracks. I have often worked for women; highly placed women in both the public and private sectors. But then again I took a look at our papers' masthead. The first name listed is that of a man. I have never met him, never talked to him and never had any e-mail contact with this person yet his name appears above all the subsequent female names; the names that produce the paper every week. He is the publisher, he is the money and is he the real power? I truly don't know.

There has been a plethora of International Women's Day posts on Facebook today and I want to share a few here that I found enlightening. The first is Daniel Craig's drag take on International Women's Day.The character he portrays is atrocious in terms of human equality but despite myself I have always loved James Bond. It's interesting to say the least to see this man take a stand for women.

Next up is TED. TED Women. This is a short but interesting discussion about the new feminism and I find it more inclusive than the feminism that I have encounter in women who are a generation older than me.

And now I am back to commenting on Facebook posts that I have read on this important day. The first made me cringe and the second gave me hope.

The first post was from a former student of mine who wrote: ALL TIX SOLD OUT! CYA TONITE BITCHES♥♥
This use of the word bitches in a joking/loving manner by young women drives me crazy. I can not accept whatever justification that might be made for calling one another this horrible derogatory word. In the past I have seen other women post, and ask others to re-post, a rant declaring themselves to be Bitches; declaring their strength and take no shit attitude. This isn't being a bitch; this is getting your due. This is what we should have. If you want it call yourself a feminist not a bitch. Women will not win anything by adopting these negative stereotypes.

The other post was a picture of five girls I know from our local High School. I am re-posting it here with permission.

In this picture I see so much potential. Women in nontraditional roles, women who feel free to be princesses, and women together as friends. I love this picture and all it represents. I could not be prouder of the young women at our school.

CBC Doc Zone aired a documentary called: The F word: who wants to be a feminist?
I do. And I hope everyone else does to.

And finally, I had a media moment today which I missed due to the fact that I was at work. Last week I sent an e-mail in to CBC Mainstreet asking them to play Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves by Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox for all the women out there, who like me, are doing it for themselves. I have always loved this song and cheesy as it may sound, it did give me the sense that I could do anything as a woman in this world. And what's more, it is a vision of feminism that does not exclude men. I am not a believer in the old women's lib phrase: a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. I like men. I have a lot of male friends. I don't feel I have to exclude them or bring them down to pull myself up. There is room in this world for equality for all not just one or the other sex.

There are still other things buzzing around in my head but I'll end this post by letting Aretha and Annie have the last word.

Day tripping in Canso

2011-03-04T18:03:00.000-08:00

Today I had one official and one unofficial reason for traveling to Canso. The unofficial one was the weather; a bright sunny day would be great to get a photo journal around town. The official reason was to interview the Health Minister who is in Canso today at Eastern Memorial Hospital to discuss the John Ross report and the future of the emergency room at this hospital-or so I assume.

On the 50 minute drive down to Canso from Guysborough I saw lots of interesting things that I could have taken pictures of but as usual there was a car behind me and I did not want to get rear ended.

Once in town I headed to the new fish plant to see what sea-cucumbers would look like in production. Outside of the plant I saw a truck with pink ice hanging off the tailgate and a spreading pink ooze on the gravel and ice in the parking lot. I walked up to some fish boxes and saw … a couple hundred pounds of frozen gelatinous cucumbers.

I have seen sea-cucumbers before, in their live state, and was a little disconcerted to see them bleeding in boxes on a freezing day in Canso.

Inside the plant I asked for the plant manager hoping to get a picture for the paper but she didn't consent saying there was nothing anyone would want to see in the paper happening there today.

The floor in the processing plant was full of an oozing slime with occasional surreal pink blood that was not exactly blood; not in the terrestrial sense. There were about 6 lines of workers with 4 or so to a line with what looked like clipboards mounted on a drafting table. Clipped to the boards were the sea-cucumbers which were being flayed; IE processed. It looked so much like something out of a 1960's industrial promotion film that I almost laughed.

The workers wore bright blue aprons and one of the men complained that although the apron was fresh on Tuesday, there was no amount of washing that could get the pink blood stain out of it now on Friday.

The smell was fiercely obtrusive as well. All I could think about was a comment a co-worker once made to me about the smell of the fish plant wafting over our archaeological dig site on Grassy Island, just offshore from the town of Canso, “That, my dear, is the smell of money.”

From the plant I went on a little drive and took some pictures.

Up to the camp road where I used to depart for work each day over to Grassy Island,

to the town office,

out behind the museum

and down a few streets to capture some local flavour.

Anchors and boats weighted in snow.

I stopped in at the newest restaurant in town, The Dockside Grill,and found what I was looking for- chocolate cheesecake. The Dockside always has great cakes. There I chatted with the manager and got the gossip on the local celebrity, J.P.Courmier. None of which I will write here as I hope he'll grant me an interview at some future date.

Then I headed out to the hospital where I am now siting waiting to interview the health minister; although I don't really know about what and I would rather be out taking more photos.

Here is a nicely arranged 'boy, we were caught off guard by swine flu' station.

I have never been in this hospital before. Just in past the front desk they have a trophy case with all the trophy's they have won over the years in the Canso Regatta. There are also some newspaper clippings and a telegram detailing the closing of the outpost hospital station here in Canso by the Red Cross in 1951. There are pictures of the old hospital too. The building- I think- now houses the local daycare centre next to the inevitably closing high school. There are several clippings from the former incarnation of the local paper called, The Guysborough County Advocate, from 1948.

Just past the trophy case and down the hall to the left is a large painting done in a style reminiscent of Alan Siliboy.

A very nice piece. And there is a plaque commemorating the service of a former doctor.

They should be out of meeting in 10 minutes. Let's hope the minister has time for me after all the time I have invested in her today.

Saw the minister for all of 8 minutes but that is how it goes. Listening to her discuss how hospital budgets will be frozen this year, I wonder if this will be enough; probably not.

After that I stopped in at the MLAs office which is in the old Post Office. It's a great building like our old Post Office in Guysborough. It has had many incarnations since it's postal days and some nice art work on the Bell Aliant building next door.

Then back to Guysborough with a few photo pit stops.

My favorite derelict house in Hazel Hill; I always envision it as a writers retreat.

My favourite road; also in Hazel Hill (for those out of the loop; it is the community just outside of Canso).

The Queensport light. My uncle once kept the light here, now no one does.

A splash of RED on the way home.

One of my American uncles bought this house years ago with dreams of a summer home but other projects closer to home caught his attention and he has been renovating my great- grandparents house in Templeton for years. You can see that her bones are still beautiful.

And yes, I am indeed a Dort from Dorts Cove.

And it is still winter.

I stop at my dad's to pick up H-Bean.

The brook at my father's house.

Dad's wood, tractor and barn.

Then it is off to the store to buy a birthday present for a party tomorrow. Home for the fiddle and music. To the babysitters to pick up S-girl. And the Guysborough Intervale to Eddie's for fiddle. Long day.

Writers Workshop

2011-02-26T16:25:00.000-08:00

With blowing snow and a late start we had the honour of hosting a writing workshop with Sheldon Currie.

Our first exercise was for each member to write one word, then we combined all those words and wrote a few paragraphs.

Sunny
chandelier
sale
sadness

She remembered the first day they met. The parlor in his mother's house had a brilliant chandelier that looked like the icicles hanging from the dead tree over Manson's Brook. The brook, there was a place that brought back her fears; family secrets and internal dread of malignant genes. Her mother had chosen the Virginia Wolf exit plan in Manson's brook, and she was always contemplating her own state of mind, the depth of her sadness, on a daily basis.

But today was sunny, there were prospects on the horizon including Joe. On the first day, the iridescent afternoon had lulled them all into a contemplative heap desiring nothing more than tea and light conversation. But Joe had come to visit his mother with a stern objective; the sale of her house was pending, where would she go. He dreaded the thought of her moving in with him. Would she consent to live in the seniors complex up the road or would she see that as a resignation to death.

Birthday Party
By Katherine Brush

They were a couple in their late thirties, and they looked unmistakably married.
They sat on the banquette opposite us in a little narrow restaurant, having dinner. The
man had a round, self-satisfied face, with glasses on it; the woman was fadingly pretty, in
a big hat.There was nothing conspicuous about them, nothing particularly noticeable, until
the end of their meal, when it suddenly became obvious that this was an Occasion—in
fact, the husband’s birthday, and the wife had planned a little surprise for him.

It arrived, in the form of a small but glossy birthday cake, with one pink candle
burning in the center. The headwaiter brought it in and placed it before the husband, and
meanwhile the violin-and-piano orchestra played “Happy Birthday to You,” and the wife
beamed with shy pride over her little surprise, and such few people as there were in the
restaurant tried to help out with a pattering of applause. It became clear at once that help
was needed, because the husband was not pleased. Instead, he was hotly embarrassed,
and indignant at his wife for embarrassing him.

You looked at him and you saw this and you thought, “Oh, now, don’t be like
that!” But he was like that, and as soon as the little cake had been deposited on the table,
and the orchestra had finished the birthday piece, and the general attention had shifted
from the man and the woman, I saw him say something to her under his breath—some
punishing thing, quick and curt and unkind. I couldn’t bear to look at the woman then, so
I stared at my plate and waited for quite a long time. Not long enough, though. She was
still crying when I finally glanced over there again. Crying quietly and heartbrokenly and
hopelessly, all to herself, under the gay big brim of her best hat.
Copyright © 1946 The New Yorker. All rights reserved.
Originally published in The New Yorker.

In the workshop we discussed this piece and were asked the following questions:
How many characters-3
What do we know about each-man whose birthday it is, wife, dinner
Who is telling the story?-narrator a fellow diner in the restaurant
Why did the author chose this narrator?- dispassionate observer, had no opinion about the couple, judged by their actions only. It's the show don't tell rule of writing states of emotions.
If story told by different narrator how would it change?- if the husband or wife told the story there would be much more emotion attached to the story. It may be too melodramatic and loose readers in the overplay of emotion.
Comic or tragic, could it be comic?if husband it could be comic in a nasty way

Our exercise in the workshop was to rewrite this short story from a different perspective. I choose the perspective of the husband. As follows:

After all these years she thinks this will make up for her inattention, her snideness and her disregard for my welfare, my needs, my wants, my desires. Look at her in that hideous hat, flouting her fashion sense when it is me that has been paying for that sensibility for the past thirty years.

I should have been smarter younger, now it's too late. Her beauty is gone and so is my tolerance. I hope she knows this is the last little extravagance I plan to afford her.

Here it comes, the musicians are playing a birthday chorus and the waiter is bringing the cake.

Must she make a spectacle of us at every turning point. It has gotten so that I dread public outings. She's hoping for adulation from her fellow dinners because she know she won't get it from me. I know her too well to fall for this false celebration. This cake isn't for me, it's for her- to feed her own vanity by placing her at the center of attention.

Well I am not going to play her games anymore. And I tell her so. She starts to shed convincing tears and I look as evil as Hitler. To hell with it. God damn Happy Birthday to me.

“Waiter, bring me a scotch, double quick”

In the workshop we rewrote this poem using a different metaphor.
Original:
Theodore Roethke

Wish for a Young Wife

My lizard, my lively writher
May your limbs never wither
May the eyes in your face
Survive the green ice
Of envy's mean gaze;
May you live out your life
Without hate, without grief,
May your hair ever blaze
In the sun, in the sun
When I am undone
When I am no one.

1964

My rewrite:

Wish for a young wife

My Herodotus, my multi-storied resource
May your pages never tear
May your ink remain bright
and not fade with my constant attention
or smear with unwonted tears
May you live out your life
On and off the shelf
without ridicule and criticism
And your binding ever strengthening
In the sun, in the sun
When I am undone,
When I am no one

Thanks to all those who participated, especially Sheldon for his great insight and exercises. And thank you to DesBarres Manor Inn for letting us use their terrific space to host the event.

Nana Station

2011-02-26T05:13:00.000-08:00

I lived in Bangkok about eight years in total and lived in various locations throughout the city during that time. One of my apartments was located just off Sukhumvit road one soi over from the infamous sex soi Nana. But I am not going to write about the sex soi here; instead I am going to write about some other people who lived as I did, in the proximity of the sex soi.

I know these people because I could see them everyday, watch them sleep, eat, play and watch them perform their unmentionable bathroom functions. These were the street people that lived in the vacant lot in front of my high rise condo building and in the derelict rebar and concrete structure next to the skytrain platform at Nana which would have been another high rise housing project if the economy hadn't collapsed in 1997.

I watched the people in the rebar and concrete house while I waited for the train. I saw their baby sleeping under a pink canopy of lace set on a piece a oilcloth to protect the child from the sting of mosquitoes. I saw the adults drinking Leo beer at 7 am when I headed to work on a Saturday morning. I watched them ride a bike between the levels of the skinless condominium and wondered where they had found it or stolen it. I watched the green space around the base of the building to try and determine which movements were those of birds foraging for seeds and which were rats waiting for the humans to disgard a morsel of food.

These people I watched from the platform, the other people, those in the vacant lot, I walked past on my my way home to my comfortable 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 balcony apartment on the fifteenth floor of a condo with an Olympic sized swimming pool. There in the abandoned lot stood a makeshift hut of boards, plastic tarp and corrugated iron sheeting. A family of unknown number lived there; some kids a man and several women. The man always greeted me as I walked by; me in my high heels, skirts and dress shirts coming from work and he in a Thai sarong or possibly tattered shorts. He usually lifted a bottle of Sangsom Thai whisky to greet me in the evenings.

Eventually I got used to these people and I would occasionally bring them home food from the school cafeteria where I worked. It was the same food they could have bought from street vendors themselves but the cost on campus was half what it was in the outside world.

The man and I became friendly, he could speak very good English and my Thai wasn't too bad at the time. On my way home, if I had time, I would pass by way of their hut and talk with him for 15 minutes or so. His family was from the Northeast of Thailand. They came to Bangkok like most people did to make a better more prosperous life and like most people, it didn't work out.

I was friends with the family for several months when money must have came in from somewhere to develop the vacant lot and the family was pushed off their squatting ground. I was not there to see the event. They just weren't there one day when I came home and in their place was a small excavator.

All of life is transient. No wonder Thais are Buddhist; they live it's key precept every day.

Note: this picture shows both the rebar condo and the vacant lot at Nana Station

My guy on Phayathai

2011-02-26T04:53:00.000-08:00

I just finished the book Such a Long Journey by Rohintin Mistry. A long time ago and a world away I read his book A Fine Balance, which was almost 1,000 pages of misery that taught me a lot about the world I was living in at the time. Bombay, which is where the former novel is set is not Bangkok but they have many things in common; compounds with apartment buildings surrounded by piss soaked walls for one.

In Bangkok I both lived in such compounds and had friends that lived in such compounds where the guard opened the metal gate leading to the street for any vehicles. Foot traffic in and out of the compound came and went through a small door cut into the larger gate.

There were rats and street vendors, old ladies with shorn heads, blood red lips and black teeth squat down in the busy centre of Siam Square selling betel nut, a throw back to the previous century. The lips and teeth were a result of chewing the betel nut they sold; not a great advertisement for the product in this modern age.

And there were street people. Beggars and those too far gone to beg populated almost every footbridge and could be found under overpasses, sitting in the shelter of the shade afforded by the high walls around a construction site or gated housing community.

In my neighborhood, just off from the popular hustle and bustle of soi Ari, sitting in front of the corporate headquarters for one of the major Thai banks, was my guy.

I called him my guy because over the course of several months we became friends of a sort. We never exchanged a word; I am not sure if he could talk, but we exchanged smiles and small gifts.

When I first met my guy he was sitting on the cement next to the frequently extinguished fountain at the bank on Phayathai road. I walked past him on my way to and from the skytrain station everyday. I was nine months pregnant.

My guy had a backpack and in this backpack he had some small things that he would lay out on the side walk to sell to passersby. He typically had key chains, single serving packets of nescafe and other small light wares. He, unlike other street people, was always impeccably dressed with a nice silk shirt and clean black pants. His hair was combed and he was clean shaven. He never approached people or harassed them to buy things just sat there and smiled at everyone.

My guy was young, I would guess early 20s. He had a physical affliction which twisted one leg, and his facial expression while always pleasant and friendly was a little off-center.

Over time I came to look forward to this friendly face that I knew I would encounter just outside my door and although I had no need for instant coffee or key chains I would stop and give him 20 baht just for the smile. I didn't give it to him every day and he never seemed to expect it from me and was always gracious when I did have something for him.

Our relationship went along like this for almost a year. Then he stopped coming to the bank sidewalk. I have to say that I was worried about him, wondered where he had gone. Of course there was no way I would ever be able to find out the answers to these questions. Street people may have addresses but they aren't known to people like me, not usually. I mentioned my concern to my partner at the time and he, living and walking on the same street as I did, had no idea who I was talking about and furthermore felt my concern was misplaced.

Eventually he came back and it was as if my worst fears had been justified.

One morning he was back sitting in his usual spot but he was not his usual self. First, he had no bag, he had no things to sell. His clothes were rough and dirty. He hadn't shaved. And worst of all was his face; there was no smile there just a look of despair. I felt so bad when I saw him. As I approached I saw all the people, who like me had known him in his previous incarnation, just walk by him ignoring the fact that he was there. I must have seen 30 people pass by him like this before I got to his spot.

I stopped and got out my wallet and made a point of showing others that I was giving him money. He gave me a wan smile and sat back down on the cement. As I had hoped after I continued on down the road to the skytrain and on towards work other people started to stop and give him money too. I hoped that whatever had befallen him, some quick cash would remedy. It wasn't so.

The next few days that I saw him he continued in a disheveled state. I was heading home one hot afternoon and saw him sitting dejected in front of the silent fountain. I stopped and through some mime convinced him to come with me to the nearby market. He was shy of me; still not sure of my intentions. I took him to a noodle stand and we had lunch. He watched me as we ate and he watched others in the busy market as if he expected someone to throw him out at any minute.

I bought him a new shirt and gave him some money; more than I usually gave him but still not much of any amount to a foreigner like me.

My guy was gone from his spot for the next few days after our little market outing. I was hoping that the money I had given him was not taken from him by whoever he might live with. I was hoping that this small gesture would make a difference.

After a week he was back, and he was smiling, clean and toting a canvas backpack with smiley face key chains for sale. I bought two.

I have been gone for almost four years and I still wonder about my guy and hope he is doing well.

First kiss

2011-02-26T04:19:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to write this since valentine's day but life overtook me until this time.

Leading up to valentine's day I listened to a DNTO broadcast on the topic of: your first kiss. The show made me think back to my first kiss so many years ago.

To be fair my first kiss was when I was 5 years old, under a spruce tree which had my initials carved in it next to my family's u-pick strawberry field. But it was disputed by the co-conspirator in the following years as to whether the kiss occurred or not. So I will document my first kiss as the one I received when I was 15years old in my aunts' spare room in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia.

The boys name was Sasha Viminitz, you can't forget a name like that even if you didn't kiss him. I met him in the provincial debating championship held in Digby in the winter of 1988 (?). I was in grade 9 at Pugwash Municipal High School and he was in grade 9 at Oxford Street school in Halifax. From the moment I first saw him I was smitten and when I heard that suave Russian name fall from his lips I felt my knees buckle.

At first he acted superior to me, the country bumpkin, but after we talked a bit and he discovered that I did not hail from the red dirt land of Pugwash and had lived and traveled in other vicinities he dropped some of the city slicker attitude.

The debating championship was held over a weekend with teams from across the province meeting in Digby. My team consisted of myself, the school brainiac Christian and one other girl who made the team due to the fact that she showed up to the try outs and she had stage presence; she was consummate beauty pageant contestant; other than that she was most likely the dullest knife in the grade 9 drawer at our school.

We were staying at the Old Orchard Inn just outside of Wolfville, we three girls and one of our teachers. We drove the additional hour to Digby in the morning of the debates. It was a big thrill. Away from home, on a sleep over in a hotel with some school mates. It didn't matter that none of us were friends, we weren't enemies and this was an awesome opportunity for us all.

Along with all the awesomeness of the trip and the hotel I added Sasha. By the end of the weekend our rag-tag debating team came in 56 out of 57 teams and I had gotten Sasha's phone number. I was completely satisfied with the results.

For the next few weeks Sasha and I did the teenage telephone thing, wracking up telephone bills and hyper-stimulating our hormone levels. We spent hours on the phone and talked of very little. Certainly nothing of importance.

After a few weeks of lusting on the phone- I hatched a plan to see Sasha in the flesh in Halifax, several hours away from Pugwash where I was living. I arranged to take the bus to Halifax and stay at my aunts house in the suburbs for one weekend. My mother was living up North and was rather oblivious to everything that I did and gave her consent for my travel plans. My aunt was a little more cautious.

When I arrived at my aunts house she quizzed me on 'the boy'. She was not happy about the circumstance; me coming to Halifax to visit a boy, going into the city by myself to his house. A house that she assured me was in a very bad part of town. Granted, I now know that Maynard Street is a bad part of town and she had very good reason to be concerned. In a similar situation I would not give my daughter leave to follow through with a similar adventure.

Bright on Saturday morning I headed out to the city. I am uncertain but I think that my aunt drove me to Sasha's house. She didn't usually drive in the city but she really wanted to know where I was going and make sure it looked less than menacing.

I walked into Sasha’s house. The door was open onto the street and I found him towards the back fixing a bicycle. We walked out the front door and waved my aunt off and proceeded to explore the city.

The first stop was Citadel Hill. We walked around inside and then proceeded to take the leave that is given to young people on the hill and rolled ourselves from top to bottom numerous times until we were so dizzy we felt sick. Sasha's lab coat flashed brightly and was soon full of grass stains but it didn't seem to diminish his unique fashion statement.

We walked around Scotia Square and down on the waterfront. It was a fabulously sunny day with a strong breeze. The most perfect spring day two young lovers could ask for.

I returned to my aunts house that evening and dreamed of Sasha, at least I did while I was still awake and too excited for sleep.

The next day Sasha came to my aunts house. I was staying in the spare room and that is where Sasha and I decamped for most of the afternoon. We sat and talked in there with the door closed for hours. Occasionally my aunt would knock lightly at the door and offer an excuse for an intrusion; snacks, an introduction to her pet rabbit etc.

But eventually the big moment arrived. We ran out of things to say. He looked and me and I looked at him and the silence took on a clear meaning and mutual intention. We kissed. I can't remember what the kiss felt like; we may have grated teeth maybe not. What I do remember was the feeling that shot through my entire body; I was electrified. Every cell and molecule was on fire. The moment lasted through several lifetimes and then we were back sitting in a small room in the suburbs. We kept talking. And soon it was time for Sasha to head home.

I never saw Sasha again after that. I am not even sure if we even called each other again after that weekend. But I never forgot him or that electricity I felt in that moment.

Listening to the radio show about first kisses took me back to those days and I wondered if I could find Sasha in the cyberworld; for like me we have a name that no other person on the planet can claim. I am the only Lois Ann Dort and he is the only Sasha Viminitz.

I did the usual google and Facebook searches. I found a Facebook page immediately and the profile pic was of Sasha when he was possibly a little bit younger than when I first met him. No mistaking that face. I sent him a message wishing him a happy valentine's day some 20 years late and mentioned the details about our early teenage romance to jog his memory. I regret to say I have not heard from him. It would be fun to find out what he is doing now. According to his profile he is in Edmonton, a city I too once lived in.

A google search was not very productive. There were several pages of hits with his name on them but they almost all referred back to something that had occurred more than 10 years ago.

I have come to several dramatic conclusions about what this all means. The first being that Sasha may be a ghost. His digital trail died several years ago, there are no recent google hits for his name. Of course he must have been alive at least five years ago when facebook went online but that does not mean he is still alive today. There are many cases where people who have died still have live cyber accounts. It always disconcerts me when I pull up my friends list and find my uncle Henry there; he died over a year and a half ago. And until recently when my aunt called me on Skype the incoming call was designated as being from Henry. Freaks you out a little. So maybe, and I certainly hope not, Sasha is a cyber ghost.

Another possibility I have considered is that maybe Sasha is jealous of me, or of what he can access about my life on the internet. He believed he was the smarter of the two of us when we were teenagers and now judging by our presence online I have far surpassed him. If you google me you will find that I have written the authoritative quote of recommendation for the back cover of a book of fiction. I have written a thesis which is occasionally cited in other people's research. I have worked on an archeology pit crew. I have helped launch a book of creative fiction in Bangkok. My writing has been cited in art exhibits in both Amsterdam and San Fransisco. And I currently have pages of bylines from my local newspaper online. It's a significant digital footprint. I am proud of what I have achieved. But I do wonder if he is out there, and he bothered to look, would it deflate his ego? I hope this is just my own ego thinking out loud and not in any way a reality.

So then I am left with the third possibility, he thinks I am some clingy psycho stalker. Really I am just curious. Curious about the lives that have met mine and what has become of people that were once significant in my universe.

I plan to tag this post with Sasha's name. Maybe that will get his attention.

Update: I googled him again and this time found a Flikr pic and evidence that he is running a hostel in Jasper, Alta. So I guess he just thinks I am crazy. C'est la vie.

Missing my health

2011-02-26T03:50:00.000-08:00

Today I cried in the ambulance almost all the way to Antigonish. For those of you not familiar with this area that is almost an hours drive. I was crying more from frustration than from pain, although the state of the road despite the current governments 5 year road construction plan, is abominable. I was crying because before I left on a winter road with high winds I had not seen my children.
It's a painful thing to leave your children behind and not be sure when you will see them again. I assumed it would be soon, later that day, but one can never be sure about things in life and I had a very bad feeling.

I had the same feeling I had had eight years ago when this same medical problem brought me to the brink of death on Christmas day 2003. At that time I was resigned and even welcomed the possible end of life; at that time I did not have two children. As people always tell you; children change everything.

Bumping over that snowy road to the hospital in which I was born, I was not worried about death due to my medical condition but due to an accident. All the nurses bidding me a safe trip as I was wheeled out the door from my local hospital did not make me feel any better about this.

It had started out a bad day. I have only been in the hospital since Saturday night, now Tuesday morning, but I had expected a quicker recovery. Usually a day or two sets things right and as of yet things are not right. This is disconcerting. I have a life I want to get back to.

I have been planning a writers workshop for months to fall on this Saturday. I have put ads in the local papers and was about to post further notices in this and surrounding towns when I was waylaid once again by my body.

Other than that, I had stories on the go for work, I had planned outings for the kids. There is never a good time to be sick but this is particularly bad.

And now, three days into it, I can not see a resolution. It left me emotionally drained and I started to cry even before I knew I was going in an ambulance in bad weather for a consult in Antigonish.

So I cried and there were so many reasons for crying. I am not getting better. I worry about my kids, again in so many ways. On the night I went in the hospital it was a snowstorm and I worried about my kids driving down to their grandparents house where they are staying for the duration of my hospitalization. I worry about how it affects them; me being sick. They miss me but how does it affect their feeling of security? That is what I most worry about.

And then there is the worry about what will happen when my father and stepmother are not able to take of the kids when I am sick. That day will surely come. I will always get sick- I always have.

And then there is that- I have always been sick. It isn't constant but I end up in hospital several times a year for bowel obstructions. I am sick of being sick. I know there are worse things to have but there are better too.

When I see things that some of my friends write about their sick kids I always consider their situations carefully. I don't have sick kids but my kids have a sick mom; in some ways it is similar. I am unable to fix what is wrong for my kids. I can't make their lives normal and free of hospital visits. How must they feel to see the person they depend on so helpless and hurt? I don't know and it bothers me.

In the ambulance I tried to imagine myself in another place. I chose my favorite temple in Thailand, just across the river from Bang-Pa-In Palace, Wat Niwet Thamprawat. I sit in a chair made of recycled tires next to a cement table under a Bodhi tree. I watch the cats roll on the tops of the sema marking stones and jump down when serene saffron robed monks set food out at the base of the tree. The monks cells are painted a Tuscan orange that reminds me of the wild poppies that fled past my window on my first train trip into Italy. It is the similarity to the Tuscan architecture that draws me to these cells under a much hotter sun.

I have visited this temple many times both in my mind and with my feet. I have sat under the bodhi tree of enlightenment and filled my notebooks with longing, hoped for lives and current struggles.

I once took Hannah there when she was a baby, perhaps 15 days old. Tets, Hannah and I toured Bang-Pa-In Palace and then took the tram across the river to the Wat. She was buried deep in a carrying sling that looked so much like a purse that I put a sign on that said 'baby on board' so people would stop jostling my 'bag' when I was on the bus, skytrain and sidewalk. People were always amazed when I parted the lips of the carrier to reveal a small infant inside.

The day we went to Bang-Pa-In was windy and the hot air parched me and I was worried the baby would suffocate with the heat. I constantly checked on her temperature and woke her frequently to be reassured by her cry.

We made it through that day as we will make through others but now it is just me and it is hard when I fall down on the job; whether it can be helped or otherwise.

So now I am watching the clock waiting for supper. I feel hungry but I also feel sick. It's hard when food is your enemy and every bite is repaid with a searing stab. It makes you cautious of food. It turns into a love hate relationship.

So now I wait.

PS- I was released from the hospital on Thursday afternoon. Currently waiting to see if my workshop can continue despite the bad weather.

Just what I have been waiting for: The big C

2011-01-28T06:58:00.000-08:00

Today I went to the doctor. I had a few things on my list one of which was something strange on my back. Not a mole, not psoriasis (which I have had since I was 7) but something different and more worrisome.

I am a fair skinned person who burns easily and have had my fair share of painful exposures to the sun. In adulthood, I have avoided the suns rays as much as possible. Once while on vacation in Thailand a friend took a picture of me on the beach except you couldn't see me- I was sitting in a bunch of bushes fully covered by sarongs and a hat. You can almost make out flecks of colour through my leafy camouflage.

Those first few words were written a few days ago. I had to let things percolate. I was waiting for my follow up appointment but due to weather it has been postponed until Monday. So here it is: Cancer.

If you have to have Cancer this is the best one to get. Basel cell skin cancer has a 99% cure rate. On average 30 % of white people get this type of skin cancer. I am whiter than white so I am not surprised by this development.

The thing that has been bothering me is that C-word. What other less-likeable forms of that multifarious disease may be lurking in me.

Every day I touch that bump on my back and feel like my body has betrayed me. I have had enough health problems. For some reason I thought I had paid my cosmic debts and would be spared further affliction.

I feel bad, and then I feel bad about feeling bad. Plenty of people get this disease- you have it removed and carry on. It's doesn't entail torturous cycles of chemo or radiation. It's very simple. It's the psychological impact that has been hard. I'll get it taken care of next week but that word will will stay in my brain for a lot longer.

Mean Girls: confession of a bully

2011-01-23T19:55:00.000-08:00

Little girls and their little games occupy a lot of my time. I watch my daughters interact with each other and hear school yard tales from my 5-year-old. In this, the earliest years of her social education, I can see the lots being drawn and the devious tactics of female aggression starting to take shape.

I am worried about this. My oldest daughter has the type of personality that could be crushed by such childish shenanigans as the withholding of friendship. Fortunately, since the days when I was playing both sides of this game, there has been more examination of the field.

I have been faithfully listening, for the second time, to the CBC radio show IDEAS and its broadcast of the documentary It's a Girls World. It explores the emotional manipulation and malevolence that many girls use to express aggression. While some girls opt for the male-like path of fist and feet, most girls preserve their outer physical decorum while verbally annihilating their targets or just as frequently freezing them out.

These are things I know a lot about. When I was in elementary school I was a tough kid; a bully. The person who was often the target of my wrath was my best friend. I had a little gang and we frequently froze my best friend out. I remember many times leaving her standing alone in the playground while the gang and I took off. And the emotional abuse was only one chapter in my playbook; I also was big on physical displays like a silver backed gorilla I would yell and charge at my best friend hitting her, twisting her arm, hurting her any way that I could.

Only once was I called out on my behavior, which often happened at school during recess and lunch. My best friend finally got up the nerve to tell our third grade teacher that I was hurting her. He called me to his desk and told me to apologize. I told him I wasn't sorry so I wouldn't apologize. His next action may stun you. He sent me to my seat and told my best friend to fight her own battles. That's how I remember it. I may be wrong. I am sure my best friend will tell me if I am wrong in my recounting of history because surprisingly she is still my friend.

A major life-shift turned me from my bullying ways; my parents got divorced, I moved to a new school and was the one in the oft targeted role of 'new kid'. For a few years I behaved and in my new school I picked out the potential bullies easily; as I could recognize myself in them. I stayed out of their social circles and had no problems.

In my third school, the bully problem reared it's ugly head again. I was the new kid again but I found a target and lead the rest of my classmates straight for another girls jugular. The girl, Ellie, had been in the school since primary and she got along well with all the others but then, fatally, her biology kicked in before her parents had sense enough to buy her deodorant. The poor girl smelled. In school yard bullying anything out of the ordinary is an opening and I saw mine. I was the leader again.

A group of my classmates and I cornered her at lunchtime outside the library and called her 'smelly Ellie' until she was crying on the ground with her face to the cold brick wall. When I walked away, with the other kids following, cheering and hooting in victory I turned and saw Ellie and felt a rock where my heart should have been.

In the following weeks I relinquished my role as leader and did not take part in the 'smelly Ellie' taunts that my classmates threw around the playground. I don't know what happened to Ellie in the end; I moved.

In my teens I thought I had left that mean girl far behind in both time and space. I was living in Edmonton, attending a school of the performing arts and had a group of friends who didn't appear to have a malicious bone in their over conditioned ballet bodies. In our second year of High School a new student arrived at school and joined the ballet.

Her name was Maria, she was a Phillipena. She had beautiful long black hair, almond shaped eyes and razor sharp cheek bones. I offered to share my locker with her so she could be in the ballet crowd instead of lost over in the Vietnamese or Skater sections of the school. At first everything went great. We went for coffee, rode the bus together, and hung out at lunch. Then she met my friend Kevin.

Kevin had been out of school since the end of Grade 10. None of us knew where he was or why he had gone. We had been chummy at school but none of us knew him well enough to have his phone number. Several months into Grade 11, not long after Maria arrived, Kevin returned to school and explained that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and had been in the Psych ward at the hospital across the street from our school for most of the past 6 months.

Maria was immediately drawn to him. At first she asked to hang out with Kevin and I when we went for coffee and then she started to ask me questions about who he was seeing, who he was interested in. I told her that I didn't think that Kevin should be dating anyone, that the turbulence of the dating scene would be too much for him right now. I thought she was a little out there herself for even thinking of dating someone recently released from the Psych ward. I thought my comments would disuade her from any action in that area.

Several weeks later I found out from Kevin that he was dating Maria. I was extremely upset and completely furious with Maria. I kicked her out of my locker and immediately turned all the other bunheads (the common nickname for ballerinas) against her. I explained to them how hurtful this could be to Kevin and how her dating him would likely end him back up in the Psych ward. I won them over easily and they shunned her. She was frozen out during school and after school at ballet. Her social life, aside from whatever relationship she had with Kevin, was over. In less than a month she transferred schools and we never talked about her again.

After she left I recognized the monster which I thought I had tamed. It had been roaming the halls at my high school and had claimed another victim. I was ashamed but I could not talk about it with my friends. I was like the devil; I had led them into temptation and they surely would not like to admit the evilness of their actions. All I could do was censure myself and be more vigilant in guarding my darker side.

One day in my final year of high school I got on a city bus headed to the mall and there at the back sat Maria. I had not seen her since she left my school-about a year had past. I walked to the back of the bus and sat in the seat in front of her. She didn't speak to me but a faint smile played across her lips similar to the ones chimpanzees are known display as an expression of fear.

I turned to face her and ...I apologized. Soon we were both crying and holding each other. We rode the bus to the mall and back round again while I made amends and she graciously forgave me. I don't know why she did it, forgave me that is, just like I don't know why I treated her so badly. But I did know I was wrong. I did make amends. I was fortunate to have the chance. I have not lost control of my mean girl since then but I know she lurks somewhere within.

It is this knowledge that makes me worry about my own girls. How will they deal with people like me? Will they even tell me if they are being threatened in this way? Many girls don't. In the documentary It's a Girls World, there are several bullying stories that end in death. How can we protect against it? Most likely the best defense is an offense; learn about, talk about it, and practice plays before game day.

Girls social aggression is a type of game- most girls know the unwritten rules and play by them. The attack and counterattack seem to be written into the female DNA. I am hopeful there is something else written there too.

Butt Out

2011-01-23T17:14:00.000-08:00

First, a confession; I have never smoked. I don't think I have ever held a cigarette to my lips. But I have a few things to say about quitting. The first being that the self-congratulatory campaign by Health Canada which is captained by the increase in size of the gruesome pictures of smoking's health effects is converting nobody. I know smokers; have lived with them, dated them , friended them on Facebook. Sick lungs covering 70 percent rather than 50 percent of the package is not going to change their addiction to nicotine.

Currently, my office is the site of one person's battle against the weed. I was proofing a press release on the new cigarette packaging and had to ask her what she made of the government's new anti-smoking measure.

"It's shocking the first time you see it and then you don't look. You don't even notice it's there, " she said of the lurid photos.

"So why are you quitting," I asked.

"Honestly, it's the cost. Then, it's the health thing," she replied.

Everybody knows that smoking is bad for you and will lead to many kinds of outrageously bad diseases. But there are a lot of things that people do which they know are bad for them. These mainly fall into the category of addictions. Smoking is an addiction and it will take more than a few disturbing pictures to cure the addict.

When my co-worker said that cost was her main motivation for quitting we devised a much more plausible anti-smoking campaign. On every package should be featured fabulous cars, houses and vacations with the tagline, "All this could be yours for the price of your pack-a-day habit." I really think we have something here. And if the price of health care savings was added...imagine the lives former smokers would lead.

Do any smokers out there think these new packaging strategies will reduce the number of smokers in Canada? Do you think money in the bank and a luxury cruise could sweeten the withdrawal symptoms?

Today I saw a teenager I know post a new Facebook profile picture of herself with an unlit cigarette in her mouth. I don't think this campaign is going to affect her choices. What would? A cool car or a college fund perhaps.

The one that got away

2011-01-21T10:07:00.000-08:00

I once had a very good friend that I shared everything with. Unfortunately the friendship ended badly. I have wondered these past few years exactly why it ended as it did and I have one main theory but I am never sure if my theory stands up to scrutiny or if it is just a construct to relieve myself of the doubts caused by her explanation of the breakup.

Here we were two North American foreigners living in Bangkok, working in the same school and of a similar age. We understood each other, could see similar cultural patterns and felt like kindred spirits with our mutual love of red wine and cheese.

More than anything else though, we were brought together by our need for friendship. A close female friendship that I think we both had had in the past back home but had not found yet in Bangkok.

We both were in relationships; neither of them perfect. And we often consulted each other about our personal problems. We had another mutual female friend but she was never quiet sympathetic enough to our small personal dramas. I think she had been through too many major ones to let little things bother her much. So my friend and I spent a lot of time together. Coffee, lunch, and eventually labour.

And it was with the labour, I think, that things started to come apart. She wanted a child. Her new husband, who was turning 40, did not. She was conflicted by this. She loved him but to give up the chance at a family for another person was a constant source of internal turbulence. To say nothing of the fact that he had not been keeping up his end of the relationship in terms of working to support their life together and had become so addicted to fantasy football that the game itself told him, “If you have a girlfriend, stop playing now or you won't!”

I had my first child and my friends, both the low drama and high drama ladies were in attendance. When the big time labour hit, they were forced out so that it was just me and my partner battling through the long painful hours. My friend, sat outside the labour room doors listening to my screams. When my daughter was born my friend was one of the first people to meet her. I thought my friend would be witness to Hannah's childhood, not just her birth.

As time went on things got worse between my partner and I. I had need of a friend and my friend was always there for me. When my hair was cut too short and I balled while holding Hannah aged 3 weeks, she came right over. When I kicked my partner out of the house, once again, she was there for me. When I decided to leave Thailand, she drove me to the airport.

I had a lot of drama in my life, I'll be the first to admit it and it was surely due to the fact that I had someone to talk to about it that I made it through. But it was not a one way street.

It seemed however that as time went on my friend became resigned to the fact that her husband would never work again and that she would not get the baby she wanted. But when she looked at me, a part of her saw what she wanted and saw that she didn't need a perfect situation to get it. In fact there never is a perfect situation for having children. Some people just have a few more advantages than others but having children is always a drama.

Not long after I had left Thailand, I talked to my friend a few times on the phone. Then one day, I found out I was pregnant. I was in shock and feeling a little crazy. I had left everything behind and I did not even know my ex-partners phone number to call him to tell him that once again he would be a father. The one number that I did know by heart was my best friends'. I called her. She and her husband were friends with my ex and most likely knew his number.

I didn't think about the time when I called-it seemed like an emergency. I unfortunately called in the middle of the night when they were on a camping trip in Khoa Yai National Park but they did answer the phone. And no I didn't ask them anything about themselves- I was just desperate to find my ex and tell him about the new baby.

I can't remember much about that conversation but afterward there was another conversation where my friend told me she had had enough of my drama and that was that.

I have never fully accepted this as the complete reason why we went from being inseparable friends to being long distance enemies. I have always felt that she resented me, in my ever so imperfect situation, once again being blessed with another child.

I know that what she said was not a total falsehood. I am sure she was fed up with my drama. It was a high drama point in my life. Luckily things have evened out.

I miss having that close friendship but I doubt I will ever get that close to another woman again. So when I left Thailand I ended two significant relationships. I wish I still had a female confident but no one has taken her place. Occasionally I see her comments on Facebook when yet another of our mutual friends has a baby but it does not look as if things have changed for her. I think she could have had more.

Earth Angel

2011-01-14T05:28:00.000-08:00

I don't believe in God but I do believe in angels; the earth bound variety.

Last year I was blessed with many angels. The first I'll mention was my neighbor who delivered a very merry Christmas to me and my girls; an act for which she wanted no publicity. She gave us toys and food which I appreciated but didn't really know how to accept gracefully.

Then I got a job, which I desperately needed, but that job meant finding childcare and the means to get Hannah to and from school (the early learning program she was in had no bus service). Many of the parents and caregivers of the children in Hannah's class helped me by driving her to school and to the babysitters' after school. If it was not for them Hannah could not have gone to school last year.

And then there was/is Dima. She is the babysitter for my girls when I am at work. She lives down the road and my girls love her. Without her in the community I would not be able to work.

In a pinch, when no babysitter or transport for Hannah was available- there was Violet, my stepmother, and my dad. They have helped me out of many tough spots and they are the reason I moved home; I knew I could count on them for help. As a single mother you will always need reliable extra hands on deck.

I am writing on this topic because one of my angels has found an angel herself this week. Linda, one of the people who often drove Hannah to the babysitters' last year had an unfortunate car accident on icy roads last week. Her van, which was lost in the accident, is the source of her livelihood. She is a childcare provider for three families in the area and needs her van to transport her charges. Luckily no one was injured in the accident but the loss of the van was a financial blow. Recently I read on Linda's Facebook update that she found an anonymous envelope in her mailbox with an unspecified amount of money in it. Her angel had arrived.

Such acts of kindness should not go unnoticed. We should all be talking about whatever good fortune befalls us. It is my hope that we will all be angels on earth.

911 Legacy

2011-01-09T18:24:00.000-08:00

This weekend the death of a nine-year-old girl, Christina-Taylor Green , in the Arizona Safeway shooting has saddened us all. Her untimely death is a tragedy not just because of her age but because she was billed as the poster child of hope after the 911 massacre. Born on 9/11, 2001, this fresh-faced patriotic youngster was featured in a book, Faces of Hope, which featured photographs of children born on that fateful September day. It's horrible that one vision of hope to come out of 911 has been taken from the world but in another story to come out of this most recent tragedy, comes another.

On Saturday, an unnamed woman confronted the gunman and stopped him from loading another magazine of bullets into his gun. In facing-down the gunman, this woman surely saved lives while risking her own. It is reported that she was wounded and is in hospital.

Her act can be directly linked to the act of defiance in the face of terrorism that was demonstrated by the passengers on the United Airlines Flight 93, where passengers attacked hijackers and diverted the plane from it's intended target. Since 9/11, people have been more aware that only they are able to affect a positive outcome when facing such fanaticism.

It's not only in the faces of the children that entered the world on that terrifying day that we can find hope but in the acts of everyday heroism that have occurred since.

Dear Mrs Garang,

2011-01-07T17:18:00.000-08:00

In July of 2005 the rebel leader John Garang was killed in an airplane crash on return from a secret rendezvous with the president of Uganda. Garang, the leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), had recently brokered peace with the Northern Sudanese government in Khartoum ending a civil war between North and South that had lasted over 10 years.

Upon hearing the news of this African leaders death I was compelled to write a poem for his recently bereaved wife. I am re-printing it here due to recent developments in Sudan; notably an upcoming election for Southern independence from Northern Khartoum. In the press coverage of this event, I have not heard John Garang's name mentioned; not even once. For Mrs. Garang, now a minister in the government of Southern Sudan, I have not forgotten John Garang or his role in moving your people out of subjugation and into self-rule.

Imagining Mrs. Garang

Another Saturday night,
she waits for him to come home.
After all the years of war and rebellion,
all the years when she doubted
that he
would walk through that door.

Tonight she waits secure in the knowledge of peace.
A peace he has long fought for,
a peace that she has helped him attain
through 21 years, six children and 1,000 nights of worry.

But tonight it is different.
No need to worry;
peace has come.

How cruel is life,
that death should come to him now.
How unexpected,
when peace is on the tongues of the Nation
friend and foe alike.

A late night call,
a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach,
a numbness overtakes her heart.
The helicopter crashed;
Sudan erupts.

Amidst her grief she addresses the Nation
calling for the peace that her husband
had worked so hard to acquire.
She refuses to see it slip from his grasp in death
when he had only just found it in life.

Some may consider her stone-hearted.
How is it possible that she has the fortitude
to stand in public, to survive, to be a force for good?
Why isn't she devastated, left speechless, a shell filling with grief?

Practice.

For decades she has been expecting not to expect him.
The only shock is that it should happen now.

"I am very proud of this man," she says pointing to his flag draped coffin.
And he should be proud of her, this Rebecca, this woman who seeks to keep the peace despite her losses.

written Aug. o8/2005

Many of us go through life not thinking about how we have come to be in the place we are. How the eddies and currents of history have brought us to this shore. It seems almost impossible to me that a few short years after his death John Garang does not even merit mention in his people's history as portrayed by the world press. Is it Africa and the way in which the rest of the world perceives it that such history is not worth reviewing? Or perhaps it is the fast-paced way in which we grab our information- just skimming the headlines, not interested in the back story.

When a new Nation is about to be born, you can be sure it has been delivered in the blood of many. A new country is something the world should take note of; analyzing it's conception, gestation and birth. I ask you to witness this miracle and occasionally pop in to check on the pulse of this newborn.

Peace Agreement and Funeral

I had a dream

2010-12-31T04:27:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning from a horrible dream. I left off cornering Tets in my grandmother's out building, pleading with him to tell me where my children were and him giving me that look that he reserves for folks when he is playing the martyr.

What a way to wake up. When he visits my stress level goes up no matter what he is actually doing. It's all that he has done and might do that puts me on edge.

In this dream I was leaving him, escaping to my grandmother's house; which is essentially what I did in real life.

Leaving wasn't easy. I wasn't physically abused but his mental difficulty with me and the actions he took to satisfy his intense jealousy and hatred of me did scare me.

He followed me to work, not at a distance, but right on my heels, getting into the same cab, pulling me back in when I tried to get out, finally I convinced the driver not to drive us and got out and continiued to the Skytrain.

He followed me up the escalator. I told him then if he followed me, I was leaving him. He continiued all the way to work. At work I called a big 6'3 Scotsman I knew, husband of a friend and an acquaintance of Tets, I asked him to somehow help me with the situation. They went out for beers that night but that was the extent of the help available.

He came home at all hours of the day from his work 2 hours driving time away to catch me in the act of cheating. The only person I was cheating on him with was our daughter who was less than one year old.

He went through the trash in the apartment building to search for clues of my supposed infidelity. I can't imagine what the guards thought of him. They knew my movements, who was in and out of the building; they had to have known he was crazy.

Finally, I had had enough and I planned my escape. I was supposed to be moving from Bangkok to Japan to live with his parents, Bangkok was getting dangerous, with a side trip home to the U.S. so I could visit my family. I changed the plans and moved the date of the flight forward, to Boston no return.

The day before the flight we had a councilling session. We had been seeing a relationship councilor for months before our first daughter was born. It was there, with our councilor, that I told him we were leaving the next day and not returning to Japan.

I would have liked to have use less shock and awe tactics but I was afraid. He had been so irrational lately, I had no idea what he would do. I thought that given only one day, he wouldn't manage to do much.

I can't remember that last day. I was so stressed out and scared that something would happen. My friends, the tall Scotsman and his big American wife, drove us to the airport. Tets came with us and saw us off.

When the plane took off, I was headed toward uncertainty but I had left behind crazy and was feeling much better.

When he visits these type of anxieties have a way of cropping back up. He unsettles me. I always look forward to his arrival, some time for myself away from the kids, but there is always the nervous feeling I get leaving them with him. I honestly don't think he'd take them away, his visits have shown him how incapable he is of handling them. But a part of him hates me so much he could do it for spite.

So I dreamt of leaving him and loosing the kids. It's not the first time. I can look across the road and see his car in my yard and I know that their passports are safely tucked away where he wouldn't look.