BANGKOK’S VANISHING COMMUNITIES
Once we came across an ordinary black and white brochure that invited us to scribble notes on it rather than taking a deeper look but this little piece of paper led us to an a crucial story in better understanding the forces and consequences of change in one of Asia’s great capitals. It’s the story of the Charoen Chai community in Charoen Krung soi 23 which as it turned out was only puzzle piece in the entire picture of rapid change. These small pieces describe the struggle of communities like Charoen Chai who belong to the oldest neighborhoods in Bangkok.
It is one of many battles fought at the front line of modernization and redevelopment and like usual it is a fight David vs. Goliath. The prospective outcomes of these battles are eviction and demolition of entire neighborhoods for profit-oriented purposes and it is looming over this otherwise very busy and yet picturesque neighborhood. The more we know about it the more we wonder how much appreciation Bangkok’s government as well as Thailand’s society hold for their historic quarters and buildings or lets say for their cultural heritage. As we explore every nook and cranny we talk to locals and see so many new things that we have been oblivious of for so many years.
We don’t oppose development but we shall ask ourselves whether shedding our past with all its cultural value is the right way forward? Does the reinvention of Bangkok mean rejecting our pioneering communities and their heritage? Why is it that we protect our temples but not the communities that have been witness of history for centuries and where culture lives as it did centuries ago. Do we want rid the city of its genuine character that sets itself apart from other cities or are we on our way to become just another carbon copy of a city designed and characterized simply by modern market forces dominated by western style housing complexes and shopping malls. If you visit the Historical Hut in Charoen Chai you may sink in deeper contemplation over these questions. It would be bad news for anyone who has some admiration let alone respect left for his city’s true DNA.
We've met Pee Art and his team who’re fighting to preserve their community and neither of them opposes the development of the MRT (underground train line), but we all agree that such massive infrastructure development should be planned in collaboration with and absorbed into indigenous communities without destroying them. We all welcome a faster way to get around in a city gripped by total traffic collapse but at what price. One thing doesn't need to exclude the other but many people assume that if the main objective is high profit yield then we take a short cut and skip the whole consultation, planning, integration and preservation thing and get down to business. Communication between the community and the landlord has apparently ceased and rental terms trimmed down from yearly to monthly, adding to the feeling of sudden eviction. One would never be able to know of these things for their light-hearted surface of smiles and humor are a sort of balm smoothing the seriousness of the situation.
People like Pee Art’s father who are specialized in the century old art of Chinese paper work and paraphernalia for temples and ceremonies have gathered in Charoen Chai since King Rama V, forming the last of such community in Thailand. The seemingly unstoppable onslaught of capitalist forces into the last of Bangkok’s old and pristine areas will be fatal for these communities and an irrevocable loss to Thailand’s diversity and culture. The story of the people, the story of Chinatown’s legacies has captivated us and ever since we I have been regular visitors here and what the colt was to John Wayne is the camera to us, knowing that each second of footage is captured history that is most likely to vanish.
You roam the alleys of Chinatown and get to feel history but for how long will we experience what it’s like to sit in a laneway flanked by century old Chinese shop houses their distinct features, the wood, the door panels, facades radiating the feel of early 20th century Bangkok decorated with Chinese paper lanterns and golden paper garlands vaguely outlined in the steam of charcoal fired kitchens? The sound of Asian instruments fills the air as does the smell of food and incense sticks, the mood mystically subdued by the soft rays of the early morning light. Nuns and monks passing by barefoot and toddlers pass in their white-red school uniforms and white powdered faces squeezed between their parents on a motorbike.
These are villages, self-contained urban eco-systems if you want so, thriving and seemingly untouched since the onset of urban Bangkok. The scene will be replaced by the computerized age in which humans function and move like in a motherboard circuit, Condo – office – Tesco – Condo the monks long gone since there won’t be any doors to stop by but whistling security guards guarding the posh entrance ways of towering condos with their manicured lawns and pseudo wealthy lifestyles. Districts in which streets turn into mere passthroughs for the armies of vehicles which is already the case in Bangkok’s 3.0 domains. We shall have a smart city, a city of 3.0 with a healthy social and environmental fibre but we shall also have a Bangkok DOS version with well preserved social fibre and a cultural heritage Bangkokians can take pride in. But things are changing fast and if we don’t act then one sentence rings stronly in my ear “If this community falls, so will others”. The clouds have cleared as Pee Art turns up to show me the Historical Hut, his and family’s and neighbor’s legacy.
