Responsibility of Man in Nature – A Taste of Thai Literature
Taken in Nan Town District, Nan Province, Thailand
Today I read a short story by Win Leawarin (วินทร์ เลียววาริณ) for Thai class and it was well crafted. It reminded me how much I underestimated Thai literature. The story is about man’s relationship to nature and this story, “Dog In The Middle of The Road (หมากลางถนน),” takes on a very bleak approach to the relationship. I want to first compare this to Miyazaki’s environmentalism. Miyazaki is more children-friendly so there are less chaos of the modern world involved in his films. Miyazaki does not highlight one side as bad but rather a grey zone where survival is the most crucial and primitive desire of any human species. This short story portrays the dark sides (many of them) of society (especially the Thai one). It is more complicated than “man is stronger than nature so he must take control of it.” Rather, it takes on a more general approach of “man (yes, men in particular) will take advantage of anything that is weaker.” This has been his underlying message for all his different themes: man and nature, man and man, man and experiences. Since it is a very good story, I want to take some time to talk about each of the themes.
Bureaucracy And Its Value
The main characters in this story are bureaucrats that ranged from mid to high ranking ones. In Thailand, once the minister of any department changes, the bureaucrats will fawn over the new minister hoping for favoritism. The opening scene starts off with the bus of bureaucrats hitting a dog as they rush to greet the new minister. They call it “urgent work.” The dog could not be seen clearly but everyone except the narrator felt relieved that it was only a dog. This shows how bureaucrats would prioritize their “work” instead of checking on the dog. They clearly think an animal’s life is not worth much. This also shows how bureaucrats would rather try to fawn over their ministers rather than show what they can do. This actionless hope is very common in the Thai spirit that the writer portrayed.
Teaching Responsibility
Why does the narrator start feeling guilty? In fact, he is conflicted between the Bureaucrat’s feeling of indifference towards animal life and the worrying about the worth of a dog’s soul. The story takes on an interest structure. When the bus hit the dog, the story starts off with the heading of ‘km. 1.’ The kilometers increase as the bus goes further away from the dog and the story progress (mostly in the narrator’s mind and flashbacks). Now, back to the question: why did he feel guilty?
The narrator grew up in the country and his father often took him into the jungle. He once encounters a wildfire that engulfs the animals near his house in front of his house and spits them out into charred corpses. After one trip, they catch some fish and light up a bonfire. On the way back, the father asks the narrator whether he has extinguished the bonfire. On the verge of lying, the narrator answers that he does not remember. The father then takes him back to the camping site. It takes them hours but when when they finally arrive, the narrator bursts in laughter. The fire is extinguished.
“I didn’t forget, see! The funny thing is that I actually don’t remember… and you also don’t”
“Who said I don’t remember,” his father turns to look at the narrator
This hardcore lesson spearheaded a moral chord into the very soul of the narrator. That’s why he can’t just ignore the dog just like the other Bureaucrats.
By the 50th kilometer after hitting the dog, the narrator asked the driver if he could stop. The narrator gets off the bus and walks back towards the dog. This is his only way to quell his internal chaos and taste some kind of salvation.
Without redemption, the flame of anxiety, caused by his moral responsibility towards wildlife, will continue to scar his mental well-being just like if the flame he forgot to extinguish would have burned down the jungle.
The Downside of Thai Buddhist Beliefs and Misinterpretations
The introductory text to the short story is more of a nonfiction piece written to provide a larger context to the story. The writer presents a theme of Buddhist beliefs that is woven into every Thai soul: the belief in reincarnation and the different worlds that result from reincarnation.
Thais use the word “derachan (เดรัจฉาน)” to describe animals. It is often used as an insult as well. Thais believed that the physical differentiation between an animal and a human is that a human has a straight figure while an animal has its head hanging out. They believe that if you do anything bad in this life, you can be born an animal your next life. The writer jokes that after seeing how cruel humans behave, animals might use the same threat that if they do anything bad, they will be born a human. The worth of an animal soul, therefore, is worth much less than a human one. An animal death, therefore, has no meaning nor impact to the lives of humans (the narrator brought this up).
The interesting insight is that Thai Buddhism emphasizes so much on scaring people from commiting sins. They often use religious concepts such as heaven, hell and beasts of the underworld to threaten followers into a moral frame. There’s no rational explanation behind any warning. Is there heaven? Is there hell? Can you reincarnate? They were never answered because we never know and never will.
A lot of “deeds” can be bought with money. It feels nowadays that the more you donate to religious causes, the better chance you get at heaven. I feel as if “doing good” can be quantified. If reincarnation does exist, wouldn’t rich people just keep on erasing their sins and buying their way to infinite luxurious lives. What is, then, a worth of a genuine good deed that cannot be bought with money? Even in their wishes, prayers are tinted with greed as many people start their sentences with “I desire for a (ขอให้)…”
This has been a prevalent part of my moral education. As my mom, a devout Buddhist, was puddying me in her hands she often talks to me about heaven, hell and beasts of the underworld. “If you do anything bad in to your parents, you will become a beast with giant hands and a mouth as small as a needle.” Honestly, I was pretty scared so I always thought about my morals. But I never asked how that is possible. I feel western parents, after the peak of The Enlightenment, uses rationality to teach their kids moral values. “If you do this to your parents, then this will happen because blah blah blah.” Of course, that is not true for every western family but it just shows how Thai society still believes deeply in superstitions.
But even if I am currently studying in the west and I hold rationality as one of my core values, I still think Buddhism, stripped off from all the superstitions about heaven and hell, has an important lesson: everything is constantly changing and you can’t do anything about it. We are not that different from dogs in the long run. We all die eventually.