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Scarecrows: "For the Birds"?
A strange observation. You may expect to find a scarecrow in an orchard plump with falling fruit or a field close to harvest. Yet you may wonder why, near Gecko Villa, a rustle of scarecrows seems to have taken up guard in front of village houses. Dressed in old clothes, they bear hand written signs around their necks. Linger a little and you may observe young men walking in or out of these houses with at least one fingernail painted either red or another garish colour.
A peculiar colloquialism. The expression "for the birds" is a shortened version of the vulgar WWII American "sh_t for the birds" meaning ridiculous or only of interest to the gullible. The expression evokes birds pecking at horse droppings ("road apples") to find seeds. Both versions were defined in an edition of American Speech in 1944.
Origin of the Specious. When three young men all died within a short period of each other in a distant village, news spread rapidly and a common thread was found. All the dead had been born on a Tuesday or a Wednesday - and all were male. It was evident that the bloodthirsty ghost of a deceased widow had preyed on these young men and developed a predilection for young men with these birthdays. Thus, a scarecrow in the local village shoos away those ghosts who would prey on adolescents, notifying the evil spirits, politely and with Shakespearean precision, that this particular house is home to no young man born on a Tuesday or Wednesday. The painted fingernails are also a cunning device to confuse these very same ghosts into believing that the hands are those of a girl, not of a man.
Thus we can conclude, not at all literally, that scarecrows are For the Birds.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving's not for you...
Visitors travelling to Thailand on holiday and wishing to maximize new experiences may now take off from a grass runway and indulge in skydiving out of a Cessna or enjoy the view from above in a microlight.
Whilst Gecko Villa already offers unique holidays, guests may now enjoy a day of adventure and action away from the villa, at the property of another Isan native and fully qualified instructor. Inject the thrill of a tandem skydive, or challenge the tallest climbing wall in Thailand. Licensed skydivers can bring their own equipment to enjoy jumping from varying heights over a number of days, and burgeoning pilots can arrange to take instruction in microlights or paramotors.
For those who doubt the sanity of skydiving, simply remember that the hardest thing about skydiving is...the ground!
Living with Spirits - a darkling dream
Ben Davies is a British photographer and writer based in Bangkok, who has contributed to many prestigious publications including Asia Money, National Geographic and Time - some of his winning words fortuitously penned during his recuperative stays at our rural Thai retreat with his family.
Having previously authored the largely photographic books Isaan - Forgotten Provinces of Thailand, and Laos, as well as a work on the illegal wildlife trade entitled Black Market, he has now published his latest work, five years in gestation: Living with Spirits.
Far from being a tome about alcoholism, Living with Spirits investigates the perceived presence and power of spirits and superstitions in Thailand. To open the cover of this photo journey, shot exclusively in black and white, is to open a creaking door to a shady, black magic realm where sacred tattoos are imbued with special forces, where animist rituals, palm readers, astrologers and shamans prevail. In a world that admits no colour and seems itself to be a ghost from a monochrome past, curses and prayers needle both malevolent and munificent threads, in the ethers and in the flesh.
Far from being an ecelectic charm of bumpkin villagers, superstitions and spiritual beliefs permeate all levels of Thai society. A villager will seek the support of a spirit for a fulsome crop, a five star hotel owner wil plant a phallus forest, whilst, as Ben says “Military coups start the exact second an astrologer says it’ll work best.”
Enraged spirits are an excellent neck around which to hang ones bones of contention. Notes Ben, "it seems to me that all these beliefs and superstitions have another far-reaching consequence. They allow politicians to ignore the plight of the vast rural population who barely live above subsistence level. Who cares if there is a drought in the northeast...so long as locals blame the spirits."
Discover more on Ben's photos, books and biography here, or order your copy of Living With Spirirts here.
The Devil's Fig
Makua Puang - Solanum torvum
In the kitchen at our rural Thai house, we are often quizzed about one vegetable more than many others. Europeans may mistake them for peas, whilst some Asians assume they are unseasonally large green peppercorns.
A common ingredient in many Thai dishes, the Pea Aubergine (or Pea Egglpant) is a traditional ingredient in a Thai green curry or in Nam Phrik chilli dipping sauces. With a very slightly bitter flavour when raw, cooking these in a curry dissipates the bitterness and adds a subtle rounded flavour to the dish, whilst also enlivening it with the interesting popping texture of the baby aubergines when consumed.
In front of Green Gecko, our traditional Thai country villa, we grow our own pea aubergines. The berries of the 2-3m plant would normally turn yellow when ripe but for cooking we pluk them whilst still hard and green. Whilst we always prefer to use them fresh, those with only intermnittent access to them will be pleased to know that the pea aubergine can be frozen.
Quite why the pea aubergione should be known in some countries as the Devli's Fig or the Shoo-Shoo Bush is unclear, but consumption of the berries does seem rather limited, predominantly to Laos, Thailand, India and the Ivory Coast .
How Long is a Thread of Silk?
Thai Silk gained a global reputation for its quality in the 1960s, thanks to Jim Thompson, a now legendary American who served with the Office of Strategic Services (a precursor to the CIA), lived in Thailand and established the Thai Silk Company - before disappearing mysteriously whilst on a walk in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia, on March 26, 1967.
Shunning automation, this cottage industry of northeast Thailand sees villagers prefer small-scale, private enterprise, producing unique hand woven pieces.
Silkworm consume mulberry leaves and then transform from a larva to a pupa, spinning a cocoon of silk that is produced by their salivary glands. Unravelled by immersion in boling water, the single silk strand that comprises the cocoon separates into a thread anywhere from 200 metres to over a kilometre long. These threads are combined into thicker fibres before they are washed, dyed and wound into drums.
In Northeast Thailand, the village weavers use hand looms to create blended patterns and textures unique to Thailand and often particular to a certain village or locale. Near Gecko Villa, you can visit these looms and purchase your favourite piece directly from the weaver. The design most redolent of Isan is traditional mudmee (or mutmee) with intricate geometric and zoomorphic motifs, spirited into the fabric primarily via using various colors in the weft (left to right threads) of the fabric. This is a time consuming process, where a weaver can take around one day to create just four metres or so of silk, but such a labour intensive process belies the purpose of the cloth: it is generally used as a special fabric for weddings or funerals, ceremonies at the temple, or as a suitable ornament when dancing attendance on high ranking officials.
A Traveller in the Garden
In the grounds of Gecko Villa you cannot fail to notice our large "Traveller's Palms" (Ravenala Madagascarienis) - each with an impressive fan of thick leaves. These resemble enormous paddles and can grow up to 3 metres in length.
The astonishing symmetry of the plant, in conjunction with its distinctive shape and size, make this one of the tropics' most emblematic and dramatic trees, although they are in fact not palms, but are related to the orange-blossomed Bird of Paradise flowers you see around our Thai house (so both part of the Strelitziaceae family.)
The plant came to bear the mantle of the "Traveller's Palm" for reasons that are twofold. In hot and sunny climes, a weary traveller seeking to quench his thirst would know that the leaves of the tree act as giant funnels channeling fresh rainwater into the trunk of the plant, where it is stored. Slaking one's thirst was easy, as the base of the leaves could each hold around a litre of water.
In addition, if you walk around the gardens and grounds of Gecko Villa and concentrate on the palms, you may notice another of their peculiarities: the fans grow along an arc from east to west, acting as a natural compass.
Some believe that the tree has special powers, and that if one makes a wish whilst standing in front of it, this wish will be granted. When your next travel to Thailand to holiday at Gecko Villa, you may want to investigate this!
Wofting barbecued chicken
Gai Yang (grilled chicken) is popular throughout Thailand and is a native dish of Northeast Thailand, where it is often accompanied by a spicy green papaya salad (som tam) and sticky rice. The marinade helps infuse flavour into the chicken and to keep it plump and succulent when grilled on a charcoal or wood fired grill (often in bamboo pincers.)
Ingredients for the marinade:
3 cloves garlic
3 birds eye chillies
A good pinch of rock salt
2 tsps black peppercorns
2 tbs chopped coriander root, minced
1 stalk of lemongrass, finely chopped
2 tbs fish sauce
1 cup coconut milk
1.5 kilos chicken legs / thighs
The marinade is traditionally ground in the Thai kitchen in with a pestle and mortar, although a food processor may be used. Pound the dry ingredients to a paste, before adding the coconut milk and fish sauce. Use this to marinate the chicken pieces in a bag or bowl for around 6 hours. Then grill the chicken, using the marinade to baste/brush the chicken until cooked.
Those with a more "American" tooth can add 1-2 tsp sugar to the marinade. If you do so, we would also recommend you add 2 tsps tamarind paste to enhance the flavour even further.
Bangkokians and many foreigners like to eat Thai barbecued chicken with a sweet chilli dipping sauce, although the time honoured Isan accompaniment is the grilled meat dipping sauce in our earlier blog.
The Village Teacher: a Revolutionary?
The film "Kru Bannok", or "The Village Teacher", was a blockbuster back in the late Seventies. In it, teacher Piya, imbued with idealstic notions of change and equality, uncovers high level corruption and is assasinated when he tries to counter it.
The film’s director, Surasee Patham (himself a son of Isan) had been swept up in the tsunami of political activism countering the military dictatorship at the time, and fled at nineteen into the jungles of Isan, emerging only seven months later to craft a film depicting the struggle of Northeastern Thai villagers against unruly capitalists and a failed justice system.
Now he has remade the film, and its imminent release is causing some consternation, coming as it does at a time of political turmoil, and unleashed as it will be upon a generation deemed by some to be less interested by the ideals it espouses.
Surasee is nothing if not bold, and with the spirit of the jungle fighter of the Seventies declares: ''The audience may not want to see socially conscious movies, but to me, the problems faced by the rural people haven't changed in the past 31 years. It's actually getting worse. Now the exploitation of the poor has been systematized and integrated. Before, we fought capitalists, middle-men, politicians and corrupt civil servants. Now, they all work together, or worse, they're from the same family. Business and politics become the same, and their goal is to totally deprive villagers of power. Capitalism forces people to leave their homes to come and serve it in the city, while the government - any government - doesn't seem to be interested in empowering rural people, besides giving hand-outs. I think it's scarier than when I made my first film 31 years ago. Things haven't changed for the better at all.''
Interestingly, the Thai Ministry of Culture supports the new film and has stated that it's message is a good one.
The moral high ground has lost none of its appeal, although we may be led to question who occupies it.
Perfumed Poison of Perfidy
One of the most fragrant flowering shrubs in Thailand, officially called "Rah-Tree" but known colloquially as "Hohm Duk" (or "Perfumed at Night"), is Cestrum Nocturnum. We grow this at Gecko Villa, where its clumped masses of tiny, tubular apple-white flowers bloom periodically after sunset, like shooting stars, and cast a perfumed spell upon the dark night air...
In Burma's olden days, the shrub would be planted around the bedrooms of palace ladies, as it was assumed that should any furtive lover sneak into such a perfumed chamber, the illicit couple would faint on the spot. The Burmese name for the plant loosely means "the Bane of Unfaithful Wives." Perhaps it is no coincidence that the sweet and heady perfume of this delicate flowering plant belies the nature of its white berries - the shrubs own poisonous fruit.
There are many other fragrant flowers aroud our Thai holiday house, but none can enchant nor infuse romance into the night air like the "Queen of the Night".
Thailand's natural spa loofah
As you stroll around the grounds at Gecko Villa, keep an eye open for the brown, fat, cucumber-shaped fruit of the climbing loofah vine. If you pick one of these, then crack it open and peel back the dry, woody skin, you will quite readily be able to extract the internal sponge - a natural, sustainable, eco-friendly garden spa product!
Hold it upright to shake out the seeds to encourage further growth, then use the loofah in the shower or bathroom, or in the kitchen. As a natural sponge, when soaked in water and frothed up with soap, the loofah from the garden and grounds of Gecko Villa acts as a perfect exfoliant.
If you'd like to take one home, soak it, flatten it and dry it in the sun. When you get back home after your holiday in Thailand, simply quench the sponge's memory with a good soak in water, and it will puff back up to its original shape.
These fruit are in fact edible when harvested early in the season when they are still green, and you may here them referred to as Chinese Okra.
