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The Mae Nak compound area
Nestled amongst the trees and near the water.In my first year at Lyndon State College in the mountains of upstate Vermont there was an annual party on Halloween called "Spooks and Spirits." We would dress up and cloak ourselves in the symbols of a wild animistic world; some of us wore white sheets, others Dracula or werewolf masks and yet others painted zombie faces. Although mostly it was an opportunity to get drunk cheaply with your friends while trying to meet girls, like most college parties of the day, I also like to think of it as a way to release the wildness and uncontrollable powers contained in our young bodies. In a sense, our mass consumption of alcohol and animated magical symbols--external forces--were a method of paying tribute to these unknown forces within ourselves--internal forces. Our celebration of chaos indirectly pacified and honored them through our selfish but genuine offer to share unabashed freedom and enjoyment. We exercised an element of control of these unknown forces through a celebratory purging ritual. An interesting aspect of this celebration was that it tended to take place in a different place every year, often a field somewhere where we could erect a temporary party tent for the evening. The next
Mae Nak Shrine
One of several shrines in the compound day all of its structures would vanish. Only trash and human imprints would remain. We weren't trying to contain anything, we were trying to let it go.
The pagan and animistic characteristics of this rite of passage were triggered after I visited the shrine of the infamous Thai ghost Mae Nak. The grounds of her shrine are located alongside a canal inside Wat Mahabut in the Phra Khanong district of Bangkok. Without going deeply into detail, Mae Nak was a young Thai woman living in Bangkok during the nineteenth century. She got pregnant and died while her husband was away at war. When her husband returned from war, she was there in ghostly form, but he was unaware of it. There is a resemblance to the main character played by Bruce Willis in the movie Sixth Sense but the difference is that Mae Nak knew she had died but refused to go peacefully into death. She truly loved her husband and could not let go of the world. She chose to break the rules or she was condemned because she died an unfortunate death. It all depends on how you interpret the story and Thai traditions. Mae Nak existed
in a kind of in-between space between worlds that gave her a unique power to haunt the more known world of the living. Only specialists with control over this unknown magical world, in this case a Buddhist monk, could hope to contain her. In contrast to the pleasure seeking participants of our Spooks and Spirits party, which let loose spirits in order to control their potential danger, the discipline and self-control of a Buddhist monk brought Mae Nak back into balance with the orderly world of the dead and the living. He bottled her up to haunt no more but that has not prevented stories of her escape and continued haunting presence. Her story is told, retold and resold for a multitude of purposes by a great many Thais.
Stories of Mae Nak circulate through local chatter, movies, books, magazines and popular culture more generally. She is probably Thailand's most iconic and famous brand name ghost. Virtually any Thai person you talk to in Bangkok will be somewhat familiar with her. Given her fame, I figured I could go to her shrine, take some pictures and chat up some of the locals. It didn't work out that way!! (The
Colorful protection
Like the protection (or binding?) of Mae Nak, this tree has been preserved. The beauty of nature has been adapted to reflect the beauty of man's craft. task is much easier when dealing with 7-Eleven). Nonetheless, I will share with you some of my pictures and the jist of my experience. I proceeded to the local temple, Wat Mahabut, in the Phra Khanong district of Bangkok where her influence and fame are civilized and kept under control--through the institutionalization of her shrine and its commercialization. At the same time, the unseemly but well publicized powers of her name bring great wealth to the local community and the temple. The fact that many Thais go to her (and to monks as well) for potential winning lottery numbers is a telling aspect of Mae Nak as both a commercial and popular phenomenon. But this would leave a shallow impression! Lest I make her sound like a shallow post-modern figurehead for the place of ghosts in Thai society, it should be noted that I spoke to several Thai friends who indicated that they were truly scared of her. In fact, a number of my Thai friends have been there to make offerings at one time or another. It is a pilgrimage of sorts. So there is more to Mae Nak than just the flash, the dash, the giving of cash
Just outside Wat Mahabut
I didn't mention that the Mae Nak shrine is in one of the poorest areas of Bangkok and one of the most popular for condo building in recent years....one wonders what ghosts lurk in these ruins soon to be a tall condo building. and an otherwise large menagerie of gifts. Thais, in general, have a real belief and genuine respect or fear of ghosts or so is my impression.
"Wachuu looookeeeeng foooo?" This was the first person I spoke with upon arriving at the Wat Mahabut. Even though it was in English, I couldn't answer so the middle aged Thai man who seemed slightly annoyed with me pointed and hoarsely screeched "Mae Nak oweeeoo thae." It was near dawn and at that time I was the lone visitor inside the temple. Snapping pictures of the environs inside and wandering where I wasn't supposed to probably didn't help. The man had been sweeping the grounds and I seemed to be encroaching upon his quiet, solitary work. I slowly made my way to the shrine walking along the canal first and then entering. I stayed for a couple hours taking some pictures but the only people I really met were trying to sell me something. Fortune tellers, blind old women, trinket sellers and marketeers of offerings for the shrine abounded. So I made an offering at one of the many shrines to Mae Nak and parted ways. I asked her to reward me with
A Thai spirit house
The spirits that reside near this spirit house (near my apartment) are much less well known than Mae Nak but the shrine has some of the same offerings and icons. some good pictures and a story and in return I deposited 100 baht in her clasping hands.
There is a small compound surrounded by trees dedicated to her memory with a vast array of pictures, garlands, and figurines decorating trees, walls and various shrines honoring her. It was busy by mid morning. One group had hired two Thai traditional dancers to dance a little ditty in front of her shrine. The temple is clearly a full fledged pilgrimage site for Thais. I left disappointed but not completely so, taking with me an understanding of something that is clearly embedded strongly in Thai popular culture and the Thai psyche. Academic studies of Thailand often try to express how Thai people confront each other in indirect ways in order to negotiate social expectations. The shrine of Mae Nak, and stories about Mae Nak in general, seem to agree with this view. But I have very little empirical evidence to support this viewpoint so I have demurred to my personal experience.
My first unofficially official inquiry into ghosts in Thailand left me more curious than when I started so I decided to visit a Thai site perhaps more closely related to
Santika's vanishing act
All that is left of Santika bar. my memories of Spooks and Spirits. On New Year's Eve two years ago, one of Thailand's most popular night clubs and bars burned down, the Santika bar in Ekkamai. I forget the exact details, but more or less, it seems that sparklers or fireworks lit by the band on stage somehow ignited paper banners that had been hanging above and subsequently started a raging fire that killed over 60 people injuring many many more. As it turns out, and one of the reasons I stopped going there, they had limited emergency exits and a brutal stampede was the horrible fate of many that spent their last tormented moments there.
It was a place where I used to go out during free time while finishing my Master's degree. You could meet and get the phone numbers of stunningly beautiful local models, regularly see Thai TV personalities and otherwise get a sense of "hi-so" Bangkok. ("hi-so" is the Thai abbreviation for high society but is regularly used to designate the most everyday things, behaviors and experiences....more so it seems than its opposite "lo-so.") Sure the music was too loud, it was often crowded, the floor organization very Thai and the alcohol
A religious shrine
This is in front of Central World shopping center which was burned down by protestors against the government last year. No memorial for the ghosts (many died) of this event were explicitly evident to me. simply awful but it was a truly Thai experience. You might be asking how this relates to my ghost narrative here.
There are two things about this story that struck me. First, many local teens showed up immediately after the fire with cameras so they could try and photograph the ghosts of the tragedy. Second, this was certainly a site fresh with ghosts and spirits but there is as yet no official shrine or anything to signify or honor the event, much like the site of the Spooks and Spirits party. I stopped by for the first time in at least three years and couldn't find it. I had to ask the local motorcycle taxi drivers where it was. Apparently, I had walked right past it. The fact that it is now a fenced in area with trash and uncut grass growing nearly everywhere made it easy to miss. I found almost no sign of what was once there and no one I talked to was willing to tell me very much outside of the bar's former location.
Why at the temple is there a shrine and none here? In both cases we are dealing with a tragedy.
Life in a spirit house
Inside the spirit house is the land of the beautiful. Outside??? I am guessing that time will tell, if the story is forgotten in the greater public nothing will happen. After all, the young who frequent such places do not yet hold the levers of power that shape,hold and change the values of a community. What is perhaps more likely is how the parents and friends of those involved might preserve the memory. In the case of my story here, the character and tone of stories about the "ghosts" from the fire that make their way into conversation and popular culture is the most dynamic aspect. Unfortunately, I heard virtually none of this. I have just started asking about it and have gotten nowhere so far. When it comes to the Mae Nak shrine, there has been much more curiosity but no explicit storytellers so far. Most Thai friends have told me she is scary or that they have been to her shrine.
To start answering my question about the how and why of ghost shrines, I began to take photographs of other sites where deaths had occurred and there might be ghosts such as dangerous intersections, building sites, and other public places in the public imagination.
I also
The Ghost of this year's Thai Election
Yingluck.....a ghostly reminder of the Thaksin Shinwatra legacy in Thailand. started asking my friends their thoughts about ghosts. When I did this, nearly all of my friends had something interesting to say.
My hairdresser Aom almost sounded American when she said,"Ghosts from the movies and TV scare me and I can't sleep."
My friend Navin, who is Indian-Thai, told me about a female ghost who likes to shit on you when you are sleeping. (He was talking mostly about India of course, but he lives in Thailand most of the time so I found his descriptions interesting. I wish I had had a notebook when he was telling me the stories as I have forgotten much of what he told me.)
Fon, Yngve's girlfriend, told me about two ghosts that made me laugh a lot. The refrigerator ghost (Pee Doo Yen) who is blamed when something disappears from the fridge, a little like the dog that farts; and the toilet ghost who takes a dump in your toilet. She apparently saw it in the foggy mist of the bathroom one day.
Kung, Jon's wife, emanated a general fear and belief in ghosts. It is probably not a 'truth' they believe in per se but the existence of ghosts are definitely a reality in the culture that surrounds them. Her very general view and description is often the response I got from my questions.
What I have taken from all of this is that the stories about ghosts themselves are more interesting to me than the facts. This seems to be a creative way to delve into the topic more thoroughly. Nevertheless, I do like taking pictures of the various spirit houses and shrines around Bangkok as the process makes me pause and think about the relationship Thais have with their ghosts and spirits, the somewhat unknown but very orally and visually enlivened forces that are an important underpinning in their society. Perhaps there is something simple and human about it, something I don't get when I listen to religious treatises about God or economist's dissection of the economy. I don't really know and that is what makes it a curiosity to me.
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Helen
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Ghosts ain't what they used to be
We really enjoyed this, Zak, esp. the story about Mae Nak and your photos of her shrines and the surrounding area. How amazing Thailand is, with its charming gilded temples and statues, and paintings, all in a sweet, innocent style, yet with all kinds of debris close by, soon to become condos. It made me want to answer the ad on your blog page for a round-trip flight to Thailand for $950. Would I were up for that. Very interesting that you found no signs of shrines to ghosts of people who died in those 2 relatively recent tragedies, or anyone who knew or sought those ghosts. Instead they spoke of ghosts unconnected to real events, ghosts believed to do harm to or annoy ordinary people. It's as if the ghost story has no present gravitas, the way Christianity has lost its force? Interesting the way you relate your college Halloween parties and the debris left behind to these Thai sites. Can't wait to see your next one. Love