Copyright © 2012 by Eric Kaufman
Pai
– A Village in Transition
By Eric Kaufman
Remember
what it was like before they leveled it and put in a shopping mall? Most of us
have a childhood memory of a place that has long since been replaced with
something more profitable. These bittersweet memories prompt artists to
reflect. Mike Ness of Social Distortion sings, “...and the pool hall that I
loved as a kid is now a Seven Eleven.” There must have been more money to be
made inside that Seven Eleven, but a whole lot less fun to be had for one nostalgic
Southern California local. He’s not the first or last songwriter to lament in
the woes of a changing and lost landscape. Imagine a young boy in the Thai
community of Pai growing up and years from now writing a similar song
recollecting what’s vanished from the days of his childhood. For Pai, the force
driving the current change is a sudden burst of tourism.
Pai,
Thailand, up until recently, served as an untamed mountain village attracting
relatively few tourists. A few hours’ drive into the mountains outside of Chaing
Mai, Pai was primarily visited by quiet-seekers looking for a more genuine Thai
village experience. From Chaing Mai in the North the two most popular
destinations for this type of getaway were Chaing Rai and Pai. But after the
recent release of Pai in Love – 2009,
a mainstream Thai film set in Pai, the town may have lost its tranquility forever.
Director
Tanit Jitnukul's movie follows a group of friends who visit Pai in order to
make a movie, one that best describes the town. They each set out individually to
explore Pai and bring their own perspective to the film. Naturally this has
encouraged film-goers to visit Pai and consider for themselves what the town means
to them. But the flood of tourists that the film has attracted has changed the
very thing that they came to savor and ponder.
What once
were dirt roads are now freshly paved. Traditional night markets take on the
less sincere look of commercialism with items for sale that may not be from Pai
at all. Factory made T-shirts and crafts suddenly turn up and attempts to cash
in are made. Some of the traditional street food still exists, but is now more
expensive. It’s doubtful that the sweet corn fritters that I binged on every
night will disappear from the roadside but likely you’ll spend a bit more for them.
Pai’s traditional ginger tea mulled in ceramic vats really helps with the
motion sickness you’ll suffer through the mountains on your way in.
Unfortunately, the price has doubled from ten to 20 baht and will continue to
rise.
Before,
only a few guest houses were sufficient to handle what little hippie tourist
traffic came through. Now those guest houses have been able to raise prices from
600 baht per night to 2400 baht in accordance with the demand, and large scale
resort hotels are beginning to build on the outskirts. The amounts may not
sound substantial to those accustomed to western pricing but for the Thai
tourists the increase is considerable. The scale is dramatic and these changes
are only the beginning.
Reclusive
western expatriates have been living in Pai for years. It’s easy to understand
the allure of the simple life and they've integrated well into the local
culture. However, it’s hard to imagine they’ll want to stay much longer now
that this change has been set in motion. Yet still, some of them have started
to adapt and cash in as well. A dread-headed westerner harmoniously sells her
handmade dresses alongside a Thai local peddling his ginger tea. Another expat
bangs out a tune on his homemade kettle drum in the middle of the road for tips
and the sound is surprisingly nice considering his instrument looks like two
large woks welded together into a clam. Although not native to the area, these
foreigners do their best to adapt and assimilate to the local culture.
This region
known as The Golden Triangle due to its proximity between Thailand, Burma, and
Laos, was once a major opium trafficking zone. The gold brought in to pay for
the drug gave it its name. As recently as the early 2000s the government made
efforts to end opium production in the area. Now coffee and rice thrive in its
place. The people of this region have been able to adapt successfully to
shifting industries and will likely have no difficulty riding the recent wave
of change. This change, however, threatens to transform a sleepy village into a
bustling tourist attraction devoid of its original character.
Thailand
has a history of suffering the ill effects of tourism and dealing with disproportionate
economies. Widespread prostitution shows up in more than a few Thai cities that
cultivate sex tourism. Pattaya, one of Thailand’s most famous prostitution
playgrounds became so after it was used as a western military recreation site
in the 1970s. Sadly, a number of Southeast Asian cities that were used by
western military underwent the same transformation. Prostitution is an extreme
worst case example of what sudden tourism can lead to. Thankfully, it isn’t
military tourism that Pai is dealing with.
Influence
from outsiders has always been a disrupting force against a culture. In the
past the face of that disruption was more clearly recognizable. It might have
come running at you with a machete, or it may have aimed a gun at you from the
tree line. Modern colonization has adopted a more passive form – tourism. The
end result hasn’t changed much but the tools and tactics have. Those who once
brought weapons, politics, and religion, now bring cash and credit cards. As
tourism hacks its way across the map a trail is left behind that affects the local
inhabitants as well as future tourists.
