Blog – the history in Beads on a String – King Chulalongkorn
With the slow motion disaster of Thailand’s elections still unfolding, I would like to look away from current problems and back to those of a century ago. This is the period in which we have set our novel Beads on a String. It is the story of a southern Thai family at a time of wrenching changes. King Chulalongkorn was the force behind many of those changes, including the efforts to remold an old, weak and disorganized network of semi-independent fiefdoms into a nation-state capable of withstanding pressures from Western colonial powers.
King Chulalongkorn
The story is fiction, but we have tried to infuse it with accurate history. Although he appears in only two chapters, King Chulalongkorn is the dominant historical figure in the book. King Chulalongkorn’s reforms and decisions impact the characters in the book in many ways:
• Phasing out slavery
• Outlawing most gambling
• Reforming the penal code
• Establishing a centralized bureaucracy in place of traditional local rulers
• Arresting the raja of Patani and integrating the Malay sultanates into Siam
Fortunately, there are many historical sources to guide us. We are particularly indebted to Narong Nunthong for his thesis Reform of the Administration of Monthon Nakhon Srithammarat in the Era of Phraya Sukhumnaiwinit as High Commissioner (1896-1906). Khun Narong was also kind enough to meet us for an extensive interview.
Another helpful thesis was Tej Bunnag’s The Provincial Administration of Siam from 1892 to 1915. No work, however, was more useful than that of King Chulalongkorn himself. We especially enjoyed his letters to his children describing his journeys in southern Siam. Here below is an English translation of one of his letters we used in a chapter on the king’s visit to Pakpanang.
Photograph of Pakpanang at the time of King Chulalongkorn’s visit
“Chakri Royal Barge
9 July 1905
Dear Crown Prince of Siam,
This is more information to report to you, following my previous letter.
In the morning of the 8th of July at 9:00am, a fast dugout took me to Pak Phanang from Nakhon Bay, which is at the bottom of Laem Talumpuk. The trip took almost three hours; we used the dugout not for enjoyment but because the water is shallow. The Pak Phanang River is as wide as Chao Praya River in Bangkok. The house of a district head officer is situated near the mouth of the river. There are many houses along the side of the river, as the population in the town is over 46,000. There are a lot of Chinese, mainly Hainan; a few are Hock Kien and there is a small group of Tae Chew. The people greeted me from their boats along the river. Our boat meandered along the river and brought me to the new rice mill named after Koh Hak Gnee. The Hak Gnee family invited me to open the ceremony, I was served Chinese soup at the district officer's house, the new district office is as big as the one being built in Pattani. The commissioners and the sailors were served Thai food. Plenty of presents were prepared for the King, such as rice, sugar, fruits, sweets and medicines. Crowds of people were waiting to praise the King, both on the land and alongside the river. There were Thai, Chinese and Malaysian culture shows. I left about 3:30 pm and returned to the Chakri Barge at about 8:00pm.”
We used this letter and other historical sources in the following draft excerpts from the chapter in the book describing the king’s visit to Pakpanang in the company of one of the main fictional characters in the book – Pakdee. The dialog is invented, but most of the facts are not.
The boat King Chulalongkorn used to visit Pakpanang.
Here are draft excerpts from the novel based in part on the king’s letter.
Chapter 79 Pakdee — Royal Visit, Pakpanang, July 8, 1905
…The last time the king had come to Nakhon, Pakdee had failed miserably to impress him. Despite his panic and his failure to speak coherently, the king had approved his written appeal and reversed his conviction. Would the king remember the lowly prisoner that had stuttered into silence before him? Did the king know of his service to the high commissioner?
There was a clatter of hooves on the laterite road to the waterfront and the honor guard at the pier straightened their lines. He consulted his pocket watch. It was 9:00 am. The king was precisely on time. The villagers assembled on both sides of the path cheered as King Chulalongkorn, the fifth king of the Chakri dynasty, absolute ruler for nearly 40 years, waved and walked towards the pier.
The king wore a white shirt and tan trousers. His head was protected by broad-brimmed white hat. This was the man who had changed his life. This was the head of the government he served. This was the leader working to modernize the country. He felt the urge to pay the traditional form of respect — lying down and touching his head to the ground. But he knew the king had banned this display of servitude, however heartfelt it might be. Instead he bowed as the king approached…
A white-coated navy aide from the royal ship helped the king step down into the boat and gestured for Pakdee to sit below the king next to the platform. He sat with his legs bent to one side, careful that his feet not point in the direction of the king. More navy men, two royal aides and the Pakpanang district officer sat in the back of the boat. The long, narrow dugout pulled away from pier and cut through the glassy surface of the bay. Tall white, monsoon clouds were piled up on the horizon like mounds of fluffy kapok in the market. The sun was strong and Pakdee was thankful for the canvas awning that covered most of the boat.
“I understand we are taking this boat because of the shallows,” the king said as he watched the dark green of the coastal mangroves stream past.
“Yes, honored sir. The bay here has been silting up for centuries. In fact, at one time long ago, Nakhon town, called Ligor by the farangs, was on the coast, but silt from the rivers and sand brought in by the currents has created new land between the town and the sea. Because the bay is now so shallow, most sea transport to the province has shifted to Pakpanang. There too silting is becoming a problem. As you will hear later today, the people of the town, supported by the district officer, would like permission to dredge the bar so that large ships can enter the river, even in the dry season. Once past the bar, the river is deep enough for large steam ships to sail upriver for a considerable distance.”…
The king kept Pakdee busy with questions about the sights they passed, the boat reached the mouth of the Pakpanang River. He noted how the brownish water of the silt-laden river flowed into the blue-green water of the sea. Clumps of mangrove trees poked out of the water, tiny islands of green in the vast, flat expanse of water. A white egret, startled by the boat, launched into the air, complaining shrilly at the intrusion…
“The river is as broad as the Chao Phraya,” the king noted. “I count 31 Chinese and Malay ships. It is good to see that large ships can come this far upriver,” he said, writing in a leather-bound notebook.
Pakdee was grateful he had spent hours studying the reports from the Pakpanang district staff. He had spent most of his life in Pakpanang, but there was much he never knew. The government reports made the town seem bigger and more complicated than he remembered.
“Once past the entrance to the river, it is at least six meters deep for eight miles upriver. In the rainy season at high tide, it is even deeper,” he told the king. “Ships as large as HMS Pali and HMS Sukreep should have no problem coming up the river. In the rainy season, smaller steamships can go far into the interior with waterways reaching all the way south to Songkla Lake.”
As he spoke, dozens of small boats paddled out from both banks of the river, with boatmen, their heads wrapped in red phakaomas, wai-ing to the king.
“I also am surprised to see so many people and so many buildings,” the king said. “How many people live here?”
“The population, honored sir, is now more than 46,000. It is the largest town in Nakhon Srithammarat province aside from the muang capital. If you compare Pakpanang town with Songkla, the annual tax income of Pakpanang is only 20,000 baht less than all of Muang Songkla. There is no port town on the east coast of the southern Peninsula as busy as Pakpanang. It is also becoming a center for education as well as commerce. This year, as a result of Your Majesty’s support for education, there are now four schools in the district with nearly 100 students.”…
The king’s boat then swerved to starboard as a tall smokestack came into view. The district officer spoke up.
“Your Majesty, we are now approaching the Koh Hak Gnee rice mill. This is the first steam-driven rice mill in the south. The Hak Gnee family is greatly honored that you have agreed to preside over the opening ceremony.”
The rice mill ceremony took more than an hour, with speeches by the patriarch of the Hak Gnee family, the district officer and the king. All predicted great success for the rice mill and for rice exports from Pakpanang. …
——-
Later in this chapter King Chulalongkorn and key officials discuss the situation in the seven Malay muang of the far south. The information in Pakdee’s reports comes from a variety of historical documents, including History and Politics of the Muslims in Thailand and Rebellion in Southern Thailand: Contending Histories by Thanet Aphornsuvan. The king’s surprising comments are paraphrased from a letter from the king to his half-brother Prince Damrong quoted by Tej Bunnag.
Phraya Sukhumnaiwinit ushered the king into the district officer’s study, motioning Pakdee, the deputy governor, the chief of police and the district officer to join them as planned. The king sat in a large chair behind a teak desk. Sukhumnaiwinit bowed and addressed the king.
“Your Majesty, I would like to report on events concerning the Muslim Malay muang that we could not mention with so many others present. Khun Pakdee has remained in close touch with his informants throughout the region and has prepared a report for you.”
“Your Majesty,” Pakdee said and cleared his throat. “I regret to inform you there are still groups dedicated to restoring the Patani raja, despite his conviction and his pledge to refrain from politics. Your Majesty’s mercy in allowing Abdul Kadir to return home has not changed his determination to regain power. While he appears to be following the conditions of his release, he works secretly to foment rebellion. My informants tell me that there is a steady stream of visitors to the istana. They come from all parts of the south and return with messages from the raja — sometimes verbal, sometimes in unsigned letters. These are presented at mosques and spark anti-government discussions, often based on scurrilous rumors. Unfortunately there is just enough truth to those rumors to make them believable. No matter what we do, the people see dark motives. The honored High Commissioner helped set up government schools to allow local people get the education they need to prosper, but many people hesitate to let their children attend for fear they will lose their religion. Giving local villagers a role in the courts is seen as a plot against the traditional rulers. Bringing in more police to end cattle theft and robbery is believed to be a plot to suppress local people. Anything done to support Buddhism is considered an effort to undermine Islam. I fear there will be violence.”
The king, now clearly weary, nodded.
“None of this is unknown to me. We tried to use the approach the British have employed successfully throughout their empire — advising and supervising local rulers – but we were not successful. Unlike the British, we treated these areas as our own, but it was not true, for both the Lao and the Malay consider that their provinces belong to them. We said we were going to trust them, but we didn’t.”
“Your Majesty,” Sukhumnaiwinit said, looking alarmed at the king’s description of past policy. “That may be true, but with the threat of the imperial powers before us, we couldn’t risk the Malay rulers colluding with the British against us.”
“Yes, so we had to send commissioners and deputy commissioners to supervise them,” the king said. “We had to either manipulate the local rulers as puppets, or, if that was not possible, to spy on them, pass on their secrets and undermine them with their own people. I believe you and Khun Pakdee were most successful in this regard.”
“We had little choice, Your Majesty. We faced the risk of losing all of the Malay muang,” Sukhumnaiwinit said.
“I approved all of your actions at the time,” the king said. “But we have come to learn that an administration so full of deviousness cannot bring mutual trust and peace of mind.”
There was a long silence in the room. Pakdee was startled to hear the king express such deep doubts. They reflected his own.
“Your Majesty, what else could we have done?” Sukhumnaiwinit asked.
“I am sorry we could not have found a better solution to these problems,” the king said. “But we are now on a path to bring the Malay provinces into our nation and to make our nation a modern state. If we fail, we will fall to the imperialist powers. So, we cannot fail. We must bring the negotiations with the British to a successful conclusion. We must integrate the Malay muang with the rest of the country, but with an understanding of local feelings. So please continue your work. Prince Damrong and I do not want honeyed reports that sweeten the bitter realities on the ground.”
The words we attributed to the king provide an important viewpoint on the problems that will lead to the violence described later in the novel (and to the actual violence that continues in Thailand’s southernmost provinces today). You can see how little we changed them from the king’s actual words in the 1902 letter to Prince Damrong. According to the translation by Tej Bunnag, the king’s letter says that Siam “had perverted the administration of the Lao States and the Seven Malay Provinces from its true states. It can also be said that we have imported, but misused a foreign model of administration…
“When the British use this model of administration, they go to advise and supervise rulers whom they treat as owners of the provinces…We, on the other hand, treat these provinces as ours, which is not true, for the Malay and the Lao consider the provinces belong to them. When we say that we are going to trust them, we do not really do so, but send commissioners and deputy commissioners to supervise them. The commissioners and deputy commissioners are then empowered either to manipulate them only as puppets, or if that is not possible, to spy on them and to pass on their secrets. We cannot, however, really protect ourselves against anything in this way. I do not think that an administration, which is so full of deviousness, can result in our mutual trust and peace of mind.”
In an earlier scene in the novel King Chulalongkorn visits the Nakhon Srithammarat prison where Pakdee is serving time on bogus charges of rape. We based this scene on the king’s accounts as well as his proclamation ending prostration as a way of showing fealty. The words of Warden Krit are our translation from that proclamation. Here is an excerpt from that chapter.
Pakdee stood two steps behind the line of prison guards. Ahead of them stood Warden Krit, sweat already staining the back of his tight white jacket. ... Behind him, prisoners stood in five long rows stretched across the prison compound. The normally bare-chested prisoners wore new white cotton shirts and phatung. They stood barefoot on the clean sand spread in the compound the day before to sop up the moisture from the nightly monsoon showers. The black iron gates of the prison stood open.
Warden Krit had spent two days drilling the prisoners on how they were to receive the king. He explained that the king felt the old-style kowtows were no longer acceptable in modern Siam. He read out a royal proclamation Pakdee had found in the prison office:
"The practice of prostration in Siam is severely oppressive. The subordinates have been forced to prostrate in order to elevate the dignity of the senior officials. This kind of practice is the source of oppression. Therefore, I want to abolish it,” the warden read slowly and loudly. “From now on, Siamese are permitted to stand up before the dignitaries. To display an act of respect, the Siamese may take a bow instead. Taking a bow will be regarded as a new form of paying respect.”
Again, the words of King Chulalongkorn provide important comments on the cultural issues in both the novel and contemporary Thailand. They show that the king was not a traditional ruler tied to the past, but a reformer and a modernizer looking to the future, a future that, more than a century later, has still not fully arrived.
My next blogs will discuss other historical figures in the novel, such as Prince Damrong, Phraya Sukhumnaiwinit and Raja Abdul Kadir.
In the meantime I would appreciate your thoughts on these excerpts. Email me at paul@yuangratandpaul.online.