This column, first published in The Nation on September 9, 2016, has been enhanced for publication online with pictures and hyperlinks. It presents an account of the recently completed European Union co-funded Isaan Culture Maintenance and Revitalization Programme.
By John Draper and Peerasit Kamnuansilpa
The multilingual sign at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Khon Kaen University.
In the past months, dozens of multilingual signs have been installed across Khon Kaen province in Northeast Thailand. Part of an innovative cultural maintenance and revitalisation project, the signs bear messages in three languages – Thai, Isaan (Thai Lao) and English. These signs include the first such municipal, route and road signs in the Northeast and hint at something the new constitution may struggle to achieve – genuine, reciprocal reconciliation involving cultural rights, including the right to self-identification as an ethnic community, also of critical importance for the Thai Malay of the Deep South.
The Isan Culture Maintenance and Revitalisation Programme (ICMRP) was a four-year program involving four Khon Kaen province municipalities, as well as the College of Local Administration at Khon Kaen University (KKU). Targeting Isaan, a language spoken by over 16 million Thais, it built on a previous program at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the same university. This earlier program installed in 2009 the first Thai-Isaan-English main faculty sign, to a 90 per cent student approval rating.
In 2012, the ICMRP began a large-scale survey of public attitudes on multilingualism and multiculturalism in four Khon Kaen municipalities. The results revealed a population which uses Isaan the majority of the time for speaking and listening at home, in the neighborhood and at the market – but one where the majority, especially the youth, have never seen written Isaan. This is unsurprising as Isaan was phased out of the school system a century ago, during Thailand’s nation-building stage.
In 2014, the country’s first Thai-Isaan-English university sign was set up at Khon Kaen University’s main gate. Figure 2: The multilingual sign at the KKU south gate
What was remarkable from this survey is the level of community support the Isaan language still enjoys. Khon Kaen province citizens feel that using Isaan is a way to maintain the language, makes them feel good, informs them about the language, and demonstrates both identity and variety. Community support for multilingual signage centers on the fact that it would promote preservation and learning of Isaan.
The design aspects of the signage were carefully managed. In the case of every sign, Thai, as the national language and most important to equality of opportunity in education and life choices, is higher than the other languages, and also sometimes larger. The middle language, Isaan, represents the locality and is the language most immediate to the citizens in much of the Northeast. The last language, English, represents globalization, with its international opportunities.
Other strands of the ICMRP also concern multiculturalism. The world’s first Thai-Isaan-English dictionary using Tai Noi was developed out of an Isaan-language teaching component of the project managed by Khon Kaen municipality and presented last year to Her Royal Highness Princess Sirindhorn at the annual Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy Exhibition. Tai Noi, a Sukhothai-era script which was a precursor to both modern Laotian and modern Thai, is also the script used for the multilingual signs, chosen because it is a key heritage script for the region, together with Tua Tham (Dharma Script). In the form of palm-leaf manuscripts, these two scripts preserve the bulk of the region’s local wisdom, such as epic poetry, Lao lunar cycle festivals, Buddhist jatakas, and folk tales.
Further, the ICMRP also developed “ethnic” municipal and school uniforms adorned with Isaan motifs such as flowers and a local plaid design similar to Scottish tartan. These local patterns were also incorporated into a modified national Thai costume, the seua phraratchathan, blended with a Western collar to reveal local, national and international design elements. The uniforms were designed, tailored and partially manufactured by a local women’s weaving group from the Ban Lah Wa wetlands community.
School children wearing ‘ethnic’ Isaan school uniforms.
The project found that introducing ethnic municipal uniforms is one way to de-militarize bureaucracies and make them more user-friendly for local people, through expressing solidarity. In addition, ethnic school uniforms make children happy to attend school and encourage them to feel respected by what can otherwise be a top-down educational experience, one where the majority of textbooks show little cultural diversity and few pictures of ethnic minorities.
Another aspect of the project was the creation of a unique archive of cultural performances, one which preserves many art forms now lost or rarely performed. The archive features pieces by Khon Kaen University’s Sinsai dance troupe, an international award-winning ensemble, and is available on YouTube, where it has received over one million hits. They are comprised of three genres: folk dance, music and other cultural activities. The folk dance is the largest section and is divided into the traditional fon, rueam and soeng, relating to the speed and rhythm of the accompaniment. Most performances demonstrate elements of Isaan traditional culture, such as fon yae khai mot daeng, which describes the collection of red ant eggs for food and is popular with tourists.
Multilingual road signs in Khon Kaen province.
That municipal mayors chose to implement multilingual signs at a time of great centralization of power is remarkable. Changing a main municipal sign to include the Isaan language is a statement in favor of Isaan identity and plurality. Yet, this does not mean that the mayors or their constituencies are necessarily “progressive”. In terms of norms and values, Isaan people typically exhibit rural, conservative sentiments, such as a concern for national security. Thus, support for Isaan identity does not translate into separatism, though many Isaan people may indeed prefer elected local councils and governors. Instead, the project developed a “unity in diversity” model.
Funding for the project ended this year. Essentially a series of pilot studies, the program provides a window into Isaan people’s aspirations and sentiments regarding their own language and culture. Also importantly, the National Council for Peace and Order has tolerated the project, aspects of which, such as support for local weaving, tally with patriotic sentiments. Ultimately, the ICMRP imagines a more stable, mutually respectful future “Thainess”, one in which a national language policy supports all the Kingdom’s languages and identities, within a culturally inclusive unity.
John Draper was the Project Officer of the Isan Culture Maintenance and Revitalisation Programme. He is also an analyst, lecturer, and PhD student in Public Administration at the College of Local Administration at Khon Kaen University and writes for the Khon Kaen School.
Peerasit Kamnuansilpa is the founder and former dean of the College of Local Administration, Khon Kaen University.
Sisters of Isan displays Isan (the northeastern part of Thailand)’s value and their construction at the beginning of the 20th century together with Thailand as a modern state. The book has recorded the stories of two sisters growing up and working from the countryside to Bangkok. At the same time, the book shows the perspectives of Isan people through their belief, lifestyle, culture, social norm, value and fate. This book covers the changes by over 50 years of Isan workers and Thailand. Hence, beyond two sisters who had shifted from rural to urban landscape, the stories inside reflect how Thai society has come. The struggle is not something Isan people choose, whereas, reading this book may imply the answer. Sisters of Isan is not just a book. This infers lives… the Isan’s lives.
Isaan voters have a long track record of their candidates winning and then eventually losing. Northeasterners picked parties whose leaders became prime ministers in 2001, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2011, and 2014. But they lost to coups (twice), court rulings (two or three times), and election annulments (twice). The overwhelming choice of Isaan voters (and the majority of voters throughout the country) now face a new challenge: an unelected Senate. Will its beloved Pheu Thai Party rise to the occasion and save democracy? Or will it take the premiership and break the pro-democratic bloc? Does it have any choice?
Natticha Nasee shares her journey of reclaiming her identity in Thailand after growing up in Nepal, where she was labeled a foreigner. A growing disconnect from her Thai heritage and loss of cultural ties compel her to return to Thailand and enroll at Khon Kaen University. There, Natticha finds reintegrating into Thai society doesn’t go as hoped, and she is soon labeled foreigner again due to her unfamiliarity with the language as well as simple cultural norms, like how to eat mu kata. Frustrated by again being treated as an outsider, Natticha eventually navigates the blurred lines between being both farang noi and Thai to make peace with her complex identity through the connections she forms and the enduring bonds of family.
Isaan would not be in poverty if the central government distributed administrative power to localities and was more careful in how it imposed development policies and projects in the region. The series “What will Isaan people get from the 2023 elections?” looks back on how Isaan has been left out in such policy making processes, and what can be done to resolve the issue.
