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Thursday, July 09, 2009
Heartbreak in the mountains
While we city parents complain about rote-learning in the education system which kills our children's creativity, the ethnic Karen forest dwellers in the northernmost mountains of Mae Hong Son suffer a different disillusionment.
"Schools have stolen our children," said Tabuko, the village head of Ban Nong Khao Klang, in Mae Hong Son's Tambon Huay Poo Ling.
Actually, it was much worse than that for Tabuko himself. His struggle to give an education to his daughter Apai has ended in a family tragedy. The city job did not rescue her from a back-breaking job: it killed her.
Like most Karen youngsters in the village, Apai refused to come home, thinking there was no future in the mountains. Not long after working in a factory in Lamphun, she suffered severe headaches from what a doctor said was a brain tumour. Apai was only 26 when she died.
As a village leader, a figure of authority, Tabuko tried hard to conceal his grief. His wife, devastated at the fresh loss, quietly curled up close to the house fire, her red, swollen eyes staring blankly at the flickering flames.
"The factory has a lot of toxic chemicals," he said. "I think that was why my daughter died."
Apai's death was just the latest incident which made the villagers at Huay Poo Ling question the false promise - and danger - of modern education.
"We're just peasants and we work very hard to send our kids to school," said Patuka, another villager. "Our only wish is that they return to help improve our community. But they don't. Once in the city, they no longer want to come home. When they do, they no longer know how to farm. Worse, they do not want to learn, thinking farming is below them. All they do is hang out together, listen to loud music and annoy people with their motorcycle noise.
"We parents cannot say anything because we're uneducated. The kids don't want to talk to us, calling us old-fashioned.
"More and more people in my village think it's no longer a good idea to send our kids to school and lose them forever."
They are not alone.
Ask any poor parents in the rural areas and they will say the same thing, although the concerns are more acute among the ethnic minorities because cultural erosion threatens their identity.
They do not only complain of the city-centred education that makes their children look down on parents and ancestral roots, they are also frustrated at the half-baked education for rural children.
Consequently, city kids continue to get top jobs while their children are stuck in the low-wage, high-risk work. The jobless ones, meanwhile, are lost in their own frustrated world of shattered dreams, alienated from their own culture yet unable to integrate into mainstream society.
This pent-up frustration is not only a social but also a political time-bomb. In the Muslim-dominated deep South, alienated kids are easy targets for militants looking for new recruits.
What is the cure? Patuka only knows what he wants.
"I want an education which makes our children rely on themselves, not on others," he says.
"It always perplexes me when I listen to the news about joblessness. Why jobless? Up here, we have a lot of work. You go out into the fields, to the forest, to the creeks and you never go hungry."
He also knows what he does not want: a school system which makes children look down on their parents, their way of life, and equate money with happiness and the meaning of life. Or the kind that destroys the kids' self-respect and cultural confidence.
"In the hills, we're not after cash, but we have enough to get by because we know enough," Patuka said. And without knowing who we are, happiness is not possible, he stressed.
Who can argue with that?
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date : 14/07/2009 time : 08:59Because there is only one rough road, and steep walking trails, few outside people come in the area. Some officials walk through providing services, especially health, in all the villages. So the villagers mostly take care of themselves. Some friends in Mae Hong Son told me that it has changed little since I went there. That's too bad that some youths do not appreciate the villagers' independent way of life.
date : 15/07/2009 time : 02:58
date : 15/07/2009 time : 03:53
date : 15/07/2009 time : 15:08If the living standard of ordinary people improves that will only bring contentment not revolution. Revolution comes because of poverty and injustice,
the Bangkok elites does not seem to understand they are only worried about their status and wealth to aware and understand the consequences.
date : 15/07/2009 time : 16:13If the living standard of ordinary people improves that will only bring contentment not revolution. Revolution comes because of poverty and injustice,
the Bangkok elites does not seem to understand they are only worried about their status and wealth to aware and understand the consequences.
date : 16/07/2009 time : 19:13I dont think we should care so much about what teenagers are telling their parents. Aristoteles Sokrates complained about the youths view on their parents on the same object 2500 years ago.
Nothing changed after his worlds.
Hi-so city parents have the same problems.
I think the big different from working in a factory or a shop is that you get the cash in your pocket.
Working on the family farm will give you what you need , but you will not see so much cash.
People working in the cities will not see so much cash after paying house rent and food either.
I think most things is about to be taken serious and have a decent life.
Your priminister Mr. Abhisit have been living in England for years and know perfectly well how things should be.
I think his biggest problem is to convince the rest of the government.
To many open pockets.
date : 16/07/2009 time : 21:41
This publicity may lead to something revolutionary for Patuka's people. I wish you all the very best.
date : 17/07/2009 time : 19:30
date : 18/07/2009 time : 01:37Thai Culture always looks for the answer outside their own community. Here is another example with sad result against the promise of Modern education organized by the Central Government(Bankok), with "one size fits all" approach.
Strong and Good Community always maintains their own identity, determination, and their Pride. Looking to the future and not forgetting how they got to the current with remembering all the wrong turns and empty promises from the authority, will guide them for a better choice. Village Leader Tabuko is on the right path in leading his community to a better and brighter future, realizing that the answer is there... in his own village... Not from outside.
We all hope and support his wisdom, from the lesson learned of empthy promises, preventing any future victim falling through the new cracks in his village.
Cheers to Khun Tabuko
date : 18/07/2009 time : 01:50
date : 18/07/2009 time : 02:22To encourage my beloved Karen colleages from Ban Nong Khao Klang, in Mae Hong Son's Tambon Huay Poo Ling,to keep our children will always be dwelling with their home and cultures, try to organise and create a kind of new and modernize activities for all of your youngesters to be involved. Cause' of that they will still have a feeling and remind them of their lovely Karen atmoshere.
Be happy and healthy with....WISDOM
date : 20/07/2009 time : 04:29Stay where you belong, would you?
date : 21/07/2009 time : 02:35It really touched me when she said that if she died her daughter will just sell this beautiful wooden house or make it a guest house or tourist and there will be no more living here anymore. :(
(Written in Thailand Date: 07/21/2552)
Morning sunray shower on highest mountain home of the_
Golden Pagoda
Am_ disenchant to new generation_
Hill Tribe of Thailand
Come back home with_
Modernises education to_
Enchant your ancestral
Life_ not about how much you conquer
Never_ obey bloody investor's_
Commands
Come back home with_
Modernises education to_
Enchant your ancestor.
Dedication: To World Peace
Poet: Tim_Noi
Copyright: tim_noidesign@live.com
Please note: for FW. of my poems_
Please contact_ dj@wmnf.org
Vem Tenzin Palmo_ The wisdom of emptiness
Please _ tune on for the magical sound!at_wmnf.org
Please _ request FW. my poems with_ dj@wmnf.org
One Love
Tim-Noi
Email: tim_noidesign@live.com
date : 23/07/2009 time : 19:07
date : 25/07/2009 time : 18:46Tony Gillotte
Vacaville, CA
date : 29/07/2009 time : 15:21How does working in a factory have anything to do with education, I wonder. If you have a good education, you are going to study at university.
I don't think good education and false values like money equals happiness go hand in hand. They are separate issues.
What is true that western education is now the pinnacle of modern education, mainly because the rote learning prevalent in Asia is much worse. What is also true is that western culture in general is blind to the buddhist principles of happiness and sustainability. But these concepts are not opposites. The west is well aware that materialism alone does not lead to bliss. It is only the consumer culture and business interests that now propagate the belief, and the business interests brainlessly just follow the path of least resistance.
The old way of life of the villagers was good or so they say, but to follow it in the modern world is a mistake - things change, and need to change, going back to the ways of old is not an option. What is an option is moving forward, and incorporating concepts of spiritual happiness into the new world. It is an elusive concept that so far, very few have been able to incorporate in their lives.
In summary the criticism of materialism and business interests is absolutely justified - the solutions proposed are not solutions though, rather they are nostalgic thinking. Going back to the old ways is not going to solve anything.
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- Name: Sanitsuda
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- Entry: 107
I think before anyone can go to public service, he or she must be able to take care of oneself first. You go to public service to serve not to exploit.
Now back to the story, My nephew sent his son to school so that he can be rich like uncle Soon. I have enough to get by not rich by any standard.
Younger generation look down on us old folks. That is nothing new, my youngest daughter told her friend what her father do for a living. "He is an engineer working on Hubble space telescope" my daughter said. Her friend asked what exactly that he is doing. My daughter responded " He works on the four screws that held the name plate". Actually I did a little more than that. I did some analysis work on the power system. My point is that you don't put too much weight on the children words just to feel bad about it.
I am a little concern that after my nephew is gone, nobody will grow rice to feed you city folks. You better do something about that NOW!