Page Ilth' e SCARLET AND BLACK Friday. Docomhur 5, I96) Ashley Debunks the Mysteries of the East Now it’s raining out, Some- Eow the rain seems to fall in igger drops here, to be more real, more of a fact, Down it comes, and the puddles climb min of themselves, and the river thickens and shifts fatly and moves out. Last week, that is, it moved out. It was a chil» ‘dren's flood, enough to make walkinga new thing, enough to allow the boys and old women netrfishing in.the full ditches Blong the roads to catch mon- sters as long as their fingers, and enough to call off school, I walked in the market, in shin- deep water, trailing banana leaves and plastic bags, and ,vaulting bunches of animal in- testines that lo 0 k a d like bunches of animal intestines. and floating oranges that lookedlike suns fallen into the silt, sad seal The sun is bigger, too. It grabs the cannas and ‘Be red!” and yanks out the lice heads to where it can see them, And We are teaching Eng- lish: “No, no — ‘There are a few books on his desk.‘ Remem» her, the expression ‘a few’ is used to tell ‘how many’ and is used with a plural verb, in con- tradistinction to , . . i mean, uh , . r with other words, like ‘a little,’ which tell ‘how much,y ou use a singular verb, like: There is a little water in the glass.’ on, now you try it, using ‘much.’ That's right, ow, in English we use the ex pression ‘again and again’ to show repeated actioni ‘Re- fie a t e d?’ Well, ‘repeated’ ‘ eans something you do again find'again. . .” Make the language live, Sometimes I think I'm teaching English so my students can sell toilet paper to indisposed American tourists. And we study Thai, which is a tonal language. By “tonal” is meant that one pronounces it as if one were a harmonica being played by an epileptic. For example, the sounds “cow" when pronounced with a rising tone mean “he, she, or they,” and when pronounced with a falling tona mean “ricer” Yes, well, we thought of that too, but semiphores seem, on close examination, somewhat inade- quate. But I’m Wandering. Ahl the mysterious Orient! Pageants circling the mind—fabulous temples, gold-encrusted, gleam- ing above the scarlet-flowered trees, and inside them, dia- mond-studded pagan images whose eyes express the secrets of eons. At night, under the spell of the full moon, en- tranced priests in golden and purple brocades fill the temples with incense, strange and over- powering, while multiebreasted slave girls, trailing hospital gauze, seem to float among the worshippers, enticing the un- wary. . . . In the morning, you are almost ashamed, but then the Cleaning lady arrives, swatlied head to foot in White silk, Ah, the inexplicable East! Frankincense and mhyrr in the barbershop. Bunk. But such is a common American delusion, if not in the minds of the citizens of the Athens of the New World, at least among the readers of ”Women’s Home Companion,” "True," and ”Man's Adven— ture.” Nevertheless, given the fact that the above has never been the reality of Thailand, For Christmas Formals Come Down to Virginia's New Location Open r Monday, December 9th 826 Fifth Avenue Virginia's ACROSS FROM THE POST OFFICE one still has to deal with the fact of an ancient culture, dat- ing, as an independent kingdom in this geographical area, With interruptions, fr 0 m approxi- mately the thirteenth century, which has produced, on its own terms, great art in dancing, poetry, sculpture, and archi tecture, which has been and is the home of one of the most profound philosophies of human history, and such “visible" greatnesses apart, a culture which has developed itself into an identity visea-vis 'customs, mores, attitudes, etc., every bit as real and legitimate, and a good deal older, than Ameri- can society — one still has to deal with this culture in con- tact witih, for example, Elvis Presley. And who‘s making jokes? That man is enormously im- portant here I live in an older— boys dormitory, and every morning at seven or so I wake to his moaning from the boy's radios, Whole two-hour radio shows are devoted to his sing- ing, students buy pocket books that have the lyrics to his songs, his picture appears on shopping bags, his styles of clothes and his haircut are aped, and his movies are mobbed. But Elvis is only one ex- ample, and probably in most ways a minor one. Here are some others, _ The traditional Northern Thai work shirt is shortesleeved With ties in front instead of but- tons, is worn outside the trousers, and, like a Scarleteers jacket, has no collar, It’s a fine shirt for the climate, being well ventilated and loose-fit— ting, but it’s out. Among the young businessmen and teach ers one must wear a starched white Western shirt with a neck- tie, which is very hot and un- comfortable Thai classical dancing has existed for centuries, and in order to appreciate the grace and beauty of’it you have to see it either in person or in a movie, but about the only place it is done authentically today is in Bangkok, in the National Mu- seum. Instead, although the Twist has been outlawed re- cently, the young people do sim» ilar American dances, I went on a threevday bus trip with about 50 of the students to visit two places: the Yanhee Hydroelectric Project (the largest dam in Asia, which will multiply Thailand's supply of electrical power) and the ruins of Sukothai, the 13thecentury capitol of Thailand, and the city Iihat produced the greatest school of Thai Buddhist sculp- tors. The Sukothai bronzes are considered to be‘ one of the outstanding artisticv achieve- ments of Eastern civilizations As for the students, at Yanhee they were fascinated, but at Sukothai, after the first hour or so, most of them wouldn't get out of the bus when we stopped somewhere, and were monumentally boredr The Prince Royal's College had a {underaising variety show at one of the movie theatres recently, which consisted, among other things, of a combo with girl and boy singers from one of Chiengmai’s nightclubs (another innovation) who de- voted themselves to screaming unintelligible American popular songs, composed mainly of “Bableeeee!” and "Yeaaaah!" for about a half hour, a belly dancer who ambled back and forth across the stage trying to look exotic, and an Ameri~ can movie, When I asked one of the students later why there hadn’t been any Thai entertain- ment, he said that it was be- cause most people think that things that are ‘Thai are “old- fashioned," but American ways are ”uprto-dater” Don't misunderstand. I am not saying that young people here are ashamed to be Thais, or that they would rather be EUROPE COLLEGE TOURS Escorted, all-expense tours for ages 18-30, Famed Brownell College Tours feature excellent steamers, choice hotels, all meals, comprehensive itineraries. Frequent departures by sea and air. 35- 52 days, from $1047. Also Popular Tours—no age limit, Sce us {or folders and complete details. Grinnell Travel Center Boo F|F'l’H‘ AVENUE Calm 235-43“ Americans. On the contrary. they are proud of their coun- try, but what is their country? Thai culture, for most of its stu- dent generation, is being vastly redefined, and its contacts with American society are an important influence in wording those readefinitlons, And, ti- nally, who is to say that the changes that are occurring are bad? The situation is much too complex for this very limited article to, discuss with any de- gree of completeness, and an American's feelings of sadness concerning such things as fac— tory smoke dirtying the air and Paul Anka squealing from a priest‘s portable radio are cer- tainly too simple. As one writerr has described the situation: Pristine innocence core rupted by Western material- ism: there is some truth in that, but it is also something of a myth. Tourists in the same way prefer picturesque squalor -— in markets or vil- lages — to order and cleam liness, which they are used to in their own countries. But what of the inhabitants them- selves? It is they, after all. who want pin-tables and cin- emas, or there would be no point in installing them. You cannot isolate people from such things, or preserve them in the past. What would be Indian civilization, which we so much admire, without the rude invasions of the Aryans, or the Turks or the Moguls? or Japanese culture without the massive influence oi China? Thailand herself is the product of both these forces, and she is changing Istill. Editor‘s Note: The above is the first of a number of articles by Traveler-scholar Paul Ashley. Blacklist (ACP) ”The Limeliterfl Incident of 1963" continues to cast a shadow over Florida Southern College, Lakeland, Florida, notes the c a m p u a newspaper, THE SOUTHERN. The Limaliters were hired last March for a performance during Founders’ Week, In a letter written by a college vice} president, the group was re- quested to present a high cali< bre program which would not in any way be embarrassing to the school. The Limehters received half their fee before the perform- ance and were to receive the balance during the intermls< sion. However, because the program was found to be “of- fensive" to persons connected with the college, payment of the second check was stopped at the advice of the college at torneysr Because of this, no group on campus can secure name en- tertainment for functions. In fact, one of the reasons for the postponement of Greek Week this semester was the inability to hire a band for a concert.