As a tourist in Bangkok/What really happened in 2010?

BANGKOK — Every time I go to Bangkok to visit my daughter and her family, I end up shopping and eating in restaurants. This visit was different because another son and his family were also visiting. We decided to hire a van to bring us further out than Sukhumvit Street or soi as the Thai call it.

First stop for our group was the famous Tiger Temple, and not knowing anything about it, I went along and was specially thrilled of two contrasting images it evoked: the quiet contemplative monk and the ferocious tiger. How would they manage that? My vision was about a beautifully landscaped but verdant habitat cared for by the monks and freely roaming tigers in peaceful coexistence in that haven. That was something to see.

We are easily misled by preconceptions. First of all it was a rainy day so there was more mud than verdant green. Still I had hoped until the very end to find what I had wanted – to see how humble contemplative monks tame wild angry tigers by being just what they are – peaceful. It was a disappointment. There weren’t many monks, about one or two sitting in corners away from the spectacle of tourists and yellow shirted keepers keeping watch in case the tiger rebels against its captive state. The tourists were waving bags of leaves at the end of sticks that they use to tease, provoke the denatured tigers. There were screams of excitement from the tourists as the tigers approached and try to snap the bags. That may be thrilling to some but not for me. I sympathized with tigers removed from their original habitat and made playthings for tourists. In another site, there was the inevitable picture taking with the tigers. You could even caress them while pictures are taken.

Apparently I am not the only one to feel the disgust. As a former Tiger Temple employee puts it, “The tigers are abused, exploited and kept in cramped conditions exacerbated by uncontrolled breeding – for profit, not conservation. Sometimes, they vanish into the very trade from which they were supposedly rescued.” After doing some sleuthing he says “The tigers are not, as the temple’s website says, “hand-reared with compassion by monks.”

Instead, say some volunteers, they are punched, kicked and beaten by badly paid and unqualified handlers to keep them subdued for tourists. Living conditions are grim: dozens of fully grown tigers are kept in small cages and never let out. Veterinary care is poor. Money that tourists are told is dedicated to the tigers’ welfare never reaches them.”

 Whatever the reasons, I was disillusioned about what a Tiger Temple would be like. It promised so much and delivered so little. It also shows how looking for ideas about what could interest tourists can be harmful. The Temple Tiger has been a tourist attraction of Bangkok for more than eight years. I did not see any beatings but it must have been the shock of seeing tigers made docile to attract tourists that disgusted me.

It may be an amazing experience to touch a tiger but not everyone thinks it is worth the trouble to change the “nature” of the tiger, a critic laments.  That is as cruel.

I would agree with him, “Most people who go to the temple don’t care. They just want the photo.”

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More pleasant was our visit to the Bang Pa-In Royal Palace. This is the royal summer palace where Thai kings used to spend their summers. (CNP: The democratic equivalent of our Mansion House in Baguio.) The Thai Summer Palace is by the Chao Puraya River bank in Bang Pain district of the Ayuthaya Province.

It reminded me very much of the grand houses of England that we visited – these had huge lovely gardens and manicured lawns. Something like Downtown Abbey for fans of this ITV period television series.

The Thai Summer Palace was first built by King Prasat Thong in 1632, but was neglected – the palace left empty and the gardens overgrown up to late 18th and early 19th centuries according to the brochure. It was King Mongkut, the Siam king made famous by the Broadway musical the King and I who revived the splendor of the Summer Palace. The musical was adopted by the story of the British governess who came to teach his children. He began to restore Summer Palace in the mid-19th century. But most of the present buildings and magnificent gardens open to tourists were built in 1872 and 1889 by King Chulalangkorn. (How differently our own story developed. By then we had been colonized for more than 300 years, and another colonizer about to take over in a few years.)

I have always wondered why the King of Thailand is so greatly revered. Here is a reason. He had illustrious predecessors like King Chulalangkorn who was beloved by the people.

And if, like me, you should ask the question why this country was not colonized, their history gives credit to a wise leader like Chulalangkorn. With the country threatened by colonization by Britain and France, he modernized the country and undertook social and government reforms to steel the country against outsiders. He is known in Thai history as the Great Beloved King.

I think we have not been so lucky with our leaders. From foreign colonizers we had our local colonizers as the Spanish writer Madariaga described abusive leaders.

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I just read through my colleague Jarius Bondoc’s article on Smartmatic. It is appalling that other countries like Mongolia and Puerto Rico rejected Smartmatic and went straight to the owner Dominion Electoral Systems when they found out that it owned the source code of the program and the technology. We did no such thing except to give the lame excuse that Smartmatic “hid” it from Comelec.

We have to get at the bottom of just what happened in 2010 now that the facts are out with Smartmatic’s own admissions in its suit against Dominion in Delaware and apportion guilt where we must. That is being transparent and honest.

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I will be coming home in time to be at the Baile Foundation’s “O, ILAW!” exhibit at the Shangri-La Plaza Mall on Nov. 22, 2012. As a special guest I will hang a “parol” on the Baile Christmas tree for the opening ritual. This is a project of former Bayanihan dancers who have made it their project to revive Filipino culture.