Special Sneak Preview for Readers of the blog only!!

Yes ... readers of this blog may watch the entire opera Mae Naak by clicking on this unlisted youtube link.  Thanks so much for all your support.

This is not going to be the final version of the production but it is provided so that my friends and readers can enjoy an opera they wouldn't otherwise be able to see without traveling to Europe ... or London ...

And now ... for tickets to the London premiere ... go to this website:

For Opera Siam information in general ... go here....

Thailand in Miniature: The Music Scene

The classical music scene in Thailand is a perfect microcosm of the political miasma that reigns in this country, and it is instructive to look at both.  From Mahidol we can learn many lessons about the beast that gnaws at the heart of this country ... though I must say that we will learn very little about music.


The can of worms that is the College of Music, Mahidol, was opened very very gingerly by me a few days ago ... not because one wants to upset any oxcarts, but because it is good to acknowledge publicly that a can of worms exists.


Since that day we now read that pupils and alumni of the school are madly petitioning in the good doctor's defense, which goes to prove what I was saying before: that Dr. Sugree's detractors and his supporters are equally vocal (though the latter clearly have a lot more money.)


All this is essentially the Thaksin story in miniature: great ideas, persuasive salesmanship, amazing showmanship, powerful personality on the one hand, and vacuous intellect, blatant disinformation, megalomania, and falling for one's own hype on the either.


And in both stories there are elements of hope as well as horror.  Buried within Thaksin's highhanded authoritarianism, disregard for human rights and self-serving corruption were many good things, best of all the seed of an idea that this could one day be a land of equal opportunity and fairness in which the government serves the governed, instead of raping them.


And concealed within Sugree's curious fiefdom are similar grand hopes, such as the idea that Thailand could one day have a music conservatory that churns out Trisdees and Ekachais in every new crop of students.


I have to admit that when I read the news of Sugree's resignation, I composed an email which I intended to send to the president of Mahidol.  In this letter, I suggested that it might be time for Mahidol to ascend to the next level and that they might want to talk to me about Sugree's job.


After I wrote this letter, I didn't send it, because I realized that if I ever considered such a post I'd have to give up my entire life: my composing and literary career, and my stewardship of the opera, the philharmonic, and the sinfonietta.  I have managed to put together this country's flagship opera company, this country's most internationally reviewed symphony orchestra, and this country's most forward-looking youth orchestra with virtually no money, little government support, while suffering constant attacks and attempts at sabotage by various Salieri-like figures.  Would I do a better job if I suddenly had all the resources that Sugree has at my disposal, or would it just be a distraction from the vision?  In the end, I thought better of it.  Manipulating bureaucracies is not something I do well.  


However, a rumor that I had written this letter did get out and I've received numerous messages telling me to go for it.  The messages are not only very very pushy but are full of vitriol about the infamous Dr. Sugree.  Here is one example, from one of the most influential figures in Thailand's classical music scene, a person closely connected to the royal household: "But I do hate the thought of his poisoning the newly-created Thai musical world though.  He is not just mediocre, he can be positively, evilly corrupting their minds and distort their views"

Nevertheless, I am resisting the urge.  I do have a Messiah complex, but it is not so bad that I would be willing to actually endure crucifixion.   Fantasizing about being crucified is about as far as I'll go. 


In fact, here's the link so you can sign up for the pro-Sugree petition yourself.  As with countries, so with educational institutions: people tend to get the kind of government they deserve.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/%E0%B8%A5%E0%B8%87%E0%B8%8A%E0%B8%B7%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%9A%E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%B8%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%B8%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B5-%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%9B%E0%B9%87%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%84%E0%B8%93%E0%B8%9A%E0%B8%94%E0%B8%B5%E0%B8%95%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%AD/168462219896275


Now that I have reassured myself that it can't be anything other than a rhetorical statement, I might end up sending the letter after all.  What harm can it do?  Except, of course, to myself.  And I do have that Messiah complex to feed.

Saint or Demon?

I read in the paper last night that Dr. Sugree has tendered his resignation as director of Mahidol's College of Music.  I do not believe everything I read in the paper, and it is certainly conceivable that this is not a "real" resignation but some kind of calculated gesture.  However, the music scene is awash with speculation.  

After ten years, it is perhaps time for an honest appraisal of the pros and cons of it all.  I joked on Facebook about how Steve Jobs and Sugree should simply change places, but maybe it's actually not a bad idea!

The rumors of Sugree's unethical behavior, corruption, and malfeasance are legion but I am not here to discuss rumors.  However, he is clearly an extremely polarizing figure and there are equal numbers of people who consider him a saint and to be the devil incarnate.  An examination of who constitutes those numbers, however, shows an interesting trend: the members of the "devil incarnate" camp have a tendency to include this country's greatest musical and creative minds, and that such people seem conspicuously absent amongst the "saint" crowd.

I for one had extremely negative experiences as "composer in residence" in Mahidol ten years ago.  I won't rehash those war stories here because it is all going to appear in Book 3 of my memoirs and I can promise it will be very juicy.  Right now, however, I am still working on Book 1!

There is certainly a case to be made that this person raised awareness of classical music, popularized music education, and directed huge amounts of public money towards a hitherto neglected arena.  There is also a case to be made for his activities being the single most destructive element in the classical music scene in this country, obstructing promising careers and hiding mediocrity behind impressive buildings.  I honestly believe that both points of view have elements of truth.

I recently was asked to give some advice to the newly created Galyani Vadhana Institute and I explained my theory on how we can finally have a proper music conservatory in this country that can consistently turn out great musicians such as Trisdee na Patalung and Ekachai Maskulrat - the two finest Thai musicians of their generation and both people who had to reject the Mahidol mindset in order to forge real international careers.

I think there are three stages to the creation of a great conservatory from scratch.  First, you must hire the finest, most inspiring teachers you can.  You must use the fact that you have these teachers to get to stage two: the best teachers will attract the best students.  Only then, when the human content of your conservatory is optimum, should you worry about building fine buildings and impressive halls. In other words, a great conservatory starts with great people, not with great buildings.

Although I did not add two and two at the time, it's clear that my philosophy is the polar opposite of that which motivated the Mahidol College of Music.  In 2001, when I first went there, it was all about the building program.  The college was being "grown" in the opposite order from my theory, meaning that it would be very attractive to bureaucrats and bean counters. but that the core value of a conservatory— the art itself — would take third place.  

I make no comment about the validity of the opposing theories because it is perfectly clear that the theory I do not subscribe to has yielded the richest, biggest and most income-producing music school in the country.  That is an admirable result for which, without any irony at all, I must salute Dr. Sugree Charoensuk.

Not An Open Letter to the Incoming Prime Minister

Nah, it's not yet time to write one of my notorious open letters which invariably invoke scathing criticism from all sides of the political spectrum for their evenhandedness, use of reason and logic, bicultural comprehension, and long view of history.

I'm still guardedly optimistic about the future, more pleased than not about the prospect of a female prime minister, and more wary than not about the resumption of "politics as usual" in the near future.  Of course, by a strict interpretation of the constitution, the accusation that Yingluck has been assisted throughout her campaign by a banned politician comes with evidence seen by all, from call-ins to press interviews given by her brother.  Therefore the question of whether the prime minister in waiting will be red or yellow carded isn't actually about whether she cheated or not, but about whether the EC will have the guts to actually make a ruling based on what it sees rather than what it fears.  If there is a similar case for Abhisit having cheated, we haven't really seen much public evidence, but corruption is so endemic that it would not really surprise people.  A prominent member of the yellow shirts did tell that "dirty work was afoot" but wasn't very specific.

I was thrilled that upper-level members of both extremes of the political spectrum came to the premiere of the new production of my opera "Mae Naak", perhaps an indication that burning down shopping malls and seizing airports is not really what Thailand is all about.

However, an article by the very perceptive film critic, Kong Rithdee, in the Bangkok Post, did give me a bit of a start when it suggested a (perhaps fantasy) scenario of Chuwit becoming Minister of Culture.

Chuwit, a wildly popular figure especially amongst the young, ran a hilarious and high-profile campaign which ended up netting him five members of parliament despite the campaign being played for laughs.  This is as much a measure of people's apathy and disillusionment with politics as it is of any political acumen.

In a later article by Kong Rithdee, he gives the incoming minister of culture all sorts of trenchant and perceptive advice.

I love the fact that a ministry of culture finally exists thanks to the lobbying efforts of so many people including such friends of mine as (then) Sen Kraisak, but I do wish the ministry of culture would move more quickly towards actually dealing with culture as that word is generally understood in the world. After all, our culture is one of our biggest selling points.  Not just the "high culture" of temples and traditional art, but also the "low culture" of transvestite stage shows and wild shopping malls.  All of this is culture.  Whether it's good or bad is another issue altogether and "culture" and "morality" are really quite separate items.  Legislating song lyrics or hemlines is not an appropriate function for a ministry of culture at all; it might more properly belong to a ministry of morality, or a ministry of uniformity, or even a ministry of zombies and robotics.  Culture and morality are not necessarily bedfellows and in fact they may often be at odds.  (Or is it just that in my past life I was Minister of Culture in Sodom and Gomorrah?)

Why This Dispute Won't End Quickly

I present this series of maps to explain to my friends overseas why a tiny triangle of land on the edge of a cliff seems to have such earth-shattering importance for the Thai and the Cambodian peoples.  The first map is from the 12th century.  The Khmers are in red, the Thais are completely absent.  In the next two maps, separated by a couple of centuries each, you see that the red is shrinking.  There are many different colored bits and most of them are different city-states controlled by Thai-speaking peoples (using the term loosely to mean all the main branches of the Tai language family).  Then comes the fourth map, 1809: the purple area, almost identical to the red area of seven centuries earlier, is Siam.  None of present Cambodia is under Khmer control at all.  Then comes an 1886 map.  The yellow part is Siam.   

And now comes 1873.  The French and British have made a grab for territory formerly under Siamese suzerainty.  And finally, in this 1873 map, there reappears something called "Cambodia" - a central hub for the Khmer-speaking peoples.  It's the purple bit.  Around 1904, more gets grabbed and the territory now known as Cambodia becomes more or less the shape it is today.

It is this hub, an administrative division of the French Empire, that will eventually become an independent country and a repository for the the dreams, hopes, history and identity that calls itself Khmer.

And the rump of what was once the Siamese Empire is now the repository of those same dreams, hopes, history and identity for the ethnos that calls itself Thai.

In reality, the DNA of those who built those two empires has long since mingled and every person who was born here doubtless carries some DNA of both.  The people who built the temple on the cliff have been dead for centuries and no matter what language they spoke, it is almost certain that their descendants live on both sides of the disputed border.

I think that the best avenue of healing would be to start by acknowledging the trauma wreaked by the colonial powers in this region.  Then, moving back through time, people can begin slowly to understand and forgive the past.  Memories are long around here, but they are also flawed, and too severely distorted by zealots.  Would it be wonderful to move on and get this behind us?  No doubt.  Will that happen?  Doubtful.

A thousand years and an entire peninsula is being fought over by proxy with this tiny piece of land.

Cybergeeks!

I haven't blogged for a month but it's not out of laziness; there's endless rehearsals, concerts, operas, and lengthy admin meetings and by the time I get home each night I am a zombie, a condition assuages only by sleep and the odd Zynga game.

In a few weeks, our entire team of somewhere around 75 people goes to England.  There are a lot of things to prepare in order to perform Mae Naak in London, from orchestra rehearsals to placating the spirits.  One of the most noticeable things about how we do things in Thailand is chaos, but it's not really chaos.  It's actually heterophony.

Heterophony is the organizing principle of classical Thai music and it involves everyone in an orchestra simultaneously improvising on the same melody.  Each person does his own thing and the melody somehow emerges even though everyone appears to be going in a different direction.  It's the secret of how things seem to work in this country when they simultaneously appear not to be working.

So, we are in chaos now and yet the pattern is beginning to emerge.

Meanwhile, I was invited to a cybergeeks' panel.  One can in fact watch the entire thing in youtube I understand.  Here's the beginning of the ten-part series.

One of the oddest things about this was to compare it to a panel at a science fiction convention.  Of course in my previous incarnation as an SF writer I did so many of those that I developed certain skills to a degree, but I've never had to do it in Thai before.  And there was one very different thing about it.  Although this panel (which was webcast) was about "the future", the panelists by and large, and the audience in particular, didn't seem much interested in what I think of as "the future" ... 10, 50, 100, 1000 years from now.  They wanted to know what the next Intel chip was going to be like (and the CEO of Intel Thailand was there to tell them.)

Issues that form the meat of such panels at any regional SF convention, like the social consequences of virtual reality, didn't really hold their interest that much.   Had the panel consisted of the likes of Gardner Dozois, it would have been a lot wilder.

And yet this did make me reflect on a far-reaching implication.  Is it possible that young people here are simply not encouraged to extrapolate?  The idea of extrapolation, familiar to every science fiction fan, is about taking one element, often a small one, and going as far as you can with it in a huge leap into the chaotic hyperspace that is imagination.  Much crap is conceived by extrapolation, but it is also the birthplace of most of the important ideas that have driven civilization forward.

I've met a lot of young people here in the course of our work in music and also in our "Bach to the future" series of science and music camps where some of the most talented kids from divergent intellectual worlds are thrown together to see what sparks will fly.  So I know that this country does not suffer from any lack of brilliant, creative individuals.  There's also an abundance of self-help books around Bangkok bookstores about how to "turn your child into a genius." However there don't seem to be that many books on "how to teach your child to think."

I'd say that this actually should be the biggest item on the national agenda.  A complete overhaul of education towards an emphasis on "how to think" would improve the country in countless ways - including putting an halt to the various partisan "mobs" of all colors that invade Bangkok from time to time.  How could changing the educational system end political strife?  You'd have to extrapolate to find out.

Mae Naak Cast visits the the ghost of Mae Naak...

Mae Naak's Cast Visits the Shrine...

We've posted the visit on CNN iReport for all to enjoy....

Somtow

Puppetry - Day Two

I read in the paper today that Thaksin may be appointed some kind of "trade ambassador" for Thailand and will be sent from place to place to make trade deals on behalf of the country, travelling on his Montenegrin passport.I also read that the case under which he was convicted will be reopened, and that in terms of cabinet appointments:


The final decision [on the allocation of Cabinet posts] rests with Thaksin alone," said a source from Chart Pattana Puea Pandin... (today's Nation)


They don't seem to be making a very good case for this incoming government not being run by Thaksin!  This is probably not a good omen when it comes to predicting a coming storm.


I was told by a prominent member of an anti-Thaksinite faction (not the democrats) yesterday that I "shouldn't worry", because there's "more going on backstage than meets the eye."  I'd really like to know what that is, but like the rest of you, I will probably have to wait.  


There is quite a lot of goodwill right now, even among people who didn't care for the Thaksin administration, and a lot of hope.  But such stories in the paper, even if untrue, do contribute towards a general "sinking feeling"....


We're all taking a deep breath....

Pinocchio Takes Command

 Let's see how the pretty puppet does her 'job' ... said one of my Facebook friends when I suggested that if PT makes a stab at its promises and doesn't play up the Thaksin angle too much we might have a bit of calm.  I don't doubt that at the moment, we are about to welcome Pinocchio into government house.  Thaksin has been answering questions from the press as though he had been elected, and Yingluck has been coy and not forthcoming.  But what if that changes?  What if the puppet wants to become a real girl?  That would be the one factor no one has yet allowed for, because it is a complete unknown.  Pundits can calculate everything else to the nth degree, but not the extent to which Yingluck could "declone" herself.  


As a novelist I have to believe that people can grow, that societies can change, and that darkness can be dissolved into light.  One of my foreign journalist friends wrote to me, "I can't really take sides, but privately I think this is a sad day, because violence has won."  I would like to begin the day more optimistically than that.


Now that the Thaksinistas have an absolute majority (it would take 13 red cards to derail that, which is perhaps unlikely) it is perhaps time to look at the good things one remembers about their previous time in office, and to revisit the bad things as well, in the hope that we can have more of the former and preferably, none of the latter.


There are good things.  Do you remember how long it used to take to get a passport or an I.D. card?  The Thaksinite efficiency, the smiling bureaucrats who suddenly started to learn from the McDonald's customer service playbook, was a breath of fresh air in those days.  


I was delighted, during the Thaksin era, to be put on a government committee working with extraordinarily gifted kids.  It was a great idea, though it also made me see the mechanism of corruption at first hand.  I left this committee after objecting to the 200,000 baht chairs (EACH!) that I was asked to approve for a new building that should have become a great showcase center for gifted kids.  But this kind of thing didn't take away the fact that it was a great concept and very forward-looking and innovative.


The bad things came gradually.  Freedom of the press started to go south ... not via the classic method of dragging people off to the gulag, but by misusing the judiciary and the laws that criminalize slander.  And speaking of south, I don't suppose that Thaksin personally ordered the Tak Bai massacre, but this was a human rights shocker.  The south didn't forget, and I don't think PT got many votes down there.  Luckily, "drug lords" are not a voting bloc, because the extrajudicial killing of thousands of them to fulfill a drug war quota was just another symptom of an administration drunk with power.


As for corruption - well, the yellow shirts, rather thoughtlessly, made it their main cavil when they could have got so much more international sympathy by attacking some of the issues in the preceding paragraph.  The corruption was of course monumental, but it looked like sour grapes, since previous governments were hardly shining examples of purity.  


Unfortunately, the erosion of press freedom, the increased authoritarianism and the heightened corruption may have started in the Thaksin era, but they didn't stop later.  And no one can deny that the well-funded Thaksinite PR machine has done a very fine job of pinning all these things on their successors.


If Yingluck is a puppet, then she is not an unknown quantity.  After a honeymoon period, things will go wrong, probably in exactly the ways the pundits are already predicting.


But if she becomes a "real girl"?  If this were to happen, all bets would be off and we could dare to hope for a genuine reconciliation.

Life will go on ... won't it?

Tomorrow ... well, later today as it is getting towards midnight ... we'll know many things.  We also won't know several other, perhaps more important things.

We'll know whether the Thaksinites have enough parliamentary seats to take over the whole shebang and remake the country in their own image, or whether there will be two to three weeks of hideous squabbling dragging in all sorts of - what are they called? - invisible powers? unseen forces?

People have enumerated the good and bad in the two main sides at length, and pundits of great wisdom and experience have come down on one side or another.  Should neither side have enough brownie points, the army is also mobilizing, ostensibly to protect us from the benighted Cambodians.

I am almost certain that the following questions will not be answered no matter who gets to form the next government....

Can any government transform this country into one of inquiring minds, young people who dare to question, a country where innovation is rewarded instead of blocked at every turn, and where few people can see beyond the next few months, and no one thinks of posterity?

Will there ever be a proper educational system in this country where kids do not learn everything by rote?

Will the "standard bureaucratic bribe" fall below the oft-quoted 30% "off the top" for every transaction?

Will there ever be an election in Thailand in which votes are not bought and sold?   I read in the morning's paper about several people being caught with stacks 100 baht notes all ready to hand out.  I've read that this may be the dirtiest election held yet.  If so, it is not nearly so blatant; it must have gone underground....

***
Last week, my fellow Distinguished Silpathorn Artist, Bruce Gaston, was hideously mugged for his iPhone and had to have 32 stitches, in some alley near his house.  But weeks before that, he had called me up and said that while walking home, some people had been staring strangely, looking very threatening, and for the first time in the almost 40 years he's lived here he didn't feel like this was Thailand anymore.

I lived for years in what could be called a "bad neighbourhood" in L.A.  I used to believe that in Bangkok one didn't have to take any of the precautions that one takes for granted in a large American city.  I really believed that one can walk anywhere in this city and feel completely safe....

Yesterday the police came to my house.  They're investigating, still, the death threats I received a year ago from somewhere in cyberspace.  I was surprised that they were still doing so, but apparently they do take it seriously although I am sure the trail is very cold.

***
Early tonight I received an email from no less a figure than the Secretary-General of ASEAN, a friend of mine since my very early 20s.  He said simply, "we are all on edge."

See you on the other side of the tunnel....

Since political campaigning is suspended....

No one is allowed to "campaign" from now until the polls close, so I guess those airwaves that have recently been full of political ranting are now free for satirists like "Purakhanda" to point out the lighter side of it all.

Sometimes I think politicians should be banned permanently, and only satirists allowed to run the country....

Siam Sinfonietta at Work and Play

Put together a little video showing our young musicians having the time of their lives....