THE RIVER PEOPLE

[Music] if your name is tanyu or tipawan and you live on a canal in bangkok thailand then your ice cream man is an ice cream lady in a large straw hat and a small boat and coconut ice cream is only one of the joys we'll share in just a minute as discovery goes to thailand [Music] oh discovery 68 the award-winning program for young people with bill owen and virginia gibson hi welcome to discovery today we've come to the most fortunate of all the rice countries of southeast asia thailand a beautiful and bountiful place that used to be called siam rice is so important here that in the thai language the phrase for to be hungry means literally to be hungry for rice but when you're hungry here you don't stay that way very long 17 people live in this handmade teakwood house in bangkok thailand they are all members of the family of one man suan puduchat just now they're settling in for the first meal of the day many thais eat just two meals a day breakfast and supper although in between they eat an incredible variety of snacks consisting of everything from spiced meats to fried bananas to lotus seeds this is a normal breakfast but it looks like a full color magazine spread on the foods of thailand there's bamboo shoot curry fish paste fish soup eggs fried two ways fresh pineapple crab pork and as always rice all of it fish meat and rice is shared out among suwan's sons and his daughters their husbands and wives and their children suwan's grandchildren some members of suwan's family go to work in the city like his daughter tomak and his son tawi with so many small children around this house will begin to resemble a day nursery once the parents have gone off to their jobs but there are still plenty of adults to take care of the small fry because this family is in one sense two families thirty years ago suwon came here and married both of the daughters of the family who lived in this house nowadays young thais have only one wife and the old custom of polygamy having more than one wife is officially discouraged by the government but suwon lives in peace and comfort in the midst of his large family including his own mother puang who is 90 years old [Music] whatever suwon and his family do they do by water because this canal called a clong in thai is all the front road their house and their neighbors houses have suwon built most of his house by hand just as he dug the side canals he uses to irrigate his gardens water is everything here among other things it's the path to the schoolhouse for the youngsters in the family who are old enough to go to school kanye suwan's youngest child is 10. tipawan who is seven is the daughter of tanya's brother tawi so tanyu is tippawan's aunt they go to the same school in the same boat wearing the same blue and white uniforms [Music] school is compulsory in thailand through the fourth grade but many youngsters go further tanyu is in the third grade at the wat mahabhut school 94 of all thais are practicing buddhists on their way to school tanyu and tipuan passed three other neighborhood watts or buddhist temples until recently all education in thailand was in the hands of the buddhist monks but today the government has taken over the schools to a large degree since most of the schools are still located in or near watts young thais are exposed to their country's gentle serene national religion from their earliest days in their saffron colored robes the buddhist monks are everywhere in thailand and some don't look much older than tanyu and tippawan and with good reason almost all young thai boys become buddhist monks for short and sometimes long periods of time some of them are just 14 years old just a few years older than tippawan's aunt tony [Music] while the youngsters are at school the eldest sons and daughters of swan puduchart are on their way to jobs in the city suwon himself is setting about the work he's done since he was a boy like almost all of his countrymen suwon is a farmer though he lives in the city of bangkok for the most part suwon raises fruit trees papaya coconut and mango and these bananas which he'll cut and take to market this morning like almost everything else he does swan will market his produce by boat he goes to the market to sell whenever he feels he has enough to make the trip worthwhile while suwon is preparing his boat in the cyclone some of the market is approaching out in front the things the family buys are naturally those things they do not raise or make themselves since they raise no vegetables they patronize the vegetable boat which passes their house every morning traditionally the thais raise fruit while the chinese farmers who make up a large portion of the thai community raise vegetables it's the women's job to look after the selection of the vegetables that will go into the family's cooking this lady is selling vegetables that are familiar to all of us tomatoes cucumbers cauliflower and [Music] lettuce [Music] vegetables can be bought early in the week to last through several days cooking but because there's no refrigeration meat and fresh fish are bought each day for that day's use buddhism forbids the killing of any living creature but long before the arrival of buddhism in thailand the thais lived on a diet of fish and meat prepared with the basis of rice buddhism compromised and declared for example that man didn't really kill the fish but merely removed it from its watery environment and placed it in an airy one where the fish died of its own accord this sort of adjustment arrived at centuries ago enables today's thai women to provide their families with a balanced diet without violating their religious principles if there's a single key to life in thailand it's flexibility the precepts of buddhism bend to accommodate thai customs in swan's house the first meal of the day is served at 9 00 a.m more or less suwan goes to the market with his produce when he goes in the morning if he feels like it when the crop is cut and the boat loaded he's ready to go but if he comes out of the side clone and finds the coffee vendor at his doorstep and he feels like a glass of good strong coffee made on the spot he stops and the marketing can wait a few minutes suwon runs his life he doesn't trot along after it [Music] that movement hands folded and raised before the face is the traditional tie signal of greeting it's called a why it signifies respect and indicates the beginning or ending of a conversation saw what d jenny sawadee not quite everything comes up the clone to their doorsteps so once in a while when suan goes to the floating market to sell his produce his family goes along to buy the things they can't get it home but could you buy there how about incense and beetle nut ointment or fried bananas and curried chicken or boiled insects and barbecued lizards we'll see you there in just a minute this is bangkok's famous floating market here every morning of the year buyers and sellers come together in an endless flotilla of small boats there's a coffee vendor with his blocks of ice nested in rice husks to keep them from melting in the broiling bangkok sun and his snacks of fried rice cakes and peanuts [Music] there's the fish boat ginny [Music] and the boat lady with fresh fruits and vegetables a trip to the floating market is a break in the week's routine of taking the boat to school and taking the boat home again it means seeing things they don't see every day and being around more people than they're used to and eating fried bananas [Music] for many of the people here the floating market is a way of life for tonya and tippawan it's a treat apart from holidays and special times when the whole city becomes a festival there's only one thing they like better than the floating market and that's what people in bangkok call the sunday market the sunday market begins on saturday morning for the people who come here to buy things or just to eat and walk and talk and enjoy each other's company for the people who come to sell it all began on friday night when most of them set up their stands and unloaded their wares then slept on the ground in order to be sure of an early start saturday morning [Music] in the sunday market there is more of everything than anywhere else in bangkok there are more kinds of fish for sale cooked raw smoked and squirming than you could find in the fish boats on the clone there are frogs here and eels and snakes and insects which children collect and boil to make into a special seasoning that they put on rice and vegetables many thai fruits are unfamiliar to us it's easy enough to recognize a mango or even a papaya once you've seen one but some thai fruits make the mango look as common as an apple or a peach this is called a rambutan look something like a sea urchin from the outside covered with long flexible thorn-like spines but once you get to the inside it's sweet and moist something like a large grape and this is a mangosteen the thais cut them open and scoop out the meat of the fruit with a fork and this is the most expensive of all thai fruits it's called a durian it's also one that thais think westerners don't like very much it's a strong odor it smells something like cheese [Music] it also tastes something like a mild cheese nature has provided thailand with a tremendous variety of food and the thais have responded by devising a seemingly endless number of ways of preparing it most ties are fond of light snacks meeting on the street between friends is likely to lead to a sidewalk restaurant but not everything in the sunday market is for the dinner table if you're looking for a pet you'll find it here maybe it's a long arm monkey called a gibbon or a tree squirrel [Music] the thais love animals and will not hunt them or kill them or cause them pain the monks for example strain their drinking water unless they accidentally swallow an insect and thereby kill it since buddhists believe that one of the most virtuous things they can do is release caged birds or animals there are men in the sunday market who sell small sparrows called rice birds the people buy them in small wicker cages with the sole intention of taking them into the fields and releasing them thereby earning what buddhists call merit or credit for good works and kind deeds it costs tony and tippawan about a dollar to buy a rice bird and a cage they may keep the bird a while as a pet and then release it gaining merit and losing a treasure [Music] we'll be back in just a minute [Music] [Music] suan's family live only a bus ride from the market grounds but most of their days are largely spent within their home playing talking or helping prepare the evening meal for tawi the shirt and trousers he wears to work quickly give way to the traditional garment of men in thailand a piece of fabric called a pokemon a garment of many windings something like a sarong useful versatile and cool in a thai household child care is everybody's business tanyu the ten-year-old aunt has half a dozen nieces and nephews to shepherd tawi has his own seven month old baby the hanging swing in which he rocks his daughter has held the family's children for 30 years it's a house that's well looked after it's also a house that has ghosts or spirits but then so does every thai home which is why you'll see these little spirit houses everywhere you go in thailand they look something like bird houses but they're intended for the spirits who belong in the piece of ground in which the family's dwelling stands the spirit house is called a prop room it's placed on a post in the front yard in such a position that the shadow of the human house will never fall on it from time to time when suwon thinks the ghosts of the ground need attention to place food and incense in the prawn the thais look after their spirit houses out of tradition belief and superstition for these same reasons their houses also have an odd number of rooms never an even number basically it's a matter of good luck the rooms are large and open with an absolute minimum of cumbersome furniture the floors are polished in level and shoes are never worn inside the house is built on stilts four or five feet above the surface of the ground because in flood times during the rainy season the water of the clongs has been known to come up almost to the porch sawon has a special fondness for space below the house where the water jars are stored with their fill of rain water swan finds it pleasant down here enjoying an hour out of the heat of the day relaxing on the frame of an old bed which was put here a forgotten time ago to get it out of the way suwon has raised his children according to the gentle beliefs of thai buddhism he believes that each action in life calls for a certain reward or certain penalty therefore to reach the state of perfect and permanent peace and happiness good acts kind acts generous acts will produce admirable results buddhists feel there is no better road to merit than providing food for the monks who are not permitted to handle money or ask outright for food instead the families in the neighborhood of the wat take turns in providing the food bringing it fully prepared and ready to serve each family tries to provide the best it possibly can because buddhists believe that the one who does the good deed receives the merit the family says thank you to the monks as they offer the food the monks say nothing at all the monks must not eat after the hour of 12 noon their only meal of the day takes place at 11 in the morning another way for buddhists to attain merit is to be present during this meal the family has not come to worship since there is nothing specific to worship buddha never made claims of divinity but thought of himself merely as a teacher someone who could point out a gentle way to more rewarding and calmer life a few years ago the monks were responsible for teaching the children in the watch schools now only some of them teach but they're always at hand saffron-colored symbols of the tranquil life which is the buddhist ideal few of them are monks for life but instead may serve for as little as three days or as long as several years the most popular time for becoming a temporary monk is the buddhist lent which is during the rainy season the time between sowing and harvest there isn't much work to do then and it seems a good time for looking after the next light as for this life most of the boy monks will lead lives much like sounds pending their fields and their families their future and their fate in the comparative security of a country that has known no european master for all its history of more than one thousand warm productive years in the asian sun we'll be back in just a minute we hope you've enjoyed the first part of discovery's visit to thailand and if you'd like to find out more about this beautiful ancient and independent country then ask your librarian for any one of these books the springing of the rice by eric berry getting to know thailand by margaret ayer and this book proppan a boy of thailand by g warren schlott jr next week we'll still be in this nation that used to be known to the world as siam but we'll be in a part of it that's far away and totally different we'll be in a town called mangao where the main industry is the harvesting of teak a field in which a great deal of the work is done by intelligent and well-trained elephants we'll see them in action next week on part two of discovery goes to thailand so be with us then bye the bye production units foreign transportation arrangements provided by al italia airlines [Music] thank you [Music] uh this has been a jewels power production in association with abc news and public affairs