Winds of change (1)

‘I’m about the only one still left,’ said khon dancer Jay.

He was sitting at Mum’s shop in Thon Buri with his girlfriend.

Jay was referring to his friends from his khon dance class. They went to school not far from Mum’s shop. Today, they have graduated, and dispersed to the winds.

Some, like Jay, still perform Thai traditional dance on weekends. Others have given up trying to make that avenue of work pay, and now do something else.

Once, most of Jay’s friends lived close to Mum’s shop, as it was just across the river from the school.

But since graduation, they have moved away. Now, Jay is virtually the only khon dancer from his class still in the area.

Another young man from that school still drinks regularly at Mum’s shop. Called Teung, he teaches music in town.

The first night he and I met, Teung gave me a small photograph of himself. One night, I went to Sanam Luang to watch him and three or four others boys perform music for a khon dance troupe.

I met Jay, Teung and a large group of their friends several years ago, when they were still studying.

They would form a big drinking circle at Mum’s shop at the end of class, and wile away the hours until bed.

Often, they would be there until 2 or 3 in the morning, only to have to wake again a few hours later for class.

Most were from Esan, in the country’s poor Northeast, and had known each other since childhood. They started studying khon dance while still at school, which means the rest of their formal education took a back seat from as early their mid-teens, or younger.

Khon dancers do not earn much. Jay works on weekends only, and is paid about B1,000 a day.

The boys, who hire themselves out for functions, formed their own management company.

Occasionally, a Thai embassy or cultural outfit hires them to perform overseas. They go as a group, staying in the same hotel and travelling on the same bus.

In January, I wrote a story here about another student from that group, called Toon.

He had just returned from his mother’s place in Kalasin, Esan, and missed home. He wanted to give up his apartment close to Mum’s shop, and move back to the provinces to live.

‘I don’t want to be a burden on my mother,’ he said. ‘I can’t find work to do in Bangkok, other than performing at weekends,’ he said.

Shortly before that story appeared, Toon, Mum’s younger sister and I went to the city’s airport.

We were seeing off farang J, who visits Bangkok a few times a year from his native Britain, to be with his girlfriend – Mum’s sister, Isra.

That airport adventure was one of the last times I saw Toon. A few weeks later, he moved back to Kalasin to live with his Mum. Today, he works for a car company.

When he graduated in performing arts, he left with the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. Yet in the provinces, work for khon dancers is just as patchy as it is in Bangkok.

now, see part 2