老牛 Old Cow
He is Monk Semana Lak's good friend. His real name is Lekkanong and his ancestry could be traced back to Vietnam. Together with Monk Semana Lak and other fellow monks, they helped build Sisa Asoke. During those days, he and Semana Lak made a great duo in delivering impactful daily Budhism lectures. While Semana Lak assumed the gentle and compassionate tone, he was the fiesty and authoritative one. The villagers used to call the duo "Speakers of the Two Powerful Knives"
Anyway about 15 years ago, he decided to ditch his monkhood and got married. But then the young wife ran away. Then he remarried the 2nd time. Then the 2nd wife died. He is now a widower with one beautiful eldest daughter and 2 younger boys, and constantly looking around in the village and next villages and next villages .....for a 3rd wife. Villagers teased him that he is 老牛吃嫩草. (Old Cow eating tender grass)
He hardly speaks English and yet he is a persistent with his barracks of questions to me the visitor from "Ma-lai-sia". Using Thai of course, and using his friend Semana Lak as the translator...
First the flattery ....
" You smile very good... "
" I learn English a lot from you... "
" You very happy ..."
Then expressing interest about Malaysia...
" In Malai-sia you have vegetarian ? "
" In Malai-sia you have tom yam ?"
" In Malai-sia you have etc etc ... ?"
Moving closer to personal questions
" How many boyfriends you have ? "
" Why you keep short hair ? "
" Why you like to wear black ? "
Then the strangest question.....
" Would you want to do good this life and reborn a man in your next life ?"
So I tried my very best to dodge him whenever I see him around. But he is the best pal of Semana Lak and Buddha says judge no one .... Amitabha....be good be kind ...
The Early Troopers
Though Sisa has been asked to vacate the designated areas by end of January, life goes on in the village. These young children rose early and like eager troopers, they swept the walkway in the village. A fellow villager drove by in his big truck, and suddenly an acrobatic stunt in full display
Spot the fastest kid!
Neighbourly Dispute
Recently there was a dispute between the villagers and the neighbouring village. The farmers at the neighbouring village claimed that Sisa folks have been unfairly occupying the piece of land where the Sisa Meuseum and Library are located. It is indeed a public land but neither villages have the right to own it. Before I arrived, both village cheifs had a meeting and the other parties threatened to send in bulldozers . Eventually they did barb-wired that area. Sisa villagers decide not to fight and let them have it. Afterall they can always build the buildings again
Aging in Grace
Vacated village house but the morning glories keep it company
Keeping tab on the pulse of life
Temple Gong
School Bell
Charcoal Mill
The villagers have their own water storage sytesm, charcaol factory and even their own biodiesel made out of compose. This is a charcoal pit. Underneath the asbestos cover is wood being baked under intense heat to become charcoal.
We have all we need
Everything we need to achieve our life goal is within us
Ask for yourself just to keep your eyes on the goal and peddle hard
Sun Bathing the Asoke Way
In those cold mornings, old folks like to sit under the sun, praying and chatting with each other
The Moon Meadow
The Moon River, a major river which irrigates Ubon Ratchatani, the north eastern state of Thailand and a life line to many Asoke farms
Mouth Watering Pickles
Kids at School
Afternoon Delight
Ratchathani Asoke
The Asoke that Klayen helped to establish was Rajathani Asoke. This was the spot where they first set foot two decades ago. From here, they cultivated the land, built the farms, established schools and community centers.
This is the place where the Asoke cremates the bodies. The Asoke believes that when one dies, one moves on to the world of peace and joy. The ritual is simple and the body is cremated on the same day.
Klayen lives life on the fast lane
This is Klayen, a staunt Asoke follower, lives in a beautiful house outside the village with his wife and daughter, drives like a maniac on the road and never leaves home without his cowboy hat. His wife is the chief nurse of the Psychiatic hospital in Ubon and his daugher is a lecturer in the Pharamcy Faculty in the university. His family including himself speak very fluent English and is hard to tell that Klayen did not even graduate and was a gangster and gambler in his so-called past life.
At age 22, he became one of the big brothers in the gambling circut. Then he had no qualms with flashing his weapons and causing harm to other women. His dad wanted him to finish his university but he opted out. At 26 it daunted upon him that his life has reached a dead end and sank into great despair. That was until he met the founding monk of Asoke Semana Bodhirak who gave him a glimpse of light at the end of a very long dark tunnel. He became his loyal followers. For many years, he helped the chief monk to turn barren land into organic farms, living in the jungles, farming land with basic tools and round up the villagers and educate them with organic farming. It was tough life but it was a new life.
He has a very extensive knowledge about farming from observing the movement of ants to the quality of the soil. He is almost 60s now but has gone back to the university now to study Self-Sufficiency Economy, a bachelor degree course offered in Thai university and is topic close to the heart of the Thai King and the Asoke people. He is the top student of the class and his knowledge very often exceeds that of the lecturer who are mostly academics. He told me that with a paper it is easier to convince others and could help Semana Bodhirak more effectively
A very happy and giving man, in his car door pocket he keeps a lot of candies to be given to kids, friends and even petrol kiosk attendants. He always game for everything, having fun at the children's play ground, swimming across the river or making enzyme in his own study. He is a good friend of Semana Lak and likes to take Semana Lak for a cruise in his Toyota.
We made a stop at a town coffee stall. Doesn't this look like the same concept back home ? Even the calendar on the wall looked exactly like those in the kopi-tiam.
Madam Somboon
Madam Somboon is new in Sisa Asoke Village. She came to live here, according to her, because she would like to be closer to Buddha. But she is not a happy lady. She complained about how others in the village treated her. Sometimes she dines alone.
She has a very good complexion and I think she must be a beauty when she was young. She told me she did not have a happy marriage and brought up her daughter all by herself. Her daugher has married well and her son-in-law works for Unilever. I sometimes spotted her wearing a Unilever windbreaker. She is extremely proud of her granddaughter who calls her everyday on her mobile.
Madam Somboon's occupation was a photographer for the Bangkok Trade Daily. She has taken protraits for the King. I noticed that she was not familiar with digital camera because she was trying to look for the peep hole instead of that square digital screen behind the camera.
I hope she would settle smoothly in the Sisa Village soon. I sent this picture to her and in the note I wrote her I encouraged her to pick up photography again. She is afterall , still very young, at only 65, and with her keen eyes, she certainly could still make great work.
Chef Ah Wan
Chef Ah Wan is from Burmese and Chinese Heritage and was born in Bangkok. Though she did not have an illuminous academic background, she has great talent in language, politics and is a successful self-made woman. In her growing up years, she has worked in almost every occupation, from door-to-door cooking pot saleswoman, grocery storekeeper and all sorts.
Literally growing up on the street, Ah Wan is famous for her fiesty and spunky character. No one in Sisa Asoke dares to bully her for she would not hold back in scolding you. But she is a lady with a big heart. The Sisa children love her. She is strict with her student helpers but she has also a little bag of nick-nack and key chains and colourful whistles that she would give away as prizes if the kids perform well.
During her teenage year, she was not proud of parents' marriage and made a vow that she would marry no Thai natives. She said Thai natives beat their wives. However her grandma's constant nagging that a women's rightful place was in the kitchen put her in a dilemma. Then she had an idea, may be a "fah-rang" (caucasian ) would make a good husband. But where to find them? She concocted a plan.....
A foreign language school might be a good place to find a decent white guy. So off she went to a school to make an enquiry. It turned out that there is no standard rate for English course. Worst of all, she could only afford English class taught by English-speaking Thai teachers, whom she claimed spoke with a weird accent. Filipino teachers charged slightly higher fee and the Fahrang teachers usually charged a bomb. The hope of marrying a decent Fahrang man went down the drain.
However since she came all the way to the school, she was not going to give up that easily. She was always interested in learning Mandarin. She signed up in for 2 year chinese class. Funny enough she ended up meeting her future husband from the same class. She was the naughtiest student and her husband was the best student. They have a son who is doing very well in school and aspire to study medicine this year if everything works out. Her son lives and studies in Bangkok Asoke while her husband lives in another Asoke in Northen Thailand.
Every day after the morning breakfast run, she would retire to her own hut, have a nap in her hammock and take a chill pill with a small cup of Nescafe. Keeping a private stash of 3 in 1 coffee, she told me was not a model way of Asoke living which preaches that one on should not indulge in pleasure and material needs. But she grinned, "Shhhh.... don't tell anyone" and winked.
One day she decided to invite me and a few of her close friends for dinner in her house. Bak Mee is on the menu. We drove to the market nearby to buy dumpling wraps and yellow noodles that the Thai call simply as "mee". The white noodles and mee-hoon they call "keow teow".
I spotted a lady with a very fashionable hair-curlers do
Here is Chef Ah Wan's famous bak mee with fried vegetarian wanton, steamed vegetarian wanton, bean sprouts, mushroom, carrots and spring onions. The soup base was made from raddish and chunks of big onions. I told a friend that if Anthony Bourdain ever tasted this noodles, he would hallucinate. Even looking at it now, I am drooling...
Recycle Van
Outside the Asoke village and in the main town of Ubon, this is a "kalang guni" truck overloaded with sacks of tin cans, bottles, newspaper and recyclable materials that could be sold at a price. The folks sitting on top of the goods are pickers who have worked the whole day combing street after street for "valuable finds"
The School
Monk Semana Lak decided that I was too free and needed to work for my lodging. Hence I taught the primary school kids how to draw birds and we did a small assignment of "Birdie Family going to picnic". Some of the kids are very creative. Some did up a cartoon script, some write an essay while some just sketched a drawings. I noticed the girls in the class are better in drawing than the boys.
The classroom is right in the middle of the woods. The kids study the same courses as normal Thai school. Nun Sekeman Chin taught Buddishm class. Notice that the girls and boys do not sit together even though they are in the same class. The boys sit all at the front rows while the girls sit at the back rows. Even in the big kitchen, girls managed the cooking while boys are responsible for cutting and chopping
I enjoyed teaching the kids very much. Not everyone of them live with their parents. One of the 8 years old girls Beer (pronouced as Bi-a) lives in the hostel here in Sisa. Her mom is in another Asoke village at Northen Thailand while her father works in Israel. When she is not attending classes, she helps out at the clinic. She is really good at cleaning the wound and applying dressing
The clinic
Sisa Asoke has got a small clinic operated by two nurses and a few designated student helpers. This is my room-mate Sam with one of the nurses.
The clinic has got a first aid facility, a simple pharmacy and individual hospital beds for 5 patients
However I would not recommend the dental service.
A display case of traditional medicines, vitamins and panadols. It is all very basic but guess it is sufficient for their needs
Traditional theraphy like chinese traditional cupping, acupunture and chiropractice are available too
Sisa Tofu Day
Every Saturday is dofu making day at Sisa Asoke. Chef Wan and her team of student helpers were hard at work since 7am morning. 60 kg of soya bean was soaked the previous night for a minumum of 8 hours
The beans, now all soaked and swell like big fat jelly beans, were pressed. This machine separated the soya juice from the husks.
The juice was channelled into a huge cooking pot while the husks and beans that are left over from the pressing could be used as compose and animal feeds.
After about an hour of cooking, the fully cooked soya bean milk is ready to be filtered again. Sugar and salt are added onto the filter bag. What came out of the filter bag is tasty soya bean drinks
Yummy, nothing tasted and smelled better than freshly boiled soya bean drinks !
Only a small portion of soya bean drinks are for drinking, the rest is used for making dofu. Magnesium sulphate was added slowly into the soya bean as chef Wan constantly stirring the po
Then the liquid is poured into shallow trays for it to set. Notice a huge heavy weight that is used to press down the dofu and to squeeze any remaining water from the dofu.
After 8 hours of hard work, at 3pm on Saturday, soft and frangrant dofu is ready to be cut into large cubes and stored away. 60kg is enough to make one week supply of dofu for the whole village.
There is no refrigerator in Asoke. To store the cubes for a week, fresh ice is used to line the wall of the storage chest.
Mushroom Farm in Sisa Asoke
