General Life in Chiang Mai

 

A night time view of Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai today looks and feels like a good sized city but in 1984, it was very different. Though already seen as the 2^nd largest metropolitan area in Thailand, the city had the more relaxed, laid back vibe and atmosphere of a smaller Thai town out in the countryside. A couple of the roads were multi lanes each direction, but generally, there was just two-lane traffic. Even so, traffic could flow and traffic jams were rare. Crossing town was easy and usually accomplished within 15 – 20 minutes.

“Samlaws”, the three wheel pedal cabs were common place and served as taxis. As I recall, neither the motorized tuk-tuks or regular sedan taxis were available as yet. Store fronts were accessible and usually it was no big challenge to pull up in front of a shop or at least get close.

Though this photo is from 2008, this view of
Tha Pae Rd, kind of the gateway to downtown,
would have looked similar in 1984.

The only department style store in town was called Tantraphan and it carried some western style food items as well as household goods. The other main source of western style groceries was a small shop near one of the main market areas. I’m not sure of the exact name of the store, but we knew it as “The Kasem Store” run by “Mrs. Kasem”. We understand that missionaries and other westerners that preceded us in Chiang Mai taught Mrs. Kasem how to bake some western style pastries so we could pick up fresh baked goods as well as the raw materials to go home and bake ourselves.

There were no US or western restaurant chains in Chiang Mai at the time. For western food, Babylon Restaurant was a favorite. Run by an Italian immigrant that left Italy after WWII, he started an Italian restaurant and married into a Thai family. His descendants now run two similar restaurants even today. There were a couple other restaurants that catered to younger, backpacking, tourists but the quality of their western food was so-so. Besides Babylon, the main source of better western food was in a couple of the larger hotels.

Of course there was a multitude of Thai options anywhere and everywhere in the city at a reasonable cost. Even as we left Thailand in 2006, we could still have a decent meal for a dollar or less. Barbequed chicken bridged the Thai/Western food divide nicely and there was a “honey barbequed” chicken restaurant popular with Thai and westerners alike.

To imply this is a Chiang Mai rush hour in 1984
would overstate the situation, but some very large
 goats and the occasional cow were still roaming
the streets during that time. Not so much today!

In 1984, Thailand in general and Chiang Mai in particular was already gaining popularity as a tourist
stop, attracting tourists from around the globe. Even so, if we saw a western, white person on the street there was a good chance it was someone we knew.

In a previous post I mentioned we could see American movies with the English soundtrack in a “sound room” closed off from the rest of the theatre so we could keep up with Hollywood fairly well. Then, in 1984, our neighbors, Johann and Helena Facchini, bought a TV and VCR. Movies with the English soundtrack were readily available to rent or buy and the Facchini’s were good to invite us over to watch. So we enjoyed trying to keep in touch with western entertainment in that way.

Music, both western and Thai was widely available in the form of cassette tapes and later CDs. We were aware that missionaries returning to the US had the reputation of being out of touch with current trends. Thus, to avoid getting too far out of fashion and becoming too big a cultural misfit in the US, we tried to keep abreast of popular music both Thai and western, as well as movies, sporting events, politics, etc. So we started collecting what we thought might help us keep up to date. It didn’t cost all that much as it was all very inexpensive. How successful we were at keeping up with trends is debatable, but we did have a large collection of videos, cassette tapes and CDs that continued to grow over the years and eventually became a problem to dispose of.

Though we had a couple options for western
style groceries in 1984, the majority
of food shopping was done in open markets

A big part of the reason that movies and music was so widely available and inexpensive was that Thailand was not very concerned about enforcing US copyright laws. I suppose that a legitimate copy had been purchased somewhere along the line, but by the time it reached a stall in the night market of Chiang Mai it was a copy of a copy of a copy ……. Etc. Paying full price for legitimate copies with all the shipping and import duties added on was not really an option and generally, the quality of the copies was usable enough and often very good. We never heard of any pop star or movie mogul going bankrupt because we bought some pirated tapes and videos in Thailand so we never thought too much about it.

Once movie videos became really popular, there were some occasional really bad copies that came up for sale in Thailand. I know we watched several movies on video that had been recorded by hand held cameras in a theatre. The picture and sound was terrible and sometimes drowned out by people in the theatre coughing, conversing or laughing. It was obvious it had been recorded in a theatre as we could see the silhouettes of other people watching.

We were surprised once to see a big name movie available on video in Chiang Mai before it had even been released in the theatres. We watched it and it turned out that it was some pre-release version yet to be edited. Even the music and added sound effects had not yet been included.

We were beginning to feel at home in Chiang Mai and really enjoyed being there. The comradery with the other missionaries, Karen workers and church leaders, the Christian community and Chiang Mai itself all seemed to be a good fit. Too bad we would soon be moving!