by Danko Lara Radic
It’s been twenty years now since I travelled to
Thailand for the first time. Back then, in the mid 1990s, when the Internet was
still young, there wasn’t much information about Thailand that you could get
your hands on before you go there. It used to be a distant, mysterious country
barely heard of from scarce stories and rare books. After the initial shock,
which the traveler experiences on his first encounter with any Asian country,
it was evident pretty soon that the people who came there from other parts of
the world were not like your average neighbors, but rather real globetrotters,
mostly young people with adventurous spirit, brave enough to set off into the
unknown, to step into another culture, another language, and to mingle with
different people. The village on the island that I went to was accessible only
on foot, through a forest, because a large section of the road leading there
was not paved yet.
Today, 20 years later, not only is the road paved and the beautiful, once deserted
beaches packed with ugly-looking massive bungalows, but even an airport is
being built on the island, while it is slowly turning into a top tourist
destination ready to receive flocks of travelers every year. Today you will
find Wi-Fi on every palm tree, while the visitors staying in the bungalow next
to you will most likely look exactly like your average neighbors. New times
also bring new values, so the old Thailand progressively gives way to
inexorable globalization and the philosophy of pure profit.
Receiving Thai massage back in 1996.
I have been practicing Thai massage for 15 years now.
Just like most people, the first time I went to Chiang Mai I aspired to learn
this mysterious art that seemed intriguing to me, making a step further on the
path toward mastering the discipline of massage that I was already practicing
at the time. Back then, fifteen years ago, Chiang Mai was a small, charming,
delightful provincial town. For its particular geographic position, the town
has been under huge influence of the surrounding civilizations for centuries,
and bearing in mind its size, the wide range of its offers can be matched by
few other places around the world. It charms and captivates you as soon as you
step into the shade of the street vendor´s canopy. At that time, there used to
be several schools and a number of teachers who could introduce you to Thai
massage.
“I acquired knowledge from many teachers, but every time I came back, I felt something was missing …”
For the past 15 years, Chiang Mai has grown and
developed incredibly, it has become noisy and hectic, turning into the major
tourist center in the North, where you can now find schools of massage on every
corner. Tens of thousands of people have become skilled in Thai massage and spread it
across the world, so nowadays almost everyone knows about it. Add to this the
Internet, and all the mystery is gone. But is it really so? Not long ago, a
student of mine, who travelled to Chiang Mai on several occasions, said to me:
“I acquired knowledge from many teachers, but every time I came back, I felt
something was missing …” The thing that is missing is that which is not meant
for tourists. Most of us tend to forget that we come to a country that has
never been conquered, and we all know what a farang likes most when he goes to
other countries – to seize and grab and take whatever he wants, whatever he
needs, usually without asking whether he may, and throughout history, it was
mostly by force. That’s how it was for centuries, and that’s how it is today.
In order to prevent that, Thai people wisely set an obstacle in our way –
language. It is spoken only there and nowhere else in the world, and it is very
difficult to learn.
Tens of thousands of people have become skilled in Thai massage and spread it across the world, so nowadays almost everyone knows about it.
Over the course of approximately ten years, I learned
from many teachers, both Thai and Westerners, and just like that student of
mine, I always had the feeling that something was lacking in my practice.
Although I have managed to master how to do it perfectly, I haven’t
mastered the knowledge of what I am doing actually. So I went further on
in my quest, with perseverance, until one day I eventually found the piece that
was missing. The teacher who made me immerse so profoundly into Thai culture and Thai
medicine, into this vast universe of whose existence I hadn’t been aware of, or
only faintly imagined, that I simply forsook everything I had done up to that
moment, throwing it away as dead weight, and started from scratch. With his
blessing and support, I set out on a road not trodden by tourists. I embraced
the local culture, spirituality, language and customs. And then, right before
my eyes, a parallel universe opened up for me, a universe of traditional
medicine, in which there are doctors no one knows of, who live right next to
those known to everyone, and practices that are familiar to all, yet no one
knows the proper way of performing them. A universe stretching throughout the
country, not only in tourist centers such as Chiang Mai, Bangkok or Phuket.
"The teacher who made me immerse so profoundly into Thai culture and Thai medicine, into this vast universe of whose existence I hadn’t been aware of, or only faintly imagined, that I simply forsook everything I had done up to that moment, throwing it away as dead weight, and started from scratch."
Once you become initiated in traditional medicine,
once you get to know its foundations, and learn to carry it out in practice,
then you begin to search for a place where you can realize this practice. Once
you go deeper into it, once you go beyond the confines of wellness and spa
centers, once you acquire skill and courage to apply your knowledge as
medicine, then you start searching for people who are in the need of it. The
moment arrived for me to go to a place that I had heard of many years before,
so I asked my teacher if I could go there and I was granted with permission. I
set off into the heart of Thailand.
Traditional Lanna medical text on palm leaves
Being a lifelong backpacker, I got on one of those
buses to Northeast in which you get all stiff after bumping for 15 hours or more,
and eventually I got off in one of those transit towns, from where I headed to
my new destination, far away from any tourist route. I got on a local bus,
ramshackle and dirty, looking like it came from the early 20th century. I was
riding the bus together with some 20 Thais. From that moment on, throughout the
whole adventure which followed, there wasn’t ANYONE who spoke English, and
EVERYTHING around me was written only in Thai language. Fortunately, I was
well-prepared and already conversant with the basics of Thai, otherwise the
whole action would have been absolutely impossible to achieve. I would have
gotten lost just around the first corner. During the bus ride, a soldier
explained to me that there was a hotel right next to the bus station at my destination.
After an hour and a half or so, we arrived to a small
town. I was soon to understand that I was the only white person around within
radius of hundreds of kilometers, and it was the first time in my life that I
found myself completely alone, in the midst of a civilization that was in a way
distant and foreign to me, among people that I didn’t know well, who didn’t
understand any language that I speak, except for that rudimental Thai in which
I could communicate on a basic level. And when they spoke in their mother
tongue, I either had difficulties in understanding them or did not understand
them at all. That feeling of communicational isolation is one of the most
intense experiences that I have ever had.
"After a two-day trip, I finally reached the end of my journey, my final destination – clinic for traditional medicine. It is part of a Buddhist temple and it specializes in paralysis-related conditions."
Although I found the hotel in no time, the room was
too expensive for my shoestring budget, and since there was no guesthouse in
town, I had to find some cheap room to rent. I will never forget the moment
when I was walking down the dusty road in that far-off provincial town, in the
middle of nowhere, carrying my whole life in my backpack, and it was getting
dark fast, while packs of stray dogs were eyeing me … and I thought to myself
that it was a
perfect setting in which I could just vanish without a trace, and if something
would happen to me, if I were to disappear off the face of the earth, no one
would ever find me. Scary. Finally I found what I was looking for in a narrow
side street – a dilapidated, creepy, dirty concrete building that had the
appearance of something from Japanese horror movies from the 1960s. I asked the
receptionist for a room, so she took me upstairs to show it to me. On the door,
there was a padlock the size of a corkscrew placed on a rickety lock, and it
crossed my mind that the next day, when I come back, I would find the room
completely empty, with all my personal belongings gone. The thought probably
occurred to me because of my memories of India ... The room was spacious, but
without windows, there was a big mattress, a wardrobe and a TV set, and that
frustrating neon light. It was a total dump, like a hideout for a heroin
smuggler.
At the break of day, I felt relieved because last
night’s horror movies scenes quickly turned into idyllic scenery of a small
provincial town in Thailand. I realized that my location was excellent, close to the market and the main
street with the inevitable 7-Eleven convenience store. At the market, I bought
some fruits for breakfast, flowers, incense and candles. I went for a short
walk through town and inquired about the way to get to my destination point.
Soon I was sitting comfortably in a three-wheeled cart (there are no tuk-tuks
there), enjoying the sight of rice fields passing by during the 30-minute ride.
Sala Nuat
After a two-day trip, I finally reached the end of my
journey, my final destination – clinic for traditional medicine. It is part of
a Buddhist temple and it specializes in paralysis-related conditions. Patients
from all over Thailand, as well as surrounding countries, come there looking
for help. I came there wishing to do volunteer work and to learn. I was
received by the Abbot of the temple, and I explained who I am and what my motives for coming were, whereupon he
approved my engagement. I was taken to the room for physical therapy, where I
was introduced to the doctors and showed a mat that was to be my working space.
Half an hour later, I attended my first patient, followed by many patients who
poured in until 6 p.m., when I called the man with the three-wheeled cart to
take me back to town. My heart has never been so full as that day.
Monks on treatment
I was the only white person who ever came to this
place, so every time someone entered the room they would ask: “Who is this
guy?”, and the whole day through I heard the answer: “farang, Slbia (Serbia),
farang, Slbia” over and over again … Likewise, when I walked around town, I
constantly felt people’s stare, often followed by their murmur. However, when I
returned to my room, I saw all my belongings neatly in their place, and
moreover during my entire stay there, I didn’t experience the slightest inconvenience
(apart from the time when a pack of stray dogs attacked me when, in the middle
of the night, I went out to get something at 7-Eleven; luckily I managed to
frighten them away, scaring off the leader). On the contrary, once the word
spread around town about who I was and why I was there, all the people were
very polite to me, including vendors, grocers, and cart drivers. They smiled at
me candidly, with all their heart, and not because they wanted to sell
something.
Residential building for patients
I went to the clinic every day and worked from 8 in
the morning till 6 in the afternoon. I worked in the Sala Nuat together with
5-6 doctors. As part of the physical therapy, techniques of massage, Luk Pra
Kob and Yam Khang were applied simultaneously. The clinic also has an herbal
steam bath where 108 different herbs are applied, and patients are also
administered herbal medicine. At the clinic, there were some 20 patients
admitted for inpatient treatments, while others came to be treated
therapeutically on a daily basis.
"Luk Pra Kob and Yam Khang are applied all the time. There is no music, possibly the TV might be on showing some Muay Thai fight, while doctors often talk to each other and the patients alike."
Massage which is applied there has very little in
common with Thai massage taught at schools and the way it is usually
represented in the West. In this place, massage has solely therapeutic purpose,
it implies a high degree of intensity and pain, and to a large extent it is
applied by means of stepping (therapists hold on to a handrail placed all
around the mats), lots of squeezing and acupressure and very little stretching
is applied. Luk Pra Kob and Yam Khang are applied all the time. There is no
music, possibly the TV might be on showing some Muay Thai fight, while doctors
often talk to each other and the patients alike. This is constantly punctuated
with strident sound of heel against the hot tin plate. During therapy I also
used Tok Sen, which was welcomed approvingly, while the doctors were eager to
see the tools, some of which I had personally assembled.
Luk Pra Kop
Patients were mostly people suffering from paralysis,
ranging from completely paralyzed people in wheelchairs to those paralyzed in half
of their body or a limb. The causes of their paralyses were various, including
cases of stroke or traffic accidents. Some of them fully recovered, others only
partially, and others yet never. Paralysis often goes paired with other serious
conditions; therefore, treating such patients requires great skillfulness,
knowledge and experience – knowledge of Thai anatomy and physiology and an
understanding of the bodily functions from the perspective of traditional medicine and the
way it is applied for healing purposes. There is no room for any kind of
abstraction or fantasizing. Treating
such patients, the therapist is ushered into a specific spiritual state of
mind; his work is a great karmic lesson which is best summarized in the
question posed to me during treatment of an officer; a young man barely 27
years old, who suffered an accident which left him completely paralyzed in the
left part of his body: “Please sir, tell me would I be able to walk ever
again?” And then you have to reply something ...
"Doctors that I worked with and spent my days with, quickly grew very fond of me, and constantly made jokes with me, which I could not grasp, but I did understand that they were kind-hearted. "
Paralysis itself has a rather specific nature of its
own. It usually affects a person all of a sudden, turning his/her life totally
upside down. One wrong move at the steering wheel can change the course of your
life forever. You are still alive, you are not in constant pain, yet you are
incapable of having a normal life, at least the kind that you used to have up
to that moment. What does that message, sent to you by the universe, mean? One is inevitably faced with the question:
“why did it happen to me?” which remains weighing on every patient, and which
leads to a deeper contemplation on the karma phenomenon embedded into the
philosophy of life of Thai people. I remember the peculiar atmosphere of
certain peacefulness during my stay with these people, people who suffered such
a heavy blow in their life, a knockout so to say, after which there is no room
for any anger, arrogance or intolerance. People suffering from paralysis are
mostly quiet, likeable and good-tempered.
With the five Mo
Doctors that I worked with and spent my days with,
quickly grew very fond of me, and constantly made jokes with me, which I could
not grasp, but I did understand that they were kind-hearted. Like the time they
sent me to the store to buy
one thing, but I got all confused before a vendor and brought something
completely different. I treated each and every one of them and they were all
pleased, which meant so much to me. If you want real feedback in you practice,
there’s no better person than a Thai doctor. Their appearance was utterly
charming to me, because when you see them in town or on the market, you’d take
them to be members of a street gang rather than doctors at the clinic. Every
day we had a half an hour lunch-break, when we went to the temple where I was
dumbfounded at the marvelous sight of a variety of meals. I am a food-lover,
but the food that I ate there was a real treat that I had nowhere else in
Thailand. We would sit down on the floor and fifteen different plates would be
served to us, plates like I have never been served in any restaurant. In their
tradition of hospitality, they would be constantly pouring more food into my
plate, and I’d be stuffing myself, and eventually, when the lunch was over,
we’d just move a few meters to savor fifteen types of dessert that were out of
this world. Jaw-dropping! The intimate and friendly relationship that I struck
up with those doctors is the most humane and most beautiful thing that I have
experienced in so many years.
"We would sit down on the floor and fifteen different plates would be served to us, plates like I have never been served in any restaurant"
Mo Puu Ying
Only few days afterwards, someone mentioned Mo Puu
Ying, and then I realized that there were also women doctors at the clinic, who
were working in another building. Once they explained to me where it was, I
went to see the place and, much to my surprise, I discovered there was a huge
room, approximately three times bigger than ours, where female doctors worked.
There were maybe ten to fifteen of them, and as soon as I entered their room,
the place went nuts! When they saw me, their reaction was so sweet, they
giggled and it was very funny ... I was personally delighted with my discovery.
Although I realized that there was a gender-based segregation among doctors,
since female doctors, for example, did not apply Yam Khang, there were patients
of both sexes in each Sala.
At one moment, I went to find a steam bath. In front
of it, I saw a beautiful set consisting of a dozen Reusi sculptures, all in
positions of Reusi Dat Ton exercises. The steam bath had several small cabins
filled with hot steam saturated with vapor from 108 herbs. The temperature
inside is around 80'C, and when you go outside into the scorching hot Thai air
of 37'C, it feels like light summer breeze.
Steam Bath
At the end of each working day, I was offered supper,
and then I sat together with the patients. In the evening, everyone gathers on
a small porch in front of the room with a TV set and a table, like some sort of
extended family. I was deeply touched by the affection that the personnel
showed to the patients. They were gentle and kind, there was not a tinge of
arrogance or aloofness that often characterizes physicians in the West.
I spent some ten days there and then I had to leave to
catch a flight to go back home. We made our farewells wholeheartedly, and it
was not an easy leave-taking, because I grew to love them all, just as they did
me. It was one of the most beautiful and moving experiences in my entire life,
and I left the place with firm promise that one day I will return. The greatest
lesson for a therapist, which I learnt there, is this: “Before you is a person who genuinely
suffers, and you can feel this suffering everywhere, in her eyes, in her voice,
in her body, in the air between you and her, it is so strong that it pervades
your entire being. It is up to you to do your utmost to reduce the suffering of
this other being, as much as you can. And at that moment, everything else in
this world is absolutely insignificant.”
Reusi Dat Ton statue
Once, when I spoke with one of my teachers about
Chiang Mai, about the ways in which the city is changing more and more, she
told me: “Everything is changing so fast. Everything has become much more
expensive. All these changes are aimed at satisfying the desires of thousands
of tourists who come here. Hotels, restaurants and bars are constructed,
instead of schools and hospitals. And we, the local population, are somehow
left out of account in all of this.”
The place that I went to remains untouched by such changes. No one is
making profit there, and no one is famous.
It still represents Thailand as it once was. Warm, humane and
compassionate.
