Festival of Traditional Arts in a Kaliang Village

Mai of Junhom Banton has kindly invited us to join her at a unique textile festival at a nearby village of Karen people (known in Thai as Kaliang.) The festival is being sponsored by Ban Lai Kaew Weavers, a long-standing fair trade textile group that creates beautiful, naturally-dyed textiles on backstrap looms.

When we arrive, weaving exhibits have already been mounted in some of the traditional buildings that dot the site. In one, there's an extensive exhibit of Kaliang textiles, dyed with the traditional natural dyes that are being revived here in Doi Tao district. Nearby there’s also a display of jok (elaborate supplementary weft-patterned weaving) for which the neighbouring district of Chom Thong is famous.

A large stage has been constructed in the usual country fashion – a wooden platform resting on steel barrels. The platform is then covered with mats. Today the festival name, crafted out of handspun cotton skeins, hangs above the stage. Children, in traditional Kaliang clothing, gleefully run about the site, blowing off some steam before their dance performance.

We wander to an open area, where women are preparing a dye bath with annatto (kamset in Thai, bikkii in Kaliang). Young women from local schools, here for a cultural learning day, are invited to smash the pods with a large wooden pestle in a hardwood trough. They’re instructed by an older woman to leave it to simmer for 1 hour.

Nearby, a bird-like grandmother has begun to spin cotton on a traditional wheel, smaller than the Lao version we've seen by the Mekong, but otherwise the same. A larger, old woman soon joins her with another wheel. Both wear layers upon layers of black beads around their necks and larger white beads on their wrists. The tiny woman chews betel, the larger smokes a pipe, as many Kaliang women do.

While elaborately patterned on a backstrap loom, the traditional Kaliang clothing is simply constructed, similar to a Mayan huipil and corte. The top is seamed vertically and left open in the middle, while the skirt is seamed horizontally. Colours are now usually made with chemical dyes, although the Kaliang’s natural dye traditions are being revived and, today, are being celebrated.

One of the many young women watching, all wearing their school’s sports day attire, is persuaded to try her hand at spinning. The thread soon breaks and the first grandmother comes to her rescue.

Back at the dye pot, the students learn to strain out the annatto with a tool that looks like a giant wok strainer.

An older woman adds water soaked with yahoo (ash water) for mordant. Then they add the skeins of handspun cotton and simmer over the fire. After another 30 minutes the yarns emerge in the deep orange usually associated with Buddhist monks, although this traditional and natural colour has much more depth and substance than the brighter and thinner orange more commonly seen now.

Two pick-up trucks pass by, filled with more students. They shout to Ellen, who is wearing a traditional dress worn by Kaliang maidens, which she was offered upon our arrival. Ellen accepts their offer and climbs aboard. They drive for about 10 minutes and arrive at a field sparsely populated with cotton plants. The noon-day sun is hot, but Ellen happily picks cotton – both white and brown varieties – side-by-side with urban students from Bangkok and others from Kaliang villages further north. She wonders if any of them will be inspired to continue these traditions.

After Ellen returns from her outing, we return to the display of naturally dyed backstrap weaving. Tucked on a low shelf, we find lovely placemats with designs that are an appealing blend of homespun and abstract-modern. We sort through the pile and choose dozens that will make their way later this year to a table near you.

At the same display, we are pleased to bump into Ajarn Nittaya Mahachaiwong from Fai Gaem Mai of Chiang Mai University. (That’s the Cotton and Silk Project we’ve worked with for years to source Eri silk). Today she’s wearing an extraordinary coat fashioned from Kaliang fabric. She’s here to participate in the technical discussions that are part of the day’s events. However, the talks are intended for the local participants and our ride is about to depart, so we say thank you to our hosts and set out for the bus station with our bags of treasure.

Junhom Bantan: Building Relationships - the Heart of Fair Trade

It's time for our annual visit to Ban Tan to visit Mai, who runs Junhom Bantan. After a 2+ hour local bus ride to Hod, south of Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand, where Mai picks us, we settle in to catch up. We spend the first 2 hours chatting in Thai and English, consulting our "talking dictionary" as needed. We cover all kinds of topics -- the small guest bungalow Mai's father is building in his spare time, from parts of another, disassembled wooden house moved from nearby; gardening -- what grows well here in Ban Tan and at our home in Canada; cooking -- who cooks what and how; how business has been for us over the last year.

Traditional floor loom under the house

Mai tells us -- as she had told us a couple of visits ago -- that she values the quiet of living here in the village where she grew up. Although she attended university in Chiang Mai, thanks to the success of the weaving group her mother ran for decades, her heart is here in the village, with the weavers. It's important to her to work with customers who don't pressure the weavers -- with orders too big, weaving too fast, deadlines too short. These pressures do not make for beautiful textiles or for happy weavers, she tells us. We agree wholeheartedly.

We talk about how we sell Junhom Bantan's textiles in Canada -- mostly face-to-face where we can tell the story behind their creation. She nods and smiles. We talk about technology -- she uses email at a local internet cafe -- and show her some of the tools we use on our computers and iPod Touch. She's interested, but we agree that this work is truly rooted in the village and in the hands of the spinners, dyers and weavers. Technology only supports this.

When the time feels right, we step inside the shop -- a showroom and storeroom for the weavings. We open glass-fronted, handcarved cabinets and pore over the designs within. We talk about local, natural dye colours (soft gray-greens, mushroom, indigo, sky blue, ebony brown, rosewood tan), textures (handspun cotton thick or thin, weaves in small windowpanes or "missing thread") and designs.

Junhom Bantan's shop next to Mai's house in Ban Tan

We talk about what sold well last year and the years before, then thoughtfully choose our favourite designs in colours and textures that reflect the talents of the artisans in this group. Our textile order is simple this year -- cotton scarves in 6 designs and traditional Thai fishermen's wrap pants.

Wispy cotton scarves are fun to wear

Chunky scarves offer texture from handspun cotton

Finally -- our order for cotton scarves settled -- I model the wrap pants I brought from Canada. A slightly slimmer design, Mai is happy to use this new pattern and we select the fabric -- a deep ebony brown with finely handspun cotton and a deep indigo blue, still on the loom somewhere in the village. Our work is now officially done and we can eat, talk some more and laugh.

Indigo wrap pants are great for everyday wear

 *******

"Can you eat khao neow?" Mai asks us the question we're frequently asked in Isaan, the northeast of Thailand. Here too in Lanna, the north of Thailand, sticky rice is traditionally the staff of life. "Yes," we reply. "We love it."

Mai relaxes. We have just returned in the dark from a trip to her sister's field on the edge of the village. We had jumped on 2 motorbikes as the sun was quickly disappearing and followed a newly paved path that soon  slid into a typical red dust road. The field was filled with blooming marigolds, ready for offerings to the monks, and a small vegetable garden of greens.

Mai arrives at the marigold and vegetable field, mountains in the background

I grab the second knife and join Mai to cut khana, a type of kale, for our dinner and for the children tomorrow. Mai has invited us to stay the night so we can join her at a nearby Kaliang (Karen) village for a local textile festival the next day. School children from around the region will attend to learn about growing cotton, spinning, dyeing and weaving.

Mai cuts khana, green onions and cilantro

Back in her kitchen, Mai shows me how she cuts khana and I take over. Her soft protests that she's not a good cook are put to rest as we soon tuck into a delicious meal of khana stir-fried with oyster sauce, a chopped omelet sprinkled with tiny green onions and feathery cilantro, a simple soup with squares of fish cakes we picked up earlier in the local market, fresh cucumber rounds and the popular Chiang Mai sausage, a slightly spicy pork specialty of the region. And, of course, khao neow -- served in 2 beautifully woven sticky rice baskets made by a man in the village.

*******

It's morning. Roosters crow. Motorbikes putt putt along the main road of the village outside Mai's family house. I awake early and see she has set up a display area since we visited last year with weaving and farming tools on the porch outside our room. We eat sticky rice cooked with coconut milk, stuffed into a length of bamboo and roasted over the fire. It's time for the Kaliang textile festival.

Outside our room, we discover a display of weaving and farming tools

Panmai: On the Other Silk Road

“Go where?” the young woman asks me again. Four of us passengers sit on 2 benches in the back of a well-travelled songteow – the canopied, pick-up trucks that serve as local, shared taxis and travel almost every road in Thailand.

“Kaset Wisai,” I repeat.

That how it goes when Ellen and I travel to a town too small to be served by a bus line. We wait for the songteow (i.e., “2 benches”) to fill. Until it does, we remain parked or slowly troll the adjacent streets until the required number of passengers is aboard.

Nonetheless, we both enjoy going to Kaset Wisai in Roi-Et province to visit Panmai weaving co-op. Their shophouse is in a thoroughly rural market town experienced by almost no Western foreigners, at least none who don’t have Thai girlfriends.

People stop and stare as Ellen and I pull our wheeled luggage down the street where every morning a bustling fresh market all but fills the wide road. Now in the late afternoon there are only empty stalls, overturned metal ice-chests and splashes of blood from the butchers’ stalls staining the pavement.

One fruit cart perseveres, selling remnants of that morning’s cornucopia of tropical fruit. A single customer is carefully palpating the unusually small mangosteens. “Don’t take any with hard spots,” she councils me in Thai. She seems to assume I’d understand. “Yes, that’s true,” I reply in Thai, “they must be soft all over.” The vendor looks on with amusement. We may be picky but he now has 2 people interested in the small pile of purple fruit.

Ellen’s eyes light up as she sees the spiky green and red rambutans also on offer.  “Don’t take any with dark spines,” I caution, sounding not unlike the woman who counseled me.

So we arrive in Kaset Wisai, home to our favourite silk producing group in Thailand.

This year, we’ve gone almost a month earlier than usual. We’ve been advised that later this week the co-op’s 2 staff will travel to Bangkok to sell at the gigantic OTOP sale. OTOP (One Tamboon, One Product) refers to a national juried system for craft and local food products. The OTOP sale outside Bangkok in December is open only to producers who have been judged worthy of 3, 4 or 5 stars. It’s an important place for Panmai to make their village-created silks and cottons available to urban markets. Although we have shopped there in the past, the exhibition is primarily a trade show for Thai retailers looking for choice handicrafts, so almost all the signage is in Thai. This is significant when one realizes that the booths fill several halls large enough to park airplanes.

To get a great selection without subjecting ourselves to that particular madness, we quickly re-arranged our itinerary to arrive here a few days before Mali and Ooung leave. Fortunately, on this our 7th annual visit, we can travel here in 1 day, get settled into 1 of the few hotels and enjoy an evening stroll and dinner, still ready to work the next day.

In the morning we cruise the bustling market that sprawls over several streets. We find fruit, coffee and take-out khao kapi. I introduce Ellen to this rice dish with at least a half of dozen toppings but its signature fermented shrimp paste, which reminds me of my time living alongside the Gulf of Thailand, is 1 ingredient too many for Ellen.

It’s all so familiar and yet, at the time, so foreign, that our time here fills me with delight.

And that’s even before I see the silk waiting for us in Panmai’s shophouse. But first, we make our greetings, present our token gifts from Canada and show them some photographs of jackets we’ve made from their beautiful silk.

Finally, we dive into the piles of organic silk scarves Mali has brought out for our perusal. She knows we love the strong colours and lively warp stripe patterns she has piled upon the low table. We make 3 passes through the stacks before we are both confident that we’ve made the best choices for our customers. They look happy to have this cash sale of existing inventory on the eve of their departure – a good omen, perhaps, of how they’ll fare in Bangkok.

While Mali prepares the invoice and packs the precious cargo, Ooung goes off for food from the market. Over lunch together, we discuss the group, its members and the number of villages currently involved. They tell us there has been a small decline in numbers but they assure us that the group is still robust, and still the only authentic weaving co-operative from Isaan (northeast Thailand) at OTOP. There are even some younger women joining, they tell us. This is largely due to the fact that in this part of Isaan there are no factories to provide alternate employment. Here, industrious people farm and do whatever they can on the side, or they leave altogether.

After the dishes are cleared and hands are washed, Mali brings out scarves that are more elaborate, and more expensive, than those we have already chosen. She knows that every year I buy a few precious examples of the very best weaving – if for no other reason than, in my own small way, to encourage its practice. She tells me there are fewer than 200 weavers in the group now, but only half of them are expert silk weavers and only a few weave like this. Of course, I buy the white on white scarf that needed a ridiculous number of string heddles and true artistry to create. And I will keep it under wrap until a collector comes along who has the same response that I did.

Pii Plaa (AKA Alleson)