A community of flood memories living with(in) the riverine landscape in ayutthaya 4

4. Performing a Community of Flood Memories 4.1 Overview: a community? We have been through pi haa si16 together. That flood connected many of us. We the same things now. Sometimes I will go to the river [during the wet season] to check if the water is rising, and I will see others doing that too. We don’t know each other, but we will talk and wonder if [that year] will be another pi haa si [sic]. We don’t always agree on how and why Ayutthaya floods, but everyone tells stories about it. Remembering pi haa si has made Ayutthaya a community. P’Samlit/ 46/Journalist/ Male/ April 2014 Scholars have increasingly critiqued that ‘community’ is a problematic construct. Some question the folk romanticism and artificial boundedness associated with the concept (Amit, 2002; Day, 2006). The term is often charged to connote a false sense of homogeneity, and hence, obscures complex social differences and power relations (Panelli & Welch, 2005; Day, 2006; Aitken, 2009). Most poignant of all, in my opinion, is the view that ‘community’ is partly a wishful product of research, especially ethnography – ‘the field was the community’ (Amit, 2002: 15). Mindful of such intellectual baggage, I had intended to avoid the term all together. However, the concept remains one of the most ‘common points of reference… for policy makers, politicians and the general public’ (Day, 2006:1). Indeed, talk of and oblique references to a ‘community’ permeated conversations I had in Ayutthaya. Hence, instead of avoiding the concept, this chapter develops a more nuanced understanding of ‘community’ in Ayutthaya. I avoid the fixed, ontological definition of the term – ‘a specific population living within a specific geographic area with shared institutions and values and significant social interaction’ (Warren, 1963: 2). As P’Samlit claimed, Ayutthaya as a community is emerging through the remembering of floods, especially the 2011 flood, colloquially known as pi haa si. In other words, the ‘community’ emerges through practices and communication of flood 16 Pi haa si literally translates to ‘year five four’; the Buddhist year 2554 is 2011 on the Gregorian calendar – the year of the 2011 flood. 52 memories. Thus, the community of memories is a process (see G. Rose, 1997) that has to be constantly performed and maintained. This process is enacted through private-yet-collective practices, and via an assemblage of present and absent morethan-human materialities and actors. To put it in another way, memories occur through bodily engagements with the world. Hence, the landscape plays an important role in perpetuating the past in the present (Hill, 2013). Borrowing from Cresswell (2012), I will elucidate how the creative, yet mundane, collection and circulation of stories, image-objects and things associated with the 2011 flood continuously refashion the lived landscape into an ‘active archive’ of the flood. This ‘archive' is ‘active’ for two reasons. Firstly, the stories, images and things within the landscape are constantly being ‘updated’. Knowingly or unknowingly, different memories of the flood are selectively and simultaneously sliding to-and-from the background and foreground of daily life. Secondly, archives are ‘contingent, messy and permeable’ (Cresswell, 2012: 166). The openness of the prosaic practices of storytelling and gathering of images and things allow different – and at times conflicting – perspectives to emerge. As Panelli and Welch (2005: 1596) assert, ‘bonds exist because of common position or situation rather than common perspective’. The community of flood memories, in this case, is also a community of differences. Living within this active archive - where flood memories are mundane parts of everyday life - reinforces the sense of community and (re)center the riverine rhythms in the everyday lives of people in Ayutthaya. 53 4.2 Storytelling: an act of remembering Storytelling is not something we just happen to do, it is something we virtually have to if we want to remember anything at all. Schank & Abelson (1995), Knowledge and Memory, pp. 33 Memory is an action: essentially, it is the action of telling a story. Bal (1999), Acts of Memory, pp. ix Stories are inherently temporal and spatial (Pile, 2002). If we consider storytelling as the selective and creative practice of fusing the past(s) with the present(s), we are presented with the opportunity to understand memory as a practice – something we have to in order to remember. Why we tell stories then? Or, to rephrase this question, why we want to remember? Walking around Ayutthaya answers this question – for walking ‘opens up a geography of stories and memories’ (Potteiger & Purinton, 1998:20). We were walking around Wat Mahathat 17, a group of men and women were chatting and laughing near a rest stop 18 . We stopped as we overheard the phrase “nam tuam haa si” - ‘flood ‘54’. Quietly, we eavesdropped as much as we could - one of the men was animatedly recounting his ‘encounter’ with some crocodiles in Wat Mahathat towards the end of the 2011 flood. Sensing our interest, he directed some of the theatricalities and gestures of the storytelling – such as pointing towards the locations of the ‘crocodiles’ – at us. His friends, the listeners, interjected the storytelling with anecdotes and opinions of their own: P’Dek (M): … I didn’t know they were in there! So I went in. I wanted to take photographs of the place when it is still flooded. It was so peaceful 17 Wat Mahathat is a famous temple ruin in Ayutthaya – it houses one of the ‘icons’ of Ayutthaya, a Bodhisattva’s face protruding from tree roots. The Bodhisattva’s half-submerged face became an iconic image of the 2011 flood in Ayutthaya (see Appendix 3a for image). See map in Chapter Three. 18 They are souvenir vendors and tuktuk drivers who gather around that spot regularly to chat and have tea. 54 and empty. Not like those noisy westerners in there now19. I was walking around -P’Som (M): [Interrupts] How can you not know? Everyone was talking about it. Even my mother in Don Muang knew. P’Dek: -- I saw this thing near the big tree and the first chedi [gestures to the direction]. It looked like a big crocodile! I was so scared but I walked towards it quietly and slowly [walks slowly and deliberately for a few steps], then it moved away! So I panicked and I moved away too. P’Canchit (F): [playfully slaps his arm] Why would a crocodile move away from you? How much did you drink before going [laughter from the group]?20 Conversation outside Wat Mahathat, April 2014 Whether or not crocodiles were actually in Wat Mahathat is secondary, it is also not a key concern if the story is, indeed, ‘real’. The telling of this story produced a form of sociality and connection within the group, and the notion that everyone had experienced the flood together. People tell stories to feel this sense of connection. Storytelling – as a mnemonic practice – lies at the ‘subjective in-between’ of the personal and social (Arendt, 1958: 182-84; Jackson, 2002; Maynes et al, 2008). Storytelling connects individuals with the broader collective, as it ‘translates the felt, personal and known into a more collective realm’ (Cameron, 2012: 581; also see Jackson, 2002). Hence, storytelling is an integral part in the performance of a broader social collective – the community of flood memories. This sense of connection extends beyond an imagined community. As storytelling is enacted in and through bodies, the blurring of the boundaries between the private and collective is ‘lived through as a physical, sensual and vital interaction between the bodies of the storytellers and the listeners’ (Jackson, 2002: 28). This is obvious in the conversation reproduced above – the laughter, the playful slap on the arm and the interjections. 19 A big group of boisterous Canadian tourists and their guides had just entered the compound; the Thais have a special word for ‘westerners’ – farang. 20 I took short notes of the conversation on my phone. These notes were later corroborated with what my friend, Ar-yee (P’Chon has returned to Bangkok at this point) heard. We also eventually joined the group, explaining that I was a researcher interested in memory and floods in Ayutthaya. Thus, the excerpt of the storytelling is reproduced with permission from the parties involved. 55 Additionally, storytelling is also a way of ‘guiding listeners into the landscape’ (Ingold, 1993: 153). Rather than simply layering meanings over the landscape, storytelling encourages listeners and storytellers to place themselves in relation to specific parts of the landscape, thus, allows meanings to unfold. Wat Mahathat, a UNESCO World Heritage Site usually associated with noisy tourists, was simultaneously emerging as key site associated with the flood through P’Dek’s storytelling. 4.2.1 The recuperative politics of small stories Like Lorimer (2003), I am interested in the telling of ‘small stories’. Telling small stories are ways in which everyday life unfolds. They are creative expressions of memory and emphasize the mundanity, particularities, and sometimes, peculiarities - like the crocodiles - of daily lives. This is not to discount the fact that stories can be shaped by broader ideological processes, and some stories have the ability to discipline, and to perpetuate social, economic and political injustice (Price, 2010; Cameron, 2012). However, like the geographical work related to the politics of memory (reviewed in Chapter Two), this mode of understanding stories and storytelling has reached an epistemological limit. Re-focusing on the prosaic stories we tell everyday is a way to discuss life and experience ‘without immediately or unproblematically tethering them to concepts of power, and discourses of ideology’ (Cameron, 2012: 575). Yet, in their seemingly unimportant ways, the tellings of these small stories are political. Through the telling of the intimate and personal, and the emotional registers they conjure, small stories can complement, supplement and even trouble the ‘grand, scholarly stories’ (Lorimer, 2003: 200; Price, 2010). Academics and political critics posit that the 2011 floods in the provinces north and east of Bangkok were unjustly prolonged as waters were diverted from the Bangkok Metropolitan Area (see Caballero-Anthnoy & Jamil, 2011; Dalpino, 2012; Chomsri & Sherer, 2013; Sophonpanich, 2013). While some parts of this sentiment were echoed in some participants’ stories, their stories brought new light to this 56 perspective. Standing at the Pasak riverside, about thirty meters from his house in Hua Ro, P’Charong pointed to the directions of the yearly flood water flow (Figure 4.1): P’Charong: The water was supposed to move downstream, but it was unable to move quickly and so it moved towards us. We were flooded on October, and the flood lasted almost months! [We walk back to his backyard] It was quite deep here, not like the usual yearly floods. My children swam here [motions at the area we are standing, smiles at the memory]. My brother brought home a big Styrofoam board… I think it is still somewhere around here [looks around]… They took turns floating around and jumping off it. I think they liked the flood very much [laughs]. But I didn’t [laughs]. [Everyone laughs, Serene asks, ‘Aww, why?’] P’Charong: [laughs, continues] I remember feeling very frustrated with the flood. I think about the flood sometimes, especially during the wet season, I still feel very frustrated. Not only because of the hardship we had faced. The central government saw what happened to Ayutthaya and they were embarrassed because Ayutthaya is a UNESCO heritage site [sic]. They didn’t want to feel embarrassed again so they cannot let it happen to Bangkok. [Agitatedly] They had to stop the waters from reaching Bangkok, so they flooded Ayutthaya more! Don’t you think this is a funny reason? To flood our city, homes and places dear to us, so they don’t lose face? P’Charong/ 35/ Salesman/ Male/ May 2014 Figure 4.1: P’Charong indicating the height of the water in his backyard during the 2011 flood. Storytelling is a mutable and fluid process - a story about his children’s enjoyment of the flood became an expression of P’Charong’s indignance with the deluge. While his story supplemented the grand story of the ‘unjust sacrifice’, it was not couched in 57 the usual financial terms. Scholarly and media discourses cited largely financial reasons for the diversion. The supposed ‘sacrifice’ some provinces made was primarily to prevent the disruption of Bangkok’s financial core (Caballero-Anthony & Jamil, 2011; Sophonpanich, 2013;). P’Charong, instead, explained the important symbolisms of landscapes. It was a national embarrassment that the Thai state was unable to control the flooding of one of its ancient capital cities, now an important World Heritage site. It would be additionally detrimental to the government’s credibility if they were unable to prevent the flooding of the current capital city as well. Thus, the flood in the ancient capital was prolonged for the sake of the present. Unlike the stories of men and women who removed and sabotaged floodwalls in Bangkok (see The New York Times, 30 October 2011), P’Charong’s discontent did not stem from the disruptions to his daily life. Living thirty meters from the river, he is ‘used to a little flooding yearly’. Rather, he was – and is still - unhappy with the way his city, his home, was perceived as secondary to Bangkok. The ‘unjust sacrifice’ for Bangkok, however, was disputed by more than half of the participants. In addition to the grand, scholarly story, this also troubled the consensus towards the causes of the flood within the community. Many, instead, blamed neighbouring province, Suphan Buri, for the prolonged deluge. Paa Bun was taking us on a stroll around Hua Ro, resting under a tree, she told us about a phone conversation she had with her sister in Suphan Buri: paa Bun: I called my sister to let her know we were safe in our neighbor’s house and that we will stay here until the flood subsides. I called her everyday and she told me Suphan Buri was not flooded! I was surprised… Suphan Buri always floods when Ayutthaya floods! It’s the nature of the rivers. After the flood, I heard from neighbours that Suphan Buri was not flooded because our ex-prime minister was from Suphan Buri21. He pulled strings to save Suphan Buri by pushing the waters to Ayutthaya. So Ayutthaya was flooded for a longer time. 21 Paa Bun did not mention his name, but it is likely that she is talking about Banhan Silpaarcha. He was banned from Thai politics in 2008, but he is still perceived as having significant influence and connections in the Thai political arena. 58 Serene/P’Chon: Oh? P’Charong told us Ayutthaya was flooded for a longer time because of Bangkok . paa Bun: Awww, yes, yes. Some people think that! People still argue sometimes where the water came from. But Bangkok got flooded later. I remember my sister saying that Suphan Buri was not flooded at all. That is very unfair for us. Serene: Ah, why? paa Bun: [Raises her voice, heatedly] They should not push the water to us [shakes head]! We also have homes and families here in Ayutthaya! Suphan Buri should have shared the flood. [Softens] It was heart-breaking to see people go through that long flood, especially the old people. So many people had to live on their roofs. Even though Ayutthaya is used to the water, we [had] never experienced such a long flood. Paa Bun/ 57/ Odd job worker/ Female/ May 2014 Despite the difference in perspectives about why Ayutthaya was flooded for an extended period of time, what is common in the telling of these individual stories was the performance of an alternative, individual-yet-collective subjectivity (GibsonGraham, 2008; Cameron, 2012). Instead of conforming to the expectations of an ‘understanding and self-sacrificing’ Thai citizen in light of the flood (see The New York Times, 28 October 2011), the participants’ sharing of their flood memories allowed strikingly similar expressions of discontent at how the flood was handled to emerge. Through the telling of these stories, the participants re-asserted the importance of Ayutthaya, which they believed was overlooked by the national government in their management of the 2011 flood. They also subverted the popular imagination of Ayutthaya as a ‘historical landscape’. Ayutthaya, in this case, is not simply an ancient capital or a World Heritage site. It is home to the participants and is a lived landscape of interactions and relations - a ‘place dear [to them]’. This subjectivity was also closely associated with the emotional response triggered by the telling of the stories (Maynes et al, 2008), Connecting the within and the without, underpinning this performance of community are frustration and anger. The emotionally charged and impassionate storytelling further projected the participants’ 59 sense of attachment to Ayutthaya and the broader community. Loong Pichit, who was incredibly composed (some might even say stoic) during our walk around Soi Si, summarized this sentiment: To me, it doesn’t matter if the water came from Suphan Buri or even Bangkok [sardonic laughter]. Ayutthaya was in the middle so it affected us badly. I am angry that people forget that. [Raises his voice] They remember Wat Mahathat being flooded. They remember factories in Rojana being flooded22. But they forget that people who live around Wat Mahathat and the factories were also flooded. But all of us who have been through it, our community will not forget. Loong Pichit/ 52/ Shop owner/ Male/ April 2014 4.2.2 Reclaiming agency with small stories In addition to the recuperative politics of attending to marginal perspectives and valuing the local and specific, turning to small stories also reveals how agency is sustained in the face of disempowering and difficult circumstances (Jackson, 2002; Gibson-Graham, 2008). The experience 2011 flood was traumatic for many in Ayutthaya. Most participants shared very similar, nightmarish stories of ‘floating furniture’, the sounds of ‘gushing waters’ and the ‘terrifying feeling of being push and pulled by strong currents’ (Interviews, April/May 2014). Many claimed that the last flood in 1995 was almost one meter lower than the 2011 flood and almost all described the general experience of 2011 as ‘surreal’. Evidently, the 2011 flood was an event that confounded the participants and rendered many of them helpless. Hence, storytelling becomes an important coping mechanism to live with a traumatic past in the present (Jackson, 2002). To remember and articulate an event as a story is not to relive those events passively, but to actively rework them, in dialogue with others and in relation to the landscape. In the process, this ‘changes one’s 22 The Rojana Industrial Park was flooded badly in 2011. The central government had initially attempted to divert water away from it but to no avail. Another iconic image of the 2011 flood depicts partially submerged Honda cars in Rojana (see Appendix 3b for image). For more information see: http://www.rojana.com/ayutthaya_project.html and http://www.chiangraitimes.com/japanese-car manufacturers-hit-twice-in-1-year.html 60 experience of the world’ (Jackson, 2002: 18). Sitting under the tree, paa Bun continued her story on life during the flood: paa Bun: When the flood came, I was really scared. My children were stuck in Rojana so I had to take care of my grandchildren. As the waters were rising very quickly, we went to the main road, where the temporary floodwall was. Many of our neighbours were also there. It was cold and rainy, and dark. I was worried about my house, and that the kids will fall sick. It is still scary to think about it now… Later, we met some very kind soldiers on a boat. They offered to take us to a flood [evacuation] center, but most of us didn’t want to go because our families may not know where to find us. Staying on the road that night made me feel like everyone was my family. People shared blankets and food and someone gave Din [her youngest grandson] his raincoat [smiles]. It was cold, but I think everyone felt warmth in their hearts that night. Serene/P’Chon: When did you move to your neighbour’s house? paa Bun: The wall failed later that night, so the road was flooded too. The neighbour’s house was quite high, and we can see that the second and third levels were dry. So he offered some of us a place to stay. The kind soldiers took us to the house on their boat. They came back every day to give us food and water and to see if we are okay. One of them even gave us his cell phone number so we can call if there is an emergency [smiles]. These kind actions are the things I think about the most when I remember the 2011 flood. It makes me less worried about the future. If it floods again, I know there will be good people in my community to help me [smiles]. And I will also try to help others. Paa Bun/ 57/ Odd job worker/ Female/ May 2014 In her reworking of the past, paa Bun – like many others – was remembering not just the hardship she went through, but also the ‘warmth’ she felt from the kindness of strangers and neighbours during the event. Price (2010: 208) argues that for a story to move beyond the representational, it must move beyond the ‘spoke word’. Paa Bun’s storytelling moved beyond the spoken word by orienting itself towards the future. It participated in the materialization of new realities (GibsonGraham, 2008; Maynes et al, 2008; Cameron, 2010). Although the memory of the 2011 flood continued to plague paa Bun with fear and worries, storytelling assuaged some of her anxieties through the construction of a ‘new reality’ – that despite the 61 Figure 4.8: A picture of Paa Paket sitting on her roof in between the first and second story of her home during the 2011 flood. Like the photograph on P’Bi’s refrigerator, the print out of this picture is also a gift from a friend. The boundaries of private and collective memories of the flood are further blurred by these displayed photographs. As memory-objects, some of these photographs are reconfigured as small gifts, circulated and exchanged among friends and family members in Ayutthaya. This practice of exchanging and gifting of flood photographs is also part of the performance of ‘community’ in Ayutthaya. This form of circulation is perpetuating specific memories of the flood publically. As gifts, these photograph depict participants (or their family members) ‘smiling happily’ during the flood. Therefore, the stories people tell from these photographs often render the experience of the flood positive and optimistic; a marked difference from the expressions of fear, anxiety and loneliness the other photographs evoke. The latter emotions are often only expressed to family or trusted friends25. 25 And also to researchers whom they feel should know about Ayutthaya’s, and by extension, their personal, flood experiences and memories. 73 Additionally, the displayed photographs operate at the background – literally and figuratively – of social and everyday life in Ayutthaya. They can be likened to embers, when fanned or disturbed, they ‘burst back into renewed life’, moving from the background to the centre of everyday life (O. Jones & Garde-Hansen, 2012: 7). Often, these images are reactivated through the process of storytelling, as the photographs ‘engender a text that is not a text but a conversation’ (Langford, 2001: 20). These photographs on display in public spaces are important actors in the performance of community as they are latent opportunities for strangers to connect and share their memories of the flood. One of the participants, P’Watra, introduced us to loong Sud. Loong Sud runs a humble noodle shop next to his house near Soi Si. Although she had seen loong Sud around the neighbourhood, P’Watra got to know him well when they talked about the images of the flood that adorn the walls of his shop. Some of these images were brought from souvenir shops on the island, and the biggest image – at the entrance of the shop – of loong Sud’s old shop, destroyed during the flood (Figure 4.9). Over lunch, we talked about the images and the significance of displaying them with loong Sud: 74 Serene/P’Chon: Why you hang these photographs around the shop? loong Sud: [Laughs] Aww, because they are cute26 [laughs]! And also because they are good reminders of the flood. I had no income during the flood, and I lost my shop to the waters. This picture [points to picture above] was taken a few hours before the waters became really high and the shop collapsed. It was terrible, a really difficult time for everyone here. I put these photographs to remind myself and my customers of the hard times we have been through. No one should forget that. Ayutthaya people should be proud of ourselves because we pulled through it. Serene/P’Chon: Do people ask about these photographs when they eat here? loong Sud: Sometimes people do. The photographs help me talk to people – it’s like showing others that I have also been through what they have been through. And I got to hear other people’s stories of the flood and that made me feel closer to my community. Loong Sud / 57/ Hawker/ Male/ April 2014 Figure 4.9: A picture of loong Sud’s flooded and destroyed shop hangs at the entrance of his new shop. For loong Sud, displaying the photographs is not just a way of remembering the flood, and the hardship and pride associated with it. Instead, it is also a way to connect with people in Ayutthaya over shared memories. The displayed photographs are conversation starters, a sign to encourage others to share their memories of the flood 26 Loong used the word naraak, which literally translates to ‘cute’ in English. In this case, I think he meant that the images are nice and pleasant wall decorations. 75 with him. The photographs, thus, engendered relations between strangers (Rao, 2009), and produced a sense of community. In this case, the ‘community’ of flood memories was again, coming into being with these sharing of memories. 76 4.4 Storytelling with the more-than-human 4.4.1 The memories in mutable things It’s surprising how much of memory is built around things unnoticed at the time. Kingsolver (1990), Animal Dreams, pp. 34 Cresswell (2012: 168) argues that ‘the archive is a particular kind of place where objects are valued, with its own regimes of value’. Things have to be collected for an archive to emerge; and the process of collecting is part of the act of valuing. People in Ayutthaya have gathered, collected and retained various things associated with the 2011 flood. Coproducing images with the participants revealed these valued things in the landscape (Figure 4.10). Some things, like the flood lines, were overtly noticeable, while the mundaneness of others meant that they tended to elude from our views unless participants drew Figure 4.10: paa Not insisted that I photograph a black plastic tub on her neighbour’s roof because it reminds her of the flood. attention to them. Hence, it is obvious that the mundane is also entangled with representational elements and imbued with meanings, and with ‘processes that involve more than mere matter’ (Frers et al, 2013: 421). These things – encountered everyday, seemingly trivial and at times, almost ‘trash-like’ – are re-valued, and hence, are powerful and effective as social forces (Edwards, 2002; Kempe, 2007) and in Ayutthaya’s performance of community. 77 Figure 4.11: Flood lines are observed in homes – either as mud stains or stains on the wood. Some flood lines are also painted on trees and on buildings (see Appendix 4). ‘Everyone in Ayutthaya saved the flood line somewhere!’ Paa Paket proclaimed. While we were unable to ascertain the veracity of this claim, the claim itself is significant as a performance of community. ‘Saving the flood line’ was something people in Ayutthaya to remember the flood. Indeed, P’Chon and I were alerted to the flood lines in almost every house, shop and temple we visited27. Some purposely retained the mud line, others painted their walls in two different colours in accordance to the flood level, and some trees were even painted to reflect the flood level (Figure 4.11; see Appendix 4). The flood lines also punctured the physical landscape of the city – during our walks, participants were constantly pointing them out. We saw the lines on electrical posts, trees and on the facades of buildings. As P’Watra showed us around her spotlessly clean home, she explained: 27 Of the thirty participants, only two did not have flood lines or photographs of the flood in their homes. One of them lives in a rental apartment, and the landlord removed all traces of the flood during the clean up; the other claimed that she wanted to ‘escape the memory of the flood’. 78 P’Watra: The entire ground level was coated with a layer of mud after the waters subsided. It was quite a horrible sight… Aww! The smell was disgusting! Everything was ruined - my cupboards, my furniture, my TV. The cleaning up was horrible. We had to scrub the mud off the walls. And we also repainted the house. That took us nearly a month. But I kept a portion of it outside the kitchen window [brings us to the kitchen, gestures to the window]. You should take a picture! Serene/P’Chon: Why didn’t you remove it if it was part of the ‘horrible sight’? P’Watra: After we cleaned up, it suddenly felt like the flood has never happened at all. There was no… ah, evidence of it in this house. And the line outside, on the shed, suddenly became important to me. I want to keep something to remember the flood. I often look at it when I wash the dishes [laughs], and I would bring visitors out to look at it, touch it – so they would know how difficult it was to scrub the mud off [laughs]. P’Watra/ 33/ hawker/ Female/ April 2014 Figure 4.12: The mud-line outside P’Watra’s kitchen in Soi Si P’Watra’s decision to keep the flood line (Figure 4.12) – like many others in Ayutthaya – stems from her re-valuation of the material significance of the flood line. The line was originally an unwanted remnant of the flood - it was part of the ‘horrible sight’. Thus, like the ruined furniture and electronics, it was marked as something without value (or even of negative value), and was to be removed. With its gradual erasure and loss, the value of the once unsightly and smelly mud line was ‘salvaged’, reconsidered and placed within the process of remembering. Instead of being merely an unwanted and annoying product of the flood, the line became an important 79 material trace of the flood for P’Watra. Embedded in the material was not just the event, but also the mutable memories of hardship, kindness and the will to live and cope with the flood. Hence, in ‘salvaging’ the mud line, and subsequent ‘affective and sensual encounter with [its] materiality’ (Edensor, 2013: 450), the memory of the flood is continuously animated in P’Watra’s life. Affective and sensual encounters with materials associated with the flood are not limited to the mud lines. Participants variously requested that I photograph discarded tubs and buckets on roofs; I was invited and encouraged to touch mudstained plates and walls, and to inhale the strangely indescribable, almost waterlogged ‘scent’ of mouldy boxes and crates placed on shelves since 2011 (Figure 4.13). Multiple stories were imaginatively ‘provoked and proliferated’ partly by the – not simply visual, but also haptic and olfactoral - materialities of these objects (Edensor, 2013: 462). As she led us around her home in Soi Si, paa Samruay stopped under the low ceiling of her slightly-elevated, dimly-lit storeroom. Here, she pointed to the brown cupboard boxes and plastic crates placed on overhead shelves: 80 paa Samruay: Over here, look. You can smell something right? [points to boxes] That’s where the smell is coming from. The boxes have been here since the flood… I told my daughter not to move them. It is good to have something to remember the flood. We thought this was high enough to avoid the flood. But some parts of them got wet, and the smell of the flood stayed after they dry [laughs]. Serene/P’Chon: [laughs] So this is how the flood smelled like… We met someone who said it smelled like rotting rubbish. paa Samruay: [laughs] Yes… It was really a hundred times worse! Every time I walk into this room, the flood comes back [laughs]. Even just for a while. Do you know what I mean? Serene/P’Chon: Yes, yes! We know. Smells are important parts of memory. Does it remind you of any specific memories of the flood? paa Samruay: Not really. It is different each time I come in here. It also depends on a lot of other things. I came in here last week when it was raining. The smell in here and the sound of the rain suddenly made me feel very… [pause] how I say… troubled? I had to leave quickly. I was feeling that way because an image of the first few days [of the flood] suddenly came into my head. The water was rising and the rain was pouring… Paa Samruay/ 60/ Odd job worker/ Female/ April 2014 Figure 4.13: The boxes in paa Samruay’s storeroom – it smells strangely ‘wet’, earthy and waterlogged in the room. Subsequently, we learnt that the boxes had not been opened since the flood. Our memories, like our identities, are closely entangled with and enacted through our relations with the things we surround ourselves with (DeSilvey, 2007). For paa Samruay and many others in Ayutthaya the deliberate action of keeping objects 81 associated with the 2011 flood have resulted in spontaneous and unexpected waves - or whiffs - of memories inundating - or wafting into - their daily lives. Like the mud lines, these objects are re-valued by the community of flood memories as pertinent in their practices of remembering. The active archive, in many instances, takes on a more-than-visual affective quality. The boxes are valued not simply because they can be seen; they are valued also for the smell they emit. Often, objects are not engaged with in isolation - remembering is also about ‘connecting, assembling, a bringing together of things in relation to one another’ (DeSilvey, 2007:408). This is indeed the case for paa Samruay as her memories conjured by the ‘smell of the flood’ differed from time to time, ‘depending on … other things’ like the ‘sound of the rain’. Practices of remembering in Ayutthaya also occurred alongside the physical decay and destruction of objects (DeSilvey, 2006). Many participants who live in wooden houses mentioned the ‘upward migration’ of termites and the growth of mould and fungus as key processes through which remembering takes place: The termites28 used to eat and stay in one of the stilts on the left side of the house [sic]. That was not a big problem… We added concrete pillars to support the house. But during the flood, they moved up to the main body [of the house] – they needed to escape the water too right [laughs]? Now they are everywhere… Sometimes I see their trails, or hear them walking around the walls of my house, I am reminded of the flood. Paa Sao/ 52/ Souvenir vendor/ Female/ April 2014 Unlike the enduring fixtures in museums and formal archives (Edensor, 2005b), the objects within the active archive of Ayutthaya are constantly subjected to ‘processes of decay and the obscure agencies of intrusive humans and non-humans’ (Edensor, 2005b: 318) – such as the influence of the migrating termites, and the sporadic appearances of mould and fungus. Like Edensor, DeSilvey (2006; also see M. Jones, 2005: 85) encourages her readers to think about objects as mutable and dynamic 28 She used the word pluwk, which translates to termites. However, from her description, it could also be a Carpenter Ant infestation. 82 entities. Their mutability is the result of both cultural and natural processes, in which ‘other-than-human engagements with matter, climate, weather and biology’ shapes the material (DeSilvey, 2006: 323). Thus, by considering the agencies of these morethan-human actors on the material, as bearers of memory and as part of everyday life, objects should not be held in a state of ‘protected stasis’. Rather, as we acknowledge the host of des/constructive ecologies that shape the material, memories and meanings were being imaginatively released in and through decay (DeSilvey, 2006). In this case, with the movements of termites are integral aspects of the ‘entangled material memories’ (DeSilvey, 2006: 336) in Ayutthaya. The sounds they make and their occasionally noticeable trails are traces of their destruction of paa Sao’s wooden home. Yet, via these the movements and activities within the material, the termites helped release memories of the 2011 flood in paa Sao’s day to day life. 83 4.4.2 The memories in absences Once again, we returned to P’Watra’s spotless kitchen. She looked around, her gaze stopped momentarily at the Mickey Mouse clock and the tiles below it (Figure 4.14). Laughing, she said: You will probably think I am crazy, I think maybe I am [laughs]. You see those rivets on the tiles below the clock? They are parts of the kitchen cabinets which were ruined by the flood… Those cabinets were really pretty and new before they were ruined. I removed them. Don’t know why I didn’t remove the rivets [laughs]. Sometimes I forget the cabinets are gone. Maybe it is something like a reflex. After almost three years [since the flood], I’ll be doing something and I’ll reach out to open them. And then I realize they are no longer there… Have you talked to anyone else who does things like that? P’Watra/ 33/ hawker/ Female/ April 2014 Figure 4.14: The rivets of the absent cabinets in P’Watra’s kitchen Meier et al (2013: 421) remind readers that amidst our (re)focus on the material, we need to engage with not only the materially present, but also those absent, as absences embody the tension between representational elements and the fleshy materialities of the present. Likewise, Cresswell (2012) argues that archives should be ‘read against the grain’, for the stories in absences and gaps within them. The 84 active archive of flood memories in Ayutthaya is peppered with absences of various kinds. Absences are not abstract entities, they are often encountered bodily in the present, and in the flow of practices: P’Watra reaches out to open an absent cabinet only to realize it is no longer there; loong Sud stumbles a little as he walks out of his shop, his feet expecting a pavement that is no longer there; paa Samruay gazes through a half-collapsed wall, lamenting at the loss of privacy. As Meier et al (2013:424) writes, indeed, absences ‘do not only arise at dusk or midnight, or in rare and secluded places… absences make themselves known in routine passages, in everyday encounters and in the management of ordinary affairs.’ P’Watra asked if other participants ‘things like that’ – and they do. The bodily engagements with absences brought on by the flood are unknowing performances of community in Ayutthaya. Absences in Ayutthaya are also intimately connected with love and loss (Wylie, 2009; Maddrell, 2013; Frers, 2013). Slipping between the categories of absence and presence, the act of missing someone or something, and the emotions it engenders make absences tangible and present. Paa Sao, as I have mentioned earlier, lives with seven curious and gentle Saint-Bernards. She watched as I stroked one of them, and rather forlornly, she told us about Doi: I used to have eight dogs before the flood. And my favourite was Doi. She was the sweetest, always happy and very affectionate. She will always meet me at the door, and sit next to me when we are watching TV [smiles]. She was sick during the flood and we couldn’t get her medicine [sighs]. She died a few weeks into the flood. I couldn’t bury her because it was still flooded. I took her out on my boat, and floated her down Pasak River… [a long pause]. This really breaks my heart. 85 Sometimes I still expect her to come meet me at the door . Or see her sitting at her favourite spot on the street, waiting for me… [a long pause]. I miss her all the time and I blame the flood for taking her away. Paa Sao/ 52/ Souvenir vendor/ Female/ April 2014 This story, the sense of loss and the hosts of resultant emotions – sadness, resignation and anger – are entangled with the absence of Doi, and most importantly, the flood. Shadowing paa Sao’s longing for her pet is anger with the flood that ‘took her away’. As absences are animated with memories (Meier et al, 2013), the lived landscape and the memories it evokes are closely tied to this loss. Similarly, many participants told stories about such loss: P’Watra spoke lovingly of her Pomeranian that drowned, paa Bhuppa lamented about the cats she left in temporary care of a temple custodian only to find that they were adopted by others. Perhaps most striking, for me, was P’Madee’s recollection of her plants and her land (Figure 4.15): People say they remember the flood when they see the mud lines or photographs. I remember the flood not only when I see what is here, but when I see what is not here. The land around my house is now bare [looks around]. But it wasn’t like this before the flood. I had so many fruit trees. There were two Mango trees here [points], a young Jackfruit on the left [points], and three Longan trees over there [points]. When they 86 blossom, the entire place smells so nice. It was also less hot… [Shakes head, sighs] But they are all gone now. They died during the flood and we had to cut them down… The ground is no longer good for growing anything after the flood. The flood may be gone, but we can feel its effects everywhere in the land. P’Madee/ 39/ Business owner/ Female/ April 2014 Figure 4.15: P’Madee stands around the empty and barren land in front of her current home Almost instinctively, P’Mandee feels the absence and loss of her trees – this loss is registered on an emotional, olfactoral and haptic level (Maddrell, 2013). Through the experience of this absence, the effects, imprints or material memory, of the flood is experienced ‘everywhere in the land’. Thus, the flood – or at least echoes and signs of it – resonates constantly in the lived everyday in Ayutthaya. 4.5 Ayutthaya: an active archive and a riverine landscape I have tried to establish several things in this chapter. Firstly, shunning ‘big things’ or the iconic, and focusing on the everyday29 (Edensor, 2013; Bunnell, 2013), I wanted to show that the community of flood memories consists of various repetitive and sometimes, contradictory performances. Whether people tell stories about crocodiles and termites, or collect, carry and display images of the flood, or keep mud lines and old cabinet rivets, it is via these activities and actions that a community of flood memories comes into being. Next, I further argued that through these processes, the lived landscape and its material specificities are re-valued, creatively re-imagined and transformed into an active archive of 2011 flood memories. The transformation of the landscape into an active archive of the 2011 flood resulted in a resurgence of awareness and sensitivity towards riverine rhythms in the landscape of Ayutthaya. As we spoke to Tahn Jit, a Buddhist monk who lives in Wat Senasanaram Ratworawihan at Hua Ro, he summarizes this sentiment: 29 In the case of Ayutthaya it wasn’t really about shunning the iconic and valorizing the everyday. There were only everyday forms of remembering - despite the obvious importance of the 2011 flood to the local population, there were no commemoration monuments or icons for the flood. 87 I think the 2011 flood and the traces of it in Ayutthaya and in people’s minds remind us that Ayutthaya people should be used to floods. This is a place that is closely dependent on the ups and downs of the rivers. Tahn Jit/ 30s/ Practicing Buddhist monk/ Male/ May 2014 In his discussion of archives, Cresswell (2012: 167) notes that ‘archives construct the future as much as the past’. By encouraging alternative ‘registers of knowing’, the landscape as an active archive provides a foundation upon which one ‘remakes worlds’ (Appadurai, 2003; Yusoff, 2008: 7; Rao, 2009: 382; Cresswell, 2012: 167). The various stories, objects and practices within this active archive recenter the importance of riverine rhythms in the lived landscape of Ayutthaya. Furthermore, the lived memories of the flood reinforce the pressing need to incorporate the agency of water into the urban fabric of the city – like tahn Jit claims, the ‘[people of] Ayutthaya should be used to floods.’ Hence, Ingold (1993:154) is right - through living in it, the landscape has indeed become a part of the people just as the people are a part of it. In the next chapter, I will further engage with the productive nature of this archive and show how this archive is oriented towards the future. I will elucidate how people and the community selectively and creatively coopt their memories of the 2011 flood to incorporate the ‘ups and downs of the rivers’ in their lived landscape. 88 [...]... specificities are re-valued, creatively re-imagined and transformed into an active archive of 2011 flood memories The transformation of the landscape into an active archive of the 2011 flood resulted in a resurgence of awareness and sensitivity towards riverine rhythms in the landscape of Ayutthaya As we spoke to Tahn Jit, a Buddhist monk who lives in Wat Senasanaram Ratworawihan at Hua Ro, he summarizes... flood The muddy fingerprint, then, is a material sign of the handling of, and her interaction with, the photograph 68 In their re-presentations of the flood, these photographs have affect and moved the participants by eliciting certain emotional responses and story-telling Many participants - like paa Sao and paa Hom - referred to the fear and anxieties associated with their memories of the 2011 flood. .. 2006) In this case, with the movements of termites are integral aspects of the ‘entangled material memories (DeSilvey, 2006: 336) in Ayutthaya The sounds they make and their occasionally noticeable trails are traces of their destruction of paa Sao’s wooden home Yet, via these the movements and activities within the material, the termites helped release memories of the 2011 flood in paa Sao’s day to day... the flood The image was only made a family photograph when it was purposefully printed by paa Sao, and literally, materialized The private practice of family photography is also a wider social practice As paa Sao suggested, in addition to photographs of birthdays and graduations, the people of Ayutthaya have photographs of the 2011 flood as part of their collections of family photographs The conscious... (2012) argues that archives should be ‘read against the grain’, for the stories in absences and gaps within them The 84 active archive of flood memories in Ayutthaya is peppered with absences of various kinds Absences are not abstract entities, they are often encountered bodily in the present, and in the flow of practices: P’Watra reaches out to open an absent cabinet only to realize it is no longer there;... It also depends on a lot of other things I came in here last week when it was raining The smell in here and the sound of the rain suddenly made me feel very… [pause] how do I say… troubled? I had to leave quickly I was feeling that way because an image of the first few days [of the flood] suddenly came into my head The water was rising and the rain was pouring… Paa Samruay/ 60/ Odd job worker/ Female/... archive to emerge; and the process of collecting is part of the act of valuing People in Ayutthaya have gathered, collected and retained various things associated with the 2011 flood Coproducing images with the participants revealed these valued things in the landscape (Figure 4. 10) Some things, like the flood lines, were overtly noticeable, while the mundaneness of others meant that they tended to elude... difficult it was to scrub the mud off [laughs] P’Watra/ 33/ hawker/ Female/ April 20 14 Figure 4. 12: The mud-line outside P’Watra’s kitchen in Soi Si P’Watra’s decision to keep the flood line (Figure 4. 12) – like many others in Ayutthaya – stems from her re-valuation of the material significance of the flood line The line was originally an unwanted remnant of the flood - it was part of the ‘horrible... at these photographs? Paa Hom: [Looks at the other photograph] Looking at them is like going back in time to the flood I don’t like that I remember the feeling of being scared and worried, especially because my daughter -in- law was pregnant then She fell off the boat near the entrance of this road [points towards the entrance] That was very very scary 24 After that came the hardship We had to worry about... explained: 27 Of the thirty participants, only two did not have flood lines or photographs of the flood in their homes One of them lives in a rental apartment, and the landlord removed all traces of the flood during the clean up; the other claimed that she wanted to ‘escape the memory of the flood 78 P’Watra: The entire ground level was coated with a layer of mud after the waters subsided It was quite a horrible . imagination of Ayutthaya as a ‘historical landscape . Ayutthaya, in this case, is not simply an ancient capital or a World Heritage site. It is home to the participants and is a lived landscape of interactions. paa Sao’s act of printing and carrying the photograph around could be likened to having a memento of the flood, the act also gave the photograph an almost totemic status. As long as she had. practice. As paa Sao suggested, in addition to photographs of birthdays and graduations, the people of Ayutthaya have photographs of the 2011 flood as part of their collections of family photographs.