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The last week has brought me on another journey through time exploring my roots in the motherland.

On Monday I was obligated to an editorial meeting at the office. I used my off time in the office to finish up my column deadlines so that I would be burden free during my small adventure.

Tuesday, I boarded a van Lopburi bound with a few material belongings including two changes of clothes, a book, journalist notebook, some pens, business cards, Ukulele, digital video camera, toothbrush, cell phone, charger, and a portfolio containing all my official identity/educational records and documents.

The ride to Lopburi was three hours along 150 kilometers (aprox 94 miles) of modern Thai paved concrete highway. The first hour had me sleeping through the hustle and mess of suburban concrete---Rungsit, Bangkok 's premiere suburb complete with off ramps, massive shopping malls and parking lots, universities, private homes, amusement parks, and golf courses, resembles any North American heartland city. Just change the Walmart and Target to Tesco Lotus and Big C, and you could never tell the difference.

Ironically, the van's driver was blasting a tape of familiar generic-cut tunes of classics like 'I Started a Joke', 'Mr. Postman' and 'Stay'. The recordings definitely sounded old, but certainly weren't authentic versions by original artists. The plastic soundtrack contrasted with the sprawling suburban setting passing by outside was a reminder of how Thais stubbornly emulate and embrace non-beneficial foreign fads of the west. I became irritated contemplating this reality, shutting my eyes and whisked away into unconsciousness.

When I awoke an hour later, we were well past the ancient Siamese capital of Ayudhya. The music had been replaced with silence as most of the passengers dozed, some staring out the windows. The scenery outside was luscious green country side painted with rice fields and in the horizon, distant mountains clashed with gray skies. Thai flags along the houses and temples contrasted with the latest municipal election posters taped and nailed to power lines that lined a long stretch of smooth black freeway.

I knew I was in Lopburi when I saw the ancient stone walls and Khmer style spires rising from in between a modern yet unique street of contemporary Siamese commerce--motorcycles, busses, cars, pedestrians, stray dogs, injected the streets with life.

Monkeys swing from power lines on one side of the street, while on the other side, various groups and gangs of the inferior yet clever primates play and lounge laxly on sacred grounds. This is Lopburi and they are the guardians of the Brahmin-Khmer style, Lava-period ruins.

***

This week was cut in half for Thursday brought with it the Asarahbucha Buddhist holiday, followed by the official beginning of the Monsoon season (Kao Pansa) on Friday--a time when many Thai males choose to traditionally ordain. During this period, masses flock to the temples to make offerings to the monks who traditionally were confined to temple grounds for three months of constant rain.

Thus I only had Tuesday and Wednesday to retrieve certain documents/evidence in Lopburi and Nakhon Sawan as Thursday and Friday are official government holidays.

The documents, information, and evidence I seek will not only help me to fit in puzzle pieces of my roots-origin quest, but will also contribute in the legal process for me proving my birth rights of Thai nationality.

Lopburi (my mother's life in Thailand circa. Early 1960s to 1971)

My grandmother, Pon Meesiri (maiden name) and grandfather, Cheun Poglin once upon a time lived happily with their family in Nakhon Sawan. They had four children together in Nakhon Sawan which included in order from oldest to youngest, Pitsamai *(my mother), Sombat (aunt), Yongyut (uncle), and Chailai (aunt).

Most likely due to Poo yai (Village Headman) Cheun's playboy ways, Pon left her husband in Nakhon Sawan, and headed to a new life in Lopburi. By that time, My mother and her sister, Sombat were old enough to fend for themselves. Initially after the divorce, Cheun looked after Yongyut and Chailai but soon after, Pon got remarried to an Air force officer in Lopburi, Chun Kesakorn.

Yongyut and Chailai moved to Lopburi with their mother and new step-dad inheriting his surname, while my mother and Sombat kept the surname of their father. Both my mother and her sister would soon be married with Thai men. Sombat moved with her husband to Chonburi, while my mother stayed back in Lopburi to with her siblings and parents. When she had time, she would frequent Nakhon Sawan to visit her father.

Eventually, my mother married a Thai air force guy named Praklong Malaiwong in Lopburi around 1965/66 giving birth to her first daughter-child, Ganoporn Malaiwong. This Praklong guy was engaged in illegal business, selling arms, which landed him a booking in jail, dooming his marriage life.

My mother ended up selling her house (which was next door to my grandma's house) to pay for the conveniences and VIP jail status for Praklong, which as I understand, he only spit on such love. For whatever reason, Praklong and Grongjit's relationship decayed.

Unmarried, my mother gave birth to a son from a yet unidentifiable American father of the Vietnam war error in 1969. As it was (stills somewhat) very taboo to give birth without being married, and the fact that many vets were careless to take responsibility for their actions during war times, my mother's second child, Bancha Kesakorn was registered as the son of my grandma and step-grandfather.

By 1970-71, my mother met and fell in love with another American parachute jumper veteran, Blair Ruffaner. All my Thai relatives including brother, always believed that Blair was the father Bancha, Apparently this isn't the case. Nevertheless, my mother migrated to the US of A in 1971 leaving her homeland/family, never to return physically again.

In Lopburi, I was able to get a copy of my mother's family original house registration, including more information on my mother's first daughter, who I still don't have any clues to status or whereabouts to this day. Anyway, I was able to uncover more evidence that is contrary to what I was initially told several years ago by my aunt that the locals last heard she died in a motorcycle accident over 20 years ago. I always suspected that this wasn't reliable information and was more to appease my hunger/desire of knowledge about the happenings in Lopburi after my mother departed there for the US of A over 34 years .

I never understood many things about the state of my surviving immediate Thai relatives at present. Like how Thai nature in it's general essence is highly family oriented, but then why my aunts and uncles much resembled my American family of once-in-a-blue-moon contacting relationship .Certainly they don't get together like other Thai families during holidays but as they are too engulfed with their newly created families.

Even more baffling was why my aunt and uncle didn't want me to learn too much about my half brother and sister, let alone find and meet them. All they would relay was that 'we know nothing about your sister' and your brother is a very bad guy.'don't try to find out any more about him' type attitude. Their forbidding approach was like telling a young teenager to stay out of his grandpa's liquor cabinet. Reverse psychology ever sparking the curiosity and hunger even stronger

Things became more clear when I finally did meet my brother three years ago and the dark skeletons of my Thai family history began to unveil. My brother filled me in about about his journey and struggle fending for himself after his (our) grandmother passed away. He had a rocky relationship with our aunts' and uncles' as they weren't in approval of his rebel, informal lifestyle. I became sympathetic for him more than ever before. After all, both his real parents had abandoned him, and the only person he really had, (Grandma Pon) had also died.

Through contemplation, I came to realize that one of the main reasons that traditional Thai families are so strongly connected, family oriented usually comes down to the bond of the grandfather/grandmother keeping the relations-obligations all tied. As my Thai grandfather and grandmother had passed away decades ago and, the fact that my mother (the oldest of siblings)departed from the circle to live overseas, these essential bonds had decayed and become obsolete. Everyone, eventually went in their own direction, following their new paths in life. While my American grandparents are both still alive, they were long divorced before my time, and have their own separate lives thousands of miles apart.

In Lopburi, I learned that my sister, Ganoporn was last recorded moving to Chiangmai in 1980. So is it possible she didn't die in a motorcycle accident in Lopburi? Sure, but not certain. What is certain is that if she did die in Lopburi, as suggested by this unidentifiable/unreliable recollection of a source, there is no traceable record of such death under her birth name which she had until she was at least 14 before moving to Chiang Mai . So had she married or undergone and name changes (quite common in Thailand) in Chiang Mai and then moved back to Lopburi to die, I lack the leads to confirm such death.

So now, I am waiting on the municipal offices in Chiang Mai to check the old records of 25 years ago, which I'm expecting to learn more within several days. These will give me the next reliable lead to follow. I can not retire this until I can read an official death report, or perhaps even better, a surviving half-sister---the first of five offspring of my mother.

Other than this, I now have more documents from my mother's later period in Thailand which will help to prove my right of duel Thai nationality (or at least migration right) by virtue of birth to a Thai citizen. Also this evidence will make things smoother in the case that any of my Thai kin wants to visit me/family in the USA ever in the future.

By late Wednesday morning, I was on a train from Lopburi heading to the origin land of my mother, Pak Nam Po. Pak Nam Po is the traditional reference for Nakhon Sawan (city). It literally translates to the Mouth of the Bodi (tree-water).

Geographically, it is considered the origin of the great Jao Praya (Chao Phaya) river where the Ping , Nan , and Yon rivers combine ultimately to form central Thailand's grand aqua artery which flows southward through Ayudhya, down to Bangkok , and empties in to the Gulf of Thailand .

In the past before the invention and importance of cars, trains, and plains, Pak Nam Po was a strategic center of local economy and territorial ambitions. For centuries, ships and boats of many great nations shipped man power, supplies, imports, and exports to/ from the Gulf of Thailand into the heart and soul of the Indo chinese Peninsula via Pak Nam Po.

Nakhon Sawan (My mother's first period in Thailand (Circa. 1944-196?)

Chuen Poglin was the second oldest and only boy of 6 siblings born in respected family of Pak Nam Po during a time where wild elephants were said to still roam the scenic frontier, forests, and swamps of the Nakhon Sawan country side.

Pon was a beautiful lady with North Asian features, which as I was told comes from a small amount of Japanese ethnicity.

Chuen and Pon gave birth to their first child, Pitsamai (my mother) in 1944. A few years later, Sombat was born, followed by Yongyut, and finally Chailai. Cheun had become a respected village head man. Pon contributed some income from her dealings at the local fresh market. Those initial years, they raised a family successfully and happily living in a large house.

As the glorious 1950's came to an end, family life begin to deteriorate, Cheun took up a minor wife, and a Butterfly lifestyle of a married man would prove to be problematic. I heard one rumor that the minor wife tried to poison Pon at one point. I was also told that that same minor wife ended up falling and drowning in water. Anyhow, after Pon split for good, Chuen remarried with a new girl named Kum, who apparently is still alive. I guess she had kids that Cheun may or may not have been the father, but I still have yet to confirm or meet any of these peoples.

In the end, aging Cheun was a sad and lonely man. In his aging years, he lived on a floating house (ruen Thai) on a small lake near Pak Nam Po passing his time with drink and fishing. His children had all left and went their ways.

His new wife was out and about at the market one day, when he fell from his boat house, likely intoxicated, aged and helpless. This was apparently more than 20 years ago. I have yet to find confirm the actual date and year.

Perhaps a decade later, Pon began to age rapidly and become delirious. Yongyut was off finishing his masters degree starting his own family, while Chailai was just finishing up her education ready to start her own family.

Eventually, Chun (the stepfather) split the scene, and elderly Pon went into the care of Sombat in Chonburi where she would soon die. Chailai with her new soldier husband would take ownership of the house and reap the revenue, while Bancha got absolutely nothing.

After my mom left Thailand , all he really had was his grandma, though officially she was his mother on his birth certificate as explained earlier.

And perhaps it was a decade after this, when my mom's clock ticked to an end across the seas in Colorado. Some psychic lady once told me when I was a young boy that there was a family curse on my mother's side from several generations ago.

Somehow, I was supposed to fit into this 'curse' cycle. Should I be worried, scared, preventive? Maybe some argue that my hunger, desire, and passion to dig up ancient skeletons is a curse in itself. If I am doomed from my ancestral roots, need I hide away and ignore my past? Perhaps those who did fall victim to any curses failed to face the skeletons head on. I have seen death in the face and strive not fear it nor any supernatural phenomena awaiting me.

Death comes to all at one point or another. For some, it is sooner than planned or expected. One can not always control when/how this will happen, but to lead a life in ignorance is surely an invitation for ones own skeletons to come collecting. If I were to die in the process of uncovering the truth about my past, roots, and blood, then call me content, it would be a worthy life/death.

Maybe some of us are born with a clean slate, a balanced check-book, and a full room of doors to rise/fall in this world. It is my belief that many of us are born with burdens/chains implanted or sentenced into our souls and genome-- from the actions of either our ancestors, souls in a former life, or perhaps both in the same.

Many try to run away from their past. Here, the saying, 'You can run, but you can't hide' rings true. Some forces are so powerful, that the only solution is to take them head on.a kamikaze for say.

So am I planning on an early death? No, but I only hope that I'm prepared and ready if that is what nature deals me. On the flip side, I shall also be prepared for a long life. Whether it's one month, year, decade or even century before my time is up, I must maintain indifference keeping bridges maintained and doors unlocked.

END OF LOG

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