Word: phaendin
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Dates: during 2002-2002
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...With no clue other than the name of Bua's childhood village, Baan Yandee, we decide to start at the palace of the Dai King, Jau Phaendin. After hours of wandering Jinghong's wide, quiet streets, we spot two elderly Dai women in traditional dress?long, silk sheaths and blouses, cinched by wide, silver belts. "Jau Phaendin?" asks my wife. "Don't you know?" whispers one of the women. The last Dai King, she tells us, was exiled to Kunming during the tumultuous early years of the People's Republic of China, and his magnificent teak palace was torn down...
...Does the old woman know of Baan Yandee? "Of course," she replies. "It's the village where Jau Phaendin was born." My wife explains her quest and the woman leads us through a maze of backstreets to a house with a handsome Dai roof, crouched in the shadows of tiled apartment blocks. We knock, and a man named Saengau answers the door with a scowl that fades as Sawitree explains her story. "Come in, come in," he smiles, calling his wife. They were once dancers at the King's palace, Saengau explains, and he is related to Jau Phaendin. "Very...
...Saengau rummages in a drawer and puts on a video of Baan Yandee's New Year festival. It shows a noisy, musical procession, where an elderly chap is carried though cobbled streets on a moth-eaten throne. "That's Jau Phaendin," he says reverently. "He is allowed to come back to his village once every year...
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