Peeps at Many Lands: Siam/Chapter 11
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| A typical canal scene. Chapter 11. |
The houses are built of wood, and are raised above the ground on piles, so that when the rainy season comes and the plains are flooded, the floors are left high and dry. In the dry season the cattle are stabled under the houses. A stable under your bedroom is not perhaps the pleasantest arrangement that could be imagined, but in parts of the country there are bands of robbers who spend their evenings in stealing cattle. When the robbers try to move the animals, the animals make a noise, wake the owner, and give him a chance to prevent the theft. When the country is flooded, the pony, who is generally a pet, is led up an inclined plane to the little veranda, where it lives and is treated as a member of the family.
The chief woods used in building houses are teak and bamboo. Teak is a very hard wood. It is not affected by damp, and resists the attacks of the so-called "white ant."
The floors of the native houses are made of teak planks, or more usually of plaited bamboo. Through the holes that are left, the air comes up from below, keeping the rooms cool, but at the same time filling them with most unpleasant odours. A great deal of the ordinary domestic refuse is got rid of by the simple plan of pushing it through the holes in the floor, and leaving it to rot in the space between the house and the ground.
Fortunately for the health of the inhabitants, pariah dogs abound everywhere. They feed chiefly on this refuse, thus playing the part of scavengers. The pariahs have no owners, and no one takes any care or notice of them. They are thin and bony, frightfully ugly, fond of barking at all hours of the day or the night, but not given to biting, for they are thorough cowards. A hundred of them would run away from a small boy, provided he had a big stick in his hand.
The number of rooms in the house is always an odd one, for even numbers are considered unlucky. A small house would contain at least three rooms, which we may call the drawing-room, the bedroom, and the kitchen. The third of these rooms will be described in the next chapter.
The drawing-room contains no chairs, tables, pianos, or pictures. In fact, it contains no furniture of any kind, with perhaps the exception of a few mats on the floor, on which the people sit. When visitors call, they are offered tea in tiny cups that hold about as much as a big table-spoon. This tea, which is taken without milk or sugar, is of a beautiful light golden colour, and has a faint but pleasant and refreshing odour. The chief thing offered to the visitor is betel-nut, the fruit of the tall, slender areca-palm. So important a part does the betel-nut play in the daily life of the native, that, if possible, a house is always built near a grove of areca-palms, in order that there may be a never-failing supply of the nut. Betel is not eaten alone, but with a mixture of turmeric, seri-leaf, lime, and tobacco. Chewing betel produces copious supplies of blood-red saliva. If this is ejected upon wood or stone, it leaves nasty rusty-red stains that cannot be removed even by the most diligent scrubbing. Hence a spittoon is a very necessary domestic article. Everybody chews; everybody possesses spittoons. You will see them by the side of the mother rocking the cradle, by the side of the teacher in the school, by the side of the judge in the law courts, by the side of the priest as he chants his matin or evensong in the temple, by the side of the King as he sits upon his throne.
In time, the teeth become coal-black. They are then regarded as being much more beautiful than when they were white. A native saying runs: "Any dog can have white teeth." In Bangkok the American dentists keep supplies of false black teeth, and when a prince or a nobleman loses one of his own teeth, he can buy another black one and so not spoil his appearance.
The second room of the house is the bedroom, which is also used as a lumber-room, and where, if anyone be ill, a number of gilded images of Buddha will be found. There are no bedsteads. People sleep on a kind of mat placed on the floor. This is surrounded by curtains to keep out the mosquitoes. Sleep would be quite impossible without some form of protection against the bites of these wicked little creatures.
When lying down, the head must not point to the west. The sun dies his daily death in that part of the heavens, and the west is therefore an unlucky direction. The sleeper must lie pointing north and south, and then he will be quite sure of complete freedom from evil spirits and angry demons during the dark hours of the night.
The walls and floors of the houses, as we have seen, are made of wood. The roofs are thatched with the leaf of the attap-palm. In the dry season every part of the dwelling becomes excessively dry. A stray spark will often set on fire one of these houses of grass and wood, and then, one after another, other habitations fall a prey to the flames. There is no fire brigade, and it would not be of any use if there were one, for there is no public water-supply. When a fire breaks out, soldiers are sent to the scene of the disaster, armed, not with rifles, but with hatchets. As quickly as they can, they chop down a great many houses in the neighbourhood of those that are on fire, and in this way prevent the spread of the flames.
The Siamese are a cleanly people as far as their bodies are concerned. They bathe at least two or three times a day, but their houses are never cleaned. Cobwebs grow thicker and thicker with dust, till they look like ropes; insects of all kinds multiply without interference; mosquito-nets become so caked with dirt that it is a wonder any respectable mosquito ever wishes to go inside; floors are never scrubbed; walls are never dusted. There is no such process as spring-cleaning, except when a fire performs the deed, and sweeps away house, refuse, and vermin, all at one and the same time.