Chiang Mai and the Samurai Gang
At 24 minutes to 10 a.m. on June 1, 19-year-old Somnuek Torbue walked into Mae Ping Police Station in Chiang Mai. His face and body were covered in blood; his head and shoulder had long lacerations. Somnuek said he was attacked by two people on a motorcycle. His attackers drifted off when he reached the police station.
What made the attack special was the co-driver's weapon: a machete. It seemed like the infamous Samurai gang was back. But that was not the case. Somnuek had been attacked by Tai Yai, or Shan teenagers, who had come to Chiang Mai in their parents' wake, copying the Samurai Gang.
The Samurai Gang, a nickname that the media stuck to a group of young people, made Chiang Mai unsafe for a few years about 10 years ago. The group started off innocently with some youths coming in at night downtown Riding around Chiang Mai on motorcycles. Gradually the group expanded and became more violent. They hunted down innocent people and beat them with machetes. Started using and dealing drugs.
Every now and then the police arrested group members; then it was quiet for a while, but after a while the violence reared its head again. The Samurai Gang was not the only gang to infest the city. At one point there were fifty different gangs, some with several hundred members. They regularly clashed, resulting in many injuries and even deaths. Girl groups also formed and were involved in prostitution.
Until suddenly it came to an end. Mysteriously, says Deputy Police Commissioner Chamnan Ruadrew. But it wasn't that mysterious. A concerned grandmother set the gang members straight.
Laddawan Chaininpan, a 69-year-old former English teacher at a well-known private school, took the plight of the young people, including her grandson, to heart. Simply by looking them up and talking to them.
'I realized that many kids had a bad relationship with their parents. Their parents never listened to them and yelled and punished them when they did something wrong. They didn't want to be home and preferred hanging out with their friends.'
Yai Aew, as she is known locally, started organizing soccer matches and went camping with the gang leaders. And gradually she managed to transform the fighting groups into groups that make themselves useful by, for example, putting out fish and birds, planting trees (photo, trees planted in honor of the king, 2008) and some go to the temple to meditate .
Yai Aew's efforts have not gone unnoticed. Thanks to financial support from some NGOs and the Health Promotion Foundation, she was able to set up the Chiang Youth Community Center, located in the Municipality Stadium.
Do the former brawlers still go out in groups on their motorcycles? 'Yes', says Yai Aew, 'that's what kids are for. I will never stop them from being themselves. All I ask of them is to stop doing what they used to do. Seven or eight years ago, people in Chiang Mai were terrified of going out at night. But the situation is now back to normal.'
(Source: Spectrum, Bangkok Post, August 11st 2013)
What a brave woman! And so realistic! My son doesn't let me go out alone at night, only by car. Drunk men with knives, he says. Maybe he had heard of this.