Why people eat three times a day
A buffalo has to deliver a message to the people from the rain god Phaya Taen. But the buffalo is a bit forgetful. He tells people to eat three meals a day and forgets that the message was one meal every three days. Consequence: he has to go buffalo on the rice fields so that the people have enough to eat.
Here is a folktale recently told by retired English lecturer at Mahasarakham University Wajuppa Tossa (62) at the 2013 Satellite Meeting of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions in Bangkok. Not in the Northeast dialect, as she usually does, but in English and accompanied by Isan music.
Wajuppa has made the preservation of regional folktales its life task. She started it when she was still teaching. As the final assignment of her translation course, the students had to collect stories in their own village and translate them into English. The knife thus cut both ways: she built up a collection of folktales from all over the country, the elderly did not feel excluded and the students learned a lot from the elderly.
The collection now includes more than a hundred folktales from all over the country, both in audio and video, and many have been digitized. In her English classes, the students researched the stories, reinterpreted them, and the students told them in class. When Wajuppa tells them these days, the narration is framed by music.
The idea of reviving the folklore arose in 1991 when Wajuppa discovered that many pre-school children did not speak the Isan dialect. As a result, they could not communicate well with their grandparents.
'When the younger generations don't speak their own dialect and don't hear those folktales, the local culture, traditions and ways of life are lost. Because they are hidden between the lines. Instead of learning about their folklore, the children entertained themselves with Cinderella and Snow White. '
Wajuppa herself, when she was young, heard many stories from her parents and grandparents. At that time, it was normal for children to speak the Isan dialect at home and to learn Thai at school. But in the last decade or so, the Northeastern dialect has been disappearing, she says. Parents think that this puts children at a disadvantage. "They don't think it's 'cool' when their kids speak in public dialect."
(Source: bangkok mail, September 17, 2013)
Photo homepage: Wajuppa Tossa during National Children's Day in February.
That speaking dialect disappears here in Thailand and then in Isaan is very unfortunate but not unique. In Belgium, too, people try to ban the dialect, which is why groups are created in many cities to preserve the dialect, for example “De Gentse Sosieteit” of other cities, I do not know the names of groups. Personally I don't find this justifiable because as said it impoverishes the culture of a country or region.