Graffiti – Village Kids Style
The Australia and England Ashes cricket series has just started and you can be forgiven for thinking Wonderful Wi’s young dog Cola is backing the Aussies. Unfortunately Cola’s war paint was the result of some over zealous village kids style graffiti. When it comes down to having a bit of mischievous fun, Thai kids aren’t any different to their western juvenile counterparts.
After the completion of Wi’s Coffee Shop the young one decided she needed a table and seats to add a bit more rustic charm to her summer-house. A rather old-looking and uneven legged coffee table was added to the balcony but she mused for a while about the seating arrangements. The green fingered gardener eventually decided the purchase of two large flower pots would suffice.
All that was needed to complete the task was paint, brushes and a couple of Wi’s young cousins to add a touch of elbow grease and art. Cola, you really shouldn’t have sat around and watched.
Thai rural people, adults and children, are too often depicted as being….how can I put it….not too clever….and I think that is way out-of-order. Cleverness is not only born in a classroom, it often translates into other avenues of life and being artistically skilled with your hands in one of them. Many rural Thai children have an abundance of these skills and turning a pair of plain red clay pots into work of arts is plain childsplay to most of them.
The kids took a couple of hours painting the pots but when finished the summer-house seats had taken on a complete new look. Cola had too, but his tongue wasn’t long enough for the clean up operation he had in mind.
Well pleased with their afternoon’s work, Wi’s two cousins then set about restyling some of the ornaments around the garden fish pond.
One of the things which always amazes me about Thai children is their willingness to help out their family. They give up their own free time without the slightest quibble and set about any given task with a readiness and vigour which is refreshing to see. After all their effort and artistic work even a dog lover like me had to smile at Cola’s new Aussie look.
As our Australian friends might say ” The bitzer sure looked cool.”
Hi Martyn, I’m frequently impressed by how clever Thai people can be when it comes to creating things. My wife can do the most amazing things with the simplest materials. I think the seats look great.
Paul – Like you I’m amazed at how adaptable the Thais are in using the resources at their disposal, and the kids especially so get a lot of enjoyment out of being creative. Loy Kratong is proof of that.
Martyn, cool colours! Wonder if they would like to re-paint my garden furniture?
Mike – By cool colours are you talking about Cola or the seats. They certainly brighten the coffee shop up.
Martyn, I’m always impressed at Thai ingenuity. When I come across something really clever I take a snap for a future post. And I regret that I didn’t start it sooner.
Btw – the man of the house is in Australia for the Ashes. The pretense is a conference… but hey… let the boys play 😉
Catherine – Snap…..another reminder I have lost my camera, how I pine for my lost pictures and planned posts.
The man of the house is in Australia for a conference….what a lucky lucky man, that’s assuming he’s a cricket lover.
The Ashes was the reason they are all there. They only needed an excuse (conference). To give them credit, except for yesterday (their day at the Ashes) they are working their butts off.
On the subject of Thai ingenuity… Pra Peter from the SET foundation has a new book out that is totally loaded down with tidbits of just that. I’ve mentioned it before: My Grandmother’s House.
Catherine I’ve just woken up and checked the cricket score, England are doing very well. Is the conference mainly English boys. If so they might soon have some champagne in their conference room.
Come on England, after the football World Cup fiasco we all need cheering up.
I googled ‘My Grandmother’s House+Pra Peter’ and was disappointed with the response. Perhaps there’s a better search I can try.
Martyn, the kids did a wonderful job on the dog!
Hopefully you’ll make up for the lost pics with the next trip and camera.
Talen thanks for the read. Cola must have had a good whiff of paint for quite a while. He’ll be okay now unless he finds a discarded Bangkok Post and reads the cricket score.
Luckily for my next trip I now have lots of posts preplanned. Though I’m not too sure about the quality of my new camera.
Martyn, England are indeed doing well. I don’t know the exact figures but I believe this is one of the best results in years?
At the conference are Australians, English, and one French guy (at least).
I checked my drafts (I’m writing a review) and it’s ‘In Grandmother’s House’. Apologies…
You can read a fabulous review here: http://tea-stains.blogspot.com/2010/11/in-grandmothers-house-review.html
Catherine – England are turning the screws and the Aussies are starting to feel the squeeze. Actually the English batsman who’s scored the most runs is Kevin Pietersen and he’s South African. A few of the English team aren’t English at all. The starting eleven’s nationalities is probably a good representation of the UK itself. All we need is a Polish wicketkeeper.
I went with the same Google search and the best I could yield was your comment about the book on Paul Garrigan’s site. I’ll try your link.