The Chiang Khong Rama Theater - Chiang Khong, Chiang Rai, Thailand

Countless pedestrians have strolled past this building, oblivious to the fact that for a long time it was the only venue in Chiang Khong for locals to spend their leisure time. Yes, from 1962 until about 1990 the Chiang Khong Rama was this sleepy Mekong town's portal into another world.

A minutia of evidence: Coming soon!

Before the joys of cinema were given a permanent home at the Chiang Khong Rama, Chiang Khong's denizens had a Likay hall (Likay is a kind of Thai theatrical performance) which occasionally screened films. Nothing more. In 1962, the father-in-law of Dongsawang Intrapornudom, pictured below with his wife Jae, figured that Chiang Khong was ripe for a movie theater of its own - thus was born the Chiang Khong Rama.

Lets have a look inside!

View from balcony, overlooking the mezzanine and where the screen used to be. The Chiang Khong Rama Theater is now a warehouse, storing products that Dongsawang sends across the Mekong to Laos.

Wooden pillar holding up the balcony.

Jae standing on the balcony. The photo is looking towards the projection and sound windows at the rear. Notice the ceiling fans above.

Old wooden seats.

The projection/sound room. The square window next to the door was where the projector worked its magic.

Poster for Sydney Pollack's 1975 clasic 3 Days of the Condor. In Thai it translates to "3 Dangerous Days."

Side view of the Chiang Khong Rama Theater, with the Intrapornudom's house and garden beside it.

This photo was taken at the Intrapornudom's house. Jae is holding a poster of Mitr Chaibancha, the top male actor in Thai film from the late 1950's until he died on the set of a movie, Insee Thong, in 1970. He was killed when he fell from a rope ladder, dangling from a helicopter. The poster, which was hung outside of the theater for a year after Mitr passed, reads:

With deepest regret for the loss of Mitr Chaibancha

Chiang Khong Rama Theater and Mitrasilp Photo Studio

Mitr's death is considered the saddest day in the history of the Thai film indstry.
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Dongsawang was in his early 20's when his father-in-law built the Chiang Khong Rama Theater. After his father-in-law passed away, Donsawang became the sole proprietor, operating the theater until TV and video became widespread in Chiang Khong and the crowds stopped coming. In the 45 minutes we spent together he was able to recount a multitude of stories from his days as movie theater boss. He recalled that Laotians from across the river would cross over on the weekends to come to the movies and that at times, he would hold illegal, after-hours pornography viewings for the good old boys in town, just to name a few. Those days, however, are quickly fading memories.

In the last decade or so, Chiang Khong has found new economic life trading with a more market-oriented Laos. For a small town it has developed a decent sized tourist industry thanks to the immigration check-point that's there, as well. But to their great disadvantage, the people of Chiang Khong no longer have the Chiang Khong Rama Theater to rely on for a bit of escapism.

The Suk Siam Theater - Mae Sai, Chiang Rai, Thailand

Here it is folks, the northern-most movie theater that ever was in Thailand. The Suk Siam Theater is situated within a fresh market, just off Mae Sai's main road. If you've ever taken a border run to Mae Sai, crossing over into the Burmese market town of Ta Kyi Leik for that ever important stamp in your passport, then you have unwittingly passed right by the Suk Siam.

The Suk Siam Theater was a product of the early 1980's. It opened in conjunction with the expanding border trade between Thailand and Burma, which accelerated after China embarked on the path to market integration and started exporting its products abroad en mass. Being a central border crossing in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS), a term used to denote the economic and infrastructural development schemes linking China's Yunnan province with all the countries that the Mekong River bypasses, means that Mae Sai will continue to boom. Unfortunately, all those bootleg DVD's that have been coming into town from China likely contributed to the Suk Siam's closure about 8 years ago. Yet another unintended victim of free-trade.

A final vestige of its former glory.

Believe it or not, but little Mae Sai was once home to two other single screen theaters, the Racha 1 & 2, but they have since been torn down. According my sources in Mae Sai, the Racha theaters stood a few blocks to the south of the Suk Siam Theater, definitively confirming the fact that the Suk Siam was Thailand's northern-most cinema ever. Ta-daaaa!

The Suk Siam Theater: once Thailand's northern-most movie theater, now Thailand's northern-most demolition project.
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On a side note, while in Mae Sai I took a trip across the border to Ta Kyi Leik in Burma. As I was getting my passport stamped I asked the Burmese immigration officer if Ta Kyi Leik had any movie theaters. He answered in a way that I would say is typical Burmese officials: "The people of Ta Kyi Leik are simple. They don't have a need for cinema."

Upon further inquiry I found that Ta Kyi Leik once did have a movie theater. The savvy people of Ta Kyi Leik, it turns out, found that it was much more practical to buy, sell and watch bootleg DVD's from China than to pay for the state-sponsored propaganda that was shown in the town's theater.

The Sri Pathana Theater - Pa Sak Noi village, Chiang Saen, Chiang Rai, Thailand

The Sri Pathana Theater's history is intimately entwined with war, development and the coming of modernity to this corner of the country. However, in order to outline the relationships between these events it will help to turn back the clock to the the late 1960's and early 70's, before the Sri Pathana Theater was even standing.

Throughout much of the 1960's and 70's there were major wars raging in Thailand's neighbors, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. As a result of these wars agricultural production dropped severely in those countries. Bullets, bombs and land mines make it a bit difficult for farmers to till their fields and plant their crops. In Thailand, however, there were only minor skirmishes in some remote jungle areas, leaving most of the Thai agricultural sector to benefit economically from the losses incurred across the border. Thai-grown rice shot up in value as Lao consumers just across the border looked towards their war-free neighbor for the staple food item.

A corrugated tin wall shrouds most of the facade of the old Sri Pathana Theater, obscuring what was once the lone theater serving the surrounding 5 villages in rural Chiang Rai.

Now lets zero in on the tiny village of Pa Sak Noi, in Chiang Rai province, Thailand. During the war years, Pa Sak Noi was a typical northern Thai farming community. Electricity hadn't yet reached that part of Chiang Rai and motor vehicles were a rarity. Only a few families in the village had a car or truck of any kind, and those who did used them almost exclusively for economic purposes. Pa Sak Noi had one family that owned a truck, which they used to transport the unthreshed rice of local farmers to the nearest rice mill for processing. Thanks to the high export value of Thai rice - a result of the nearby wars - this service proved to be quite lucrative and the family made a tidy sum during the war years.

Soon after the war ended in 1975 rice prices began to level off in Thailand. As agricultural production resumed in Laos, diplomatic relations between the two countries were cut and exports to Laos from Thailand ceased, Thai rice was in less demand. Meanwhile, that enterprising family from Pa Sak Noi, enriched during the war years through their rice transport business, rolled their profits into the entertainment industry. The Sri Pathana Theater was born.

Looking at the facade, into the lobby. The greenish box in the corner was the ticket booth.

Chaweewa, who along with her husband opened the Sri Pathana Theater in 1978, recalled how crowds of locals would throng the theater to partake in this novel form of entertainment. Entire families from all the nearby villages would file in to marvel at the newly arrived technology, the cinema. During the first year of its operation, the Sri Pathana was powered by a diesel generator, as electricity hadn't made it to Pa Sak Noi by then, making the theater the only electrified building in the area.

A poster for the Thai film "Chui Chai" still lingers in the lobby.

Pictures of the king and queen hang at the top of the lobby, above the door. The staircase led to balcony-level seating, the projection booth and the sound room, where live dubbers, sent by the film distribution company, would perform the voices for foreign movies.

Most of this theater was made of wood, which poses a contradiction to something I was told a few weeks ago. A former theater owner in Nong Khai (see post "Thai movie theater history 101" from 4/21/09 for more details) explained that the Thai government outlawed wooden theaters in the late 1960's, citing them as fire hazards. The Sri Pathana, however, was built in 1978. Chaweewa, the owner, said she had never heard of that law. A trip to the local university library should put an end to this issue.

Through the door and into the auditorium!

The Sri Pathana was small, but they would manage to squeeze as many as 700 viewers in at one time for more popular movies. The entry fee was one baht in the early years of the theater.

The lower walls of the auditorium were made of brick and cement, while the upper part was wood. Notice the strings hanging down from the widows so that they could be opened for ventilation.

Fan vent and the remains of old posters inside the auditorium.

Poster for "Bruce Li in New Guinea," glued to the wall.

Old wall fan, out of its natural habitat.

One year after the Sri Pathana Theater opened, Pa Sak Noi and the rest of Chiang Rai province got electricity, ushering in full "modernity" to this idyllic region of the country. In the late 1980's, as locals began buying TV's, the Sri Pathana lost its appeal and business fell off drastically. Chaweewa and her husband kept it open as long as they could, but it just wasn't worth the costs. It closed down in 1989.

This is Chaweewa pictured above. Her memory of past events and her kindness in sharing them made for one of the most insightful experiences I've had since I started searching for old theaters. Her stories helped shed new light on a number of issues which I otherwise would never have picked up on. Chaweewa and her husband truly were agents of change, to use the anthropological term.

The Sri Pathana was also the first movie theater I have ever seen anywhere in the world that is in a village. Not a city, not a small town, but a rural, largely agricultural village.

(Sri Pathana loosely translates to "grand development," but if somebody can give a more accurate translation it would be welcomed)