The Sothon Rama - Yasothon, Thailand

The legend of the Sothon Rama holds that it was Northeast Thailand's largest theater of all time. A plausible legend, given the former theater's three-story verticality and ability, in the wake of film, to house a full-on department store. But short of a nod from the movie theater authorities, we'll keep it at that - an unconfirmed rumor to report on a blog.

Hot pink paint on the former Sothon Rama. Coloring reminiscent of the Yaem Yasothon films. Go figure!

Colors, I'm told, are mood makers. Orange is supposed induce hunger and red inspires awe of some sort. Pink makes me sick, especially when it's slapped across the facade of my favorite kind of place. But this is Isan, where neon hues reign supreme. For all I know, pink triggers a shopping mechanism in peoples' brains.

Big pink

Overlooking the former lower lobby, now a women's apparel department.

Sales woman in the shoe department, once the 2nd level lobby.

"Can I help you with something, sir?"

Photos of the Nanaphan Plaza interior are strictly prohibited. Management fears that spies working for rival department stores might use the photos to discern pricing schemes and undercut them. I had to show evidence to the extent that I'm no more than a movie theater enthusiast, traveling far and wide in search of lifeless gems. The interrogation was rigorous. I was asked repeatedly if I was single and which of the employees I found most attractive. Inwardly flustered, I kept my cool, said I dug them all, and finally got the green light.

Auditorium-turned-storage room

My theater escort guides the way up to the 3rd level lobby, where projection booth and soundtrack rooms are located.

A store security guard escorted me through the lesser used regions of the old theater. It was in these parts that the legend of largest seemed to ring true. The lobby was three levels high and equipped with a soundtrack room on the third floor. Before being gutted, the auditorium contained in excess of one thousand seats and the missing screen was purportedly immense. Being a late model stand-alone, dating back only 30 years or so, the builder would have had the benefit of hindsight to know how big he had to build to be number one. Sadly, his aspirations didn't last very long. Only into the mid-1990's, when the theater shut down.

Into the projection room

Empty boxes replace projectors.


Roof-top perspective

Up on the roof, beside the free-stand letters, a clear view of the little Isan city and its low-rise skyline. The Sothon Rama must have been the most popular place in town for a while, if not the biggest. The prime destination for family outings and checkers out. Now the sign letters say Nanaphan Plaza, where โสธรรามา once stood. Yet another indication that, far from improving, the world of mankind is steadily getting worse.

Security's last detail

The Yasothon Pappayon - Yasothon, Thailand

Wise are the old when they're not senile. Without them we'd have to depend solely on the young, who don't care much for things that are old. Finding this little theater was made possible by an older gentleman with his faculties as full as the young are full of shite. Prior to him, a dozen questioned people still in the prime of life could offer no clues, only misinformation about a cinema scene that's slipped through the cracks of memory. Drenched behind the ears, those young 'uns are. And let me tell ya, it takes one to know one. Low and behold, on the dingier side of town, stands about the most unassuming theater that I've come across to date - the Yasothon Pappayon.

The Yasothon Pappayon - an old neighborhood theater

My keen minded friend dated the old theater to the early 1960's, when as a strapping lad he himself would cram in with hundreds of his Yasothonian kin to catch the latest moving picture. 16 mm with live dubbing, in those days. These days it's a private residence, and a fading memory in the town it's named for.

Fading name

Adding to the Yasothon Pappayon's worn mystique is the neighborhood it's in. This is the older part of town, two-thirds wooden shack, looking on the verge of collapse, to one-third sino-colonial shop house. It's the section of the city that was born from riparian trade, a near extinct means of commerce which, in Isan, was once oriented to the east, towards the Mekong and the domain of the Lao. Before roads and trains redirected Isan's economy towards Bangkok, river trade along the west-to-east-flowing Chi and Mun rivers meant that the region's cultural affinity was stronger with the Lao principalities than with the Thai capitol. In more recent times, Bangkok has devoured the resources of Isan without giving much in return besides some nationalist rhetoric.

And that, in a nutshell, is my own abridged take on the origins of the Bangkok bloodshed this past weekend; grievances which go back much farther than the overthrow of Thaksin and his cronies. Take it or leave it.

Streetscape perspective

Peddicab driver stopped for a moment in front of the old Yasothon Pappayon to pick some herbs from a nearby potted plant.