The Temple Painter of Trang

The provincial city of Trang in southern Siam is used by a few tourists as a brief stop over on the way to such over-priced and over-rated locations as Phuket but is otherwise largely unknown to Western travelers. The present author arrived there a few days ago after journeying into the Kingdom by boat and by another short journey inland, but rather than using the city as a bus hub he has decided to camp there and explore for a while. The main reason for this is that, like George Town where he had stayed earlier, Trang has a large population of Straits Chinese and a strong Chinese culture; it is another instance where the local culture – in this case Thai rather than Malay – has been greatly enhanced by the admixture and influence of settlers from southern China. In the case of Trang the Chinese went to there to work in tin mines and have remained and intermarried. In general, the Chinese in Siam are well-integrated; the resulting Chinese-Siamese hybrid culture is rich and colorful, peaceful, clean, productive, industrious, cordial, relaxed, and with an excellent cuisine. 

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Just a few miles walk from the centre of Trang is a large Boodhist temple on a hill boasting a statue of the Boddhisatva Guanyin, the goddess of mercy. (Her prevalence in Asian spiritual life was the subject of a previous post, here.) It stands as a beacon over the city and so is an obvious place for a newcomer to investigate. After climbing a steep series of broken steps, however, you will discover that the temple is in advanced disrepair – in fact, abandoned. The author was greeted not by monks in prayer but by two cleaners – a man and a woman – who, rather than sweeping with their brooms, were happily groping and fondling each other somewhat immoderately in the shade of the temple walls. The goddess stood golden and merciful at the summit all the same, identifiable from her iconographical pitcher of water and her twig of willow, but everything else about the temple – a modern rather than traditional construction - is in ruin. It is a very odd structure. Evidently based on the architecturally ill-conceived idea of a giant cement-fabricated lotus pad it is a maze of circular forms, winding stairs and empty conference rooms, all of which is now crumbling and streaked with water stains, a dilapidated, melancholy monument to modern Boodhist decay. See:

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In the forest area below this temple, though, is another structure also dedicated to the great goddess of mercy, a small Chinese temple consisting of two simple buildings. See here:

If the Boodhist modernist monstrosity on the hill is disappointing, this traditional and modest Chinese temple is a hidden treasure. It is so inconspicuous that it does not even appear on google maps, nor on the otherwise infotmative local map of must-see temples and tourist spots entitled 'Prestiguous Merit Making'. This small temple is sheltered in concave landforms and overgrown forest and is accessed by an obscure pathway from the monastery at the foot of the larger temple. English-speaking locals could report little of it, except to say that it is a "joss house" - one of many in Trang - and that it is kept by the old Chinaman who is responsible for its paintings and iconography. 

The author found this old Chinaman on top of a small pagoda in the front of the temple, putting finishing touches to the enamel designs on the pagoda roof. Other than a few children playing near the caves at the back, he was the only person around. Here he is: 

He speaks very little English, for which he apologises, but in one way or another is able to communicate a few salient points about his temple. "Chinese temple!" he says - by which he means "as opposed to Thai." And as for how long he has been there painting he just says, "Long time." He is perhaps in his sixties or seventies - it is hard to tell and impolite to inquire. 

In any case, he has clearly been painting over the walls and fixtures of this temple from little tins of enamel for many years, and just as clearly it is a labour of dedication and love. The afternoon sun is very hot. He is perched on the pagoda roof protected only by a coolie hat. He is manifestly proud of his temple and very happy that a traveller would be bothered to step off the beaten path to see it. 

Although modest from the outside, the interior is a carnival of Chinese vermillion adorned with dozens of scenes from mythology and other paintings. It is all done in the same bright glossy enamels with which he is now painting the highlights of the padoga roof.  

The iconography of the temple is standard, and much of it can be seen in similar "joss houses", but the endearing feature of the temple is the somewhat naif mode of the painting. The artist is not idiosyncratic; he follows the canonical iconography, but he is - so it would seem, anyway - self-taught, or at least not a professional. The colours are bright and strong. The lines are intense and heavy. The medium is modern industrial enamels applied thick and without much subtlety. It is not a polished temple like others, but it has beauty and simplicity and power. Here is one of the door guardians:

  

Here are some panels showing Guanyin as one of the immortals:

Some scenes depict stories from the famous novel of Wu Chengen, Journey to the West - the story of 'Monkey' and Tripitaka who has been tasked by goddess Guanyin to journey from China to India to fetch the sacred scriptures:

As well as these familiar mythological depictions, there are also a number of panels near the front portal that seem to depict modern scenes of mining. The author surmises - though he might be wrong since it is a matter he was not able to clarify in the brief conversations with the old painter - that they concern the history and hardship of the Chinese tin miners who travelled from southern China to settle in the Trang region of the Siamese Kingdom in the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries. They are more cartoonish than the panels based on established iconography, presumably because the painter was creating scenes from his imagination:

The real delight of this temple, and this painter's work, however, is in the incidental depictions of birds and animals and flowers and fruit that fill the gaps between the formal panel paintings and that adorn the pillars and lintels thereabouts. These are really quite wonderful little nature studies - all in enamel - that are often signed and dated in both traditional Chinese dating and in the dating of the common (Western) calendar. Examples can be found below. As readers can see for themselves, the paintings of birds are especially successful:

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black