Earlier this month, thousands of demonstrators flocked to Bangkok’s iconic Ratchaprasong intersection to demand dictator Prayut Chanocha’s resignation. Thailand is no stranger to such uprisings, but this one’s a little different: it is part of a recent movement led almost exclusively by the young. In this brief but deliciously meaty essay, translator Noh Anothai draws thoughtful parallels between the current political scene and Lake of Tears, Thai powerhouse Veeraporn Nitiprabha’s first YA novel. Set in a dystopian city with near-blind, oblivious adults, it stars two courageous children who set out to face the past—which is, of course, the only way to change the future.
Whenever Yiwa watched the news on TV, murderers who harmed even small children, terrorists, and generals who slew people by the droves—none of these looked different from other people in their savagery. But if there was one thing that set them apart from everyone else—it was their indifference, their cool disinterest in the face of either good or evil . . .
The publication of Lake of Tears (ทะเลสาบน้ำตา), Thai author Veeraporn Nitiprabha’s third novel (and the first intended for a YA audience), comes at a strangely apt moment in Thai history. For at least the past year, a new political movement has been fomenting against the current junta led by Prayudh Chanocha, who seized power in a 2014 coup. What sets this movement apart, in a country that is no stranger to mass civilian uprisings, is age: it has been largely portrayed as a youth, or even a children’s, movement. While the pro-democracy demonstrations of the 1960s were embodied in the figure of the university student (“naive in spotless white school uniform,” to quote a poem from the time), and those of the early 2000s conjure up competing stages in yellow and red, today’s movement is characterized by millennials and Generation Zers coming of age in a political climate they deem no longer tenable to democratic ideas and freedom of expression. There have even been discussions within primary schools regarding what—if anything—should be done about children refusing to honor the national anthem, showing instead the three-fingered salute that has become today’s call to action. Indeed, one popular meme shows a secondary school student, his face blurred out, studying a geometry worksheet laid out on the asphalt at one of the many outdoor sit-ins taking place around Bangkok. The caption reads: “When you have homework but still gotta drive out the dictator.”
Enter Lake of Tears, a novel that is at once delightfully whimsical, sad, and dystopian—a work reminiscent of Roald Dahl, with a cast of characters as zany as any in Lewis or Rowling. Dedicated to “the children of Siam” by Nitiprabha (who has been vocal in her support of the movement on social media), the story centers around Yiwa and Anil, two children who have been abandoned by their parents and must navigate a quasi-magical world where adults are mostly absent or inattentive. Yiwa lives on the outskirts of the City of Mirrors, a sprawling metropolis so plated in reflective glass that its inhabitants have to come and go squinting their eyes against the glare. “The people cannot see a thing, not even themselves,” explains one of the few adults in the tale, “[a]nd then, after not being able to see themselves for a long while, they slowly start forgetting not only themselves, but about everything around them . . . .” This strange amnesia causes the citizens of the City of Mirrors to forget what they own, so they’re constantly shopping—buying the same things over and over again, except perhaps in different colors—and repeating what they’ve said, or think they’ve said, or what they’ve merely overheard.
(It’s worth noting that “City/Land of Mirrors” is also one common Thai translation for Alice’s “Wonderland,” so it suggests not only a place built of reflective glass, but a topsy-turvy realm that might nevertheless be an inverted version of our own. If I were translating into German, I might call it Spiegelstadt.)
It’s difficult not to read in this a commentary on life in Bangkok or any other major urban center, but the citizens’ amnesia has much more insidious implications. Yiwa and Anil eventually become trapped inside a dense wood within the City of Mirrors—a forest that is itself completely sealed off by a transparent glass dome. It is the Forest of Memories, we are later told, which sprung up mysteriously one night, and which the forgetful citizens, startled at having their memories confront them, have sealed in glass. Inside this bizarre and confusing dome, the two children have to face their own traumatic pasts as well as others’—and distinguish among what is real, what is fantasy, and what is memory.
Already given to reading Lake of Tears allegorically, I thought for days about what the Forest of Memories might represent: was it Lumphini, the great green park in the center of Bangkok? Was it one of Bangkok’s many museums and palaces (or palaces that have become museums), and thus a commentary on conservative Thai culture? An answer presented itself on the morning of October 16. The night before, while I was asleep in Chicago, Thai police dispersed demonstrators gathered at Ratchaprasong intersection with water canons and a strange, indigo-blue liquid that at time of writing I have only seen identified as some sort of chemical. I woke up to statements across social media denouncing the use of force against the protestors—some of whom, like those in Hong Kong, carried only umbrellas against the onslaught. It was reminiscent of the violent crackdown in 2010 at the same intersection, and to the many scenes of state violence against civilian activists that have cycled through Thai history; so familiar, in fact, that it seemed the events were not unfolding for the first time before my eyes, but that they were a returning memory. For a moment, I wondered what trees would grow from the memories sewn in Bangkok the night before, and whether these would be sealed away and forgotten as well, in order to preserve the status quo or to uphold a fantasy of a peaceful Bangkok that only a tourist could believe.
Perhaps I shouldn’t insist on a direct correspondence between anything in Lake of Tears and current events in Thailand, lest it keep readers from other contexts from making their own connections. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a translation of the novel released for the anglophone market; the author’s two previous works—which both won the Southeast Asian Writers (SEAWrite) Award, making Nitiprabha the first and only woman to receive the country’s most prestigious literary prize twice—have been translated by Kong Rithdee and are or will be available through Bangkok-based River Books (the first, The Blind Earthworm in a Labyrinth, was even reviewed in The New York Times). One might hope for a broader, more international readership for Lake of Tears as well. In addition to warning against societal amnesia, the novel is, at its heart, about empowering young people to trust their potential, especially when the old guard is unavailable or unhelpful—a much-needed impetus for change around the world.
Noh Anothai has translated works by classical Siamese poets and contemporary Thai authors, including several recipients of the Southeast Asian Writers (SEAWrite) Award. He is currently a PhD candidate in comparative literature, track for international writers, at Washington University in St. Louis. You can read his translations of Chiranan Pitpreecha, a Thai pro-democracy demonstrator from the 1960s, at Two Lines and The Bangkok Literary Review.
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