About 10 kilometres from Country House on the outskirts of Ban Kat is a monument to Japanese soldiers that died during the Second World War. On the road there is a sign in English, but to get to the monument you have pass through the compound of a Thai school, there is no other way in. The school compound has a security guard on a traffic barrier. He demands that anybody entering the compound hand over their Thai I.D. which is returned when they leave. This is very strange because it appears to be just an ordinary Thai primary school for the children of farmers. In my experience this makes it unique, I have never seen a public provincial primary school which a professional security guard anywhere else in Thailand.The inscriptions on the monuments themselves are in Japanese and ambiguous Thai. The Thai inscriptions do little to explain:
a) Why there is a monument at all (the official story is that Thailand was occupied by the Japanese by force). b) Why is located in Ban Kat (a small town that nobody except locals have ever heard of). c) Why is it hidden behind a school with professional security.
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About five kilometres along the road from Country House to Ban Kat, you will find a large golden rabbit about 3 metres high. The rabbit dominates a spacious well manicured garden. Nobody seems to know where it came from or what it is doing there. Rumour is, that it is a Chinese Buddhist place; but there are no inscriptions in Chinese. Also, as far as I know, rabbit worship is not part of Buddhism, Chinese or otherwise.
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September 2016
AuthorAcharn Myloo Mimee-Mydie is a native of the North and is an expert on Lanna culture Categories |