What does the 1997 collapse of the Thai baht have to do with a street fair in Chicago? A lot, according to Arisa Narin, secretary to the consul general of the Royal Thai Consulate, which is hosting a festival celebrating Thai culture–its first–on August 15. “The festival was an idea that started several years ago, and we finally received the budget for it this year from the government,” she says. “We’re just starting to come back from our financial crisis in 1997.”
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Many Chicagoans’ knowledge of Thai culture begins and ends at the restaurant door. One reason for this is the absence of a “Thaitown” or “Little Thailand.” In Chicago, though approximately 30,000 people of Thai descent live in the Chicago area, according to Narin, “the community is scattered.”
Narin went to school at Immaculate Heart of Mary (near Irving and Kimball) during the week and to Wat Dhammaram, a Thai Buddhist temple at 75th and Sayre, for Sunday and summer school. “They’d have teachers from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, and they would come here and teach us Thai,” she says. “You know, you’re not really exposed growing up here to Thai games or Thai nursery rhymes or stuff like that, so it was a good way for me to learn and keep my roots.” Wat Dhammaram also offered courses in traditional Thai dance and music. Narin learned how to do the “fingernail dance,” in which six-inch-long brass nails are worn and the parts of the body that don’t move are as compelling to watch as those that do.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/Andre J. Jackson.
