The northeastern region of Thailand known as Isan is known as the poorest part of the country. The plateau, which is to the west of the Mekong river but drained by the Mun and the Chi rivers, rests on a vast salt sea that undermines the fertility of the land. More importantly, it is subject to the dangers of drought, with monsoon rains failing to arrive two or three or more years in succession.
The poverty that the people of this region have suffered from has been commemorated with sentiment by Kampoon Boontawee's Child of the Northwest and with some bitterness by Pira Sudham's Monsoon Country. Both authors describe the hunger that lurks in society, ready to rear its head with every day of missed rain. As a result, the Isan people, who are primarily ethnically Lao people speaking their own dialect of Thai, have had to become resourceful and to adapt everything possible to their use. This includes eating just about everything possible, from obscure vegetables and herbs to all kinds of living creatures, from frogs to lizards to the bung, a kind of ten-legged black spider that burrows underground. Recognising where to find these creatures and how to catch them and then prepare them to eat requires a great deal of local knowledge and skill. This kind of knowledge and ability is often undervalued and disregarded, as much by the children of the region who wish to leave to find better economic opportunities as much as by outsiders.
The French scholar and explorer Étienne Aymonnier travelled this region towards the close of the nineteenth century and he noted the abilities of many of the villagers in making useful items form whatever could be found:
"... we stopped to sleep in Ban Man Kar, a hamlet of some twenty houses of Koui, Melo and Mahai, who, besides tending to their rice fields, also engaged in the production of kru, woven baskets tightly pulled and made impermeable with resin. These served as jars and pails, which the craftsmen sold for one sleng a pair ... we passed Trepeang Telok, a pond that always held water, on the right, and we entered the forest of Ban Nhang, in which grew pines and kroeul trees, which served to make a varnish called mereak. The tree's resinous sap was collected for four months, from January until May. We stopped in Ban Nhang, whose inhabitants produced trays that they soaked with this varnish. These rattan trays were sold for one tical apiece (Aymonnier, 2000, p.143)."
The poverty that the people of this region have suffered from has been commemorated with sentiment by Kampoon Boontawee's Child of the Northwest and with some bitterness by Pira Sudham's Monsoon Country. Both authors describe the hunger that lurks in society, ready to rear its head with every day of missed rain. As a result, the Isan people, who are primarily ethnically Lao people speaking their own dialect of Thai, have had to become resourceful and to adapt everything possible to their use. This includes eating just about everything possible, from obscure vegetables and herbs to all kinds of living creatures, from frogs to lizards to the bung, a kind of ten-legged black spider that burrows underground. Recognising where to find these creatures and how to catch them and then prepare them to eat requires a great deal of local knowledge and skill. This kind of knowledge and ability is often undervalued and disregarded, as much by the children of the region who wish to leave to find better economic opportunities as much as by outsiders.
The French scholar and explorer Étienne Aymonnier travelled this region towards the close of the nineteenth century and he noted the abilities of many of the villagers in making useful items form whatever could be found:
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