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MTG 084: Building A Muay Thai Gym in Issan, Thailand with Frances and Boom Wattahanaya GoFundMe for building the gym.

this is transposed from a Facebook conversation Hi Sylvie, finally getting to continue our Twitter chat! Those readings you sent me were very interesting – I don’t think we are disagreeing actually. You’re coming I think from an anthropological place describing the system, and I’m more asking is this system really providing the best outcomes for people. It’s a strong strain in Thai thinking, going back to the 1932 constitution, and carried on by people like Pira Sudham (Monsoon Country), Aed Carabao (protest singer, you definitely know him!) or Voranai Vanijaka (columnist). My issue with children fighting is not with the fighting it’s with the urgent need kids from some backgrounds have to earn money so their families can eat. I understand your point this fulfills the Buddhist precept of filial duty, but question the convenience of that construct in maintaining a very unequal society. If you are poor that’s your ‘bap’ or lack of merit speaking, so you and your children must fix this. If you are wealthy that’s your accrued merit speaking, and if you and your children continue to make merit you will stay rich. MuayThai has a role in this of course. It’s fascinating to see how BuaKaw’s success and foreign fighters like yourself have brought the upper levels of Thai society into gyms - but wealthy Thai children who train rarely compete. Their experience of MuayThai is not as an opportunity to make merit by paying their family’s rent. They find other less urgent ways of making merit. Even becoming a monk is dictated by finances –as it costs money for the ceremony and so on. (Women don’t have this option of course but that’s another story!) Buddhism is not alone here - Catholicism has ‘redemptive suffering’ which also encourages poor people to see difficulties as merit making. For poor boys and girls talented enough to make money from MuayThai of course they are going to do it, it’s life-changing! Just one example – an Isan boxer told me his dream is for his daughters to finish school, and not have to enter prostitution as his sisters did. He is proud of his stadium titles, proud he built a concrete home for his parents but he doesn’t want the same pressures for his children. I think we’re thinking about the same issues from different paths?"