PRATTHANA̶A PORTRAIT OF POSSESSION
by Toshiki Okada
Based on the novel by Uthis Haemamool
English translation by Aya Ogawa and Sasapin Siriwanij with James Laver

Main Characters: Khao SingNA:

Wayla Waree
Teacher
Poet
Important Person
College Friends
RakchaoFa
Nam
Narration［Contact］
precog co., LTD.
+81 3 6825 1223
http://precog-jp.net/

ACT ONEA f t e r t h a t D a y. A t t h e A r t S c h o o l/ 1992TEACHER

That day, everyone else painted with a brush as Iʼd instructed.
You were the only one sketching with a dry twig youʼd picked up
nearby. You didnʼt follow the simple instruction to draw with ink
and brush on white paper. Was it your attempt at a small rebellion? Or did you think the teacher would praise you for what you
were doing? Did you think you were already an artist, unconfinedby any frame or anyoneʼs orders? Is that what you thought? But if
you canʼt follow the rules, I canʼt give you a grade. Do you
understand?

SCENE 1
Swimming Pool / 2016
NARRATION (NA)Night at a swimming pool. Water splashes, blooms into droplets,
then falls and spatters the ground. The late night air is muggy.
A young man sits by the pool.
(WAREE is in the pose of Caravaggioʼs Narcissus)

KHAO SING

Iʼve seen you drawing with a twig so I wanted to try it, too.

NA

The young man is trying to capture his reflection on the surfaceof the water with his camera.
He wants to capture his effortlessness in that moment in thereflected image. Anything deliberate is simply unnatural; itʼs
merely forced.
A slight scent of chlorine emanates from his skin. Faintly musty,
like the scent of the liquid of love and desire, when you ejaculate
on your own or someone elseʼs belly. That slithery and viscous
substance coating your own forefinger.
The gazer, and the gazed upon.

TEACHERI know.
KHAO SING

Your pictures, at first glance, look like ink stains on paper, but if
you squint, the scattered ink marks become clear sunlight, dark
shade, lines of swaying grass. I know that such divine skill is notinnate talent, but something you trained very hard for.
KHAO SING

Teacher, what are you doing here?
Outdoor Sketching by the River / 1992

TEACHERIʼm here to draw. Iʼve been drawing since I was younger than you
and Iʼve never stopped.

NAYou, too, have once been the gazed upon. You were 17 years old.
You would dive and swim in the water. And youʼd return to thebank and spread out your body, so the shapes of light filtering
through the leaves of the trees would heat your skin until it was
warm and almost dry.
You had an erection. You were at that age where the warm caressof the sun on your thigh was enough to make you tremble witharousal.
At that moment, you were gazed upon by a man on the other sideof the river. He was drawing.
He was still young. A fresh graduate from the countryʼs pre-eminent art institution. He wouldnʼt have taken much time after his
graduation to decide to become a teacher at a vocational highschool in a province.
Outdoor sketching. The afternoon that the man had taken agroup of students out to sketch.
The gazer, and the gazed upon.

KHAO SING

Why didnʼt you become an artist? Why did you just become an
art teacher?
TEACHERNot everyone wants to be an artist. Perhaps one just becomes ateacher to be with young people who are still growing, to see how
they change. Perhaps he doesnʼt like socializing, having to show
up at exhibitions. Perhaps he doesnʼt have the same kind of
ambition that artists possess in this country. (Smiles) You should
go to study at the university. That place suits someone like you.
KHAO SING

Does it?
TEACHERIʼll tutor you.

2

PRATTHANA ̶ A PORTRAIT OF POSSESSION
by Toshiki Okada

Several times you decided to ask her out. Wonʼt you go to a movie
with me? But she refused every time. Of course, she wasnʼt thekind of person who would go to the cineplex to watch romancesor action films or adventures.
But one day, you went to see Kevin Costnerʼs Robin Hood. As youwere leaving the theater alone, among the wave of people going
to see Dying Young in another theater you saw her. Her bodypressed into some young man youʼd never seen. Just like Julia
Roberts in that film.

SCENE 2
Remembering the Poet / 1992
NA

After tutoring, in the evening, the teacher took your group out todinner. The woman who ran the vegetarian restaurant, youlearned from your teacher, was a poet. “Sheʼs a poet. Her poems
have been in magazines. Sheʼs even had her own book published.”
She was an activist as well. An advocate for protecting theenvironment and wildlife from the encroachment of golf courses
and dams. Her office was a room of a three-story double townhouse.
Your desire was ignited right away. Your desire was easy to read
- shy and more secretive than others. She saw through you
instantly.

Retur ning the Room Key / 1992
NA

After that day, you went to the room on the third floor and founda note on the table. “I will be away for a while. Please leave theroom key that I gave you here.”
As you left, for the first time you noticed a sign hanging in theentrance. “Palang Dharma Party3 Office”. It meant absolutely
nothing to you.

POET

Why donʼt you come to our office on Sunday? I want your help
with something. I want you to use the art skills youʼve learned towrite my poems on fabric. You write beautifully, donʼt you? I
want it to be eye-catching. Itʼs the perfect job for you, right?

SCENE 3Making Placards
Drinking Circle / 1992
(KHAO SING is engrossed in making placards)(KHAO SING is at the center of a group of friends who aredrinking. He holds a bottle of Mekhong whiskey above hishead, declaring that heʼs about to make a toast to love. Othersin the group listen to him while laughing and cheering loudly.)NA

For her, you wrote placards for the protest. You followed her andgot to know the followers of the Santi Asoke sect1. You wore Mo
Hom2 clothing just like her.

KHAO SING

Love is giving without seeking return!
Love is not possessing!
It is giving freedom to each other!
It is the joy of loving. True love is love for all things!
Love is the opposite of lust!
Love mustnʼt be tainted by lust!

The Poetʼs Pose
(The POET is sitting in a chair. She leans back fully in thechair and sits with both knees up. A notebook is on her lap. In
her mouth is the cap of the pen she holds in her right hand.)POET

SOMEONEYouʼre just spouting poetic shit because you couldnʼt get laid!

We are not like businessmen, the wealthy, or politicians. Brand
names. I donʼt wear synthetic clothes made from complex
processes in industrial systems. I donʼt exploit innocent people
who work with their hands and labor, who sweat and find joy
through sharing and solidarity. Those whose hands touch books
that tell of the value of life and spirit. True labor. Real education.

KHAO SING

Youʼre damned right! I wanted her to return my love. I canʼt helpthat love turns into desire and lust. I canʼt help getting erections.
And thatʼs when love gets in the way: I must be a better person. I
must hide my savage desires. I must come to terms with my desire
while hiding it, showing only love and care. Perhaps there arepeople who can act that way without effort. But for me, itʼs as if
there is a balloon tied to my desire, always pulling it higher. Whocares what love is! Love will only cage desire inside the heart - it
only suffocates me. Therefore, I say desire is love!

NA

Skin-tight jeans. The thighs drawn together by the stitches of theseam running down the middle.
If you could blindfold her, you would lean in close and stare atthat seam. And breathe on it.
The gazer, and the gazed upon.

(Cheers all round.)
3
1 A non-mainstream sect of Buddhism in Thailand.
2 A traditional Thai fabric colored with a deep blue dye, to which the namerefers, and a type of short-sleeved round-necked shirt often worn by members of
the Santi Asoke sect.
3 The Palang Dharma Party was a Buddhist-inspired political party in Thai-

land founded by Chamlong Srimuang in 1988, associated with the Santi Asoke
sect. Palang Dharma became a major force in Thai politics during the early-1990s.
Its leader Chamlong was a key figure in the 1992 middle class protests against the
military rule of Prime Minister Suchinda Kraprayoon, commonly known as theBlack May, that led to the resignation of Suchinda.
ACT ONE

The Night Pee Am4 Came / 1992

The ghost devoured you clean. It lay your slumbering member
down on your pubic bone, pulled up your underwear, zipped andhooked your trousers closed. Leaving no noticeable trace. Thatslight dampness would soon dry and disappear.
When you awoke the next morning, the world went round as
usual.

(KHAO SING is plastered. His friend carries him back to thedormitory.)NA

You met a group of kathoeys5, chatting in the hallway in front of
your room.
D o Yo u F e e l I t ? / 1 9 9 2
KATHOEY 1

What a cutie! What faculty are you in?

NA

At this moment, do you feel that things in this country have gone
awry? That some things have changed. For better or worse? Doesit even matter to you? Not at all. You can still walk around atnight. You can still shout and make a fuss. Eat when youʼrehungry. Sleep when youʼre tired. You gaze at the sunlight in themorning and look back at the last year in the eye. You donʼtperceive any effects of the coup dʼétat by the National Peace
Keeping Council. It was clean and white.

KATHOEY 1

What an adorable smile!
KATHOEY 1

What a catch! Let me suck you off.
KATHOEY 1

Whatʼs wrong, hon? You look frustrated. Are you all pent up?

SCENE 4FRIEND

Just ignore them.
An Important Person / 1992
KATHOEY 1

Iʼd like to give you a hand.

NAYour teacher saw right through you. “Your mind has beensomewhere else lately. Your grades are down. You hardly evershow up at the evening tutoring group either. You have the skills,
but unless you use them you can lose them. If you want to get tothat point in the future you have to keep practicing.”
Your teacher once invited you to his home, along with a couple ofyour classmates that he thought were as promising as you, tointroduce you to an important person. He was an eminent artist.
A thinker. Someone who understood life and practiced ascetic
living.

KATHOEY 1

You canʼt shower by yourself when youʼre this drunk.
KHAO SING

So what?
KATHOEY 1

Iʼll give you a bed bath.
KATHOEY 1

Donʼt lock the door. Iʼll come to dry you off. Iʼll wipe you down
clean.

(The IMPORTANT PERSON sits in a lotus position.)
IMPORTANT PERSON

An artist must dig deep within himself and gaze upon the
feelings that flow inside, capture them and express them throughcolor and shadow. Focus hard within yourself. Control yourbodily movement and your breathing. Artistic endeavors aremuch like Buddhist austerities. Be aware of your left hand, ofyour right hand. Be fully aware of what the whole self is doingright now, in the moment. The present. In this way, the artist is
like a philosopher as well. Whether they call me an artist, athinker, or a monk, those are merely words that others call me.
Words that define my form in othersʼ perception. But they are notme. I am not attached to words because what I do is work. When
your existence is constantly defined by the work of happiness andcontentment, you are more than words.

(The kathoeys laugh.)(KHAO SING collapses on the couch and falls asleep. His
friend spreads a blanket over him and exits. After a while Pee
Am comes to stand next to him. It lift the blanket from KHAO
SINGʼs feet and enter head-first beneath it.)NA

You felt your fly being unzipped.
You were awake but you chose to pretend not to be. Let that shadow below be a ghost - Pii. Pee Am.
The ghost breathed on your core. Something soft came down toenvelope it.
Moist and slow. Down deep. Then, it withdrew back up.
4
4 A ghost believed to be the cause sleep paralysis in Thai culture. It is described
as an event in which the person is sleeping and dreams that one or more ghostly
figures are nearby or even holding him or her down. The sufferer is unable tomove or make any noises.
5 A term used in Thailand to describe transgender women in some cases
or effeminate gay men in others.

PRATTHANA ̶ A PORTRAIT OF POSSESSION
by Toshiki Okada

NA

POET

Weʼll go to support the party leader. To show the power of thepeople. To shout out our call for banishment. First weʼre going to
the Parliament House and then Sanam Luang. Itʼs very close to
the university you want to go to. We should have time. Iʼll takeyou to walk around the university, to see what itʼs like before yougo there. And Iʼll also take you to Nong Tha Prachan6.

A friend asked him a question.
FRIENDI want to dedicate myself to art but my parents donʼt understand.
They wonʼt acknowledge my devotion to art.
IMPORTANT PERSONYour problem is that you think too much. Youʼre too concernedwith thoughts, exhausted, anguished and sad. But youʼre still
here, arenʼt you? Youʼre still studying and making art. Still
waking up to be with it every day. Isnʼt that so? Then, what needis there to burden yourself with thoughts until you are exhausted,
distressed and sad? Youʼre still here, with freedom.

KHAO SING

What is that?
POET

They sell lots of great, rare cassette tapes. Underground stuff too.
We can go to Fame VDO, too. They have loads of weird art films.
KHAO SING

I want to come with you.
SCENE 5First Time in Bangkok / 1992

Reunion with the Poet / 1992
NANA

And so, May of 1992 arrived. Once again, she appeared beforeyou.
You were sketching, sitting on the sidewalk in the middle of thenight. A sketch of that familiar three-story double townhouse.
The background was pitch-black. Blacker than the deep blue ofthe night sky. There was only a flickering green light from thefirst floor of the building. In contrast with the yellow lightshining from the road on the left side of the sketch, the closed
sliding door gave a weight feeling to the building. Beyond thelouvered window it was dark.
But suddenly the louvered window became bright. Her silhouetteshifting inside the room became visible. Then, the silhouettecame to the window, turned the handle of the louver to let the air
inside. What was a silhouette became an indistinct figure
standing quietly by the window.

You joined the protest demanding the resignation of General
Suchinda Kraprayoon as the non-elected Prime Minister. You
spent days and nights in the capital with the peopleʼs marches,from the Parliament to Sanam Luang and Ratchadamnoen Klang
Road. The party leader vowed a hunger strike until death. Before
that, Pilot Officer Chalard Worachat, already in the 20th day ofhis public fast, had gone into shock and had been hospitalized.
You felt you were part of a historic moment.

(The POET beckons KHAO SING. KHAO SING approaches
the POET. The POET embraces KHAO SING.)

On your 4th day in the capital, she beckoned you out from theprotest. You headed to Maharaj Road, passed the Mahathat
Temple, and stopped at the gate of the university you wanted toattend. You walked past the basketball court, down a small roadleading to a vast field, and entered the building that was known
to house Professor Silpa Bhirasriʼs study.

SCENE 6
The Kiss with the Poet / 1992
NA

POET

Do you want to come with me? By bus.
KHAO SING(POET and KHAO SING stop together, side-by-side. The
POET takes the lead and goes inside.)

Where to?
POET

Bangkok. Have you been there?

NA

There was a statue of a young girl, naked and pure. Blossoming
Flowerʼ by Sawaeng Songmangmee. Her breasts were justbudding. Her face was broad with high cheekbones. A lotus
flower held in her right hand. She stood straight, but her legs

KHAO SINGNo.

5
6 A long-standing music shop in Bangkok, well-known for its wide selection ofalternative music.

ACT ONEwere angled like a deerʼs.
Behind her hung a Cubist painting in soft colors.

TEACHER

Which piece did you like the most?
(The POET stops in front of a painting. Her gaze rests on it.)
KHAO SING

The young naked girl holding a lotus in her hand. Itʼs a sculpture.

NA

A picture of a woman with long hair. Her right arm was laid on
the back of a chair. Her head tilted, resting her face on her upperarm.
(As this text is spoken, the described posture in the painting isembodied.)
The yellow shirt she wore contrasted with the red wall in the
background.
In the bus on the way to Bangkok, she sat next to you. Her headtilted just like that, sleeping on your shoulder.
The gazer, and the gazed upon.

TEACHER

Blossoming Flowerʼ by Master Sawaeng Songmangmee. That
piece is exquisite. Thereʼs another work by Master Sawaeng
called Tharn Thong8ʼ. Itʼs a sculpture of a nude woman lying on
her back. The work mimics the gesture in Goyaʼs The Nude
Maja.ʼ The mature body expresses wealth and abundance. Thatbody is a physical representation of the country of Thailand. The
English title of the sculpture is Wealth of Thailandʼ. Thereʼs astory behind that piece – when it was exhibited at the National
Art Museum, a man did something obscene to it, because it was
too realistic, too sensual.

(The narrator hums the tune to Pongsit Kampeeʼs Talod Wae
Laʼ7)(KHAO SING taps the POET gently. She turns to face him,
and he quickly leans in and places his lips on hers. The POET
immediately pulls away. She leaves the scene.)

TEACHERBut you picked the worst time to go to Bangkok.
KHAO SING

I took part in the protests.
That Night / 1992
TEACHERYou placed yourself in great danger. Do you understand that? Do
you know what peril this country is facing right now? Who took
you there? Do you even understand what you were doing in sucha place?

NA

That night dragged on. You fell asleep and woke up repeatedly. In
your mind that scene was replayed over and over again.
When you finally woke up, you had a slight fever, but you had togo out that day.
In the afternoon, after being in the hot sun all day, you grew faintand collapsed. You didnʼt see her at all as you rested in a tent at
the side of the road.
It wasnʼt until that evening that she appeared. She took you backto your lodging. She took a wet towel to wipe your face and neck.
But that was all she did for you. The next morning, you felt better.
You boarded a bus at the Mo Chit Bus Terminal to return to theprovince you came from.

KHAO SING

Of course I do. A General staged a coup dʼétat and seized power.
Then he accumulated power and broke his promise to the people.
He wanted to stay in power for his own greedy ends. I became apart of the masses that demanded a righteous change. Isnʼt thatwhat a true student should do?
TEACHERI donʼt know what youʼre saying. Were you ever bothered before,
whether it was the army or the politicians who ruled the country?
Can someone your age truly feel change? Has the army ever told
you not to study, or not to draw pictures? What is your duty,
really? Your duty at this very moment of your life. Can you
answer that? Your duty is to study and be educated. That is yourtrue duty. Preparing yourself for the days to come. The future. If
you disappeared or died, who do you think would seek you out?
Who would remember you? Is it not your parents, me, and yourfriends? That place will forget you and erase you. But I will say
this: you exist, and that existence will always be necessary foryour own life and future.

A d v i c e f r o m t h e Te a c h e r / 1 9 9 2(Pink Floydʼs The Dark Side of the Moonʼ plays.)
TEACHERI thought youʼd gone home. Oh, or did you just get back?
KHAO SINGNo.
KHAO SING

Last week I went to Bangkok and walked around the university. I
went to Professor Silpaʼs museum too.

KHAO SING

Are you angry with me?
67

In English, “For All Time”.
https://youtu.be/VVUf_JlXyis

8 In English, “The Golden Stream”.

PRATTHANA ̶ A PORTRAIT OF POSSESSION
by Toshiki Okada

Those feelings are important. Perhaps some day, if you canappreciate those feelings with the eye of an artist, they will be
truly important.

hurried out of the room, leaving all traces on your body. Traces oflust, traces of blood, and traces of shit.
You woke up in the afternoon. After washing your body, youheaded out of the dorm to eat. Everyone you met was talking
about the same thing. The same thing was on the front page ofevery newspaper. Rumors and gossips were that the army had
fired on the protesters. The government offices on Ratchadamnoen Road had been set on fire. That afternoon Major General
Chamlong Srimuang was captured. It was the afternoon of May
18th, 1992.
And on May 20th, the leader of the protests, Chamlong Srimuang and the Armyʼs Supreme Commander, General Suchinda
Kraprayoon, were forced to reconcile.

The Second Night with Pee Am, and theMorning After / 1992

SCENE 7TEACHERIʼm not angry. But Iʼm glad you walked out of it in time. You livein the world of art. If youʼre dissatisfied or if you want to makean ideological statement, use this world to express it, this world
which has more meaning for you.
KHAO SING

To tell you the truth I went to Bangkok to chase after that poet.
TEACHER(Pink Floydʼs Wish You Were Hereʼ plays)

Facebook / 2016

NANA

You lay down and drifted away. The dark blue surface of a lakespread out before you. Sounds of seashells and coral. And thesound of sonar. A dolphin lurking deep in the ocean lifted its
head and gushed to the surface. You took off like a bird andlanded far away in a deep forest. Mysterious vegetation, strange
wildlife, legendary werecats and the mythical Kinnara9. Silence
that twinkled like dust. Black particles of night drizzled down,
drop by drop, and accumulated on your skin.
Your ears detected a sound, clearly. Something coming closer,
walking step-by-step on its toes, and stopping in front of thedoor. The sound of a breath in, and out. Then, a deep breath, andthe door crept open.
A door left unlocked once may be an accident, but when there
was a second time it meant there was a desire to be consumed,
and the ghost knew.
That body crawled up from your feet, as before. You were
wearing only a pair of gym shorts. Two hands slipped in easily
along your thighs towards your core. You were touched, caressed,
and stroked open. The gym shorts were peeled off. Its face wasthen buried in your groin, inhaled your scent, and traced its hot,
wet tongue over the shape of the head of your penis.
Your blanket was pushed up and left on your chest. The ghost
took off its pants. Then, it moved over and straddled over you. It
grasped your member, rubbed and aimed it at the hole at its
center and, with a moan, lowered its body onto you. Halfway
down you felt pain and tightness. It must have felt it, too. It
paused, gulped some air and panted. You moved your hips,
pretending to shift in your sleep. The ghost cried out sharply inpain, and you soared towards that overwhelming excitementfrom the irresistible tightness. The ghost moved its ass andreleased your member. In that moment, you came. Your juicesquirted violently on its behind and thighs. It spurted across yourlower abdomen, too. The ghost put your shorts back in place and

The young man you met at the pool sends you a friend request.
His Facebook name is Wayla Waree10.
As soon as you click “confirm” for a friend request you always get
excited. Surprised even. You step further into another room, andyou feel closer to them. Now, stepping into Wareeʼs room, what
images do you see?
Happy photos of him and his friends at the protest. All of themwearing the same T-shirts. The national flag wrapped aroundtheir wrists. Whistles hanging from their necks.
You were summoned once. Something you posted upset peaceand order, was divisive, and might have been considered misrepresentation and a threat to stability.
Somewhere else, speaking about what kinds of light and darkness
exist wouldnʼt be an issue. But here, you canʼt discuss whether
such things exist or not, because thatʼs just the way this place is.
That is its particular nature.
Living day-to-day merely to acknowledge change. This is who
you now are, at present. When you want to post something, itʼllbe the pictures you drew or about the taste of different beers thatyouʼve tried from around the world.
(Screen shot of Messenger. Photos from WAREE of beerbottles and glasses: Schneider Weisse Tap 5 Meine Hopfenweisse. And the message: “You posted that drinking that beer
always made you feel good, so I wanted to try it.”)
KHAO SING“And did you like it?”
WAREE

“Hmmm, it smells funny.”7
9 A half-human, half-bird creature in Southeast Asian mythology.

10 Wayla Waree, from the Thai words for “time” and “water” respectively.

ACT ONE

WAREEKHAO SING“The bartender said if I liked Hoegaarden, Iʼd like this.”“On whatever porn sites.”

KHAO SING

KHAO SING“Itʼs similar to Hoegaarden because theyʼre both wheat beers.”“Itʼs hard to draw live models.”

KHAO SING

KHAO SING“But there are lots of different kinds of wheat beer.”“The postures and movements and placing a body in a particularpose.”KHAO SING“Hoegaarden is a Belgian wheat.”

WAREE“Do you want to draw me?”KHAO SING“Schneider Tap 5 is a German wheat.”

SCENE 8KHAO SING“Specifically, itʼs a Weizenbock, which is stronger than normal
wheat beers in taste and alcohol level.”

A Statue of Silpa Bhirasri / 1994

WAREE

NA

KHAO SING

Professor Silpa Bhirasri. Founder of Silpakorn University. The
father of Thai modern art. His former name was Corrado Feroci,born in Florence, Italy.
You were chosen to enter your dream art school, and so you
became one of his children.

(sends a dizzy emoji)“Info-xicated?”
WAREE(sends a grin emoji)
S cenes from Training / 1994
KHAO SING“The bar youʼre at is probably the bar I go to a lot in the afternoons.”(KHAO SING and classmates are training.)“Freshy” / 1994

KHAO SING“From around 2pm to 7pm is my favorite time to be there.”NA

New students were called “freshies” by the upperclassmen.
You and all the other freshies were forced to live in solidarity andvalue harmony, to respect teachers and upperclassmen, all under
the wholesome-sounding name of “Freshmen Welcoming.”

KHAO SING“For the anesthesia of sunlight and hot wind.”
KHAO SING“When time is drowsy and lonely. The hot and humid time of theday. Drinking new beers that Iʼve never tried.”

UPPERCLASSMAN LEADER

Do you know anything about the person next to you?
What their name is, what their personality is like?
Do you know about your upperclassmen?
We live here together like brothers.
Friendship and brotherhood never existed in your lives until now.
Your friends and brothers are here.
You are new. You know nothing of this place.
You canʼt just walk around this department without approval or
permission.
First, throw away your past. Your new personal history begins
here.
By erasing your past, we all become equal.
Your father is the founder of this university. You must not let him
down.

KHAO SING“And going to sleep before 11pm almost every day.”WAREE“I like the pictures you draw, the ones you post on Facebook.”
KHAO SING“Itʼs a hobby for the unemployed.”
WAREE“Where do you find your models?”

8

PRATTHANA ̶ A PORTRAIT OF POSSESSION
by Toshiki Okada

“Sale 50%” banner placed over his name.
You and your peers lined up and marched to protest against
Manager Weekly at its offices. Over the next several weeks, noone, teachers and students alike, could concentrate in class. You
were indignant towards the “outsiders” who besmirched yourschool. If there was anything that needed reform or correction, it
was for “us” to realize, not for outsiders to dictate.

NA

One day you and the other freshies were lined up into a darkroom. Pitch black. And you were forced to close your eyes.

Naming Ritual / 1994
A new female student is pulled up by the upperclassmen.
Whatʼs your name?! Whatʼs your last name?! Where are you
from?! Which high school did you go to?!
The female student tells them the nickname that her parents gave
her at birth, the one her friends and acquaintances call her by.
The upperclassmen shout savagely. Thatʼs not the name theywant. She is in shock. She canʼt help adding “chao”11 at the end of
all her answers. And for that she is christened with the new name“Rakchao”12. Then it is Khao Singʼs turn. He is dragged forward
and told to open his eyes. Blinding white light blasts in his face,
he recoils and falls down. The upperclassmen push him backupright.

Punishment for the Art Critic / 1995
NA

An art critic presented a statement saying that your university, its
schools, and alumni held a monopoly on the countryʼs art. That
served to add fuel to the fire already ablaze from the case ofManager Weekly.
Some upperclassmen dug up the criticʼs credentials and foundthat he had been rejected by your university. That rejection had
probably become a deep wound for the critic and eventually arevengeful feeling for the university. This must be the case,definitely.
The critic attended an exhibit at the university, and your groupguys politely invited him to have a conversation. You surrounded
him, leaving no exit. When he tried to speak, he was asked to shutup. He had already said too much in his article. Now it was histurn to listen to your voices. The critic was bullied by yourbrothers who surrounded him, rammed into his body, elbowed
him. This critic had created his own art. Unsophisticatedsurrealist work. Cracked earth, ox horns, a sharp scythe, thelaborersʼ twisted bodies. How dare he critique education while
being so outdated in his own practice? Failure in his own work
led him to criticize other peopleʼs. The upperclassman brought
the critic a glass of wine and deliberately spilled it all over him.
He tried to escape but his shoulders were pinned and he couldnʼt
move.
After a while the critic walked out of the place alone. Red wine
stained his jacket and crotch. Your friends had fun teasing him.
“On your period?”, “Why the hell did you cut your dick?”
In truth, at that moment, you thought it was an act of humiliation. To debase someoneʼs humanity with no means of escape orprotecting themself. But all you could say was, “Man... his clothes
are all stained now.”

UPPERCLASSMEN

Hey, get your shit together! Have you been possessed by a ghostor something?
NA

Raucous laughter. Someone suggests “KHAO SING”13 as a newname, and the upperclassmen come to a unanimous agreement.
The end of the christening ritual is announced.
UPPERCLASSMAN LEADER

Thatʼs it! ... Guys, listen up. Come on! ... Itʼs over!
NA

Khao Sing. Thatʼs the name youʼve been called from the age of 18.
What a dark joke.
You recalled those secret moments youʼd kept to yourself. The
night you let Pee Am hold you down.

SCENE 9O utsiders, Keep O ut / 1995

M a n y Ye a r s P a s s e d a n d y o u R e a l i z e dNAAt the beginning of 1995, when you became a second year
student, Manager Weekly printed on its front page “The Golden
Age of Thai Art: The Path to Commerce.” The article talked
about the age of the bubble economy, where the Thai art scene
had become much more involved in the business world. The valueof art pieces was skyrocketing. Thai artists were perhaps selling
their souls to capitalists, businessmen, bankers and the nouveau
riche. The problem was the edited image that accompanied thenews piece. It was the statue of professor Silpa Bhirasri with aNA

Many years passed and you realized that it was just a mechanismof collective self-defense. Shutting others out. Hoping youʼdnever have to change yourselves. But that would be a matter for
the future.
Right now, weʼre using the future to talk about the past, maturity
to talk about innocence.
Our voices did mature. Weʼve lived long enough to understand all
9

11 A sentence ending particle denoting politeness in the Northern Thai dialect.
12 A pun, since the Thai word “rak” means “to love”, and “chao” can either mean“the monarchy” or serve as a polite ending particle.

13 In English, “to possess another body” or “to be possessed”.

ACT ONEart-house theaters, and pirate videos. Visual art is the same. If you
get too attached to the “great power” of our university in the art
world, youʼll be swallowed up by a new wave before you know it.
Dynamic art movements are already being born outside universities. Curators choose artists and pieces for projects. It isnʼt somefaraway notion anymore for a Thai artist to participate in the
Venice Biennale, Art Basel, or documenta. But itʼs a dream thatwill realize those new movements, ones this university doesnʼtnurture.

too well what things have decayed and died along the path of life.

SCENE 10
Conversation with a Friend / 1996
FRIENDThe last three years, actually six including three years of art
school, weʼve just been repeatedly training in our technique. But
we havenʼt learned anything about how to think critically.
Suppose, in the West one day, a sheet of music blown on the wind
sticks onto a canvas with a still-wet painting of a violin. Then,paintings start to become low relief with mixed media. They
begin to move into the empty air permeating an exhibition room,and eventually become installation art. Art work has shaken itself
off the frame, off the walls, and even out of museums. The
relationship between art and museums, art and community,
critique of government – all these are presented through works ofart. But in a place that doesnʼt recognize the relationship between
art and society, even the advent of outlandishly creative techniques merely serve as a desperate attempt to remain relevant
within the contemporary art scene – itʼs just useless affectation.
The content of the work hasnʼt changed at all. Juts your run-ofthe-mill moral ideologies or ideas of truth derived from Buddhist
thoughts like reincarnation, and the cycle of birth, aging, sickness
and death and whatever.

NA

Your group was invited to exhibit work for the first time as partof the “New Generation of Artists to Watch,” chosen by anemerging curator. It was an experience that had a huge impact on
you all. It was completely different from the traditions of youracademy, where as freshmen you had to walk behind the teachers
and upperclassmen, viewing the works in the gallery at the
opening of their art exhibitions.
KHAO SING

The other day in class the teacher mocked me. “Ah, here is thework of a great artist. Perhaps this classroom is too small for you.
You should have someone from outside evaluate your art, because
weʼre not sure you want to get your grades from us.”FRIENDI had something similar, too. “We have arrogant students like you
every year. Let me tell you, you arenʼt the first. Donʼt let it go toyour head.”

KHAO SING

True. In art thesis exhibitions by graduating students, and works
by the teachers exhibited in group shows, solo shows and annual
exhibits. Theyʼve been constantly and faithfully “reincarnating”.

KHAO SING

The other day, they asked me join the meeting to plan for the next“Freshmen Welcoming”. I turned them down.

FRIENDFRIENDI bet they werenʼt happy.

In Thai art, the goal of education and the goal for future artists isalways to move towards the Buddhist philosophy of goodness
and beauty. The cause and effects of your actions, the idea ofreincarnation – they are all conveniently available in the universeof the Tripitaka14.

KHAO SING

Yeah. They said “You canʼt just shake your head and turn us
down. Youʼve got to offer some solutions.”

KHAO SINGFRIENDItʼs all rubbish. And itʼs time for the “Freshmen Welcoming”
again? Did you know theyʼve chosen three people from our class
to be this yearʼs Intimidators. Next year, when weʼre fourth-years,theyʼll be the ones with full power in determining how students
are inducted. I want nothing to do with it.

We should just get rid of that tradition altogether, itʼs unnecessary.
KHAO SING

Thatʼs what I said.

FRIENDFRIENDMe neither. I donʼt have time to sit and soak myself in the value
system here. I want to discover all the other possibilities. I want
to absorb as many stimuli as I can. Like alternative rock thesedays. Or films. There are more and more indie films and foreign
films to see. International film festivals at cultural centers,

And?
KHAO SING“Easy for you to say, asshole. Even if we donʼt do it, the next classwill. You think we can get rid of the hazing tradition by skipping
10

14 Literally “three baskets”, the Tripitaka are the collected sacred texts forming
the basis of Buddhism.

PRATTHANA ̶ A PORTRAIT OF POSSESSION
by Toshiki Okada

it one year?” I said freshies should have a choice in whether they
participate or not. The upperclassmen should only haze the ones
who want to participate.

KHAO SING

I donʼt think the artist is, though. He was my teacher before I
came here. He was pure and simple. He didnʼt chase fads.

FRIENDRAKCHAO

But he was already in the club. As are you. Youʼre a homo too,arenʼt you?

Let me guess what they said. “Everyone has to be treated equally.”
KHAO SING

Exactly. “How are freshies who are hazed and those who arenʼt
supposed to live together? Just think about it! Think!” Motherfuckers. My headʼs splitting.

KHAO SING

What about you, Rakchao? Youʼre the experienced one.
RAKCHAO

To me, gender doesnʼt matter. I just enjoy holding and being held.

NA

You advanced to your fourth year. You applied for the Student
Loan Fund which started the same year that Banharn Silpa-archa
became Prime Minister. The fund was approved. As soon as thefirst installment appeared in your bank account you moved out ofyour pigeon hole on the university campus and into a flat with amodest monthly rent.

KHAO SING

With the people you choose. Not just anyone, right?
RAKCHAO

This part of you. Youʼre always contrary. The way you argue andquestion everything in the world, dissecting your own feelings.
KHAO SING

What about it?
SCENE 11RAKCHAO

Wa r e e C o m e s t o K h a o S i n g ʼ s R o o m / 2 0 1 6Youʼre like someone who loves taking a watch apart. You love it
and youʼre good at it, but you canʼt build one yourself. If theschool had an art theory major, Iʼm certain youʼd be the top
student.

NA

Waree came to your room. To model for your art work.

KHAO SING

But doesnʼt any artistic process, at its foundation, necessitate
thinking? Ideas take the lead in walking and guiding the methodology and the process in the same direction. Close your eyes andwalk in whichever direction you feel. When you open your eyes,
you find yourself in a new, unfamiliar place, even though theinstincts that led there you were only habit and skill. Even though
the direction was conceived with your eyes closed. You may
believe your path was a straight one, but in reality you may havebeen walking round and round in circles.

Posture and the Body in Art History 1996
NA

Posture and the body in the history of art. Portraying life inmovement has been a challenge since ancient Greece. In sculpture
and painting, where the form of presentation is stillness, life isrealized when movement in transition between one action andthe next is captured and portrayed as a posture with twists andcontortions.
Like this 100 x 140 centimeter oil painting. It was the figure of
you that your teacher drew. A naked body reclining, its backpressed against a boulder. One leg was bent with knee up,
covering your groin. The upper body twisted toward the gazer
nearby. One arm was raised to block the sunlight filtering throughvarious flora overhead. A posture of Greek-style beauty set
against the background landscape of Southeast Asia.

RAKCHAO

Just go and major in art theory already.
(KHAO SING and RAKCHAO gradually draw closer together.)
KHAO SING

Tell me – you want touch, love, warmth, so why give freshies the
opposite?
Why are you participating in the exact opposite process?

I n F r o n t o f t h e Te a c h e r ʼ s P a i n t i n g / 1 9 9 6(RAKCHAO is holding a notebook.)

RAKCHAO

There are different processes of arriving at love, warmth andtouch, arenʼt there?

RAKCHAO

So homosexual.
11

ACT ONE

Cigarette butts, bus tickets, restaurant receipts, beer bottle caps,
coasters, coins, torn posters, tissue stained with something brown
like blood. All these were taped into RAKCHAOʼs notebook.
Most of the book had sketches. Self-portraits and animals ofsome sort. A crow, a black cat, caterpillars and worms. Or eyes of
weird shapes from the darkest and deepest parts underground or
the deep sea.

KHAO SING

Even when thereʼs already a direct path which is simple andrequires absolutely no digging for other convoluted processes?
RAKCHAO

Wonʼt you leave any room for complexity at all? The mysterious
world where dichotomy lives, where words and actions contradict?

Khao Sing Critiques Rakchao / 1996
(The two of them are now extremely close.)
KHAO SING

Youʼre using those strange deep sea creatures again?

RAKCHAO

Whatever experience you get yourself involved in. One thattransforms you to be part of it. Without any understanding, youwalk into it. You pass through it and leave still without any
understanding. Do you always have to make everything so clearlyreadable and completely comprehensible?

RAKCHAO

How can you tell?
KHAO SING

You always do. Why is it always bizarre creatures with twisted
shapes, some hundred eyes and a thousand legs, segmented bodies
that extend and shrink, soft and disgusting, referencing male andfemale genitalia?

(KHAO SING embraces RAKCHAO passionately. Their lips
crush one anotherʼs. RAKCHAO lightly pushes him away.)
RAKCHAO

Fine. Explain this phenomenon in a comprehensible way, then.
Shed light on it. Like you always do.

RAKCHAO

Theyʼre symbols. Representations.

(KHAO SING takes the notebook RAKCHAO is holding.)

KHAO SING

Of what?
KHAO SING

Whatʼs this?

RAKCHAORAKCHAO

Of dichotomy. Beauty and ugliness, love and desire, happinessand a sad, depressed state.

KHAO SING

And they look like these sea creatures?

RAKCHAO

Everyoneʼs imaginary creatures are different.

My notebook, obviously.
KHAO SING

Can I look inside?
RAKCHAO

Do you want to?
KHAO SING

Why imagine, then? An imagined creature is only a mediocre
symbol so itʼs easy for people to understand. For example, during
one particular period in time, the crow was used by artists as asymbol for the angel of death, death itself, or taking or being
deprived of life. That was because at that time there were plagues,
and crows were seen circling in the sky waiting to eat carcasses.
Now, how is the crow a symbol of death in your contemporary
art work? Does it relate directly to your own memory or experiences? If not, youʼre only borrowing second-hand experiencesfrom other artists like Louise Bourgeois and Francesco Clemente.

(RAKCHAO tries to take her notebook back. KHAO SING
raises the hand that holds the notebook high behind him,beyond her reach.)
KHAO SING

Can I look inside?
RAKCHAO

Go ahead.

Rakchaoʼs Notebook / 1996

RAKCHAO

Are you done lecturing me? Go and do your own work.
NA

12

PRATTHANA ̶ A PORTRAIT OF POSSESSION
by Toshiki Okada

have it together.
We were together for quite a long time. We went from being 4th
to 5th year students. Throughout our university years, the prime
minister changed repeatedly over a short period of time. From
Chuan Leekpai to Banharn Silpa-acha, then General Chavalit
Yongchaiyudh and Chuan Leekpaiʼs 2nd term. Then the Tom
Yum Kung economic crisis happened. In the Buddhist year 254015
the Constitution of Thailand was enacted. And our relationshipcame to an end.

KHAO SING

Iʼd say you should spend more time on the body in your work.
Just you and your body on the canvas are enough.
(KHAO SING leaves.)

SCENE 12
Pager / 1996

The End of Love / 1997

(Suedeʼs Wild Onesʼ plays.)(KHAO SING embraces RAKCHAO from behind.)
NA

KHAO SING

At night, your pager would go off.
“Sleep as much as you want but donʼt forget to dream about me. /Rakchao”“ Wild Onesʼ by Suede before bed and when you wake up. /Rakchao”“Havenʼt seen you all day. Call me. / Rakchao”“Thereʼs something in front of your room. Open the door andtake a look. / Rakchao”

Your work has come so far over this last year. “I like touch. I justenjoy holding and being held.” Where have those feelings gone?
RAKCHAO

People have to mature. Time is limited. We have to move forward
to the next step in life.
KHAO SING

What I donʼt understand is that youʼve begun to vilify that clear
sense of self-appreciation. The self-admiring kind of beauty inyour work. Youʼve been influenced so heavily by Buddhist
ideologies. From a religious standpoint, happiness becomes
sinful. To live is ever being out of balance. The colors havedrained. Now thereʼs only white, black, grey and red. Do you
really think that the body is sin and the joy of intimacy and touch
is fleeting, that itʼs merely the vicious cycle of sexual desire? Is it
not that youʼve been told so by a louder, more powerful voice, andyouʼve surrendered to being ruled and suppressed by that power?

(KHAO SING finds a gift and picks it up. He opens it, Thereʼsa Polaroid camera inside.)“A camera. Polaroid. But... what for?”“For taking photos of me or whatever, silly! Itʼs a birthday
present.”“Thereʼs one more. Open the door, silly.”(RAKCHAO is standing in front of the door. KHAO SING andRAKCHAO embrace tightly and kiss.)

RAKCHAO

Sing, you canʼt be stuck thinking like that forever. I canʼt spin mywheels like you, wanting to get somewhere but not going
anywhere.

Fire Reignites / 1996
NA

The salty taste of her sweat. Her hair had an artificial scent. The
smell of the orange air freshener from the taxi sheʼd ridden in tocome to see you.

KHAO SING

How so?
RAKCHAO

I have to graduate. My advisor says this kind of idea guarantees
that I will graduate. Why do you have to debate every single word
and just prolong time? What do you get from doing all this?

(The two move their bodies more passionately. They are soonon the ground. RAKCHAO and KHAO SING take pictures ofeach other in various poses with the Polaroid camera.)(RAKCHAO breaks away from Khoasingʼs embrace frombehind, turns around and embraces him.)NA

We fucked like crazy, and did it everywhere.
Of course there were also times of rest – when she had her
period, when she didnʼt feel well. Things got swollen from too
much sex. She even gave me herpes. Iʼm sorry I gave it to you. Her
voice was sad. Why are you apologizing? I said. We may as well

RAKCHAO

If we split up, Sing, will you still be my friend? You know that the
picture of my life will always include you. But we never thought
13
15 1997

ACT ONEwonʼt enter into the arena of your family, lovers or friends. Like a
set-up for a porn film. Two people meet coincidentally. Theirmutual desire erupts. They fuck. Theyʼre done. No strings
attached.

that one day we would be married, have kids and make a family.
Right? We have each other for a certain period of time. Itʼs true
for this period of time, but not outside that.
NA

It was never asked in the first place whether, after getting into a
relationship, youʼd be together forever. Whether youʼd be willing
to be a father and start a family together. If it had been asked,
though, would you even have been with her at all? The fact thatshe didnʼt ask meant that, from the beginning, you werenʼt everthat person in her future. And if asked after the relationship had
begun, it would have been an insult. It would have meant that you
simply didnʼt have the capacity. You felt insulted because of what
you simply didnʼt have in you and never thought of becoming in
the first place.
And thatʼs how you still feel now.
She found a new lover. She graduated on schedule.
In the future, she would become a mother. She would put on
weight appropriate to her age, become picky and moody, distantfrom the world of art. She would import things from overseas tosell. Or she would be a well-off housewife of a husband with astable income from business. She would show off her darlingchildren on Facebook, and upload photos from wedding anniversary trips to Rome, Prague, Paris. She wouldnʼt talk about politics
but would wish for the country to return to the peaceful state ofyesteryear. That kind of life.

(KHAO SING takes gets a beer and pours it into a glass.)
KHAO SING

During the Asian economic crisis, Japanese porn VCDs spread
like wildfire. Japanese porn is different from that from the West,which only serves the male perspective, savage and coarse. It
totally transformed my perception of sex. What I hated mostwere scenes where the man would abruptly pull out and spurt his
cum on the womanʼs face. After ejaculating the man would shakethe cum off his cock. When even a drop landed on his hand you
could tell right then that he hated it, his own semen. He would
spread his fingers apart as if to avoid dirtying his middle finger
with the drop of cum on his forefinger.
WAREE

A person who dislikes his own cum is utterly unattractive.
KHAO SING

Thatʼs why Japanese porn was so satisfying for me. After
swallowing the cum, the woman would kiss the man, command
him to open his mouth, and she would spit whatever remained
into it. You have to take responsibility for the taste of your own
lust, of the apex of your happiness. I think thatʼs what she wastrying to say.

SCENE 13
(KHAO SING hands the beer he has been drinking to WAREE
and pushes him to take a sip.)D o n ʼ t T a l k A b o u t Yo u r L i f e / 2 0 1 6
KHAO SING

Porn

Not long after graduation I received a document envelope fromher. In it there were receipts for coffin donations. Redemption fora life lost. There had been “our” child.

NA

You loved to watch S&M porn videos where the man was tied up
and bound, his entire body wrapped tight with clear film. The
woman in a black leather outfit, whipping the man, at times
stroking him, administering pain and ecstasy. Except all thesethings should be happening in more ordinary circumstances. Men
who are made to beg, men who are punished, decency torn up.
Japanese pornos responded to these wishes better. Stories andtales that you are more familiar with. A shy and fragile girlexploding her long-subdued emotions on a bed . “Asian beauty.”
At first, you watched uncensored Japanese films. But gradually
you realized that the uncensored films had a fixed pattern – they
served the male-centric world of sex that wanted only to satisfy
itself and control the female body. Sky High, Dream Room, Tokyo
Hot, and Caribbeancom. Whatever the label, women were merely
string puppets of desire. The porn in the censored world wascompletely different, because there were so many different styles
and stories. The hot female teacher, the father-in-law getting

WAREE

What year was that?
KHAO SING

1998. The year of suffering.
WAREE

Thatʼs the year I was born. My mother raised me on her own. My
father divorced her before I was born. Thatʼs how I was raised.
My mother bought this condo and we lived here, the two of us...
KHAO SING

I donʼt need to know your life story. If you canʼt accept that
attitude, you are free to leave. Youʼre just a model, here to offer
your body to me. Iʼm just an artist.
I donʼt need bonding or compassion or caring for one another. I
14PRATTHANA ̶ A PORTRAIT OF POSSESSION
by Toshiki Okada

naughty with his sonʼs wife. A porn star and average Joe in theforest, etc. These were by labels like Ideapocket, SOD, E-Body,
and Maxing.
Within the social domain which men control and regulate, thesexual arena is the most fragile spot. Loyalty and betrayal in thesame member. Once it had discovered the fun and become
addicted to the pleasure, the rules, traditions and customs that
had weighed heavily, could be lightened. In reptilian fashion it
could even slither under the majestic walls of discipline that it
had built itself. Our sexual organ. Penis. Or to put it bluntly, cock.
It rises with the taboo, craving pleasure rather than the duty to
propagate. It ignores what the brain and heart say. It is rooted ininstinct. It rages in the moment of gushing desire, is oblivious to
the future, and never learns from history.
The cock of morality is thrust into women. Women are anointed
by the morality of this place, by the concepts of nation andmasculinity of this culture. The cock of morality which penetrates and anoints everything, and affixes its mark on everything
it attempts desperately to anoint. Woman shall bear child. Thosechildren shall be taught that they are born of the same father andshall feel indebted. All of Manʼs various cocks, therefore, arebodies possessed by the same cock of morality.

piercing ecstasy ran to your perineum, across your anus and up
your spine.
It ran spasmodically through your body that was now an endlesscircle. The deep pleasure shifted from your testicles to your cockand erupted before your eyes.
You splashed your own face.
In that moment, you were simultaneously the giver and thereceiver.
You were tossed beyond the galaxy and found the taste ofpleasure and pain within yourself.
You were flung beyond the world of culture, morality and societal
ethics.
Savage, naked, and repulsive. Such behavior without beauty or
aesthetics deserved condemnation.
But such a time and moment persists among people and society,and it has never disappeared, nor has it been defeated. It stands
audacious and defiant, waiting for the time when, with raucous
laughter, it knocks down the hypocrites who spout morality andwield sledgehammers.

(End of Act One)Beyond the Galaxy / Around 1992
NA

In art school you had to hide your desire from others. You lived ina dorm and didnʼt have a VCR. You satisfied your desire yourself.
A quiet, humid, intense afternoon. Your small dorm room becamea cube that the universe tossed into the void.
The afternoon sunlight and humid heat. The faint smell of yourown sweat. The smell of your joints, arms, armpits, and crotch.
You smelled them and were aroused. The tip of your finger
stroked the space between your testicles and your thighs, and you
smelled the warm, damp scent.
You stroked your stiff, erect shaft of flesh and then gripped it.
As the universe tossed your room far from the galaxy, a clear
syrupy drop brimmed out of the crown of your member. You
touched your forefinger to it then spread it around the head ofyour cock.
You slid the finger with a drop of clear liquid onto the embrace ofyour tongue, and tasted its flavorlessness.
You leaned your body lower, closer to the fleshy shaft.
Little by little you leaned back, readjusting your body.
Once extended to your fullest, you lifted your legs up in the air,until your head and toes pointed in the same direction.
Your back lifted further and hung in mid-air.
Craning your neck forward, your chin touched your chest.
You took a deep breath. You stretched both arms out, anchoring
your body in space like a tripod.
As you breathed deeply you grew aware of your increased
flexibility. Your lower body could draw closer to your upper body.
Your tongue touched your penis. From the tip of your cock, a
15

ACT ONEACT TWONAM

Not at all. Iʼm only working to support myself. I have to pay backthe loan on my bike. My bike is my only interest. I have no otherambitions.

SCENE 1
Yo u i n 2 0 0 1

KHAO SING

But with your potential... Whatʼs your name?
NA

Do you remember what kind of person you were in 2001? You,
when Thaksin Shinawatra had just become Prime Minister andthe countryʼs new foster father. You, when the government had
fully repaid the loans from the IMF ahead of schedule. You, when
the national healthcare system known as the “30-baht universal
healthcare” scheme was born.
Back then you were possessed by savagery.
You were working as a continuity supervisor for films. On set you
checked continuity from scene to scene, as the directorʼs second
pair of eyes. The position of assistant director was reserved for awoman whoʼd just graduated from NYU film school. A welloff “returnee”. Everyone called her Fa16. She had a condo in analley in Phrom Phong. She gave you “sweets”. That was what she
called cocaine. She used her ID card to cut two lines, and a straw
up one nostril to inhale it.

NAM

Nam18. Itʼs Nam.
KHAO SING

With your potential, Nam, you could go further. I want to make amovie of you, Nam.
KHAO SING

Nam rented an apartment in the slum along the railroad on RamaIX Road. The noise outside was raucous. But when the door andwindows were closed, it turned into a damp and cool world, justenough for one person. Some nights he came to my place. Weʼdlie around watching long, boring European movies and fallasleep, or watch vivid erotic films and talk about the difference
between porn and art films.
KHAO SING

Faʼs Room / 2001

I rode on the back of Namʼs bike and we filmed in empty lots,
private properties, and abandoned ruins. I wanted to makesomething Andrei Tarkovsky-esque. Nam drove his bike so fast I
was scared, but the speed made me come closer to him.

(FA and KHAO SING are dazed, high on cocaine.)
KHAO SING

A couple of years ago I loved going to the flea market at the
Carrefour parking lot. People would be selling their CDs or
clothes, or airline workers would be selling discount bottles of
perfume. Iʼd look around there and then go to Tsutaya17. I would
look for B-movies and other weird films and watch them at home,
so I could write reviews and publish them in the contemporary
cultural magazine that I was always writing for. I got to beacquaintances with a young man who was a staff member at
Tsutaya. Our first interactions were just general. “Do you want torent another video? Thereʼs a promotion now.” That kind ofthing. But gradually our conversations grew more curious. “Whyare you always watching strange old films?” heʼd ask.

(FA mimics the two riding a bike, pressing her butt into KHAO
SINGʼs crotch.)
FA

Like this?
KHAO SING

Yeah.
(KHAO SING embraces FA and smells her.)
KHAO SING

Back then I sometimes worked as an art director for commercials
and it was pretty good work. Whenever I did it a pretty healthy
sum would be deposited in my account. So I bought a newcomputer, installed some editing software and transferred thefootage I shot on my handicam to it. I tried editing it in my free
time. And that computer led us to the websites of lots of different
genres of porn. We were inspired by scandalous videos shot withhidden cameras. So we started going to department stores in thesuburbs. Iʼd heard that gays would secretly hook up in tuckedaway restrooms. Whenever two men disappeared into a private
stall in the restroom, we would sneak into the next stall and get
the camera rolling. I would climb on top of the toilet seat and(FA laughs strangely, under the influence of cocaine.)
KHAO SING

I wanted to make a film about him. So, I treated him to dinner at
a food court and turned my camera on him.
KHAO SING

Why are you working at a video store? You must like movies. I
mean, instead of choosing a full-time job, a real profession andincome. You must have a film-related interests or ambitions.

16

PRATTHANA ̶ A PORTRAIT OF POSSESSION
by Toshiki Okada

gently push the camera over. We were doing this repeatedly. And
then one day I was almost killed. These bathrooms had a lot ofholes in the walls. Once, an erect cock was pushed through one ofthese holes. I gestured to Nam that he should grab it and start
stroking it. Nam looked disgusted. But I thought it was anamazing chance for some great footage. In the end, it was me who
reached out and touched the strange member, and filmed it.
On our way back, Nam drove even faster than normal. He wasenraged, and looking back at me he yelled, “Why the hell are we
filming all this? What did you touch that cock for!?”At that moment, the bike lost balance. I was thrown from myembrace, flung away and slammed into the road. The momentum
carried me skidding down the asphalt. I could see the headlights
of another car approaching. I thought it was going to crush andsplit me open. But the car suddenly braked. I continued tobreathe. And so, living on, the pain gradually began to filter in.
Nam dragged me to the side of the road. He had only sufferedsome scratches. The bike was okay too. But my whole body felt
wrenched, and there were huge grazes on my arms, legs, andsides. Blood and pus oozed out, and large swaths of skin flapped
open.

KHAO SING

About you, Nam. It was a nice dream. We were riding a bike
together.
NAM

In the dream...were you hard like you usually are?
KHAO SING

Nam, are you high?
KHAO SING

It wasnʼt like the “sweets” we do now. It was yaba. The drug oflaborers, crooks, delinquent kids. You know it?
FAIʼve heard of it. The current government is heavily criminalizing
it.
KHAO SING

Itʼs gotta be the “sweets”. The pores on your face are so clear. And
your eyes are at a greater depth than your nose. Your ears are atan even greater depth than your eyes.

FA(KHAO SING touches FAʼs face. He is going to grasp her neckand kiss her, but she strikes first with a heated kiss.)

Write a screenplay of it.
KHAO SING

Oh, thereʼs more.

FA

When you want to fuck someone, donʼt you care at all whetheritʼs a man or a woman, or what kind of personality, ideology, taste
or ideals they have?

Khao Sing Recovers in His Room / 1999
(KHAO SING is lying down on his back in his room.)

KHAO SING

Anything goes. The body communicates so much through sex.
You can exchange trust through naked bodies.

KHAO SING

I continued my recovery alone in my apartment. I drew on every
last ounce of strength to crawl through my day-to-day life. I
managed to write my column and submit it via email during theday. At night I lay down and slept to the sound of blood flowing
through the inflamed parts of my body. One night I heard a
strange noise. A child crying. Then it turned into the meowing ofa cat. As the night went on the sound crept closer. This kept
happening again and again until late one night I heard themeowing next to my ear. When I tried to turn to look, I foundthat my body was frozen, as if I were paralyzed. Then the soundtook shape. The head of a cat and the body of a baby. It was lying
flat across my chest. I tried to resist but it was no use. It was at
this age that I learned for the first time what it was like toexperience Pee Am.

FA

I think so too. If I want to know whether I could be withsomeone, I have to sleep with them first. I wonʼt do things theway my parentsʼ generation did. We have to get out of the
expectation that everyone gets married and has babies.
(KHAO SING takes FA to the chair and pushes her down into
it, then he removes her shorts.)
KHAO SING

When doing it with Nam, the missionary position is the mostdifficult. Our genitals get in the way. Itʼs as if two intimate souls
canʼt find connection at the physical level.
I thought that if I were on the receiving end I could draw Nam
closer to me. Thatʼs why I asked to go back to his apartment in
the slum.
I lay on my back on the mattress, opened my legs, bent my knees
and grabbed tightly onto my ankles. I tried to relax as much as I
could. Namʼs cock pushed into me.

(Nam comes close to KHAO SING.)
NAM

You were really struggling in your sleep. What were you dreaming about?
17
16 Fa, from the Thai word for “sky”.
17 A well-known chain of video rental shops.

18 Nam, from the Thai word for “water”.
19 Literally “crazy drug”, a combination of stimulants. mainly caffeine andmethamphetamine.

ACT TWO

army with love for having chased off a demon.
Were you conscious of the political situation at the time? Not atall. You never liked politicians in the first place. In the life of anartist, it is best to avoid people of this species.
But if politicians and businessmen approached you humbly to
buy an art work from you, thatʼs a different story. If they handed
you a blank check, or offered to be a patron, if that were the casethen it would be okay to meet with them and discuss it.

The noises outside aroused my passion. The sound of a chicken
pecking at something on the ground. The noise of a child runningand crying out loud. Muffled voices talking outside the room.
“This is a search,” said a voice pursuing some gang.
I held Nam tight. “Come,” I said. “Come, letʼs show the cops how
we fuck.” Nam started moving his hips fast and hard. Then weheard some loud noises – bang, bang, bang. It was nothing to be
surprised about. It was the sound of a gun. A real gun. Not somechildʼs toy. Bang bang bang bang. Just outside the cops killed akid selling drugs. Namʼs cum spurted inside me. Sperm dies assoon as it comes out. My anus relaxed as if Iʼd just defecated.

But that would never happen to you, since you had turned 30
years old and still didnʼt have a single piece of worthwhile art.

FA

Youʼve got to make this story into a film.
SCENE 3
Borrowing from Future Happiness / 2005
SCENE 2NA

Shooting a Threesome / 2005

In the middle of the night FA was standing on the veranda,
absent-mindedly, in her underwear. She stuck her head over theedge and looked out, then traced her gaze down to the ground.
People who can do that are so brave, she said. She admired andrespected people whoʼd made up their minds to do it. The scentof evaporating drugs emanated from FAʼs body, from her skin.
Her body started to give away the remnants of taking “sweets.”“Borrowing happiness from the future.”
One day she went into the shower room and stayed in there for
too long.
You broke the door open to find her sitting on the floor in a daze.
Blood was flowing from one of her arms, diluted in the water.
The gash gaped open revealing white tissue underneath. Her
other hand still gripped the multi-purpose knife. The knife that
had gone rusty from use, helping to put “sweets” up her nose.

(In FAʼs room. FA, NAM and KHAO SING. FA holds a
handicam and shoots NAM. KHAO SING flatters NAM bycalling him the “leading actor”. FA teases NAM, whoʼs beenstanding frozen, that heʼs as stiff as a log in front of thecamera. FA is clearly behaving bizarrely. The camera doesnʼtlike me. NAM excuses himself. FA keeps provoking NAM. Are
you going to be shit-scared in front of the camera, or are you
going to fight it? What do you want to do right now? FA
continues provoking NAM. NAM kisses FA. How do you two
kiss? Do it in front of the camera, says FA. KHAO SING and
NAM kiss. FA continues to push them to reveal their desire in
front of the camera. And then it turns into a threesome.)
NA

Thaksin, the hero on a white horse four years ago, had now
transformed into a power-crazed devil. He hid stock ownership,committed policy corruption and cronyism, and canceled TV
shows that opposed his government. Four years of his term had
passed, and it was election time. The Thai Ruk Thai Party
garnered 19 million votes, and Thaksin returned for his secondterm.
One year in, in February 2006, Thaksin Shinawatra declared thedissolution of Parliament. There were protests on the streets
demanding Thaksinʼs exile. Every week there was public
discussion on the issues of fraud, privatization of public services,
illegal pay-offs, and corruption at Suvarnabhumi International
Airport. Thaksinʼs definition of democracy became Parliamentary dictatorship. Thaksinʼs evil sorcery had to be dismantled. We
had to halt the election, one of the forms of democracy.
On September 19, 2006, Army Commander Sondhi Boonyaratgalin staged a coup dʼétat as the head of the Council for Democratic
Reform, and exiled Thaksin. The people flooded the streets andplaced flowers in the muzzles of soldiersʼ rifles, showering theVideo Leak 2006
NA

The video you shot in the department store bathroom leaked
onto underground website communities. It spread through theworld in an instant. It was categorized as Asian, amateur, orvoyeur, and tagged with Thai, gloryhole, and handjob.
NAM

At first, a man I didnʼt know kept coming back to the video store.
He signaled to me with a dirty look. And the other day, anotherman started up a conversation with me in the bathroom andasked if I was the guy in the video? He took a laptop out of his
bag and showed me that heʼd saved the video. He offered to delete
the video if I let him touch my cock.

18

PRATTHANA ̶ A PORTRAIT OF POSSESSION
by Toshiki Okada

SCENE 4

KHAO SING

My computer had a virus. I took it to an IT mall to get fixed, andthis is what happened.

PA D 20 P r o t e s t / 2 0 0 6

NAM

NA

Itʼs not fair that Iʼm the only one whoʼs fucking humiliated.

You went to an assembly at FAʼs invitation. Her friends weregoing to perform in front of about a thousand people. Letʼs go to
support them. There would be Phua Chiwit21, country, modern
Thai music, and even DJs. There would be some theatre and somepolitical Chinese opera performances. Sondhi Limthongkul was
also slated to give an overnight speech about the Thaksinʼs evils.
Friends from film and music, and celebrities would also be there.
It was a Peopleʼs Alliance for Democracy protest in front ofSanam Luang22.

KHAO SING

It was meant to be part of our movie. It was supposed to beframed within an artistic environment and elements. The video
was stolen and now itʼs ended up somewhere it doesnʼt belong,and been turned into something worthless, shameful, andscandalous. But you yourself, Nam, you are not worthless or
shameful.
NAM

KHAO SING

You used me. You fucking tricked me with nice words and empty
promises.

The fact that we participated in todayʼs gathering means the twoof us are part of the Thaksin opposition, right?

KHAO SING

FA

No one can really be used by another person.

Yeah, we are.

NAM

KHAO SING

You have to get that video off that fucking site! If you canʼt, Iʼllhold it against you til the day I die.

So, does that make us part of PAD?
FA

No.

KHAO SING

Thereʼs no air here. It reeks of yaba. Youʼre still doing it?

KHAO SING

Why not? We shouted their slogans and even bought theirT-shirts and scarves.

NAM

Iʼm not important anymore.
KHAO SING

FA

Donʼt say that.

We came to support our friends. We bought those because we
wanted to support our friendsʼ designs.
NAM(FA and KHAO SING kiss.)

Can you swallow my cum?
(KHAO SING nods.)

NA

Kissing in a dark alley. Youʼd done this before with someone.
At the demonstration, you caught sight of the Poet. You saw her
on the other side of the barricade where the security guards were.
She wore a yellow scarf around her neck that said “Save thecountry” and she was wearing yellow wristbands. She hadchanged. Her body was broader, and she was fuller in the cheeks
and under the chin. Thereʼs no one who doesnʼt change. Even
your body isnʼt the same anymore.
Later, you read several thought pieces she had written online.
“Thaksin has created evil successors and is expanding his power.
Warriors who gaze upon the light, let us steal their light andmake them blind. Throw every one of them into hell, and letthem burn to the ground.” Her once beautiful poetry was nomore. But she was celebrated and popular.

NAM

Can I film it?
KHAO SING

Stop using drugs. The more you use them, the more you want tohurt yourself. You should live your own life. Do you understand?
(NAM exits the room.)

Nam Destroys Khao Singʼs Room / 2006
(NAM in KHAO SINGʼs room. He takes the desk, bookshelf,
video tape storage shelves, CDs, destroys them and trashes theroom.)
19
20 Peopleʼs Alliance for Democracy, more commonly known as the Yellow Shirts,
was a Thai political movement and pressure group. It was originally a coalition ofprotesters against former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Its membershipconsisted mainly of ultra-royalist middle-class and working-class Bangkok
residents and anti-Thaksin Southerners, supported by some factions of the Thai
Army, some leaders of the Democrat Party, and members of the state-enterpriselabor unions.
21 A type of Thai folk music, strongly influenced by Western folk and rock musicwith a protest theme mainly centered on the hardship of working-class people
and in favor of a democratic political system.
22 A large open field and public square near the historic center of Bangkok,
famously used for large public gatherings and events.

Namʼs Death / 2006

KHAO SING

Letʼs go back to my place and do this. Letʼs go crazy inside, in thesoft yellow light.

NA“Do I love you?” Try jerking the handlebars and flipping the bike.

Launch us into the air. Letʼs go. Doesnʼt matter where.
Then, the young man put you on his bike, gripped the handlebars,
and rode off fast and with aggression. Standing in the middle ofthe cable-stayed bridge, over the dark and thick Chao Phraya
River, you held hands, embraced each other, and kissed. Donʼt slip
away. Life has its challenges and troubles to get through. In thatmoment, the young man rushed across the footpath, jumped overthe crash barriers, and standing there flashed you a satisfied smile.
And bang! Life rang out loud.

A r e Yo u H u r t ? / 2 0 0 6(KHAO SING and FA return to KHAO SINGʼs room. Itʼs now
completely trashed. NAM is there.)NAM

I did it. Are you hurt?
FA

What happened? Why are you so drunk?
(She reaches towards NAMʼs shoulder.)(Video of KHAO SING interviewing NAM.)
NA

Seen in a recording, one appears more significant than in reality.

NAM(Twisting away from her.)Donʼt try to be nice to me.
SCENE 5KHAO SING

Donʼt say that, Nam.
After Nam Died / 2006
NAM

I went to see him. The guy who said heʼd erase the video.

KHAO SING

Iʼll tell you what happened to Fa and me after that.
One day, we were at a party at someoneʼs condo. Suddenly there
was a blackout, and the police came to search the place. It wasnʼtlike we were doing drugs on the sly at a club or in the slums. We
should have been able to party all night without anyone reportingus. We were in the type of condo where the rich and famous live,
surrounded by the upper echelons of the art and entertainment
industries. We were supposed to be the most protected by thatinvisible armor. Not like those that are easily shot to death in thealleys in the slum.

KHAO SING

Why would you do a thing like that?
NAM

You wouldnʼt do it so I had to find someone who would.
KHAO SING

That wasnʼt the right thing to do.
NAM

Whatʼs right is what you, and only you, say is right, isnʼt it? You
tell me to love you, to wait, to calm down, to begin a new life, tostop using drugs, but what about you? Youʼre doing what youʼvealways done. I was desperate so I got drunk and went to that guyʼsplace. I told him to do it, to erase the video. That if there wassomething he wanted, he could have it, all of it. Are you hurt bywhat I did? The video is gone. He deleted it right in front of me.
But a few days later he posted a new video. He shot the two of us
fucking. So? Are you hurt now?

Fa was taken into police custody. She finally gave in and called
her parents. Her father contacted his friends and colleagues,
those indebted to him at one point or another. The chain ofphone calls finally came back to the local police chief. The story
ended up being that the party had disturbed the neighbors. Fa
returned to her family home, under her parentsʼ supervision.
While Fa was with her family, she sometimes went to rehab at her
fatherʼs instructions, and other times she went with her motherto sutra recitations to exorcise demons. When I called her, shesaid “They chant the sutras so vindictively and incessantly. Itʼs
impossible to bear the sound without losing your mind. We
cannot go on living, when hope is merely a word of consolation.”Iʼll come and take you away.
“Sing, do you have a passport?” Iʼll get one. The week after, my
passport arrived. I wanted to tell her, but I couldnʼt reach her.
After some time, she called me. It was around 11pm. She wascalling at 11:12am from Central Park. Come over, Sing. Come live

KHAO SING

I am hurt, Nam. Iʼm really sad.
NAM

Do you still love me at all?

20

PRATTHANA ̶ A PORTRAIT OF POSSESSION
by Toshiki Okada

with me. Iʼll take you to MoMA and the Guggenheim.
I probably wonʼt go back. To the place where I canʼt be myself.
Like thereʼs always someone who owns me. Iʼm not going to feelbad about myself for this... how Iʼve chosen whatʼs good for me.
Your body was sent back to your home province, and the funeralat the temple lasted for three days. Then you were burned in afire, became smoke, and disappeared into the sky. But anotherform of you is still dancing in the archives of the carnal world,
arousing every time someone presses play.

NA

Your mouth is shut so you canʼt speak.
That would happen again.
Dangling down [something unspoken]. Claiming and using[something unspoken]. All for [something unspoken]. The ultimate,
hideous stunt, somehow seen as beautiful only through contortions against all constraints, and resulting in a deformed body.
The aesthetics of compulsion. The impossible is distorted into
the possible just to answer the desires of a specific group ofpeople.
(The performers, each taking strange distorted poses, lie downon the ground. They are performing corpses.)

SCENE 6In Flames / 2011

NA

Just like when the handsome, dandy, middle-aged gentleman
from Oxford named Abhisit Vejjajiva became prime minister. He
established a new government within the protective shields ofthe military. A coalition party of the previous government
defected. Their long mutual disgust didnʼt matter when the party
in question shamelessly joined the coalition with the new government.

NA

There was an article that the Poet wrote for a news site.
The coup dʼétat got rid of Thaksin, drafted a new constitution
and even used the judicial system to limit the civil rights ofparty leaders. Yet that party has returned for another term bymeans of an election. By means of an evil democracy. By meansof the parliamentary dictatorship. By means of abolishment
conspiracy. By the people from Isan23 and the north. Bigoted,
ignorant, stupid and easily bought. We chased the specter ofThaksin away many times. Samak Sundaravej and Somchai
Wongsawat. We even blockaded the airport. And yet he still
returned. He returned with the woman prime minister
Yingluck Shinawatra. We have to make it known that light isbeing eroded by darkness. We must be each otherʼs eyes andears. We shall imprison them, lynch them, and destroy their
entire kind.
That article received many comments in enthusiastic agreement.
You reminisced. That posture that you yearned for as a youngman. The seam whose stitches drew the thighs together down the
middle. Nestled in the middle of the Poetʼs body back then.
You wrote a comment. “If you insist that this is something thattranscends everything, I donʼt think itʼs right to cling on to it inorder to support your own position.”
Soon the meaning behind that comment was questioned. “Whatdo you mean by thisʼ? Could you please elaborate.”
Your account was investigated and your real name was revealed
and reviled.
In the cold, frozen online world, we are dried black and burnt toa crisp. Our shattered remains are scattered all over the world,whether itʼs the physical world, the spiritual world or the online
world. And it disgusts others. Your emotions had forgotten all
conscience and reason. Just like when the bike lost its balanceand spun violently on the road. They wanted your blood to run.
This had happened once before.
Dragged across the grass lawn. Hanged from a tamarind tree.
A shoe was shoved into the mouth of your soulless body.
(A throng of people surround KHAO SING. They recreate thephotograph taken in October 1976, of a man being hanged
from a tree and a crowd of people looking on, laughing.)

There Is No Politics in Beauty
NA

There is no politics at all in beauty. You may have thought that.
But beauty has the power to impress, dazzle, and transform us.
You may despise the ideologies of both the red and the yellow24.
Staying in opposition. And yet you followed the beauty of the
opposition both on Facebook and Instagram.

SCENE 7
A Tied-Up Desire / 2016
NA

Once the young man said to you, “You wonʼt even touch me. How
can an artist fully capture something when he hasnʼt experienced
it in any way other than through sight?” But touch would be thebeginning of the end. If you touched his body with your hand,next youʼd touch his mouth, and then you would be fucking. And
that would give way to awkward feelings. You wouldnʼt see eachother the same way anymore.
(WAREE is in a white T-shirt and underwear only. He wears
black-framed glasses. KHAO SING grabs both of WAREEʼshands, pulls them apart, and straddles him.)
KHAO SING

A ruddy face. I once had a face like that. Now Iʼve simply become
21

23 The northeast of Thailand.
24 Refers to the two bitterly divided camps that have for years driven sporadic
protests in Thailand. The red-shirts are formally known as the United Front for
Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), and consist mainly of rural workers,

left-wing activists, and pro-democracy supporters, while the yellow-shirts is aloose grouping of royalists, ultra-nationalists and the urban middle class, also
known as the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD).

ACT TWO

disinterested in everything. My face is rough, its surface dull. My
skin has drooped, giving into gravity. My eyes, once white, arenow stained like smoke. It wonʼt be long before I get cataracts.
Like when you see a photo of an old person with eyes clouded
white.

deep desire to be tied down into controlling and giving others
orders. But deep down, youʼre just giving orders to yourself.
KHAO SING(He releases his grip on the young man.)Youʼre the one who approached me

WAREE

You pin others down and crucify them and keep them from doing
what they desire.

WAREE

You approached me, pretending I approached you.
(WAREE touches the scar on the crook of KHAO SINGʼs arm
with his forefinger. Then, he traces it with his tongue, lightly
sucking on it. KHAO SING lets WAREE do as he pleases.)

KHAO SING

You have the right to do it to others. Anyone.
WAREE

But not to you. The forbidden body.
The Gradual Disintegration of the Flesh
KHAO SING(KHAO SING gently takes WAREEʼs arm and leans him backoff the sofa, so he hangs upside down. He lifts WAREEʼs otherarm and places it on his forehead, as if to block the sunlight. It
is the same pose he took when he pleasured himself on therock on the riverbed that afternoon. KHAO SING positions
his body in between WAREEʼs legs, sitting with his knees up.
With his forefinger, he traces from his collarbone to his chest
ever so lightly, stopping at the nipple. Then he lays his face into
WAREEʼs chest.)

The body of diseases and deterioration.
WAREE

Why donʼt you let me have a taste? To see whether you are what
you feel about yourself.
(KHAO SING shakes his head.)
WAREE

You have me in all the ways that you wish. My coming to modelfor you. My falling into your desire.

NA

You listen to the sound of the young manʼs stomach twist andsecrete the acid that eats away his stomach walls. Would Wareedevelop gastritis if nothing is done about this?

KHAO SING

No, not all.

You want something so badly that youʼre stressed out. So badly
you go out of your mind. By the time you finally have it, your life
is ruined.
You will remain lying down like this, pressing your face into thischest, burning up this aged breath in a bosom at its full glory. The
gradual disintegration of the flesh. Every day you rinse your nosewith salt water praying that it might help soften the noise of yourbreath.
Grab the desire and put it in a body. No love involved. Onceyouʼre satisfied, you finish up and leave. You insist to others thatitʼs only to quench your thirst.
Thatʼs how you want it to be.

WAREE

In fact, youʼre not any different from a moralist or a eunuch.
Always talking about it but never actually doing it.
KHAO SING

Iʼve done it all before.

WAREE

So what? Youʼre satisfied by yearning but not touching. I can see
you desire to be tied down, blindfolded and for your body to be
immobile. You want something that you canʼt see to come andtaste your flesh, letting yourself be done to, in whichever way it
wants. So you wonʼt feel guilty of the restrictions or limits youʼve
set up for yourself if you fall into the state of being tied down
and helpless.

Massage / 2016 = The Feet / 2010
(KHAO SING lifts his face away from WAREEʼs chest. He sitson his knees in between WAREEʼs spread legs.)

KHAO SING

Interestingly put.

(KHAO SING grasps one of WAREEʼs legs with both hands.
He bends the knee and pushes it towards the model. He takes
WAREEʼs foot in his hands.)

WAREE

But itʼs me who hasnʼt pushed that far. I see you translate your22

PRATTHANA ̶ A PORTRAIT OF POSSESSION
by Toshiki Okada

(KHAO SING turns the sole of WAREEʼs foot towards him,
then massages it with both thumbs.)

supporting WAREE in that position.)
KHAO SING

Are you embarrassed?

KHAO SING

Does it feel good?
WAREE

A little.

WAREE

How come you know how to give a massage?
KHAO SING

Because you only take this position secretly, when youʼre alone?

KHAO SING

Iʼm just making it up.
Tension and strain is inevitable for the foot.

WAREE

Itʼs a little embarrassing for someone else to put me in thisposition. Itʼs a helpless pose.

NA

The foot touches dirty, filthy things. Itʼs used in behavior that
expresses an uncaring attitude.
The butt of the cigarette youʼve smoked is thrown on the ground,crushed underfoot and kicked into the sewer.
You step on the face of someone you hate.
Bacteria and dirt buried in the nails and between the toes.
Repeatedly beaten with pressure, the foot grows stubborn andapathetic.
Itʼs a tough and sturdy body part. Its beauty lies in weatheredcoarseness. It has perseverance, and is, on the other hand, an
explosive outlet when perseverance reaches its limit.

KHAO SING

You know what Iʼm going to make you do?
WAREE

Youʼre going to make me suck myself.
(KHAO SING stretches WAREEʼs legs even further and places
his feet on sofa behind his head. KHAO SING leans his face inclose to the young manʼs. He reaches both arms underneath
WAREEʼs armpits, and lifts the young man up into his
embrace.)

KHAO SING

In anatomy class I learned that the size of someoneʼs foot is about
the same as the size of their face. When we draw the human body,
we adhere to those proportions for the accuracy of our picture.

NA

A bullet is shot from an unseen spot. M79 grenades fall on theoffices of a newspaper, power poles, and elsewhere. All the feetthat are targeted and shot at. Oppressed, tortured feet whose
intentions are crushed again and again, whose mouths are
stopped. They crawl low, desperately and frantically, trying toescape and survive. Canʼt die. Have to go home to see the wifeand children. Promised to come home with dinner. Even preparedwhat to say if questioned on arriving home: “Just wanted tocheck out the protest.” Havenʼt bought dinner yet. Have to hurry
now. And suddenly, consciousness is lost. No need to buy dinner
now. No need to work hard to make a living anymore. Let the
body be just a body. The spirit has been set free, there is nosadness.
This society doesnʼt care who comes or goes.
It only cares about those who are still here.
And its remembrance for those whoʼve gone is always prescripted– remembrance which never taints it with any responsibility.

(KHAO SING brings the sole of WAREEʼs foot to his cheek.)
KHAO SING

But the foot will never transform into the face or even take its
place.
You canʼt interchange the foot for the face. Or can you?
The feet make their living with perseverance, in order to provide
the arms, hands and face with comfort and happiness.
They remain the foundation for a tall, majestic tower. At times
they seek a little kindness from the top of the lighthouse. Wonʼt
you pass down some joy and gratitude the way you press down
your weight on them? You canʼt be so cruel as to only press downon them with your status and duty. Or can you?
(KHAO SING grabs both of WAREEʼs legs, straightens them,and aims the feet towards the ceiling. WAREE feels the entire
back of his legs stretched tight.)

Big Cleaning Day / 2010

(After a while, KHAO SING bends WAREEʼs body so that his
feet frame his face. WAREEʼs butt is now very close to KHAO
SINGʼs face.)(KHAO SING sniffs WAREEʼs neck.)
KHAO SING

Did you go out on the Big Cleaning day?

(KHAO SING draws his body close to WAREEʼs arched back,23

ACT TWOKHAO SING

See this brownish yellow skin? No abdominal muscles whatsoever. Just a lump of fat enveloping the belly.

WAREE

Why do you ask? Do my clothes smell of detergent? Werenʼt youat the PAD stage too?

(KHAO SING slightly sucks in his tummy. He runs his hand up
through the thin body hair that covers the area below his
navel.)KHAO SING

Yeah.
WAREE

KHAO SING

This country was being burned and destroyed. There was trash
everywhere. How could you let it happen and not do something
about it? I didnʼt pressure anyone. I didnʼt kill anyone. I justjoined others to clean up the city.

So unkempt. Your belly, though, is flat and clean. Hairless.
(KHAO SING and WAREE gaze at each other through thescreen. Then WAREE sets his smartphone in position and takeout his penis in front of it. KHAO SING stares.)(WAREE quickly dresses himself and returns to his room.)
NA

Your teacherʼs words from 24 years ago still cut. “I donʼt knowwhat youʼre saying. Were you ever bothered before, whether it
was the army or the politicians who ruled the country? Can
someone your age truly feel change?”
But those words are now spoken by people who want thecountryʼs absolute peace and order, who think the army is theanswer, who think that everybody wishes to be ruled over,supported and protected.
What if you could say these words to Waree?
Why did you join the whistle blowers?25 It has nothing to do withyour life at the moment...
You wanted to be with him there. You wanted to take the youngmanʼs neck with both hands and push his head down and makehim suck and swallow his own member to the root. The same
way one man had seized the neck of another man who was trying
to make his way through a resistant crowd on his way to thepolling booth26.

SCENE 8A Pathetic Body / 2016
NA

Your body can no longer burn energy the way it could when it
was young. A body with accumulated residue, a bloated stomach,and the constant secretion of gastric acid. A body that wants toburp but cannot.
Your most comfortable sleeping position used to be with botharms raised above your head; these days, your shoulders and arms
get stiff and cramped instead. It usually brings on the Pee Am.
Your body tightens up and its parts become unmovable. Even theneck.
If your subconscious were a room with four walls with ears andeyes attached, those ears and eyes would gaze down at your bodyfrom above. They would see that everything was the exact
opposite of what your consciousness thought it was. Youʼre notthrashing your arms and legs with full strength; there are only
twitches and insignificant straining.
Itʼs a saddening and pathetic body.

The PDRC Protest / 2013-2014(WAREE slowly tilts his body forward. He wraps his arms
around his leg so that it is drawn closer to his head.)NA

You recall the days of the PDRC protest that went on continuously from 2013 to 2014. Reporters from all public TV channels, andeven a neutral channel like Thai PBS, were glued to the stage withlive reports of the demonstration almost every hour. Drones werelaunched in excitement. The army was watching from afar,
waiting for the right timing to seize control of the situation.
Hundreds of thousands of people. Comedians, celebrities, pretty
faces took turns getting on stage like floral displays beautifying
the event.
“You canʼt curse this stupid, shitty bitch of a prime ministerenough. Sheʼs an idiot. She has no clue what sheʼs talking about.
She just reads off a script. She canʼt control the flood27 situation.
Sheʼs all Four Seasons28. She can “handle it.29” She is the biggest

SCENE 9A Video Call / 2016
(WAREE is sitting in front of a computer screen in his room.
He is making a video-call on LINE. KHAO SING answers.
WAREE waves to him and then puts his forefinger on his
mouth. He brings his face close to the camera, gives a little
smile with the corner of his mouth and winks. KHAO SING
grasps his clothes and gestures taking them off. WAREE
crosses his arms, grasps the bottom of his shirt and slowly lifts
it up.)
24
25 Refers to the Peopleʼs Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) or PeopleʼsCommittee for Absolute Democracy with the King as Head of State, who were anumbrella political pressure group, aimed at removing the influence of former
premier Thaksin Shinawatra from Thai politics and achieving political reforms
through an unelected Peopleʼs Council . The group played a leading role in the
2013–14 Thai political crisis, organizing large-scale protests within Bangkok.

PDRC protestors wore and blew whistles as a symbol of the group.
26 A famous image from the general elections held in Thailand in February 2014,
after Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra asked to dissolve parliament more thana year early owing to Thailandʼs political crisis. The photograph depicts a memberof the anti-government PDRC grasping a voter by the throat outside a polling
station as other members look on.

there. The camera wavers. The next instance, bright red blood
pours out, across the floor and down some concrete steps.
When the camera tilts down, it shows the person face down on
the ground.
They are trying to hold themself up with both arms. The bloodflows continuously without pooling, like water. You recall thetime you were still working in film. The art director liked tomake stage blood thick and viscous. But blood is like that only
after several hours. When it flows out of the body, itʼs like fresh
water. Flowing out like water from a faucet.
Soon they stop moving. Only the blood continues to flow withoutpause. They canʼt breathe, and suddenly grow sleepy.

imbecile and worst disgrace in the history of the Kingdom of
Siam.”
Artists, writers, poets, and others who celebrate the spirit ofbeing reigned over by rulers gathered to blow their whistles.
“Thereʼs so much freedom in this country that people have losttheir conscience and sense of spirituality. The concepts of virtue
and goodness and seniority have been challenged and destroyedby the idea that all men are equal. Equality isnʼt realistic. We haveto let farmers plant rice, feel the salt of their sweat, bathe in theheat of the sun every morning and evening, and contemplate howtheyʼre indebted to the land of their ancestors. Let them live
humbly!”Then, a bomb went off in front of the Big C mall at Ratchadamri.
It had only been four years since one of those killed had opened
his eyes for the first time to see the world.
Shots rang out in a restaurant parking lot. The poet Mainueng K.
Kuntee30 was assassinated in broad daylight.

NAYouʼve seen group sex scenes and cum shots in porn films.
Bukkake31. Usually there are just a few groups of two or three infocus, while the others are far off in the background. As thecamera moves off a supporting actor he isnʼt hard anymore. Thenhe occupies himself to get it back up, ready for another round.
But he just canʼt, and yet he has to continue performing. Soon thecamera abandons him, it moves on to the leads. The supporting
actors leave the scene. The story and emotions all lie with themain characters. The viewers follow the main characters, and notyou. So you hide in a corner and help yourself, alone.
The supporting actors who have gone to lick their wounds
off-camera never experience victory the way the main characters
do. The leads wear military-style camouflage clothes at a party ata famous restaurant in Thong Lo and shout their hurrahs32. May
22, 2014.
Eating a sandwich, reading George Orwellʼs “1984” in a public
place, even young people engaged in these symbolic actions ofprotest were arrested by soldiers and taken into custody.
The body is moved, manipulated by intentions from the past.
The body wakes up, and begins to move in this possessed state.

The Paralyzed Body of the Nation
NA

Even though Yingluckʼs government had announced the dissolution of Parliament in order to organize a general election, thedesire for the army to stage another coup dʼétat gave birth to yet
more demands; the immediate halt of all political activity, reform
before election, the closure of the country, the shutting down theof the roads with traffic cones. It was like a body with white, itchy
fungal infections on the mouth, tongue, and genitals.
The paralyzed body of the nation. A body transformed into astring puppet. A body that doesnʼt deserve to have life. A bodythat doesnʼt deserve the dynamics from its diverse parts to drive
itself forward. A body that must be owned by one single entity.
Thereʼs no need to hide the identity of the mastermind anymore.
Itʼs clear whoʼs behind all this, pulling the strings connected to
the limbs and eyes. Thereʼs only one owner who puppeteers thisbody away from the desire for humanity and freedom. Letʼs alllaugh over this paralyzed body of the nation.

SCENE 10
Yo u D o n ʼ t F e e l I t A n y m o r eBlood Flowing from Protests / Cum Flowing
from Porn

NA

You still remember the first time you drew, the line you made inyour notebook, and how that line later met with realism. The
pictures that artists created centuries ago became your final goal.
As you switched from pencil to pen to ink and then to paints, youwalked through art history and you learned the limits of yourown talents.
Was it Paul Cézanne who put movement into the wind andsunlight? The movement of leaves and shadows, branches, trees,and even hills. The hills that shift as if rocked by an earthquake.
All this made real through the illusion of vague lines andgeometric shapes. Lines mirror the rhythm of the body. Humans
simultaneously chaotic and continuous. Time is connected. Past,(KHAO SING lies on his back and fully stretches, then lifts his
lower body up in the air. Two circles, one folded forwards andthe other backwards. Each holding on to their own genitals as
the anchor.)
NA

You have seen it. Footage of an attack that occurred during aprotest.
Running along the outside wall of a building, away from bullets
fired from an unknown source, a person stumbles into frame
towards a group of four or five other people who are already25
27 Refers to the great floods of Thailand in 2011, the countryʼs worst flood crisisin almost 70 years.
28 PM Yingluck Shinawatra skipped a parliamentary session for a private
meeting with a group of business people at the Four Seasons hotel. The casebecame a scandal among opposition parties who openly questioned her ethics.
29 PM Yingluck Shinawatra was infamously remembered for her repetitive
claims that her government could handle any problematic situation in the country.

30 Dubbed by the Red Shirt demonstrators as “the POET of the people”, he wasamong the first POETs who publicly supported the grass root pro-democracy
demonstration in 2013-14.
31 A sex act in which multiple people ejaculate on another person.
32 Refers to a party held by leading members of the PDRC who took the coupdʼétat in 2014 as a sign of their victory.

present and future descend the stairs in Marcel Duchampʼs “Nude
Descending a Staircase, No.2”.
How did the rumors go, that came from the far West? “Painting isdead.” Christo wrapped royal palaces and entire islands in thesea. Joseph Beuys tamed a coyote in a gallery by living, sleeping
and eating with it. Nam June Paik placed a Buddha to stare at a
Buddha on TV. Marc Quinn froze his own blood to create a sculpture of his face. Those were ideas from the West. They are notyour spirit. We humans of the East, we Thais donʼt adhere to
their norms and ways living. That is what you must find.
When you were young, didnʼt you want to go far away? At least a
step and a half or two steps farther than where you were then.
But that determination disappeared. You donʼt feel it anymore.
The determination and arrogance, the desire to completelychange the consciousness of the art world melted away when you
graduated from university. You worked hard to make a living, yousought stability, and you worked to maintain the health of yourbody and mind. You donʼt feel it anymore.
In the art world, as curators have stepped in to assemble, manageand orchestrate the concepts for solo and group exhibitions, written articles abound and exhibition brochures replace the actual
art works. You donʼt feel it anymore. Select language, intellectualand academic, governs this space and chooses who has access,who can touch art. You arenʼt smart enough for the art industry,
and canʼt bear schmoozing, talking about other people only to gohome and lie, wallowing in self-pity, alone. You donʼt feel it
anymore. Thatʼs why you returned to a world of art devoid ofsuch complexity.
Edgar Degasʼs paintings of ballet lessons. You donʼt feel it
anymore. Young girls with limbs extended, their movementfrozen in position. A gentle light illuminating the neck, under thechin, the slope of the chest, the slender legs. You donʼt feel it
anymore. And the work of Pierre Bonnard, peeping from the next
room to catch a naked woman taking a bath. Bright, beautiful
colors. Happy and calm. The beauty of the simplest activity seen
in peaceful sunlight and shadow. You donʼt feel it anymore.
The world of beauty is eternal. Time captured in paintings
remains in its place, waiting for you patiently and understandingly. You donʼt feel it anymore. A work of art is so precious you cantrade your whole life for an opportunity to stand before it and see
it with your own eyes. You donʼt feel it anymore. Formlessemotions are made to take shape through the body and its
posture. This can be found in the works of Gustav Klimt, Egon
Schiele, Lucian Freud, and Francis Bacon. You donʼt feel it
anymore. Like a sword that penetrates the human body andaffects the heart in a single stroke. You felt driven to seek and one
day possess that quality as a painter...
You donʼt feel it anymore.
You traveled alone to Paris. You stood in front of Gustave
Courbetʼs “The Origin of the World” at the Musée dʼOrsay. A
simple picture of the female genitalia. You donʼt feel it anymore.
At the time, Fa was in Paris too. She was with her boyfriend, ayoung photographer. You donʼt feel it anymore.
She wanted to take you to an art museum, even though it wasnʼt

MoMA in New York. You donʼt feel it anymore. The next day you
met up with her and together you lounged in the city of love andglory. You donʼt feel it anymore. But not without revolution anddeath also. You donʼt feel it anymore. Even protests and executions in the plaza. You donʼt feel it anymore.
On the fifth floor of the Pompidou Centre, there were pieces
from the early 20th Century. Beginning with Fauvism, Expressionism, Futurism, Cubism and Dadaism. You donʼt feel it
anymore. Down to the fourth floor, works were exhibited chronologically starting from the 1960s. Abstract art, Fluxus, minimalism, pop art. You donʼt feel it anymore.
The more you walk, the further you are pushed away from art.
You canʼt access its messages anymore. You donʼt understandwhat André Breton wants to say with his “Le Mur de lʼAtelier.” You feel the same way standing before Andy Warholʼs black
and white portrait of Elizabeth Taylor. You canʼt understandwhat is communicated through the shattered pieces of a piano in
an exhibit.
When you parted ways, you smiled at her and said, “Iʼm glad I
could see the real work in front of me. Itʼs totally different fromonly seeing them in books.” You donʼt feel it anymore. (Thenarrator reaches his hands out in front of him.)
What about this? Do you feel this?

SCENE 11
October 13, 2016
NA

Calm and deep, the Chao Phraya River runs through the city,
dividing it into two sides. Thonburi and Phra Nakhon.
You and Waree are at a restaurant by the river.
The young man reaches both arms across the table and places hishands on yours. Holding your hands, he looks you in the eye.
You look around the restaurant to see if anyone notices youractions.
Actually, nobody cares what youʼre doing. Everyone is staring at
the TV as if under a spell. The prime minister is making anannouncement.
Around 10pm, you both leave the restaurant and walk. In the
shadow of a building where no light can reach, Waree stops
walking and kisses you on the lips.
The young man then draws back and says: How about this? Do
you feel this?
You both keep walking, onto Rama VIII Bridge.
You stop right in the middle between Thonburi and Phra
Nakhon. Waree turns his back to the road and faces the river andthe faraway landscape.
The past distorts itself into odd shapes. It freezes in unnatural
shapes like rubber bands that have been fixed in place for a longtime. You believe that these are their original forms. So when
they loosen and snap back to their natural state, you can only
26

PRATTHANA ̶ A PORTRAIT OF POSSESSION
by Toshiki Okada

watch dumbfounded.
Waree is now on the outside of the railing.
WAREE

Right now, in this moment, Iʼm ready to die for you.
“It shouldnʼt be you. At this point, I should be the one whodies.”WAREE

But you wonʼt.
“I can die in your place.”
WAREE

No. The moment for you to express that has passed. You will
never actually die in my place. You will be the one who goes onliving, lashed countless times by the scourge of memory and therepeating circumstances which we call the present, until yourwhole body and heart are completely beaten and numb.
You donʼt want a model to possess life. You donʼt want to know
your modelʼs background or where they came from. From the
beginning, you didnʼt want your model to be anything more thana model. You might feel that we fit perfectly together, that we cantalk, that weʼre in rhythm. Because the model asks for nothing. In
front of the artist who draws him, the model knows how tocontrol his own emotions and thoughts and express them only ina manner appropriate to his status.
But there is a limit to such a time. One day, naturally it runs out.
What you worry about dying and slipping away is not me,
therefore, but your own feelings. Iʼm sorry to have to use suchdisagreeable language.
NA

All of these words should have been spoken by you.
WAREE

Yes. Because I am you.
Can you accept the truth of who I am now?
Please let go of my hands.
NA

You will continue to hold onto him like this. Until your arms
grow numb from the stretch and ache because of the pull.
Until your body can no longer endure it.
(WAREE, who has had both arms extended until now, lowers
them, falls to the ground and lies there face up.)NA

13 October, 255933

THE END
27
33 The date of the death of H.M. King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

ACT TWO