Rainwater for drinking, collected from roofs during the monsoon season, is now stored in large cement cisterns, and it won't be long before everyone has access to a pump for wash water. If the old water jars, embellished only by a few stripes made with hand carved roulette wheels, were still made, they would sit unsold for lack of demand. The ceramic business in Dankwean is growing. New workshops are being built, tourism is on the rise, and telephones will certainly increase the amount of exports. People who moved to Dankwean for a relaxed life are again involved in the hustle and bustle.
Workshops seem to be specializing more and more.
Suwanee's Umdang Ceramics deals more and more in tiles and murals, others make pots, and others beads. Designs once copied from workshop to workshop are becoming specialized, and the designs of individual artists are becoming more important than the traditional designs of the collective unconscious. The Tourist Authority of Thailand will succeed in bringing more tourists to touch the untouched Northeast, and skilled labor shortages will bring about more mechanized potmaking. It is sad to see the more decorative wares, some of which are wonderful despite being designed for the mass market, come at the expense of the functional pots. Sadder, of course, would be to see Dankwean, a vibrant and creative village, begin to make only copies of the great pots of the past, a move in the direction of no market at all.