2010
There used to be something up there on the mountain,
Sacred spirits of the ancient time,
Footprints of Lord Buddha,
The legend of a warrior who conquered
A hidden city of glory
of which old men had always been in awe

Few days ago, young people came from the city
They knocked from door to door to seek a long gone story
They asked for permission to record picture and sound while they interviewed
People recalled their memories. The stories they’d been told
Some suggested them to ask the old men of the village.
Many firmly believed that there was something sacred up there.
Some said it was just a tale from the past
before there was any village leader, before any election took place,
before the night was brightened with fluorescent lights,
before time

Today I read all that information
It was sent in an email
Reading it, I feel amused when imagining my friend going out to talk with the villagers
Hours of reading. The villagers become clearer in my mind
I open Google to search for more. I’ve got a bit more information
That village is not so different from my hometown
That thought makes me feel uneasy
It makes me sink to the past when I was young
The school buildings were just built
We were in grade 4, on the third floor, higher than anyone
Up there, everything totally changed
Mountains, forest, those villages were down there
Unknown, mysterious, inviting exploration
My friends and I sat there
Sat right there everyday, dreaming, promising each other to go out and explore it all one day

Just like my friends
I came to the city to reach for dreams
Career, money, fame and others
Settling down
Building life’s pattern
Clothes, food, what to spend for, where to hang out
To look good in public and look cool on the network
Creating a self, uploading every experience
Updating every status of life but holding onto privacy
Refusing to let people mess around with my life
Because I’d already found my ‘self’ from a magazine
especially in the quiz ‘What kind of person are you?’
that I had made crosses on my answers to those questions

With the art of revealing here and concealing there
I should have been living a smooth life
Till one day, I realized that I too often forced my laughter, chatted unwillingly, and smiled dryly.
I did not want to be nobody in the big city
But too tired to be somebody
Realized that the identity that we try to build would never be finished
Today, I come back to my hometown again
having understood something
That school building isn’t so high, the mountain is still there
Only the reservoir is built after a landslide buried the village
Things have changed
There is a coffee shop selling cappucino
where I sit and read my friend’s collected data when he went out to talk with the villagers
It’s so funny to know my friend did such an unfashionable thing
Like a student doing a dissertation… an artist who acts like a scholar
But after reading for a while, other meanings appear
A memory, or something
we used to have, we used to know, we used to touch, we used to believe
But we don’t when it’s gone

The mountain is still there,
Nothing seems mysterious
Google Earth, GPS will shed light on every spot on earth
Photos from satellite with 1,000 times magnification
Through Webcam, we watch the whole world moving live in real time
The mysterious city becomes Unseen Thailand  
Folklores and legends turn into only tales
Local culture becomes resources for researcher and tourism
Hidden land lost
Hidden agenda appear in radio wave, wires, tubes, air, and space
Broadcast to be known, seen, read, heard, entertaining
Satellite dishes bloom in the countryside fields. Every village is on the road to development
People sell their lands to send their kids to school
Young people move to the city, study for diplomas and degrees. and become a factory’s P.C. sale and PR
Old people watch televisions, following every minute of the brewing of political tension
Every single piece of land is owned
No more empty space nor wild forest
Mysterious city or even heaven float away
Only the reality of Hollywood illusions is left
In the lost soul era

This morning I ride to the mountain
Get closest to it by a soil road
On foot up the steep mountain. Sweaty back
I tell myself ‘Here, this is what you’ve promised’
Then I look at the sky that starts to darken
Music screams from the top of the mountain
I can’t catch any words
Except….Chi mi… chi..mi
At the front is the mountain
The mountain is still there
Something was there
disappeared from memory
disappeared from  the present
something was there …and we all know

Earth