by Lia Sciortino
Balancing Heritage and Development in Luang Prabang
Top Stories | Culture | Tourism | Laos | Vietnam
By Sutthida Malikaew*
LUANG PRABANG, Lao PDR - Duangsavan Boupha, a native of Luang Prabang, has lived in the same house she was born in more than 60 years ago. She inherited the 72 year-old house from her grandparents. Her daily routine begins early each morning with the traditional distribution of alms to Buddhist monks, as is the custom here.
The daily alms-giving ceremony is a major attraction in itself, drawing hordes of western tourists onto Duangsavan’s otherwise quiet street. They come to watch Duangsavan distribute alms to nearly 200 saffron-robed monks from the nearby temples, 11 of which line her street alone.
Duangsavan’s daily routine has not changed much since her childhood when she first joined her mother and grandmother in giving alms to the monks. She sits down on a mat at six in the morning, with a bamboo container full of sticky rice. Each time a monk walks by, she dips into the container and gives him a handful of rice. The only change in this ritual over the years has been the sound of camera clicking and flashbulbs going off, as the tourists happily capture the scene for posterity. Humble Duangsavan does not mind this intrusion. Instead, she says, “They appreciate our culture.”
Though Duangsavan doesn’t feel much change in her way of life, she is a person who has benefited from living in the World Heritage site. Her modest house is now an adapted guesthouse that she shares with the foreign guests, earning a small income.
However, this arrangement is actually uncommon in Luang Prabang, many of whose house-owners usually move out of town after renting their properties to businesses. This phenomenon has attracted plenty of concern among locals and officials who wonder where the “real life of the city” is going.
Concerns over renting-and-moving is so great that this made it into the preamble of ‘Plan de Sauvegarde et de Mise en Value’, the French- language version of a report on preserving local heritage. The plan is also available in Lao.
The report says that even though World Heritage status and tourism have brought economic benefits to Luang Prabang, they have brought change that could ultimately alter the very character that made this Lao city the historical and cultural gem that it is. Already, many buildings have been converted into hotels, and locals have been migrating out at a slow, but steady, pace. This contrasts sharply with the project’s stated objective, says the report.
Ouan Sirisack, director of Heritage House, says of the impact of tourism: “An impact on people’s ways of life is that many of them rent their houses to others (to run businesses) and they move and live out of the city.”
But local city dwellers, seeing more economic opportunities and the development brought by tourism, are loathe to admit the negative effects of becoming a tourist destination. Still, some astute observers do say that these trends could shake up Luang Prabang.
Bounthieng Soulivanh, deputy director of Inter- Lao Tourism based in Luang Prabang, says “I don’t think culture has disappeared, but it is changing little by little. This is not only because we have a lot of people coming in, but also because people in the city are moving out. So the picture of traditional ways of living is fading.”
Duangdueang Bounyavong, a Vientiane-based historian and cultural expert, has noticed the same trends and often wonders whether Luang Prabang’s residents really have an understanding that they are living in a World Heritage city. “Now they do nothing except receive guests from foreign countries,” laments Duangdueang. “The city is full of restaurants and Internet cafés, and even the decoration in front of the shops look like in western countries. There are also too many advertisement posters pasted on walls that block out the beauty of the architecture. Is this the right way of development?”
TOURISM EATS INTO TRADITION
The concerns go to the heart of the debate. While being a World Heritage City has undoubtedly brought Luang Prabang residents economic benefits, it is also slowly eroding their traditional ways – perhaps inexorably.
For instance, outside Duangsavan’s home, some local residents can be seen selling food offerings to tourists so they can give these to the monks. Critics say this distorts the message of Buddhism, which asks that those who offer alms to monks do so out of true belief in the religion. The underlying economic exchange introduced by the influx of tourism into this religious practice obscures the distorts its message, they add.
Some native Luang Prabang residents complain that those selling such offerings are from the countryside or from the other side of the river. “We don’t like them doing that because it doesn’t seem to be good manners,” one such resident said. The chief concern of people like him is that selling alms to foreigners give rise to wrong perceptions about these offerings.
Whether that is true or not, there are already unflattering descriptions of the ceremony on Internet travel sites. For example, a backpacker wrote to introduce Luang Prabang and the alms ceremony thus: “Wake up early and watch the monk rice-parade.” The language used does not seem to show any respect of the alms ceremony, critics say, adding that these words portray alms offering as part of a cultural ‘show’ instead of the religious ceremony that it is.
Tara Gujadhur, sustainable tourism advisor for Netherlands Development Organization (SNV) who has been working here for two years in tourism promotion, agrees that “alms offering seems to become more like a show (for tourists)”.
She points out that tourists often disturb the monks’ activities and ceremonies due to lack of cultural understanding. For example, she says, some tourists take pictures of the monks at very close range, zapping monks’ faces with high-power flashbulbs. Other tourists sit on top of tour buses to get observe the ceremony or get a good angle for a photograph – not realising that being on higher ground than monks is a no-no in Buddhist communities.
In her two years in Luang Prabang, Gujadhur too has seen the city changing.
She feels that more new people are coming into the city, bringing new economic activities with them, such as trading, hotels, restaurants. While these create employment opportunities for local people, they could also be long-term costs.
“As a World Heritage site, Luang Prabang has more opportunities from tourism and economics, but the government and residents might not yet have thought about the long-term effect of this development,” said Gujadhur.
Even local handicraft is being affected by the changes in Luang Prabang. Duangdueang worries that commercialisation could erode the quality of local goods, wrecking the reputation of heritage cities. “It is true that those who sell things will benefit, but the handicraft they think they could sell more might be of very simple designs. When they need to sell them in a big lot, they might need to make them fast. So we can imagine about the quality and artistic work, which might be lower when you think only of quantity,” she muses. “I wonder whether this kind of thing is destroying local culture.”
Even the celebration of Lao traditional New Year in April has been taking on a commercial flavour, with all the attendant beauty pageants, Duangdueang added. The onset of the contests, she says, often induces young women to skip classes in order to prepare for Miss New Year (Miss Sankhan in Lao) competition. Warns Duangdueang: “By concentrating only on catering to tourism, I’m afraid Luang Prabang people will lose their identity in the end.”
Francis Engelmann, special advisor with Heritage House, which works to promote and preserve Luang Prabang’s cultural heritage, thinks that after the city became a World Heritage site, it was not only ordinary lives but also religious life that began changing.
“The learning of the Sangha and religious life of the monks are being disturbed, as has been seen in the “Tak Batr” (alms offering) ceremonies which have become a disaster now. Some monks feel uneasy with how the tourists behave. A monk said to me ‘we think people behave like we were monkeys in the zoo’,” says Engelmann.
BUDDHISM UNDER THREAT?
Luang Prabang’s identity as a city where Buddhism is practised – monks are often seen throughout the city – may itself be under threat.
For instance, ordination as a monk is a traditional part of the life of young men. With the large number of tourists around, novices often use encounters with foreign tourists as opportunities to practise English. While this may be a natural consequence of being tourist spot, Engelmann observes that it has larger implications -- the city might one day no longer be appropriate for monks to study Buddhism anymore. Indeed, some monks are thinking of moving out of the city for their studies, and returning to the city’s temples only when they feel sufficiently strong in their dharma.
For 86-year-old The Right Venerable Khamchan Veerajitthera, the abbot of Wat Saen Sukharam and chief of the Northern Ecclesiastries, the chief concern is about young monks’ who could be swayed or corrupted from their religious principles by the culture of tourism in Luang Prabang. “I do not see much changes in religious life yet,” says the abbot. But he also concedes: “I am concerned about the principles of the monks in the temple. Hence, whenever possible, I gather them together and preach to them.”
*Sutthida Malikaew, who contributes to Prachatai.com, wrote this article under the Imaging Our Mekong programme (www.newsmekong.org)