Siamese Cat Legends

Chuchai and Phimai

Chuchai Wisetjindawat, based in Phimai, Nakhon Ratchasima, is undoubtedly the foremost breeder of Korats in Thailand. He started his work with Korats in 1993, and gained official recognition in 1995 with cat shows at Phimai Annual Festival. In 1997 he became chairman of the Phimai Association for Korat Cat Conservation, whose members are a network of Phimai locals, mostly farmers deep in the countryside. Chuchai has frequently shown his cats in Bangkok and won many trophies.

Korat Gallery: Phimai

Except for kittens in the plastic bowl, and the poor fellow in the cage, who belong to Phuyai Tia, all cats here belong to Khun Chuchai. The kittens are at his home in Phimai and all the adults at his cattery in the country. The cat on the stone flags is one of the stars of Cats 101.

Khmer-era Phimai

Arriving in Phimai, it is very hard to miss the red sandstone Khmer temple which dominates the town centre and is over 1,000 years old.

Known then as " Vimayapura", the town was an important outpost of the Khmer Empire centred at Angkor, and its temple displays mixed Hindu and Buddhist iconography following the succession of the Buddhist King Jayavarman VII in the 12th century AD.

Chuchai Wisetjindawat frequently guides visitors around and his knowledge brings the temple alive: in one frieze, a monkey, one of Vishnu's retinue, is clearly picking his nose, a subversive bit of humour from an anonymous Khmer stone carver which has survived the centuries.

Imagining a bustling Vimayapura at the height of its Khmer splendour, might its inhabitants have known or treasured a silvery grey cat? Chuchai seemed to think it was possible, as his in-depth knowledge of the area and its traditions points to origins at the nearby villages of Ban Tamyae or Ban Rang Ka. We did not talk about this much further, but here they are located on Google maps relative to Phimai: a few kilometers east or west, an easy walk for a cat.

Suggestively, this poster about the Korat Cat is viewable in the Phimai Historical Park Visitor Centre.

Korat Capture

Whatever the precise date the Korat cat emerged in Thailand's Northeast, it is undoubtedly still feral there. On Eva's visit, we travelled to view Sai Ngam, an extensive Banyan tree on Phimai's outskirts. By some coincidence, we discovered a family of Korats living off the leftovers from the local restaurants, whose quality was sufficient for Chuchai to bag a young male for his breeding programme.

Out in the country

Phuyai Tia, or Village Headman Tia, is one of K Chuchai's Korat cat breeding collaborators. Here's a bowl of Korat kittens from one of his breeding pairs.

Eva, Elaine and Jane

I've known Eva Krynda since we were making the book, when we took a memorable journey with her partner Jose and Michael Spenser, then writing for THAI International's inflight magazine Sawasdee, to meet Chuchai for the first time. A few months after the Cats 101 shoot, she returned to Thailand in February 2012, this time in the company of her friends Elaine and Jane. Here they are after paying respects to the statue of Princess Suranari in Korat town.

O Lady Cat...

I never thought I'd live to see a real rain ceremony, but Chuchai organized a magnificent response to my request for rain ceremony for the Animal Planet cameras. Our van was welcomed by most of the village population, marquees, a dance show from the little girls, and we were honoured by the presence of local bigwigs, including both the current and former MPs!

A white-robed Brahmin conducted all the necessary rituals before the Korat cat, hand-picked by Chuchai to cope with the ordeal, was secured in her basket and set off on her journey around the village. Our cameraman Marc taped a little Go Pro camera inside the basket to capture her reaction to the splashing.

We were there in August, so there was plenty of rain about, as opposed to the drought periods of March-April, when the ceremony would usually be applied. Also, our ceremony did not cover the whole village, but nonetheless captured the interactive nature of all the villagers in each house being involved in the splashing. All in all, despite being staged for us, it had the feeling of authenticity, that this was what the ceremony would look like when conducted in earnest. Finally things came to an end and we were off to Chuchai's cattery for close-ups.

Traditional representations of the rain ceremony

This picture in the traditional style was garnered from an anonymous website, but worthy of sharing. It shows the propitiation ceremonies we observed in Phimai.

My good friend Jon Taaffe acquired this gorgeous tapestry in Phrae, in the North of Thailand. Now framed on his wall in Kamphaengphet, I took some detail of motifs repeated over the whole tapestry which is about 2 m by 1 m in size.

Met Sawat

Si Sawad is another name for the Korat, so said because the sawad plant has grey seeds, the colour of the cat. Thais toss the term "si sawad" around as if the plant was a common thing that everyone would know, but in fact the sawad plant (a climber with the scientific name Caesalpinia crista) and its seeds are not everyday items. On the trip to Phimai with Eva Krynda, I finally got to see a med sawat for the first time. In dimension, it is about the size of a thumbnail. Chuchai had got some, from I know not where, and gave another one to Eva. Modern cameras are microscopes to some degree, and this picture has clear detail of the seed's surface - the main colour light grey, with unexpected darker grey contour lines and a few specks of stained-in dirt. Conclusive proof that the colour signification of "si sawad" is a Korat cat!

Tourist Poster

Beautifully of its time, this tourist poster was sent to me by Daphne Negus. It is dated by the "Tourist Organization of Thailand" logo in use from 1963-1979, before that body morphed into the current "Tourism Authority of Thailand". You've immediately spotted the discrepancy, right? The lady's cat is said to be Siamese, but looks pretty grey to me - yes, it's a Korat, down to those sparkling green eyes! So what's the interpretation? Like Somkiat said, there is confusion in the popular mind between the two types. This aside, there continues the feeling that it is the Korat which Thais prefer the look of, which makes it the most popular "Siamese cat" of the two - not semantically wrong, if you accept that Korat cats come from Siam every bit as much as the Wichienmas do.