{"id":20566,"date":"2012-02-12T21:14:51","date_gmt":"2012-02-12T21:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=20566"},"modified":"2012-02-12T21:16:35","modified_gmt":"2012-02-12T21:16:35","slug":"rice-ouside-the-paddy-the-form-and-function-of-hybridity-in-a-thai-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=20566","title":{"rendered":"Rice Outside the Paddy: The Form and Function of Hybridity in a Thai Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/40860607\" target=\"_blank\">Rice Outside the Paddy: The Form and Function of Hybridity in a Thai Novel<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/action\/showPublication?journalCode=crossroads\" target=\"_blank\">Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/i40038681\" target=\"_blank\">Volume 11, Number 1<\/a> (1997)<br \/>\npages 51-78<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jan R. Weisman<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>This paper examines some of the problematic issues of racial hybridity in contemporary Thailand through an analysis of the fictional portrayal of Thai hybrid individuals in the archetypical story, Khao Nok Na. I argue that the modern Thai treatment of hybridity\u2014both fictional and real\u2014privileges some forms over others as it 1) reflects Thai Buddhist concepts of the phenotypical expression of accumulated religious merit, 2) reflects and creates audience desire and anxiety as it reminds the nation of its actual, perceived, or feared loss of control over the course of its development and globalization, and 3) insists on Thai control of its various images as a means of\u00a0 alleviating the anxieties so created.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thai popular conceptions of hybridity\u2014in particular, the genetic hybridity expressed in individuals of mixed Thai-Western ancestry\u2014have undergone significant changes in recent decades. Eurasians occupied a neutral social category for much of Thai history. Their numbers were small; their parents were of high socioeconomic status; and their Thai lineage was usually a paternal connection. This situation changed dramatically with the influx of American military personnel into Thailand during the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Vietnam_War\" target=\"_blank\">Vietnam War<\/a>. Though the Thai government does not maintain records on the subject, it is estimated that as many as 7,000 Amerasian children&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rice Outside the Paddy: The Form and Function of Hybridity in a Thai Novel Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies Volume 11, Number 1 (1997) pages 51-78 Jan R. Weisman This paper examines some of the problematic issues of racial hybridity in contemporary Thailand through an analysis of the fictional portrayal of Thai [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,16,1196,8],"tags":[9604,1665,9605,529],"class_list":["post-20566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-asia","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","tag-crossroads-an-interdisciplinary-journal-of-southeast-asian-studies","tag-jan-r-weisman","tag-jan-weisman","tag-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}