Halftones and Half Truths: Looking at Photographs of Thai Women

Abstract

Photographs of other countries and of other times often evoke in us the fascination and trusting acceptance we imagine the first viewers of camera images experienced in the nineteenth century. This is true particularly if the country is one we have not visited or the century is not our own. We take our time and look carefully at images of unfamiliar faces and uncommon scenes. Often we are searching for an understanding of what is before us, and we hope that by scrutinizing every corner and inch of surface within the frame we may uncover the photograph's meaning. Often, too, because we have few other images of that place or time in our memory, we tend to accept the reality of what we see with less hesitancy than we should. Photographs are frequently used by social scientists to illustrate articles about modernization, to show the differences between the old and the new. Because the camera cannot capture the intangible aspects of change, such as individual conflicts over cultural values in transition, the pictures tend to be of appearances-of Asian people in western dress, of modern architecture, or of work processes and places. At other times, photographs are used to show the persistence of a culture's traditional beliefs, values, or rhythms. And again, appearances must suffice-women in kimonos, market women sitting before wicker baskets piled with exotic produce, women painstakingly embroidering cloth. Sometimes photographs of particular women and specific locations are offered as representations of all women in an occupation or even in a country. Photographs used in this way, as illustrations of an abstract concept or as mere appendages to the printed word, may not be scrupulously chosen. In some cases they may be the only images readily available. But they can be misleading. Even though we all know that photographs can lie, because of the novelty of what we see when we look at photographs of other cultures we may be less suspicious of our senses. Our ignorance about a country biases our looking. We may be more willing to read into the picture information that a vague caption leaves out, or credit the picture with giving us more information than it actually does. The portraits that appear here give a highly selective view of Thai women from both the late nineteenth century and the present. They illustrate the need to approach photographs with questions that place them within an historical and cultural context; to ask who took the picture and for what purpose. The nineteenth-century photographers are unknown. The images were found in the collection of the Thai National Archives, many of them unlabeled or only partially identified. The others were taken by my husband and me last winter when we returned to my old Peace Corps town after an absence of eighteen years. They are pictures of friends and of everyday scenes in Sukothai, the place I called home from 1964 to 1966. Devoid of captions, the pictures raise questions and give few answers. Some of them can easily be placed in time; others cannot. Similarities abound, especially in the pictures of the older women. Their short hair, sarongs, and betel nut stained mouths make them appear timeless. Yet the similarities are deceiving. In the photographs from the nineteenth century and from 1982, the women represent vastly different economic classes and life patterns. My camera made portraits of these modern women possible. Their nineteenth-century look-alikes had the money to have their pictures taken a century earlier. The captions found on these nineteenth-century photographs say simply,