Do you know a secret that Chiang Mai - one of Thailand's most famous tourist destinations used to be the capital of an extremely gentle and civilized kingdom only disappeared 200 years ago?
Nowadays, Thailand is the merger of the two kingdoms, Siam and Lanna. The Thai name has only been fixed since 1946. And today's Chiang Mai city is the ancient capital of the glorious Lanna Kingdom in the past. Lanna has the full name of Lanna Thai - which means the Kingdom of the Rice Cultivator. Listening to the name alone, it will surely be characterized by an agricultural culture. Lanna is a country with a separate royal family, legal system, and independent culture. Thai Na was established in the 13th century, having emerged strong enough in the 15th century to compete with the Ayutthaya kingdom in the south, along with many wars passed in the history of the Thai people. There was a time when Lanna territory encompassed all of northern Thailand, a small part of Laos and part of the Shan territory of present-day Myanmar. By the 18th century, the kingdom was gradually narrowed down to Chiang Mai city and about 1000km around Chiang Mai. In 1774, Lanna became a vassal of Thonburi. In the early 20th century, Siam officially annexed Lan Na to its territory. King Lanna becomes some sort of governor of Chiang Mai, the name Lanna is officially removed from the map.
Also perhaps because of the complexity of history, the name Lanna rarely appears in the media even though everyone knows about Chiang Mai. Only when I arrived in Chiang Mai on a trip to Thailand did I see the name Lanna appearing everywhere. And it made me curious that I had to find out the cultural identity of this nation. And in this episode, I want to send you my experiences in Chiang Mai City, but the echo, Lanna's identity is always present here every day ..
31 июл 2024
