Poramin Jaruworn
Department of Thai, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University
Professor Dr. Khun Banchob Bandhumedha recounts more than one thousand folktales around the world in the magazine, Satri San, during 1954-1993. This article aims to study her telling of Tai folktales from several groups of the Tai peoples: Tai Yai, Tai Phake, Tai Aiton, Tai Khamti, Tai Nuea in Yunnan, Tai Ahom and Lao.
Professor Dr. Banchob Bandhumedha is a distinguished and respectable scholar for her contribution to the study of Thai language and culture, as well as Tai culture. This study of the folktales told in Satri San reveals that Professor Dr. Banchob Bandhumedha is also a linguistic folklorist. Her storytelling shows not only her erudition, but also her expertise as a fieldwork researcher. Furthermore, the stories show her skills as a storyteller who interestingly inserts knowledge of language and culture related to her life and work into the stories. Not only does she recount the Tai folktales that she has studied, Professor Dr. Banchob Bandhumedha also connects various aspects of those stories with Thai and international folktales. Her storytelling greatly contributes to the body of folkloristic knowledge for current and future research.
(Presented in the 2020 Chulalongkorn Asian Heritage Forum : Thai-Tai Language and Culture, 20 July 2020, The St.Regis Hotel, Bangkok, organized by Institute of Thai Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Department of Thai, Department of Linguistics, Southeast Asian Linguistics Research Unit, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University)