When Elephants Walked Backwards

Preface It might be helpful to have a little background on Thai culture regarding this story. It must be understood that Thai culture is “tradition based political structures” that are top down and patriarchal in nature, and, although this is changing; it’s changing very slowly.

When

describing a good marriage, it is likened to an elephant; with the front legs being the role of the husband and the rear legs being the role of the wife. We

of

western

culture

may

find

this

characterization of marriage objectionable; but it sparked the wag in me to envision an absurd situation taken to its crazy extreme and back once again to sanity. I hope you enjoy the story and the spirit in which it was written.

I “Father, Nong told me we used to walk backwards, is that true?” asked Boy. “Oui1! Yes, but that was a long time ago,” replied the father. “He also said it was because of one of our relatives.” “Yes, that’s true too. It was your great, great grandfather many times removed, his name was Chang2. This was long before there were humans in Thailand.” “Nong said our family isn’t very intelligent and nobody else in the whole world

1

A Thai word pronounced like Oui in “oui vey”, only said a little sharper and “higher”. Usually said with a sense of surprise. 2 “Chang” is the Thai word for elephant. It’s pronounced with a very broad “A” as in ah.

would have been so stupid as to walk backwards.” “Well, if you don’t know the whole story it might look that way.” “What’s the whole story?” “I guess this is a good time to tell you. The story goes like this:” Once upon a time, a very, very, very, very long time ago (before there were humans in Asia), there was a herd of elephants moving through the jungles of Thailand on their daily forage for food and a good bath or even better, a roll in the mud and then a bath. There was nothing particularly unusual about this herd because it had the usual personalities you would find in any herd of elephants. Well, there was

one exception, but he wasn’t really an exception because you always find an exception in any normal herd of elephants. Perhaps this is true even in a herd of African elephants. As everyone knows, they are very touchy. I think it’s their large ears. They are very sensitive to noise and get very grumpy when disturbed, whereas Indian elephants are very peaceful (they have smaller ears). Thai elephants are Indian elephants but don’t tell them that because it would upset them; they think they are Thai, which of course they are, but it’s been a long time since they moved to Thailand so they have forgotten about India. Anyway, on this particular day, there was a herd of Thai elephants and the exception (his name is Chang) started to argue with himself. Actually he

wasn’t arguing with himself exactly, it was the rear legs being upset with the front legs and starting an argument. You might guess this caused quite a problem, which it did. It all started when the front legs turned to go to the river for a bath and the rear legs kept going straight for the mud pit. Chang started to zigzag, walk sideways and go in circles. He crashed into everything in sight. Finally, he sat down and asked his legs what the heck was going on? The front legs said they wanted a bath in the river and the rear legs said they wanted to go to the mud pit and have a roll in the mud. Chang was hungry and wanted to eat.

Well, then the argument really got started. The rear legs whined that they always had to go where the front legs wanted to go, they were tired of always having to follow the front legs, and besides that, they wanted to lead. The front legs got very huffy and said “Well, it’s not my fault you’re the back legs and I’m the front legs. We were born this way and there’s nothing to be done about that”. “Oh yeah!” cried the rear legs, “I’m not moving until I get to lead!” Chang got very worried at this point. Without his legs working together he couldn’t go anywhere, how was he going to eat, drink, and stay with the herd? Not only that, how could the rear legs possibly lead? He couldn’t very well walk backwards, could he? I mean, he has to see where he’s going, doesn’t

he? As if this wasn’t enough, the legs of each of the elephants in the rest of the herd realized what was going on and started to argue also. The whole herd was crashing around hither and yon through the jungle. As you may imagine, it was quite a sight. Chang pleaded and tried to humor his legs but the rear legs would hear none of it and refused to move. The front legs said they wouldn’t move again until the rear legs apologized for being stupid and stubborn. Chang said “Oui!” and gave up. So, there sat Chang. The rest of the herd had finally stopped and sat down where ever they were when their legs gave out. Poor Chang! The rest of the herd was

very angry with him because they said this was all his fault and they demanded he find a solution and it had better be quick! Chang thought and thought and thought. He got a headache from all this thinking. What to do, what to do...Oui! There seemed only one thing to do, let the rear legs lead the way and see what happens. When Chang informed the legs of his decision, the front legs gasped, “What?” “That’s the way it’s going to be, otherwise, we stay here until we starve to death. Okay?” “This is crazy!” pleaded the front legs. But they realized they had no choice. The rear legs absolutely refused to move unless they got their way. When the rest of the herd found out

Chang’s decision, they started trumpeting and yelling that this was the craziest thing they had ever heard and thereby created the largest ruckus any one in the jungle could remember. But, finally, they too agreed. Well, as anyone who knows jungles knows, the news spread in a matter of minutes. Far and wide every animal in the jungle knew the elephants in Chang’s herd would be walking backwards and so they ran, galloped, flew, crawled, hopped and swung through the trees to watch the herd. Chang was the first one to move. He got up and started to walk. It was very awkward at first, not to mention looking completely ridiculous. The front legs were very grumpy but

begrudgingly followed the back legs as they immediately walked into the first tree, stumbled and fell down with a huge thump. A number of small jungle creatures fled for their lives as Chang fell down. Chang groaned and the front legs made some very rude comments about the rear legs. The rear legs sheepishly said they had to get the hang of this new way of walking. The rest of the herd wasn’t doing any better. The noise of 50 elephants crashing around in the jungle could be heard 10 kilometers away. Fortunately everybody was exhausted after only a few minutes as there was a real danger of major damage to the jungle; trees and plants were going down everywhere. Luckily most of the other animals that came to see this spectacle kept their

distance. One by one the elephants got up and slowly started to walk again. Nobody in history had ever seen such a sight: 50 elephants walking backwards through the jungle. The other animals couldn’t contain themselves any longer and fell down laughing hysterically. Even the monkeys lost their grip and fell out of the trees. The cobras laughed and hissed, “That’ssssss the ssssssilliest thing I’ve ever sssssseen!” No one had ever seen cobras laugh before. The tigers had completely lost it and were rolling on the ground laughing. It was almost too much to bear. By the next day everyone’s coordination was improving. Very few trees got knocked down. Butts and tales were feeling bruised and

sore. And yes, the front legs were still complaining but mostly under their breath. As the day passed, the rest of the jungle animals were starting to get bored and slowly went back to their normal lives, though as you might expect, this continued as a major source of gossip for weeks. Of course there would always be some problems. The first thing Chang noticed was; his neck was very sore from always having to look behind to see where he was going. If he looked away for only a moment he would crash butt first into trees, rocks, or whatever there was in the way. His poor tail was very bruised and sore. Then there was the problem of finding food: half the time they had already passed the particular

bush or tree of choice and Chang had to stop and say “Whoa! Okay, go forward...or I mean backwards, I mean...nuts...just go back, you went past it! Okay, now go left, no, no, I mean right.” It was all so confusing. When you are walking backwards everything is backwards, or, I mean opposite. Like I said, it’s all so confusing. I think you get the picture. Have you ever noticed that elephants don’t drag their trunks along the ground as they walk? Well, the reason is because, very shortly after they started to walk backwards, nature being what nature is, and nature does “call”, you could hear, “Yuck, Oh Gross, Yaaaachh!” as they dragged their trunks through the freshly dropped manure. Trunks immediately went up. Plus, as if that’s not

enough, the herd found itself getting manure all over their feet.

Chang said, “This is

disgusting!” His rear legs were also quite disgusted since they usually walked away from such things: not into them. We won’t even go into what the front legs were thinking. Even the elephant birds that clean the skin of the elephants wouldn’t come around, as they no longer felt safe because the herd was acting so erratically. “Heck, I never know if I’m coming or going and besides, at any moment I might get crushed if one of them trips and falls down,” said one of the birds. “Yes,” they all agreed. They also decided to find another herd of elephants with some common sense.

The last straw, so to speak, was the problem with the babies. As everyone knows they walk behind the mother holding her tail with their trunk. The babies were of course very young and they still walked in the normal direction. Nobody in the herd quite understood why when all of the adults walked backwards. Of course the babies just did their thing. They couldn’t walk backwards at all. Now the babies were in front...or...well...sort of. As soon as they tried this it became clear...this is impossible. One of the babies was almost crushed and the mother yelled and screamed at Chang in the most impolite language you could imagine. Thai elephants are always very polite, so this made Chang feel horrible. Since the mothers couldn’t

hold the babies tails and...well...this is when the herd said Enough! The solution obviously was to let the babies walk as usual and have them hold their mother’s trunk. This way the babies still walked “forward” face to face with their mothers. Occasionally one of the babies could be heard to say, “Aw mom, yuck, you didn’t brush your teeth this morning.” This face-to-face thing took some getting used to, but it did seem to work. There were no close calls after this. “Whew! At least this problem was solved,” thought Chang. All of the other 49 elephants were still very, very, very upset with Chang and were considering kicking him out of the herd, which is actually a family. Poor Chang! He was very

depressed. No one would talk to him. The only positive thing was; everybody was learning to walk backwards reasonably well. They did, however, make it very clear that until and unless things returned to normal, Chang was not forgiven. Meanwhile, the news had spread far and wide. Elephants in Myanmar, Lao, and Kampuchea had all heard of Chang and the backwards-walking elephants of Thailand. They all had a good laugh...until..., yup, did you guess it? Their rear legs decided to go on strike; and they did! Now all of the elephants in Southeast Asia were walking backwards. All that is, except for one small herd in Thailand, but more about that later.

Chang was now famous in all of Asia, but for all of the wrong reasons. He was definitely the single most unpopular elephant in Southeast Asia. Everybody knew his name. Chang of Thailand, it almost became an impolite word. Then it happened. One morning, a few days later, the leader of Chang’s herd, Jinda, told him he was no longer welcome. “You have made us the laughing stock of every animal in the jungle,” he said. “You have made us lose face3 (sorry, no pun intended) and you must leave our herd. Nobody wants you here. We voted and you must leave.” “But where will I go?” Chang pleaded.

3

In Thailand and Southeast Asia in general “losing face” is very bad. Causing another person to “lose face” is one of the worst things one individual can do to another person. Basically, it means you have humiliated another person.

“That’s up to you, but you can’t stay here any longer. There is no longer a place for you here.” Chang burst into tears. He couldn’t remember ever seeing anybody kicked out of the family. Slowly he backed off into the jungle. After a few kilometers he just lay down and cried and cried, he felt hurt and totally abandoned. He had never been away from the herd in his whole life. The herd was his whole life! It was in fact his family. He spoke very impolitely about, and to, his rear legs. “Humph,” they said. The rear legs were getting their way and that’s all they cared about. After all, they were leading and the front legs were following.

The next morning he got up and started walking. He was hungry, so he wandered through the jungle looking for food. As fortune would have it, he crashed into a banana tree and a huge bunch of bananas dropped on his head. “Ouch! Oh, what luck, yum!” He could hear the monkeys making rude comments and laughing. The mynahs were also chattering away and he was certain they were also laughing. As everyone knows; mynah birds can speak many languages so one is never quite sure what they are really saying. Laughing is quite universal though and if Chang hadn’t been so busy eating he might have felt humiliated.