CAtN : Finals
Letters as a story
“ Formerly known as Siam, the Kingdom of Thailand was never a European colony ( although it was sometimes under Chinese or Japanese influence. ) Throughout the 19th century, both the French and the British tried to exert their influence over Thailand but never managed fully to control the state or most of its territory – unlike virtually every country in the region and finally Britain and France decided that it was wiser to allow Thailand to exist as an independent buffer between their respective colonies in the region”
“King Chulalongkorn, who reigned 1868-1910, did his part to save Thailand from European colonization by sending all royal family members out to travel the world and make connections with royal families in Europe.”
— excerpts from wikipedia
This two books here are called “Far from home” and “The trip to Europe” are mandatory readings for history and literature class in my 8th grade.
“Far from home” - the blue one on the left, is the book collecting King Rama V’s letters written to his daughter about his journey to Russia, and the other one on the right is called “The trip to Europe” which is the book that collected Prince Damrong Rajanubhab’s letters and reports about his trip to Europe to Rama V around 12 years later. Growing up as a Thai citizen under strict Lèse majesté law which means it’s illegal to talk any thing bad at all about the royal family, I have never got a chance to discuss more about other aspects of this 2 books in class instead of just learning on how the King and other royal family members were concerned about France and Britain influences over Thailand and South East Asia - which once even make me believed that only royals letters could deserved to be a storybook.
ไกลบ้าน พิมพ์ครั้งแรกในงานไหว้พระประจำปีของวัดเบญจมบพิตรเมื่อวันที่ ๑๗ ธันวาคม พ.ศ. ๒๔๕๐
Far from home, first published on December 17, 1905
Anyway, after seeing the world a little bit more and learned that things I’ve known in school wasn’t all true. I want to use this anti concept of “only royals letters could deserved to be a storybook” as my initial concept for creating my story.
I got invisible cities in Thai version as a present for my 16th birthday and always loves the book. Invisible cities somehow reminds me back to “The trip to Europe”.( - since the book was written in the past; which it’s like the story is setting in Thailand’s memory for me, and sometimes Prince Damrong Rajanubhab also use prose poem to explain the cities) so I want to create a story that is a mixed version of this two writings.
Anyway, my first problem is that I could only find “Far from home” in pdf which unfortunately very hard to read and unable to convert to txt file. And I finally change my idea to that I will just use the Invisible cities file to generate a story within a Thai setting by using Tracery.
Invisible cities is framed as a conversation between the elderly and busy emperor Khan and Marco Polo. The majority of the book consists a prose poem describing 55 fictitious cities that are narrated by Polo - which is for me is also like reading a letter.
First I used GPT-2 sample to trained and generate my prose poem for each city template.
Then I try to match each city with feeling by using this p5 - sketch to do word count on Thailand and South East Asia’s Wikipedia page to see what I can use to match each city with the feeling but the result of word counting wasn’t really useful to me.
After that I switched to strictly follows Invisible cities structure by using the most used Thai women’s name to match with the feelings by its translation.
Here is the file that I use to match names and feelings - city&name
After that I test to see the results of the writing in this p5 - Tracery sketch.
Here is some excerpts that I like :
Invisible City and Computation
City and Dream
Every Achara's days are spent in rotation. Now I must explain to you how I arrived at Achara in the past, and the future. For some time the Acharaer had been sure that the new and smart would not be welcomed as soon as the new arrivals arrived there, but the city's present state could only cause more sighs at every fading of the stars. In the centuries of decadence, when the new wealth and the new wealth had a negative influence over the library, the Acharaer and the Ministry of Library and industry began to assume a more austere and provincial image of things. And the more the people learned to polish, the more they realized that the Acharaer were part of an unchanging heaven, a malignant contagion infecting the city, the next Lares began to dig, also digging into the humanities of the dead. In the centuries of decadence, when the Acharaer had to flee to make the leap from oblivion, the rats began to gnaw, the ears, the nose of the animal kingdom to find a new home, a different city, and finally
City and Dream
Busarakham was built so calmly that its every markets follows a planet's orbit, and the buildings and the places of community life repeat the order of the constellations and the position of the most luminous star and the cool moon. The Busarakham's calendar is so regulated that jobs and offices and ceremonies are arranged in a map corresponding to the firmament on that date:and thus the days on earth and the nights in the sky reflect each other. Though it is painstakingly regimented, the city's life flows crisp like the motion of the celestial bodies and it acquires the inevitability of phenomena not subject to human caprice. In praising Andria's citizens for their productive industry and their spiritual ease, I was led to say: I can well understand how you, feeling yourselves part of an unchanging heaven, cogs in a meticulous clockwork, take care not to make the slightest change in your city and your habits. Andria is the only city I know where it is best to remain motionless in time.
'Bear with me,' Bhumipol answered. 'I am a wandering herdsman. Sometimes my goats and I have to pass through cities; but we are unable to distinguish them. Ask me the names of the grazing lands: I know them all, the Meadow between the Cliffs, the Green Slope, the Shadowed Grass. Cities have no name for me: they are places without leaves, separating one pasture from another, and where the goats are frightened at street corners and scatter. The dog and I run to keep the flock together.'
City & Dream
Recurrent invasions racked Rattana's streets in the centuries of its history; no sooner was one enemy routed than another gained strength and threatened the survival of the inhabitants. When the sky was cleared of condors, they had to face the propagation of serpents; the spiders' extermination allowed the flies to multiply into a black swarm; the victory over the termites left the city at the mercy of the woodworms. One by one the species incompatible to the city had to succumb and were extinguished. By dint of ripping away scales and carapaces, tearing off elytra and feathers, the people gave Rattana the exclusive image of human city that still distinguishes it.
Note : This project is still in a very first step and I know that I am far behind my classmates. Anyways, I learn a lot while creating this project and from this class. At least, I am now got some ideas that on how I can go on from here and will develop this project more further in the future.