Few have contributed as much to the knowledge and preservation of Phuketian culture as Pranee Sakulpipatana. Bruce Stanley reports
Pranee sakulpipatana is a prominent historian and promoter of culture on Phuket. For 36 years, she taught in the English department of Phuket Rajabhat University, developing the university’s culture museum. She then established the Phuket Community Foundation and also serves as vice president of the Thai Peranakan Association, which supports the cultural strain known in the region as Baba.
Two of her great-grandfathers emigrated from the Fujian region of China to Phuket over 100 years ago. When she was a young girl, she used to listen to her grandmother’s stories about the history of the Chinese-Thai community that settled on Phuket island during the 19th century. “My grandmother lived to be nearly 100 years old and had a very active memory of life in the early 20th century on Phuket,” recalls Pranee. “When I was a young girl, in the 1950s, we would go to the Chinese temple at the top of Patong Hill to pay our respects to our ancestors. It was a difficult journey and we often had to get off the bus and help push it up the hill. But it was important to respect the traditions of our community,” she explains.
Young Pranee enjoyed seeing international movies that came to the island. She decided to study English when the time came to attend university. She enrolled at Srinakarinwirot University in Bangkok, one of only eight students accepted into their English language degree programme. When she graduated, she returned to Phuket and began teaching at Satree Phuket School.
In 1973, she was part of the opening faculty of what is now Phuket Rajabhat University. “I taught English for many years and contributed to the university’s cultural centre, becoming director in 2000,” she says. “I collected rare books and artefacts that would inform them about how Phuket people used to live, what they ate, the kind of houses they built and how they supported themselves. After I retired in 2009, I became even more involved in supporting local cultural initiatives that would inform local students of all ages about their history.”
Pranee has written books about Phuket history and is a regular contributor to Phuket Bulletin magazine and other regional publications on the culture of the island. She has also hosted a popular radio programme in which she shared stories of Phuket’s past. Accompanied by her most loyal supporter – her husband – Pranee travels extensively around Europe learning the history and culture of the many places that Thai monarchs have visited over the past two centuries.
After 2004 and the tsunami that devastated many villages on Phuket, Pranee decided to establish the Phuket Community Foundation to help those affected. “There were many wonderful international programmes to help the tsunami victims but often these donations took complicated paths to reach those affected. I set up a local foundation where the funds and programmes would directly help those in need.”
Every year, she stages a mass wedding for those who wish to have a traditional Baba ceremony. This year, the governor of Phuket renewed his own wedding vows as part of the celebration. Such cultural activities serve to remind Phuketians of the rich and complex heritage of this corner of Thailand.
AT A GLANCE
STATUS Married with two children
ACHIEVEMENT Promotion of Phuket history and culture
FAVOURITE CHARITY Her Phuket Community Foundation
FAVOURITE BOOK History books and documents and works on the life of prominent Phuketian Kaw Sim Bee
CHILDHOOD AMBITION To write a history of Phuket island
EARLY MENTOR Maternal grandmother