As many of you know Thailand has a special place in our heart – it is where I met Bev, it is where we were married and where Marisa, and Amara, were born – so it seems fitting that on this occasion I should tell you a little known Thai folk tale.
This folk tale is about elephants and of course you know that elephants are widely revered in Thailand – in fact white elephants are considered royalty and are treated very, very specially with their own houses in the grounds of the royal palace. Also our family loves these animals too! But this story is about ordinary elephants.
In the olden times elephants were the work horses, the war cavalry and even though revered were often killed for their ivory tusks. This tale is about 2 elephants who grew up in the forests of Thailand who played together and both lost their parents when they were quite young – how, the story doesn’t say – but the young elephants were found and taken away to be trained to work in the logging industry.
The mahouts who worked with the elephants named the elephants Bee and Flitz and for many years the two elephants worked in different logging camps and did not see each other. One day both mahouts took them to participate in the Surin Elephant Round-up in north-east Thailand. This round up has become a huge tourist attraction not to be missed and it takes part every November where you can see literally hundreds of elephants. At this round up the elephants show off their skills – there are mock battles, tug of war between one elephant and hundreds of men and women and I will give you one chance to guess who always wins – and games – the elephants play football and you would be amazed at their skill.
Now another well known fact about elephants is that they have amazing memories so now I bet you think you know where this story is heading! Of course Bee and Flitz did see each other and did remember each other – so now what! As you also know elephants can be quite mischievous and playful. At the beginning of the event the elephants are presented with a large plates of fruits and other elephant goodies and a shaman does an opening ceremony. As the elephants were enjoying their feast Bee picked up a plate and tossed it into the field. Flitz then ran and threw it back much to the entertainment of the audience!
Well they continued playing but left all the other team members out of the game! They had such fun throwing the plate back and forth to each other so that from that day on the game of “jahn bin” became known as FlitzBee!
Well this is so relevant to us because had they not created this game Emmett and Marisa might not have met! So we are so happy they did meet playing this ancient Thai game and becoming part of our family!
To commemorate this we commissioned this plaque for you both showing Flitz and Bee
