FEATURE: While movie fans the world over rave about the new Batman film, the only stir bats are causing in this poor farming village is in a cooking pot.
They’ve been scarfing bats down in Baan Toom for as long as anyone can remember, roasting the little, flying beasts on spits over charcoal fires or mincing them up into a traditional Thai dish.
The farmers say the meat is delicious, and, with a big smile, they claim it also gives them sexual powers.
While their hamlet appears idyllic, it sits in the northeastern province of Kalasin, the poorest region in Thailand, where local officials say incomes average barely US$70 a month. The lack of money means few comforts, and the work in the paddy fields is backbreaking and hot.
But there are compensations, the villagers say — the abundance of free food.
When the farmers fancy something different for dinner, they leave their rice seedlings, wade out of the bath-warm paddies, grab a net and long poles and go bat hunting.
The quarry is a creature of habit and it takes just a few minutes to reach the bats’ regular hangouts — the sugar-palm trees that shade the dikes above this water-logged landscape.
Before springing the trap, the 66-year-old Kamgong Phunasee chants an incantation in the local dialect, asking the bats’ forgiveness for what awaits them. Kamgong says he doesn’t know the proper Thai to translate his words — they are magic words learned from his father and grandfather.
There is nothing magical about the hunt. The farmers crash poles into the trees and bats tumble down into the waiting net in a cascade of broken foliage and flapping wings.
“It’s not hard to catch them. They just fall right out of the tree. Other times we smoke them out,” says Supan Insang, the group’s “batcatcher-general,” who claims to have bagged as many as 200 in a single day.
But it’s slim pickings on this day, just a half dozen squealing and struggling in the mesh. He blames the presence of journalists.
The hunted species is called kangkhao noo, or mouse bat, because of its small size.
It doesn’t look like much of a meal, but Kamgong insists the bats are quite tasty and, he adds, provide sexual benefits for the old men who consume them so voraciously.
“They do wonders for your libido and they give you stamina. And if you have them with traditional medicine, they boost your performance,” he says, laughing.
The men prepare the bats without sentimentality. The creatures are plunged into boiling water. Once dead, they’re plucked of their fur and roasted on glowing charcoal, wings, guts and all. The chopped-up meat is mixed with fresh herbs, a little sugar and spicy paste and then fried.
Still, this could be the last generation to hunt bats for food in Baan Toom, which translates as “Closed Flower Village.” Many people here seem to think like 14-year-old Peam Prachakul.
“I’d never even think of eating bat. It’s too weird and I’d be scared to eat it,” the schoolboy says while watching his grandfather dig into a bowl of bat.
Bats are known to carry diseases, including rabies. But the old farmers in Baan Toom don’t scare easily.
“Bat meat, it’s so tender and sweet,” Kamsee Phuphala, 57, says between mouthfuls. “You can eat the whole thing.”
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
MOGAMI-CLASS FRIGATES: The deal is a ‘big step toward elevating national security cooperation with Australia, which is our special strategic partner,’ a Japanese official said Australia is to upgrade its navy with 11 Mogami-class frigates built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said yesterday. Billed as Japan’s biggest defense export deal since World War II, Australia is to pay US$6 billion over the next 10 years to acquire the fleet of stealth frigates. Australia is in the midst of a major military restructure, bolstering its navy with long-range firepower in an effort to deter China. It is striving to expand its fleet of major warships from 11 to 26 over the next decade. “This is clearly the biggest defense-industry agreement that has ever
RSS