1 See Nostitz, Nick, Red vs. yellow volume 1: Thailand's crisis of identity (Bangkok: White Lotus, 2009)Google Scholar; and Ferrara, Frederico, Thailand unhinged: Unraveling the myth of Thai-style democracy (London: Equinox, 2010)Google Scholar.

2 See, for instance, the reference to ‘rural hordes’ in Bangkok Post, ‘UDD rural hordes head for capital’, 13 Mar. 2010.

3 Herzfeld, Michael, Evicted from eternity: The restructuring of modern Rome (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), p. 132Google Scholar; and Herzfeld, Michael, ‘Spatial cleansing: Monumental vacuity and the idea of the West’, in Journal of Material Culture, 11, 1 / 2 (2006): 127–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Emphasis removed.

4 Herzfeld, ‘Spatial cleansing’, p. 128.

5 Vidler, Anthony, The architectural uncanny: Essays in the modern unhomely (Boston: MIT Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., p. 179. Such a phrase makes the mistake of assigning agency to ‘the city’, something which Herzfeld is careful not to do. Of course, with the Northern Thai idea of an inhabiting spirit directing the course of prosperity (charoen) for the city, such agency comes into being, but in that case there is always the question of who properly speaks for/channels the spirit of the city.

7 Ibid.

8 Peleggi, Maurizio, Lords of things: The fashioning of the Siamese monarchy's modern image (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002), p. 109Google Scholar.

9 Here, when I use ‘royal’, I am making reference to Chiang Mai's royal family, not Thailand's current Chakri dynasty.

10 These changes happened at successive points around the turn of the twentieth century, under the rule of Chulalongkorn, who adopted many of the features of the European colonial empires, recast in a Buddhist light. See Loos, Tamara, ‘Competitive colonialisms: Siam and the Malay Muslim South’, in The ambiguous allure of the West: Traces of the colonial in Thailand, ed. Harrison, Rachel and Jackson, Peter (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), pp. 75–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 These included the public censure and possible assassination of the last of Chiang Mai's absolute kings, Kawilarot (not to be confused with the more famous Kawila, whose statue is, like that of the Three Kings, the site of magico-religious rituals), as well as the generous stipend given to Chiang Mai's surviving royalty until the mid-twentieth century.

12 In Thai magico-religious belief, nothing is more antithetical to the sacred power of kings and monks than contact with women, especially regarding menstruation. This can be seen at present, when a video of the current monarch was uploaded to the website www.YouTube.com featuring a pair of dainty woman's feet dancing above the king's head; this caused the government to ban the popular website as a danger to the monarch and to the country.

13 See Aphornsuvan, Thanet, ‘Slavery and modernity: Freedom in the making of modern Siam’, in Kelly, David and Reid, Anthony, Asian freedoms: The idea of freedom in East and Southeast Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

14 Tai, as opposed to Thai, denotes the language family that includes Thai (Siamese), Laotian, Shan, Khoen, Lue, among others. I use it here to also refer to an ethnic group, but bearing in mind the fluid and intermixed nature of ethnic categories in Southeast Asia; see Leach, E.R., Political systems of Highland Burma (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1965)Google Scholar. Indeed, Mangrai might probably have been at least partially Lawa, a Mon-Khmer speaking group, but I mark him here as Tai in deference to his linguistic (northern Thai) and religious (Buddhist) orientations.

15 Ngam Meuang and his city-state of Phayao fade from the historical record along with the rise of Sukhothai and Lanna. He is present in the statue as he is present in the Yonok Chronicle, but he remains a somewhat subordinated figure in the history and historiography of the region.

16 See Wonghtes, Mukhom, Intellectual might and national myth: A forensic investigation of the Ram Khamhaeng controversy in Thai society (Bangkok: Matichon, 1993)Google Scholar; and Peleggi, Maurizio, The politics of ruins and the business of nostalgia (Bangkok: White Lotus, 2002)Google Scholar.

17 Loos, ‘Competitive colonialisms’.

18 Jaroenmeuang, Thanet, Maa Caak Lanna (Bangkok: Phujatkan, 1993)Google Scholar. In Thai.

19 Ongsakhun, Saratsawadee, ‘Kaan patiruup kaanseuksaa nai lanna: kaan saang ekaphaap haeng chat (P.S. 2446–2475)’, Seuksaasat, 10, 2–4 (Oct. 1981–Sept. 1982): 31–8Google Scholar. In Thai.

20 Sit But-in, Lohkkathat chaothai Lanna (The worldview of Thai Lanna people) (Suun Nangseu: Chiang Mai, 1980), p. 22Google Scholar.

21 See, for instance, Rak Jang [The memory] (2006), Jod Mai Rak [The Letter] (2004), Pai in love (2009).

22 Eoseewong, Nidhi, ‘Sao Khrua Faa’, Silapa Watthanatham, 12, 6 (1991): 180–5Google Scholar.

23 Wijeyewardene, Gehan, Place and emotion in northern Thai ritual behaviour (Bangkok: Pandora: 1986), p. 135Google Scholar.

24 The Chiang Mai Chronicle claims Burma, Hans Penth claims Ayutthaya. See Wyatt, David K. and Wichienkeeo, Aroonrut, The Chiang Mai Chronicle (Chiang Mai: Silkworm, 1998), p. 99Google Scholar; and Penth, Hans, ‘Prawati kamphaeng wiang chiang mai doy sangkep’, in Kamphaeng meuang Chiang Mai (Chiang Mai: Thippanet Kaanphim, 1986), p. 11Google Scholar.

25 During part of this time, Chiang Mai was a vassal of Burma and subsequently of Siam (Thailand), but only during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century was it entirely incorporated into the Siamese/Thai nation.

26 Peleggi, Politics of ruins, p. 33.

27 Gehan Wijeyewardene, Place and emotion; Panitchaphan, Withi, Withi Lanna (Chiang Mai: Silkworm, 1994)Google Scholar; and Phayohmyong, Mani, Phraphenii Sip-song Deuan Lanna Thai (Chiang Mai: S. Sapkanphim, 1994)Google Scholar.

28 Swearer, Donald K., ‘The northern Thai city as sacred center’, in The city as sacred center: Essays on six Asian contexts, ed. Smith, Bardwell L. and Reynolds, Holly Baker (Leiden: Brill, 1987), pp 103–12Google Scholar.

29 See Winichakul, Thongchai, Siam mapped: A history of the geo-body of a nation (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

30 Tambiah, Stanley J., World conqueror and world renouncer: A study of Buddhism and polity in Thailand against a historical background (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 103CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Morris, Rosalind C., In the place of origins: Modernity and its mediums in northern Thailand (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000), p. 277Google Scholar.

32 In fact, the rhetoric of naive villagers subject to duplicitous mediums paralleled later rhetoric of naive villagers deceived by the Red Shirt movement. Indeed, the participation of Red Shirt protestors in a magico-religious cursing ritual was the subject of widespread disgust and scorn on the part of many Bangkokians and middle-class Thais.

33 Chiang Mai's old city is a square, pierced by five gates, which have varying levels of auspiciousness depending on their position. The least auspicious gate, Saen Pung, is also called the ‘Ghost Gate’, as it serves as the egress point for corpses leaving the city and travelling to the crematorium.

34 Obviously the great popularity of Thaksin Shinawatra, a Northerner of Chinese descent, might complicate this picture for some. For Faa, Thaksin, as a man of business who chose to move to Bangkok politics, proved her point about a link between Chinese and Central Thais.

35 Aphawatcharut Caroenmeuang, Duangchan, Sustainable cities in Chiang Mai: The case of a city in a valley (Chiang Mai: Social Research Institute, 2007 [2005]), pp. 104–11Google Scholar.

36 Kitiarsa, Pattana, ‘You may not believe, but never offend the spirits’, in Global goes local: Popular culture in Asia, ed. Craig, Timothy and King, Richard (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003), p. 174Google Scholar.

37 Mills, Mary Beth, ‘Attack of the widow ghosts: Gender, death, and modernity in northeast Thailand’, in Bewitching women, pious men: Gender and body politics in Southeast Asia, ed. Ong, Aihwa and Peletz, Michael (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 244–73Google Scholar.

38 Morris, In the place of origins, p. 93.

39 See Andrew Johnson, ‘Rebuilding Lanna: Constructing and consuming the past in urban northern Thailand’ (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, New York, 2010), ch. 6.

40 I do not wish to imply that these stories were at all true – indeed, Burmese refugees were often the targets of discrimination and hostility – but such stories found fertile ground in the imaginations of Chiang Mai residents.

41 Anderson, Benedict, ‘Withdrawal symptoms: Social and cultural aspects of the October 6 coup’, in Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 9, 3 (1977): 13–30Google Scholar.

42 On this day, many – possibly hundreds, there is no clear official death toll – of university students were killed and their bodies mutilated by right-wing paramilitary groups convinced that they were communist infiltrators.

43 Often, this was at the same time contradicted by side comments confiding in me a ghostly experience or asking me wonderingly if I had uncovered some truth to some mediums' claims of psychic power.

44 Morris, In the place of origins, p. 6.

45 In March 2007, the Pollution Control Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment called for Chiang Mai residents to stay indoors as particulates in the air had reached an ‘emergency’ level.

46 Duangchan, Sustainable cities in Chiang Mai, pp. 312–17.

47 Also known as the ‘Ratchaphruek Flora Expo 2006’, the Royal Flora Expo provides an interesting case study: the site was roundly criticised by Thaksin Shinawatra's critics, yet when it was completed, well after his ouster, it was appropriated by the military junta as a celebration of the monarchy.

48 See discussion in Duangchan, Sustainable cities in Chiang Mai.

49 Thongchai Winichakul, ‘Coming to terms with the West: Intellectual strategies of bifurcation and post-Westernism in Siam’, in Harrison and Jackson, Ambiguous allure of the West, p. 144.

50 While some housing compounds still have open areas for communal activity, I did not hear the world khuang referred to outside of architectural and historical communities. With regards to temples, Chiang Mai experienced a radical change in temple architecture with integration with the Bangkok-based Buddhist hierarchy during the turn of the twentieth century, as Northern temples were required to fit architecturally with Central temples in order to obtain recognition from the newly centralised Buddhist sangha.

51 Cities in the Theravada Buddhist world often mirrored heavenly design in an attempt to sympathetically access the heavens' cosmic power. Examples of these kinds of cities include Kandy in Sri Lanka, Angkor in Cambodia, Sukhothai in Thailand, and, of course, Chiang Mai.

52 Aphawatcharut Caroenmeuang, Duangchan, Mai Mii Wat nai Thaksaa Meuang Chiang Mai: Bot phisuut khwaam cing dooi nak wichakaan thong thin [No temples in Chiang Mai's sacred city plan: Real proof from local scholars] (Chiang Mai: Social Research Institute, 1998), p. 149Google Scholar. In Thai. The book is itself a salvo against other claims of a unique ‘local wisdom’ in the layout of Chiang Mai by local historians Somchote and Saratsawadi Ongaskhul and reflects a struggle over authenticity in representing true ‘Lanna’ practice.

53 Ibid., p. 150.

54 Askew, Marc, ‘The rise of Moradok and decline of the Yarn: Heritage and cultural construction in urban Bangkok’, Sojourn, 11, 2 (1996): 183–210CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Duangchan, Mai Mii Wat nai Thaksaa Meuang Chiang Mai, p. 158.

56 Aphawatcharut Caroenmeuang, Duangchan, Meuang Yangyeun nai Chiang Mai: Naewkit lae prasopkan khong meuang nai hup khao [original Thai version of Sustainable cities in Chiang Mai] (Chiang Mai: Social Research Institute, 2005), p. 16Google Scholar.

57 Ibid., pp. 34, 112.

58 Peleggi, Politics of ruins, pp. 78–9.

59 The neighbourhood in which she had a shrine had had several rabid dogs wandering through the streets in past years.

60 I met several mediums channelling Mangrai, although I have not yet met anyone claiming to be Ngam Meuang or Ramkhamhaeng, although I do not doubt that such mediums exist.