Unit 9 · Southeast Asia and Travel

Thailand was called Siam until 1939. From 1351 to 1767, its main kingdom had its capital at Ayutthaya, a river city north of today’s Bangkok. Soldiers of Ayutthaya trained with swords, spears and staffs, and they also trained to fight without weapons.

Thai people today often call the older unarmed styles muay boran, which means ancient boxing. The armed art is called krabi krabong, named for the sword and the staff. Both were taught in villages, temples and royal circles, and they were often shown at temple fairs.

Records from these centuries are few. Much of Ayutthaya’s written history burned when a Burmese army destroyed the city in 1767. Historians piece together the older arts from later chronicles, paintings, poems and the memories of teaching families.

After Ayutthaya fell in 1767, many Siamese people were taken to Burma as captives. A well-known story says one of them, Nai Khanom Tom, fought Burmese boxers before the Burmese king. In the story he wins match after match and earns his freedom.

The story comes from later retellings, not from a record written at the time of the matches. Historians treat it as a legend, a story handed down that may hold some truth but cannot be checked. The details change from one telling to another.

The legend still matters as history of another kind. It shows how Thai people in the twentieth century linked boxing to national pride and survival. Thailand honors Nai Khanom Tom with a yearly boxers’ day, and statues of him stand in Ayutthaya province.

In older bouts, fighters wrapped their hands and forearms in long strips of cord or hemp. The Thai name for this wrapping is kard chuek. Matches were held in open spaces, such as a temple yard or a cleared field, and a match often ran without set rounds.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Bangkok promoters and officials brought in rules modeled on international boxing. Fighters began to wear padded gloves. Bouts were split into timed rounds, and a square ring with ropes replaced the open ground.

Reports of serious injuries in cord bouts pushed these changes forward. Weight classes, taken from Western boxing, later let fighters of similar size meet. The name Muay Thai, meaning Thai boxing, came into wide use as the sport took this new shape.

Building on Rajadamnern Stadium began in Bangkok in 1941 on a plan from the Thai government. The Second World War slowed the work. The stadium held its first fights in December 1945, and it became the first permanent home for the sport.

Lumpinee Stadium opened in 1956 and was run by the Royal Thai Army. For decades, a title belt from Rajadamnern or Lumpinee counted as the top honor for a Thai fighter. Many fighters, trainers and fans still judge a career by these titles.

In 2014 Lumpinee moved to a new building in northern Bangkok. Both stadiums kept their own rules, their own judges and their own rankings. A stadium in this system works like a league: it sets fight nights and names champions.

A professional Muay Thai bout in Thailand usually lasts five rounds. Each round runs three minutes, with a two-minute rest between rounds. Three judges sit beside the ring and score each round, and a referee works inside the ropes.

Stadium rules also name what is allowed and what is a foul, a broken rule. Fighters must weigh in before the bout to prove they fit their weight class. Doctors check fighters, and officials record each result.

Fans at the stadiums have long bet on bouts, and the betting shaped how fights were watched. Many Thai fans say early rounds are often slower, and later rounds decide the score. Scoring customs like this are part of the stadium’s own culture, and they differ from Olympic-style amateur rules.

For most of the twentieth century, each stadium and promoter set its own rules. In 1999 Thailand passed the Boxing Act, known in Thailand as the Boxing Act B.E. 2542. B.E. stands for the Buddhist Era, the calendar used for official dates in Thailand.

The law set up a national boxing board under the Sports Authority of Thailand. It required boxers, trainers, gyms, promoters and officials to register, or sign up with the government. It also set rules for fighter safety and for young boxers.

The act turned the ring into a licensed public institution. A gym now needed papers, not only a trainer and a floor. Thai lawmakers have since debated changes to the rules for child boxers, a topic that remains part of public argument in Thailand.

The mongkon is a stiff loop worn on the head. It is usually made of rope or cord wound tightly and wrapped in cloth, with a tail at the back. In many Thai gyms, the trainer places it on the fighter’s head before the bout.

The fighter wears the mongkon while walking to the ring and during the opening ceremony. The trainer then removes it before the first round. Many trainers teach that a fighter should not touch it with the feet or leave it on the floor.

The mongkon links a fighter to a camp, the Thai gym where fighters live and train. A camp may keep its mongkon on a shelf or altar between fights. Some gyms outside Thailand now award colored hoops as ranks, a newer custom that Thai stadium camps did not use.

The pra jiad is a band of cloth tied around the upper arm. Unlike the mongkon, many fighters keep it on for the whole bout. Some fighters wear one band, and some wear one on each arm.

Thai families and trainers often tell how, in earlier times, a mother tore a strip from her own clothing and tied it on her son’s arm before he left to fight. Some bands hold small written prayers or objects inside. Like the mongkon, the pra jiad is described by many fighters as a gift and a reminder of home.

In some gyms outside Thailand, colored armbands mark grades, similar to belts in judo or karate. This is a newer use that grew as Muay Thai spread to other countries. The same object can mean a family gift in one room and a rank in another.

Before a traditional bout, many fighters perform the wai kru ram muay. Wai kru means to pay respect to the teacher, and ram muay means boxing dance. Fighters describe it as a way to thank their teachers, their camp and their family.

Each camp may have its own version, so fans can sometimes tell a fighter’s gym from the ceremony. The fighter circles the ring and bows in each direction. The mongkon is still on the fighter’s head during the ceremony.

Live musicians play during the ceremony and the bout. The group usually includes a pi java, a reed pipe, along with two-headed drums and small hand cymbals called ching. The music speeds up as the rounds go on.

Thailand’s neighbors have ring arts of their own. In Myanmar, the art is called lethwei. It is known for bouts fought with wrapped hands instead of gloves, and for matches at village festivals and pagoda fairs.

In Cambodia, the ring sport is called pradal serey, which means free fighting. Cambodia also has an older art called Kun Lbokator. In 2022 UNESCO added Kun Lbokator to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, a list of living traditions that countries work to protect.

Neighbors sometimes argue about which country gave a shared practice its start. These arguments show how strongly arts are tied to national identity, the sense of what belongs to a nation. Historians compare records from each country rather than choosing a side.

From the 1970s on, Thai fighters and trainers taught in Japan, Europe, Australia and the United States. Gyms abroad used Thai words and Thai objects, and many sent students to train in Thai camps. Amateur competitions grew beside the professional stadiums.

The International Federation of Muaythai Associations, or IFMA, organizes amateur Muaythai around the world. Amateur rules use shorter bouts and require protective gear such as head guards. IFMA writes the sport’s name as one word, Muaythai.

The International Olympic Committee gave IFMA provisional recognition in 2016 and full recognition in 2021. Recognition means the IOC accepts the federation as the world body for the sport. It does not by itself place the sport in the Olympic Games.

Silat is the name for a large family of fighting arts from the Malay world. That region includes today’s Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore, along with southern Thailand and the southern Philippines. In Indonesia, the art is usually called pencak silat.

There is no single silat. Each school, called a perguruan in Indonesia, has its own teacher line, its own name and its own customs. In West Sumatra, the Minangkabau people call their art silek, and it grew beside village life and the prayer house.

Many silat schools teach with music, and some performances appear at weddings and village feasts. In Malaysia, a silat display often welcomes guests at Malay weddings. These uses sit beside training for self-defense and sport.

Indonesia declared independence from Dutch colonial rule in 1945. The Netherlands recognized that independence in 1949 after four years of war and talks. The new nation had hundreds of islands and many languages, and its leaders looked for shared symbols.

In 1948 teachers founded IPSI, the Indonesian Pencak Silat Association, in the city of Surakarta on Java. IPSI set out to bring many perguruan under one national federation. A federation is a group of member schools or clubs that agree to shared rules.

Joining a federation did not erase the old schools. Most kept their own names and teachers. IPSI added a second layer, with national events, shared rules for competition and a voice for silat in government.

In 1980 federations from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei founded PERSILAT, an international pencak silat body, in Jakarta. Pencak silat entered the Southeast Asian Games in 1987. It joined the Asian Games in 2018, when Indonesia hosted them.

Competition has two kinds of events. In tanding, two athletes compete for points. In seni, the artistic events, athletes perform set sequences alone, in pairs or in teams, and judges score them.

In December 2019 UNESCO listed two entries on the same day. One was the Traditions of Pencak Silat from Indonesia. The other was Silat from Malaysia. The two listings show that one family of arts can be claimed with pride by more than one nation.

Spain ruled the Philippines from the 1560s until 1898. During those centuries, Spanish words entered the languages of the islands. Two common names for Filipino stick and blade arts come from Spanish words.

Arnis is often traced to arnés, a Spanish word for harness or armor. Eskrima comes from esgrima, the Spanish word for fencing. A third name, kali, is widely used in the United States, and teachers disagree about where that word came from.

In the Philippines, arnis is the name most used in schools and in law. Eskrima is common in the Visayas, the central islands, including Cebu. The three names often point to the same family of arts, but each school may prefer one.

In April 1521 the explorer Ferdinand Magellan, sailing for Spain, fought the forces of Lapulapu, a leader on the island of Mactan near Cebu. Magellan was killed in the battle. Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian who sailed with Magellan, wrote an account of the voyage.

Pigafetta described a large force of island warriors with spears, shields and cutlasses. His account is one of the oldest written records of fighting in the Philippines. It was written by an outsider who survived the loss.

Many Filipino teachers today honor Lapulapu as an early hero of their arts. The account shows that islanders were skilled with weapons in 1521. It does not name arnis or describe a school, so historians keep the link as a tradition rather than a proven line.

In December 2009 the Philippines passed Republic Act 9850. The law declared arnis the national martial art and sport of the Philippines. It named the Department of Education as one agency to carry this out.

The law asked schools to include arnis in physical education. It also asked the Philippine Sports Commission to support arnis competitions. This is how a stick art came to sit in school PE closets across the country.

A law like this is a kind of national symbol, a sign that a country uses to describe itself. Other national symbols include flags, anthems and national flowers. Naming a sport in law shows a government choosing which heritage to put forward.

Arnis first appeared at the Southeast Asian Games in 2005, when the Philippines hosted them. It returned in 2019, again in the Philippines. A host nation may add sports it cares about to the program.

Sport arnis uses padded sticks and protective gear such as head guards and body armor. Judges score points under written rules. There are also form events, in which athletes perform set sequences for judges, much like the seni events of pencak silat.

Sport rules make the art safer to compete in and easier to judge. Some teachers say they also narrow what the art includes. The same debate appears in many martial arts that join big sporting events.

From 1906, Filipino men came to Hawaii to work on sugar and pineapple plantations. In the 1920s many more came to California to work on farms in places like Stockton and the Salinas Valley. They were later called the manongs, from an Ilocano word for older brother.

The manongs faced hard limits. California law barred marriages between Filipinos and white Americans until 1948. Many worked long seasons for low pay and lived in crowded labor camps.

Some manongs practiced eskrima in back yards and union halls, often only with other Filipinos. In the 1960s teachers in Stockton began to open eskrima classes to the public. The art moved from a private family and worker tradition to an American storefront school.

After Indonesia became independent, about 300,000 people moved from Indonesia to the Netherlands in the 1950s. Many were Indo families, people of mixed Dutch and Indonesian descent. They arrived in a cold country that had ruled their birthplace.

Some Indo men had trained in pencak silat in Java. In the Netherlands they opened clubs in cities and towns, often in rented halls. For a time the arts were practiced mostly inside the Indo community.

Later, Dutch students of all backgrounds joined these clubs. The Netherlands became one of the first European centers of pencak silat. This is an example of diaspora history, where migrants carry an art and a new country slowly takes part.

In 1938 Nguyễn Lộc founded Vovinam in Hanoi, in what was then French colonial Vietnam. He built it from older Vietnamese fighting arts. He wanted a school art that Vietnamese people could see as their own.

Vovinam grew in southern Vietnam after the country was divided in 1954. When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, many Vietnamese people left as refugees, people forced to flee their home country. Teachers among them opened Vovinam clubs in France, the United States and other countries.

Vovinam students wear blue uniforms at many levels, and belt colors mark rank. Today Vovinam has international federations and is a sport at the Southeast Asian Games. It shows a newer art founded under colonial rule becoming part of a diaspora.

Filipino students came to Chicago in the early 1900s under the pensionado program, which sent them to study at American colleges. The program began in 1903. Filipino workers followed, and Chicago became home to one of the Midwest’s largest Filipino communities.

After the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 ended quotas based on national origin, many more families came from the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Chicago’s Argyle Street area on the North Side became known for Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian shops. New arrivals brought foods, festivals and arts with them.

Today Chicago-area gyms and community programs offer classes in Muay Thai, arnis and silat. A city gym runs on schedules, fees and waivers. The same art in a village follows the calendar of festivals and families.

In West Java, performers show pencak silat to the music of drums and a reed pipe at weddings and community feasts. The drum music for this is called kendang pencak. The performance honors families and guests, and no one keeps a score.

In a city gym in Chicago, Manila or Amsterdam, the same art may be taught for fitness, sport or self-defense. There are sign-up sheets, class times and belt or grade systems. The gym answers to its members and to local laws.

Neither room is fake. Each is an institution, a lasting set of people, places and rules. Historians ask which rules each room follows and who decides them, instead of asking which one is the true art.

Martial arts gyms around the world open class with a warm-up and a safety check. The habit protects students more than any piece of gear.

1. Tell a grown-up you are practicing, and practice where one can see you.

2. Clear a space about two big steps wide in every direction. Move pets, bags and furniture.

3. Warm up for five minutes: jog in place, arm circles, leg swings, and gentle knee lifts.

4. Watch the move in the Dojo, step by step. Then try each step slowly before you join them.

5. Use control: stop every strike and kick in the air at the point you choose.

What helps: count the steps out loud. Practice both sides. Rest and drink water between rounds.

Stay safe: practice alone, into the air, never at a person. Keep kicks at knee or belly height until your balance is steady. Falls only on a mat or soft grass. Stop if something hurts.

In Thailand’s ring sport, Muay Thai, fighters stand taller than boxers and hold their hands high. Both sports start from a guard: hands up, chin down, ready to move.

1. Stand with feet about shoulder-width apart, one foot forward.

2. Lift the back heel slightly so you are light on your feet.

3. Bring both fists up by your cheeks, elbows tucked near your ribs.

4. Tuck your chin a little and look ahead. Switch which foot is forward.

What helps: shoulders relaxed. A tight guard tires you; a loose, ready guard lasts.

Stay safe: practice alone with space around you.

Muay Thai fighters are known for a powerful roundhouse kick that lands with the shin. Taekwondo (dollyo chagi) and karate (mawashi-geri) have their own versions.

1. Start in a guard with space all around.

2. Turn on the ball of your front foot so the heel points forward.

3. Lift your back knee out to the side, to belly height.

4. Turn your hip over and swing the lower leg in an arc into the air at knee or belly height.

5. Pull the leg back along the same path and return to your guard. Switch sides.

What helps: the standing foot turning first protects the knee. Practice slowly with one hand on a wall.

Stay safe: low kicks into the air, never at a person or object. Stop if your hip or knee hurts.