66. Mae Nak (Thai Folklore)

In our last Halloween episode of the season, Lizzie tells Zoe about Mae Nak, a spirit from Thai folklore. Together, we discuss how her story relates to themes of grief, women's roles, and protests against the draft.

Sources:

The Legend of Mae Nak Prakanong

“Mae Naak and Company: The Shifting Duality in Female Representation on the Contemporary Thai Stage” by Catherine Diamond

“Ghost Mothers: Kinship Relationships in Thai Spirit Cults” by Andrew Alan Johnson

“Nang Nak—Ghost Wife: Desire, Embodiment, and Buddhist Melancholia in a ContemporaryThai Ghost Film” by Arnika Fuhrmann 

“Mae Naak and Phra Ram Keeping Company on the Contemporary Thai Stage” from Communities of Imagination: Contemporary Southeast Asian Theatres by Catherine Diamond

“‘Queering’ Thai Masculinities and Sexualities in Phi Mak Phra Khanong” by Atit Pongpanit

Wat Mahabut - the legend of Mae Nak

 

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Transcript

Zoe 

Hello, and welcome to Mytholadies, the podcast where we talk about women from mythology and folklore all over the world. We're your hosts.

 

Lizzie 

I'm Lizzie.

 

Zoe 

And I'm Zoe. And Lizzie, how are you today?

 

Lizzie 

I'm all right. It's getting cold. But I'm fine. I don't really have anything interesting to report honestly. How are you?

 

Zoe 

I'm alright. It's in the fun New England fall phase where the temperature climbs and drops 30 degrees per day. So I never know what to wear. Especially because I like don't go back to my house until like the evening. So that's a bit exciting and tricky, but I'm figuring it out as I go. And yeah, I'm getting into the semester. I have a paper due next week. It's all you know, becoming very real, but I'm gonna make it through. So it'll be fine.

 

Lizzie 

New England is gorgeous this time of year.

 

Zoe 

Gotcha.

 

Lizzie 

This is not new information to you.

 

Zoe 

Oh, New England. I thought you just said regular England and I was like, okay, that's, that's fine.

 

Lizzie 

I'm not in England.

 

Zoe 

I know. I was like, why are you telling me this? Like, okay, I guess. I know. Yeah. New England is really pretty this time of year. The leaves haven't really started to turn yet though. So like, there are a few trees that are like having leaves that have started to turn but the rest of them like not so much. So. But yeah, hopefully they will start soon. And then it will be really pretty. And I'm excited for that. So before we begin, just a reminder that we have a ko-fi that you can donate to. We accept one time or recurring donations, and you get access to our bonus content, including three bonus episodes, which are all really fun and exciting to listen to. And also you can give a donation, a recurring donation on Spotify in order to listen to our bonus episodes there as well. $5 a month and yeah, so that is all there. If you would like to support us, we put a lot of really hard work into this podcast. So any support is very much appreciated. Yeah. So Lizzie, Who are we talking about today?

 

Lizzie 

Today is gonna be the last of our Halloween themed ladies for this year. Ooh. So today we are talking about Mae Nak from Thailand.

 

Zoe 

Ooh, okay.

 

Lizzie 

Do you know her?

 

Zoe 

The name sounds familiar. I don't know much about her.

 

Lizzie 

I bet. She's a very well known female spirit in Thailand.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, I mean, I knew she was a female spirit. But that's about it.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. Well, that's as much as you can gather from from me saying her name and that she's from Thailand. Yeah. Anyway, Mae Nak means Lady Nak. And she's also called Mae Nak Phra Khanong, or Lady Nak from Phra Khanong, which is a neighborhood in Bangkok. And she can also be called Nang Nak which means Miss Nak and so she's a very well known spirit in Thailand. Her story is really famous and is depicted in pop culture a lot.

 

Zoe 

Interesting.

 

Lizzie 

So I will tell you the story slash stories associated with her.

 

Zoe 

Please do.

 

Lizzie 

I'm going to tell you basically a mix of the different versions that I've read with some variations. So.

 

Zoe 

Cool.

 

Lizzie 

There once lived a woman named Nak. She was deeply in love with her husband, who was called Mak and they lived together in Phra Khanong, which at this time was a small water-based village connected by canals. Sometimes Nak is a woman from a rich family who defied her parents when she married Mak, who was poor. When the country went to war, Mak was conscripted into the army and went to war, leaving Nak at home alone while pregnant. While Mak was in the Army, Nak died while giving birth and became the spirit of a pregnant woman. Yeah, that's really sad.

 

Zoe 

That's not what I expected, actually.

 

Lizzie 

Really, what did you expect?

 

Zoe 

Someone to die.

 

Lizzie 

Oh, fair enough.

 

Zoe 

And for the woman to like, go mad with grief or whatever. And

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, that is a typical theme that you would see. But no, so Mak returned from the army to find that the villagers had fled from the canals and left his neighborhood abandoned. The only building that remained standing was his house, which he entered to find his wife and their son, and he lived there with Nak for some time, and other than avoiding the sunlight, she seemed basically normal.

 

Zoe 

Okay.

 

Lizzie 

But he was unable to see his former friends and neighbors. Anytime one of them came close to the house, they would die horribly. Which Mak didn't know was by his wife's hand.

 

Zoe 

Jeez. okay.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, yeah, she basically was just killing People to hide the fact that she was dead from Mak so that he wouldn't leave her. Essentially. And there are variations regarding how Mak finds out about his wife's true nature. In one, a monk approached the house, obviously fearful for his life and told Mak that if he wanted to see the truth, he should bend down and place his head between his legs and look at the house upside down. And when Mak did this, he saw Nak her what she really was

 

Zoe 

Interesting.

 

Lizzie 

And another says, this one's a bit more detailed. That trouble happened when Nak didn't accompany her husband to the county fair, which was of course, because she couldn't go out into the sun, or Mak would see that she was a decayed corpse, but Nak decided to go anyway out of jealousy. She saw a dancer trying to seduce Mak. So she strangled her.

 

Zoe 

Oh!

 

Lizzie 

Yup.

 

Zoe 

Fair enough I guess.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, I mean, it's not a crime to flirt, but fair enough.

 

Zoe 

Oh, true. True. True. Yeah.

 

Lizzie 

This led to a rampage where she also killed the midwife who she blamed for her death, and went after several other people as well.

 

Zoe 

Oh, geez.

 

Lizzie 

One girl escaped and asked the shaman for help. But the shaman said he couldn't do anything until the one who loved her renounced her. However, Mak was still in denial.

 

Zoe 

Oh, wow.

 

Lizzie 

I mean, he loved his wife and he didn't want to believe that she was, you know,

 

Zoe 

yeah, a vengeful spirit, yeah. Understandable.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. He realized the truth one day when Nak was cooking and dropped a lime between the slats in the floor. Which at this time Thai houses were like on stilts. And then like beneath the house would be like where the animals were. So she reached down extending her arm, like unnaturally long to pick up the lime.

 

Zoe 

Horrifying.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. And yeah, that revealed her ghostly nature to to Mak. And yeah, that would be very scary to see. Mak was horrified. But he still loved her and insisted she could be purified. And a Buddhist novice and the shaman convinced Mak to reject her. And then they captured her spirit in a pot and dropped it into the river, which I want to say in his defense. Like, I feel like he held on till the end to like his wife's spirit until he realized that like, she doesn't belong in the living world anymore. Like he wasn't like, like, he wasn't disloyal to her.

 

Zoe 

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Lizzie 

As much as he could be. He was loyal to her but like, that's kind of an unwinnable situation.

 

Zoe 

Yeah. I mean, I think you know, he's just, he really loved his wife and he didn't want to accept the fact that she died.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah.

 

Zoe 

Is sort of what I'm getting out of this.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, exactly. But like he also probably know – this kind of reading into it a bit. But I think he also knows that like she she can't be helped in this state. And she won't be able to like go into the next life until her spirit is whatever cleansed, banished. And there are also some other variations, including some that feature the famous Thai monk Somdet To, who took her forehead bone and turned it into a magic amulet.

 

Zoe 

Cool.

 

Lizzie 

Which as I understand it has something to do with getting her soul to like be able to be reincarnated. I don't know exactly, but that magic amulet is said to be in possession of the Thai royal family.

 

Zoe 

Cool.

 

Lizzie 

Cool detail. I'd have not seen anything more. I saw that detail a bunch of times, but I couldn't really find anything more about it. So

 

Zoe 

yeah,

 

Lizzie 

yeah.

 

Zoe 

It's one of those things. Yeah.

 

Lizzie 

I mean, it's cool. I love the detail that a poor woman. Her forehead bone is like an amulet that the royal family possesses.

 

Zoe 

It just seems like something a royal family would have is like the magic amulet from like, a spirit or something, you know?

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. And there's also a variation says that an elderly couple moved into the house and found the pot containing her spirit and accidentally released it.

 

Zoe 

Classic

 

Lizzie 

And another with a story of two fishermen who found the pot and release her spirit. Obviously, they have to like, get it back. And like that causes havoc. And there's surely also other variations.

 

Zoe 

Yeah. I mean, it's very it's very ripe with like, ways you can put your own take on it. Right. Like  —write your own story about people who discover the spirit and like what happens to them when it when that happens.

 

Lizzie 

Definitely  Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think there's actually like a film adaptation. That's like, "Mae Nak goes to Japan." Like there's so many things you can do with her after she goes into the pot.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, exactly.

 

Lizzie 

Anyway, so what are your thoughts so far?

 

Zoe 

Yeah, I mean, well, I think it's an interesting story. And I again, like I said, I just sounds like a story about grief to me in a lot of ways. You know, like, her husband returns from war and finds out that his wife has passed away when he's been away. Yeah, and wasn't there for her and isn't able to accept the fact that she died and like oh of his, like, the memory of his wife and move on and sort of like the tragic effects of that. And that's just sort of what it seems to be about. To me. There's my interpretation,

 

Lizzie 

Yeah no, I mean, a lot of ghost stories are about grief. I feel like.

 

Zoe 

Absolutely, yeah.

 

Lizzie 

I feel like at the heart of this story is the love that a husband and wife have for each other. Which is really nice.

 

Zoe 

Yeah. And I mean, like, I think that's sort of how we see it in her actions as well is that she loves him. But also their relationship is really holding him back and ways from like, moving on and having his own life. Like he can't be with his friends anymore. He can't like find a new love, because he's still like, stuck with his wife, who is who is passed on. And it's very interesting.

 

Lizzie 

And in a sense, it holds her back because she is unable to leave.

 

Zoe 

Yeah.

 

Lizzie 

Unable to depart from the world because yeah—

 

Zoe 

or be reincarnated.

 

Lizzie 

—she just really wants to hold on to her husband. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Zoe 

Yeah. It's a very interesting story. And I like it.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, I agree. And I think it's interesting that like, you think you know where her story is gonna go, that she's gonna start murdering people, which I guess she did. But she really isn't like vengeful. She's more like protective. Like, she doesn't want to kill people for the sake of bloodlust, but more just to protect her own sort of interests with her with her marriage and with her husband, like her motives are overall good and understandable. But anyway, so there's a shrine dedicated to her in Wat Mahabut, a temple in Phra Khanong. And people leave her offerings and pray for protection and fortune. Visitors to her shrine include men seeking to avoid the draft for new women's seeking good luck and childbirth, and people wishing to win the lottery.

 

Zoe 

Those are all very interesting, like people who go to ask her for help.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, like, it seems like kind of a mixed variety of people. But like, I mean, you can see kind of the similarities of like, people who are scared of misfortune, you know, and like, I mean, there does seem to be like a kind of low key anti war anti draft kind of thing going on here. So I mean, I think it makes sense for people to go to her to avoid the draft. She's, I'm sure against it because you've lost her husband that way. And yeah, so the Mae Nak legend has become part of the cultural heritage of Phra Khanong and the people of Phra Khanong embrace her legend at her shrine. In 1997, a change in municipal boundaries place the shrine and the neighboring Suan Luang district.

 

Zoe 

No!

 

Lizzie 

I know which, I mean, her name is Mae Nak Phra Khanong, yeah, she shouldn't be in another district.

 

Zoe 

I mean, it's in her name. Like it's clear where she's from.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. And so that obviously upset the people of Phra Khanong. People have been lobbying since then to change the boundaries back. So that Mae Nak's shrine is once again in Phra Khanong.

 

Zoe 

Wow

 

Lizzie 

But so far, it's been unsuccessful. Apparently, the city council don't want to change the boundaries back because they think the requests are a hidden ploy for gerrymandering, because it would transfer about 20,000 people back to Phra Khanong, and like, so political stuff, etc. But

 

Zoe 

Don't know anything about that.

 

Lizzie 

I mean, I mean, yeah, I was, I wasn't going into detail, just like there's political reasons that they're not like, Yeah, I mean, well, as soon as you have a figure that's heavily associated with a city or a part of a city or a country, like it can become political very, very quickly. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, like, the place where her shrine is is like the place where she is said to be buried so it can't exactly be like moved across the border like it is in Phra Khanong, just like a technicality of it is technically not in Phra Khanong anymore.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, what does it just, I guess it's just an odd situation. I don't know.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. But it's sad that people are really wanting the boundaries to be changed back for this reason. But yeah, it's been unsuccessful. It's been like 25 years. That's crazy. But yeah, political stuff. It's yeah. Andrew Alan Johnson talks about Mae Nak's devotees in his article, "Ghost Mothers: Kinship Relations in Thai spirit cults. And he discusses why devotees might align themselves with violent ghosts, you know, as opposed to like, a sort of, quote, "proper" religious figure or like religious anything? Like what, does that make you think of anything? Or, like, why do you think it would be?

 

Zoe 

Well, I mean, they're asking her for protection. Right? So like, if she's killed people, she protects people.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah.

 

Zoe 

I mean, it makes me think of Santa Muerte where it's that's such a

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It kind of reminded me of that as well.

 

Zoe 

—question of like, the line between who is a proper religious figure and who is like a bunch of people like doing weird things, and we're kind of like frowning on them for like, asking this specific figure for protection or whatever. You know, and like, who gets to decide like, what is proper religion and what's just like a weird cult and the implications and power behind that.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, exactly. Like what the benefits are to one way or the other way for the devotee. YSo Johnson discusses the fact that spirits such as Mae Nak can offer solutions that religion may not. For example, if someone had an issue with unrequited love, a Buddhist monk might suggest accepting the state of affairs and letting go of attachment. Whereas a spirit might be able to intercede and take action. So, I mean, sometimes you don't want like wisdom and growth sometimes you want action.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, sometimes you just want you don't want to be told to be the better person. You just want to like, yeah, actually have something to be done about how you're feeling.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, exactly. And yeah, so like, you were kind of talking about like, it reminded me of the difference between major religion and folk religion. And folk religious figures are closer to the people, they seem less distant, you know, physically, spiritually, like geographically. They often begin as common people themselves until they're immortalized in legend, and they're also often tied to a specific place.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, that also reminded me something like that, because, yeah, she's tied to like, I remember she, there's like a specific place, but like, obviously, um, this lady has a very specific place that, you know, she's connected with, as we've discussed, because it's like literally in her name.

 

Lizzie 

Exactly.

 

Zoe 

Or like, La Difunta Correa? She was tied to a specific place that she was connected with. It's just a lot closer to people than like, oh, you know, like, Mary. She's from the Bible.

 

Lizzie 

She's close to the common people. She doesn't seem so far away. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, Mae Nak's story maybe violent and scary, but she can also potentially offer some comfort to people who can relate to her story or who feel marginalized in another way. And it's also worth noting that folk religious figures are often worshipped by and beloved by working class people. You know, villagers, and Mae Nak is no different. Most of her practitioners are from a working class or like a village background.

 

Zoe 

For sure.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. And a quote about her shrine from Andrew Alan Johnson from the article. "It became a site not to enact vengeance, but to build a new structure of social relations—one that incorporated the wild, bringing the omnipresent specter of death into the household." So it's like we were talking about in the Santa Muerte episode, like you want to be close to death, even if perhaps to some people that would seem kind of counterintuitive in like a religious way. Or like that it would seem Dark. But it does make sense.

 

Zoe 

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it also like, you know, I think it really shows that, like, you can see her as like, oh, the scary, vengeful spirit. But like, really, that's not how people see her. They see her as someone who had a lot of love for someone and was trying to like protect someone or was like, acting in the way that she thought right. And they are not like condemning her for her actions. They respect her and her actions, like she's not viewed in a negative way. 

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, and they respect her story. Yeah. Like, there's a sense to which she can be seen and her story can be seen as like, you know, like a martyr.

 

Zoe 

like, ooh more scary lady. Oh, sorry. We're thinking of—

 

Lizzie 

Different directions.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, no, as a martyr.

 

Lizzie 

Like, if you have a similar struggle, and you can see yourself or you can see sort of the tragedy and like the love and her story, then you will, you will see her as like a folk religious figure, like she's, she had a horrible story, but now she's this spirit who can help people potentially.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, I mean, I think like, when you look at her story, what you're seeing is very much a devoted wife and a person who is very devoted to someone and like taking care of someone and like, it gets sort of twisted and messed up in a way and that's, I think, started because possibly because of the idea of like, you know, you're not supposed to stay here after you die. You know, you're supposed to move on, you're supposed to like be reincarnated or ascend to some sort of higher level or whatever your beliefs are. But it's not necessarily like she's not acting in a way that's messed up because of personal failings. It's because of like, just the nature of things.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah.

 

Zoe 

And like, yeah, there are aspects of her that are like scary and you can like fear her. But it's more of like a fear that comes out of respect than a fear that comes out of like, oh, she, she'll like, get your kids if you don't behave sort of

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. Yeah, like her story is scary. Like it is told to people in like a scary story kind of way, but not everyone sees her like that. Like, in the article that I quoted, there was, they, the author interviewed some people who go to her shrine and someone, and there are people who view her in like a familial sense, like there was a man who referred to her as grandmother. Like there's Yeah, these really really close relations with her devotees which is really nice. And like that is the beauty of folk religion.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, in folk religion you can really see the person that you're or the the figure that you're worshiping as a close relationship. Like your grandmother or something like that.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, like the like, like an ancestor spirit, in a sense, in some ways, you know? Yeah. And so Mae Nak is a victim of uncontrollable forces, namely the military draft and the dangers of childbirth. And this is something her devotees can relate to. They come in hopes that Mae Nak can to help them with events that can become dangerous, such as childbirth and the draft, among other things, which can signify an acceptance of the unknown and of death, similar to worshipping a deity of death, like we talked about Santa Muerte. And it may seem grim, but death is a part of life. So it's better to make friends with it.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, absolutely. And like, I mean, as we've talked about many times before, the idea of like death being this really scary end is like very much rooted in sort of like Western Christian ideology. And then there are a lot of cultures around the world and a lot of like, religious beliefs around the spiritual beliefs around the world, that sort of just view death is something that happens and not necessarily like something to dread, or to prepare for or to like, worry about all the time.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, in the Christian view, it's like the Judgment Day, like you don't want to die. But like,

 

Zoe 

You don't want to die before you're ready.

 

Lizzie 

It's all it's all. It's all leading up to that moment.

 

Zoe 

Yeah. You have to be ready when you die, or else like, you'll go to hell, you know?

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. But it's not necessarily that big of a deal.

 

Zoe 

But, uh, yeah, in other religions, it's like, well, someday you die. Because you know, you can't live forever, your body's gonna give out, like, you know, maybe you'll have an accident, but like, that's just life. And it's not as big of a deal as like, in other places. And that's just, that's also an incredibly valid and like, logical belief. That so many places have.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. And so some have suggested that the legend of Mae Nak is based on an actual person.

 

Zoe 

That makes sense.

 

Lizzie 

Yes, it does. So the historian Anek Nawikamul claims that the real Mae Nak was a woman called Amdaeng Nak, amdaeng means miss. It's an archaic term for an unmarried woman.

 

Zoe 

Interesting

 

Lizzie 

Who was the daughter of a dignitary and was married to a man named Chum, so not Mak, but, and Amdaeng Nak died during childbirth. But she also had an older son. And the son evidently did not want his father to remarry. So he made up a story about his mother's ghost and threw rocks at passing boats and dressed up like her to scare people.

 

Zoe 

Oh.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah.

 

Zoe 

Fascinating.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. So that is a story. And it's based on newspaper article from 1899.

 

Zoe 

Okay.

 

Lizzie 

It's not proven, it can't really be proven or disproven. But that's the leading theory of her actual origins.

 

Zoe 

Oh, that's a relatively recent origin. If that's like the origin, the theory that we're choosing to—

 

Lizzie 

So the story, the story itself takes place in the 1800s. Like, definitely, for sure. Like I saw in a bunch of different articles ranging from the reign of King Rama III to King Rama V, which I think is the range of like, the 1830s to the 1860s. Roughly.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, I mean, it's only two numbers. So it's not that

 

Lizzie 

I mean, it's a couple of decades. Yeah, but it's all in the 1800s is the point. Yeah,

 

Zoe 

So yeah, so is like as some legends go, like relatively recent, which is interesting.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. So like, there is there is historical basis, like specifically somewhere in that time. I don't know why such such such variation. Either King Rama the third, the fourth or the fifth? I don't know which one it was. But that's all I mean, it was sequential anyway. So yeah. And an important feature of Mae Nak's story involves her love for her husband, as we said. And even after death, she wishes to be Mak's perfect companion and to be with him in whatever way possible. And her love for Mak is so powerful that it compels her to stay around even after death, and causes her to wreak havoc upon society. And her story can be seen as embodying the contradictions imposed upon women. In many ways She's the ideal wife, but she's also fearsome. Quote from the author Ka Wong “After she dies Nang Naak metamorphoses herself from feeble victim to a fearful demon [. . .] in order to hold on to her husband. Hence love seems to have a dual nature. Or is it men who hold a dubious standard towards women?”

 

Zoe 

Ooh, interesting.  Great question. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it is interesting, right? Because like I said before, it is kind of just like a story of an incredibly devoted wife. But then there's also the sort of like perversion of like, the roles of like the wife that's happening in the story of like, attacking the woman that she perceives is flirting with her husband, her like killing her husband's friends and it's like, wait, stop. That's not what a wife is supposed to do. But it's also like, you can interpret it as like wifely duties in a way and it's interesting. Yeah, sort of like this interrogation.

 

Lizzie 

Great, quote.  Yeah, definitely. And like in many ways, she is absolutely the ideal wife. Like she's so devoted to her husband, she loves him. She wants to like, cook and tend house for him. You know?

 

Zoe 

She doesn't want to leave him even she dies.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, yeah.

 

Zoe 

And like, in a way not to be that person but like if the gender roles were reversed and she was the husband and like she was killing the wife's friends or like attacking the man that like was flirting with the wife like those, especially like the second one are generally more societally acceptable which is also an interesting question, but.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, like the people will definitely want like, people but like specifically wives to like be like so loyal to their husbands. And like she is. She's extremely loyal.

 

Zoe 

She is. It's like here is loyalty. And then they're like, wait, no, but stop.

 

Lizzie 

Taken to the extreme. Yeah.

 

Zoe 

It's like, but this isn't this what you wanted, like is a wife that was completely dedicated to you, you know?

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. I mean Mak isn't really to blame here. I feel like he's, he loves his wife. Even when she's killing people.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, I mean—

 

Lizzie 

To an extent.

 

Zoe 

He's, I mean, I think he's like, oh, well, must not have been her, or there's other things happening. Yeah, I don't think he's to blame either. I think it's, you know, just like a question of like, how people would react to the story of like, oh, my gosh, like, this guy's crazy. You know. I couldn't imagine having my wife like that. And it's like, Well, isn't this the wife that the women are supposed to be that men are supposed to want, you know, like, but like, put to an extreme.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. And it's like a caricature of this, like expectation.  Yeah. And her story can be interpreted as representing the unfair expectations placed on women. They affect not only women who do not fulfill the standard expected of them, but also women who do, like as we were saying, she is absolutely in some ways the perfect wife, but underneath her love and devotion, she is an evil monster who destroys everything around her as well as the man she loves, in a sense. And this disadvantages not only men who might fear that their wife isn't what she seems, but also women who do everything expected of them and still find that it isn't enough, either when they follow the role expected of them, and even when they're perfect wives and mothers, they're not guaranteed security or happiness. And yeah, so that can kind of underlie her story. You know, as she becomes like an exaggerated version of her former self of like a perfect wife. She wishes nothing more than to hold on to her husband, please him, and prevent him from finding out the truth because she knows it won't end well. And she's the ideal devoted wife but she's still a monster who's feared and has to be kind of be defeated in a sense. Like in another sense, she's not exactly defeated as much as like pushed to the next life.

 

Zoe 

Which is interesting.  Yeah, but positive in the end kind of.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, but like I feel like it kind of depends 'cause like some people in the story are like, no, she's scary. She has to be gone. But in another sense, like, I mean, it is good for her spirit to be pushed to the next life. Not necessarily bad but anyway. And more to this point, her love for Mak isn't just what motivates her to stay with him after her death. It's literally like what keeps her spirit on earth like that's...

 

Zoe 

It's her unfinished business quote, unquote.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, like that's yeah, yeah, exactly. And her love for Mak is so strong that her spirit survives, which is sort of tragic seeing as her motivations were very pure, but she still doesn't get happy ending.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, I mean, like, I think you know, you could see it as a sort of interpretation of women's roles you can see it as like the idea of a wife duties being pushed the extreme where you could like also just see it as like, like I said before, like a just a lesson about how wanting to stay for your, the person you love, even after death, even though it's understandable, it's just not the nature of things. It's just not how things are supposed to go and no matter like what you want to accomplish, it's gonna twist, twist you, and like, make you do things that are ultimately horrendous and bad, even if that's not what you originally intended. And that's why you have to move on.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, and in some sense for both Mak and Nak they're both both like trying desperately to hold on to like to their marriage like their old life but it's just not possible after one of them has died.

 

Zoe 

It's just not how it's just not how life works

 

Lizzie 

And which is just like a very powerful love story right? It's like Orpheus going to rescue Eurydice from the underworld, you know?

 

Zoe 

Yeah. Like if Orpheus hadn't turned around like and he had brought Eurydice up to the under like, from the underworld like, would it have worked out like, would she have been the same?

 

Lizzie 

Like it's the nature of the story to not work out like even though love is strong it can't, you know, it's not stronger than death.

 

Zoe 

Yeah.

 

Lizzie 

But anyway, anyway, I like her story is awesome. Interesting. I mean, she also goes against like she, okay. Like she was against the roles of women, etc. but also against sort of the structures of, societal structures like the draft like it is a very anti draft story, which is interesting.

 

Zoe 

It is definitely interesting.

 

Lizzie 

She's like the antithesis of like these societal structures that like, are in place that cannot be avoided. And she has these, these things that she goes up against that is ultimately unsuccessful. There's the draft, there is dying during childbirth, there's like, the roles that are expected of women that like, even though she fulfills them, she still fails in the end.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, I mean, she also just represents like, a lot of challenges that I think a lot of everyday people would face at the time, like, there's the fear that your husband is going to be taken away from you by the draft and like have to go to war, there's the fear that you'll die in childbirth, because it's dangerous, you might not have access to the best medical care. And then there's, you know, the experience of like, probably a lot of women that you there's not much you have control over in this world.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah.

 

Zoe 

Because that's just the way things are set up. And so I think that's another way that like people would I really identify with her story is like, yeah, this could very easily happened to me, like, my husband could get drafted, I could get pregnant and die in childbirth while he's gone. And then like, Where would we be, you know?

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, like if she had died in childbirth while he was there, like the story would probably be very different. Or maybe she wouldn't have died. Like, I mean, yeah,

 

Zoe 

It wouldn't be like, Oh, I died when my husband was away.

 

Lizzie 

Maybe his presence would magically make everything okay. Yeah.

 

Zoe 

And I'm like, waiting for him to get back. Or instead, it might just be like, I mean, it might still be similar. But there's, well, the thing is, though, that's not what the story is. And there's the reason why the story is the way it is, yeah, definitely, like the story is includes the draft for a reason. And the reason is to be like, this is an issue. This is something that we experience and is a problem and makes our lives harder. And it's scary, you know,

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. Mak didn't want to leave his pregnant wife alone to just like die by herself.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, like, the reason why the story has the draft isn't like, because—

 

Lizzie 

Just circumstantial. Like he could have gone to war voluntarily. Yeah.

 

Zoe 

It has has the draft because the story wants to talk about the draft. You know.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, things are usually not coincidence, especially in stories that are not very detailed, you know?

 

Zoe 

Yeah. Like, regardless of like, the origins of the story, like the truth, the legendary. The way that it's passed down is generally because of a specific, specific ideas and specific things that people want to emphasize.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And like she didn't just die in any way it was during childbirth, which I feel like it's tied to this sort of married life that also gets interrupted by the draft. Like it's all connected. And she also gets like, like her life gets cut short in general. But also she doesn't get to give birth to her her child, either.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, she doesn't get to live with her husband and her child and like, have that sort of happy married existence.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. And I feel like horror stories in general often exaggerate or, like, expand on fears that people do have, right?

 

Zoe 

Yeah.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. I mean, that, this story is no different. Like, it's not just to be scary. It is like a tragedy. It's a story about love. And, and I was like, somewhat, it's like a bit different. But I'm like, somewhat reminded of Bluebeard. Of like the sense that the story has, like an aspect of the thing that you fear is like really at home, but you just don't know about it. And like,

 

Zoe 

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

 

Lizzie 

Picture Mak, like everyone around him was dying. He does not know why. But then he finds out it's his wife who's doing yeah, that's, that is scary. And like a sense of like—

 

Zoe 

Yeah, I mean, like, the moment when she reaches her arm down to get the lime and you just realize is that she's moving in a way that no human should be able to move like, yeah, it's an absolutely horrifying concept. It's like someone that you thought you've like known is something like horrifying.

 

Lizzie 

Like you want to feel secure at your home.

 

Zoe 

Yeah.

 

Lizzie 

And, and yeah, and with your wife or with your husband. And so that's also another kind of aspect of why the story is scary, because like imagine being Mak and that happens, you'd be really scared. And like the fact that he doesn't immediately reject her is like a testament to how much he loves her because he must have been horrified.

 

Zoe 

Yeah.

 

Lizzie 

So as you can probably imagine, Mae Nak's story has been adopted dozens of times in a lot of different mediums: TV, radio, movies, plays, comic books, etc. Yeah. And so there's a lot of different film adaptations, obviously, but there's a few that are really famous. A notable adaptation of her story is a 1990 film Nang Nak, which was unique in its time in that it showed Nak's story in a sympathetic light. And it was also a massive commercial success. And it was at this time the highest grossing Thai film ever.

 

Zoe 

Whoa.

 

Lizzie 

Huge deal in Thai cinema. And the current highest grossing film of all time is another Mae Nak adaptation.

 

Zoe 

Whoa, wild.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. Yeah, it goes like it really shows you how big the story is in Thailand. It's the comedy horror film from 2013 called a Pee Mak. Which is notable for being from Mak's perspective rather than Nak's and as well as for changing the ending of their story. Which, spoiler, but Mak decides to accept his wife supernatural qualities, and they continue to live happily.

 

Zoe 

Wait, I love that. That's so fun,

 

Lizzie 

Right? Isn't that awesome? She just uses her like weird arm extension stuff for doing chores. And they like live in their little house like it's awesome.

 

Zoe 

I love that. Oh, my gosh.

 

Lizzie 

And it is still in 2022, the highest grossing Thai film of all time. So.

 

Zoe 

That's really great.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. I mean, it's only nine years old. But anyway. Yeah, it seems pretty. Pretty cool.

 

Zoe 

Yeah.

 

Lizzie 

So I will end the episode with a quote from an article that I read, which is “Mae Naak and Company: The Shifting Duality in Female Representation on the Contemporary Thai Stage” by Catherine Diamond. “She implicates the whole society as the cause of her misery—from the military who takes away her husband, the women who try to seduce him, the midwife who kills her, to the monk who captures her. She rages not only against her fate but also man-made structures, and is able to fight back, fulfilling female fantasies of revenge. The evocative power of her ghost is eternal; she rises again and again in different media, in different configurations because she is deeply rooted in the communal imagination, inspiring both fear and awe, and, finally, pity.”

 

Zoe 

Yeah,

 

Lizzie 

I feel like it really highlights how how interesting Her story is. And I mean, for me, I feel like at the beginning when you hear about like, vengeful spirit. Yeah, I think you know how it's gonna go. But hers is pretty unique.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, I mean, I feel like a lot of what I've seen about her is like, Oh, the scary like, vengeful female spirit of like a pregnant woman who died in childbirth. And I'm like, Oh, I mean, that sounds really cool. But this is like, you know, different from what I expected. I you know, I would sort of think of like the Pontianak who like, attacks like pregnant woman and like their children and stuff. And this is, I mean, that's not what she does. She's not really vengeful in that way. Like, she's not she has revenge, which like in the story, like the things that are the sort of, quote unquote, vengeful thing she did in the story. But she's not like still here doing vengeful things. She's like, done. And yeah, like, people ask her for help. And so it's like, a whole it's a completely different vibe.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, she really doesn't come across as evil at all in the story, I think.

 

Zoe 

Yeah. I mean, it's like, oh, dear, don't do that. But it's also like, you know, she's become this thing, but then at the end, like, she's vanquished, or she's, like, trapped in this pot. And like I said, I mean, that creates a great, I mean, it's sort of like, Jumanji kind of, like, you know, keep discovering the game and like, getting trapped in it. You know, it's like you can keep discovering the pot and letting her out. And then now you have this whole plot of like, what's going to happen now? Like, what, how does the story go? How is it like different like, what, what is going to happen? And so again, there's so many great opportunities for stories in like media, plays, books, movies, etc. But like, also, she you know, she's not like a threat. Like I said, She's not like,

 

Lizzie 

you wouldn't be like, scared in your bed at night being like, Oh, my God, she's gonna get me.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, like, You're not telling children. Oh, you better watch out, or she's gonna get you or maybe like, are because that's just the nature of like, stories like that. you know, but like, she's less like that, like a boogeywoman character. And more just like, this woman who

 

Lizzie 

She's like a tragic figure.

 

Zoe 

But also, like, that's not her. She's not prowling the streets at night, you know?

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. Yeah, I feel like we, I mean, we are often sympathetic to like scary women. But like, you don't have to look very hard to be sympathetic to her. Like, it's really easy to be sympathetic to her because her story does inspire sympathy.

 

Zoe 

Yeah. And it's like also clear that we're not the only ones who feel that way. Because there are people who are like making her offerings and asking her for help, and it's not uncommon at all.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, I mean, I didn't want to talk about about like, to be clear, I think there are also misogynistic interpretations of her story, but there's also kind of like feminist reclaimed visions of it as well. I mean, with any female spirit, you're gonna have people who are negative about it, or misogynistic about that this is gonna happen. It's fine. I mean, it's not fine.

 

Zoe 

But yeah, it's clear. Yeah, it is not surprising to me that people are gross about it. Yeah. And it's also not surprising to me that people are like making feminist like reclaiming her.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah, I read a bit that like there's actually a movement through like theater specifically because theater is like a kind of, I don't know about female dominated but like it's a female heavy—

 

Zoe 

Cool

 

Lizzie 

Because it's well, because it's kind of seen as less art, you know, than like movies. And so the men started in theater, but they went to movies and then there was more space for women in theater. Which I mean, maybe you would find the article interesting because it's,

 

Zoe 

I would find that very interesting, actually.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah. Yeah. Which is cool. I mean, the idea of like theater being run by women and yeah, that's awesome.

 

Zoe 

Love to see it.

 

Lizzie 

Yeah.

 

Zoe 

Yeah, well, happy Halloween, everyone. Hope you all have a great holiday, are very safe. Celebrate, Have fun. If you don't celebrate Halloween, I hope you have a good rest of the month. We'll be back here again in November. And yeah, thank you for listening. Please make sure to subscribe, leave a review. Tell all your friends and yeah. See you soon.

 

Lizzie 

Bye.