place in everyday life in Thailand. First and foremost, it is

the outward token of the people's feeling of respect and

desire to worship holy objects — whether it be a statue of

the Lord Buddha, of the creator-god Brahma, or other

deities and spirits. Gold leaf is applied humbly and

reverently to all these by thousands of people daily; also

to the 'Lak Muang' or City Pillar of Bangkok in which

the city's guardian angel is supposed to dwell. And when-

ever monks bless a new house, office building or hotel,

their last act before leaving is to put pieces of gold leaf on

the main doors.

When applying gold leaf to one of the many revered

Buddha statues throughout Thailand, people sometimes

choose a favorite part of the statue: those who want to be

good public speakers may place it on the mouth, while

others who are praying for manual skill put the leaf on

the hands, and so on. There are also many who don't

want to be ostentatious and who quietly place the gold

leaf on the Buddha's back so that their act of worship is

unseen.

Gold leaf is also widely used for decoration, especially

in two of the crafts mentioned elsewhere in this book —

wood-carving and lacquer ware. But perhaps its most

unexpected use is in herbal medicine; it is coated on the

outside as a brand mark to imply that the medicine is of

the highest quality, and is believed by some people —

notably the makers of the gold leaf — to actually have

curative properties.

Like so many other things, gold leaf is believed to

have come to Thailand from China, brought by a

Chinese merchant. It was used to gild the Temple of the

Emerald Buddha, and people in the Royal Palace started

making it, but only for putting on Buddha images.

The traditional neighborhood for making gold leaf

in Bangkok was formerly the area of Tee Thong ("Gold-

Beating") Road which runs past the temple of Wat

Suthat near the Giant Swing. But the noise of pounding

the gold was so loud and disturbing that other local

residents complained; so the gold-beaters had to move

out of the congested city into a less populated district in

Thonburi across the river, where most of the industry is

centered today.

However, there are still two or three households

doing a good trade in making gold leaf in an area behind

Wat Bovornnives in Bangkok. The owner of one of these

thriving businesses says his grandmother used to make

gold leaf in the Palace, and later the family set up business

in their present home. He now carries on the business as

a hobby — and a very lucrative one, too, until the world

price of gold rocketed recently. He sells only to order, and

takes orders only from old, regular customers originally

contacted through his grandparents; most of them are

herbal medicine makers. On receiving an order, he buys

gold from the market and charges according to the cur-

The shop where the gold is bought performs the first

part of the operation: it squeezes out the bars into long

thin strips, one-and-a-half inches wide. (Only certain

gold shops in Bangkok's Ban Mor area will do this. The

machine used is similar to a sugarcane grinder or the

mangles used in making dried squid which one can

sometimes see in Bangkok streets).

This gold-beating household, which is probably

fairly typical of the industry, employs one male gold-

beater and about ten women. The number varies

according to the orders received; when there aren't

many, only members of the household do the work, but

for heavy orders, additional outside labor is hired. With

such an expensive raw material, the owner has to super-

vise the work carefully to make sure only the minimum is

wasted through faulty workmanship!

The long gold strip from the shop is first cut into

one-centimeter squares. Each little square is then sand-

rather like tracing paper, which have first been dusted

with powdered marble to prevent the gold sticking. The

correct positioning of each gold square on the paper is

critically important. When the stack of papers reaches a

hundred, they are put inside a leather case of the same

dimensions, for beating. The gold-beater kneels sideways

on a concrete bench, the leather case in front of him, and

pounds away at it with a heavy iron sledgehammer.

There's a special technique in doing this; he must hit

the leather case at exactly the right spot — and the same

spot every time! Those of us who have difficulty driving a

nail into a wall without hitting our thumb, will under-

stand that this isn't the sort of skill that can be handed

down; one has to have an innate gift, the proper co-

ordination of hand and eye.

The first pounding lasts about an hour, and each

gold square stretches to two inches across. The gold is

now transferred onto larger squares of similar paper,

about four times the area of the first ones. Sandwiches

are again made and packed into a leather case of the

appropriate larger size, ready for the second pounding.

This lasts four or five hours, and the gold leaf expands

further, becoming rather shapeless blobs about four

inches across.

All that remains is to trim the rough edges of these

blobs into neat square shapes ready for sale. This is done

by girls, using a long thin cutter made of bamboo. Fingers

can't be used, neither can knives, as the water-thin gold

leaf would stick to them! After cutting, each piece is re-

sandwiched between papers and quickly put in a round