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Mamia

Anyone impressed and touched by Shakespeare's greatest love-tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, can't fail to be similarly struck by its Thai-Burmese equivalent, the well-known story of Lanna Prince Sukkasem's ill-starred romance with a Burmese maiden...a story that may embroider somewhat on fact but has a historical basis.

While studying in Burma, and with its magical landscape as background, Prince Sukkasem met a pretty girl called Mamia. The daughter of a middle-class family of some means, Mamia helped her family out by selling cigarettes in the market. No sooner had the prince met this young lady then he fell in love with her, and found that his feelings were reciprocated.

However, as the saying has it, the course of true love rarely runs smooth, and so it proved for the ill-matched pair. The short period of requited romance came to an end when the prince's studies were concluded, and Sukkasem had to return to Lanna. Unable to bear the thought of parting, Mamia returned with him, dressed as a young man, and playing the part of friend to the Prince. However, the pretence could not be maintained back in Chiang Mai, where the Jao, Sukkasem's father and the ruler of the kingdom had already betrothed his son to a young woman of the prince's own rank. A factor that may well have played a role in this tragedy is that this was the time of the West's greatest colonial pressure on Southeast Asia. It was recognised that the pressure on Lanna could well increase to an intolerable extent if the prince - and the future ruler of Lanna - were to marry the national of a country already colonised by the British.

Bowing to the inevitable, and having sworn eternal faithfulness to one another, assured as they were that eventually they would be reunited in more auspicious circumstances, the lovers parted, Mamia returning to Burma.

The day of her departure was especially painful, with tears on all sides, and not only those of the lovers. Mamia washed her lover's feet with her long and glossy hair before leaving. Then, with a final embrace, they parted, Mamia promising to be faithful to their love, the prince swearing that he would call her back when times were more propitious. Day followed day, and month gave way to month, and no improvement in the situation showed itself. True to her vows that the Prince was her only love, and that there would be no other, Mamia entered the Buddhist order as a nun. Prince Sukkasem, for his part, married unwillingly, and equally reluctantly took up his royal duties. However, deprived of love, he found no satisfaction in the rest of his life - and that was how the romance ended.

The pathetic story of Mamia and her young Prince touched people's hearts, however, and has found a permanent place in the popular literature of Lanna, so that perhaps it can be said that their love is as long-lasting as they said it would be, both in its sweetness and also its pain.