Bombay Anna: The Real Story and Remarkable Adventures of the King and I Governess

9. "The Noble and Devoted Women Whom I Learned to Know, to Esteem, and to Love"

Anna’s schoolroom in the palace complex was the marble-floored grand hall of one of the many temples—Wat Khoon Chom Manda Thai, Temple of the Mothers of the Free. This beautiful wat (temple) was located behind the inner wall of the Grand Palace, within the royal harem. The king’s children who were old enough were expected to attend Anna’s classes. But anyone in the harem was welcome to come to the schoolroom, just to observe or to participate. Anna and the king shared a strong belief in the enormous value of learning. The king encouraged his various wives and concubines to go to the lessons, and Anna welcomed them. Many women did come. Initially, the mothers brought their children and stayed with them to give them the support and encouragement the presence of a mother can provide. But it was also true that many women without children began to come to the schoolroom, and many mothers stayed long after their children were comfortable without them there. The lessons, the teacher, and her son were fascinating novelties in an existence that for many women grew very stale. Nang Harm was the name the Siamese used to refer both to the place, the inner palace, and to the people who lived in it. There is no direct translation, but Nang Harm has been variously translated as “Veiled Women” (a bad translation—there were no veils) or as the “Inside” or as “women of the Inside .” Dan Beach Bradley offered his own translation: “all the wives of the king are designated Nang-ham,—literally a lady forbidden, that is forbidden to go out of the palace” (Bradley, Bangkok Calendar, 1863). The absence of a direct or literal translation highlights the fact that we do not have a cultural concept that matches the Siamese institution called Nang Harm. Harem is an impossible word in English. Virtually all Western images 118 nine “The Noble and DevotedWomen Whom I Learned to Know, to Esteem, and to Love” of harems are variants on Hollywood fantasies about the harems of the Middle East. Nang Harm—and possibly any other harem, including those in the Middle East—does not fit this image. What, then, was it like, the royal harem of King Mongkut of Siam? Nang Harm in the 1860s was a walled city. Wide avenues with graceful houses, parks, flower gardens, and small streets crowded with apartments and shops were all enclosed by an inner wall inside the Grand Palace, with the whole palace complex enclosed by an outer wall four and a half miles long. Malcolm Smith, a doctor who arrived in Bangkok well after Anna had gone, “t h e n o b l e a n d d e v o t e d w o m e n” 119 figure 5. The king’s son, heir apparent to the throne (Prince Chulalongkorn). Margaret Landon Papers (SC-38), Special Collections, Wheaton College. described it as “a town complete in itself, a congested network of houses and narrow streets, with gardens, lawns, artificial lakes and shops” (Smith, 56). In the Bangkok Calendar for 1871, Dan Beach Bradley also described the royal harem as “in fact a compact little city of brick buildings, all of them covered with earthen tiles. Our readers may well conceive that it must needs require a large space to furnish room for 100 or more distinct palaces, and numerous streets of ample width, and a bazaar and market of respectable size, and many other brick buildings too numerous to mention.” Mary Cort, an American missionary , also stressed in her 1882 memoirs of her time in Siam that the harem was “this little city,” and “not without its tradespeople and shops” (Cort, 50). Anna estimated the population of Nang Harm to be about nine thousand people, all (with the exception of the priests, who visited every morning) women and children, and almost all captive there. Nang Harm functioned in many ways as its own city, with inhabitants in a range of classes, having a range of functions. The highest class consisted of members of the royal family , the queens, consort mothers, and princesses. These women would never leave Nang Harm until, in Anna’s phrase, they would “have by age and position attained to a certain degree of freedom” (Romance of the Harem, 13). Bradley’s explanation was that “in all former reigns this class of...