My talk at the museum a week later was doomed from the start by Malaysian politics. The curators were young, ethnic-Malay Muslims—bumiputra, or “sons of the soil”—a label they used to distinguish themselves from Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese and Indians whose ancestors immigrated more recently, when Malaysia was part of a British colony. The Malay curators had absolutely no interest in my talk about opium antiques. When I asked if they had opium artifacts in any of the branches of the national museum in Malaysia, one young woman told me (in a respectful tone) that Chinese items were not displayed at Malaysia’s museums because the Chinese were not true Malaysians. The comment was no surprise to anyone familiar with Malaysia’s fractured society, and anyway, I knew her claim about the country’s museums was false. Having browsed the branch of the national museum in Penang on three occasions, I was aware that it was home to a very well-thought-out display of Chinese costumes and furniture. There was even a small exhibit of opium paraphernalia on the second floor. The pieces—one pipe, a needle, and part of a lamp—were unexceptional, but there was one particularly impressive hardwood opium bed that must have made its owner feel like a prince. On the ground floor of the museum, tucked away in a display cabinet situated under a stairway, I spied an opium smoker’s travel kit made of lacquered boxwood and complete with its original lamp. The kit was not labeled, and its absence from the opium paraphernalia exhibit upstairs convinced me that the museum’s staff had no idea what it was.
It made no sense for me to challenge Roxanna’s guests with what I had seen in Penang, and of course there’s never a good time to argue with Southeast Asians about local politics. Instead I saved my foundering show-and-tell by turning on a computer, getting online, and showing the young curators how to search for antique kris daggers on eBay.
I thought Roxanna might be disappointed with my presentation but she just laughed. After the curators had gone back to their hotel, she gave me a tour of the ceramics museum. It was small but the collection was fabulous, and the lighting and interactive displays—all designed by Roxanna herself—put everything I had seen at Thailand’s government-run museums to shame. Roxanna suggested that we celebrate my “successful lecture” at her place with a pipe or two. I was glad for the invitation. In the back of my mind I had been hoping for one all along.
At Roxanna’s later that evening, once the accoutrements were arranged and she had rolled three pipes for each of us, she began to describe the challenges she faced as the director of the Southeast Asian Ceramics Museum. There were the typical issues of being a foreigner: Some Southeast Asian academics resented outsiders who claimed to be experts in their art and culture—a resentment that no doubt had its roots in the region’s experience with European colonialism. Thailand, having never been colonized, could not claim such a past, but Roxanna said there was a feeling in some quarters of Thai academia that non-Thais could not possibly understand the nuances of their art.
But sometimes Roxanna’s being an outsider worked to her advantage. Southeast Asia has a long history of wars and conquests as well as a concept known to historians as “cultural augmentation.” An example of this is “classical Thai” art and culture that, for the most part, was derived from Khmer art forms after the Siamese sacked Angkor in the fifteenth century and force-marched Cambodia’s court dancers, artisans, and astrologers back to Siam. In turn, the Burmese invaded Siam 350 years later and made off with its cultural treasures. This partly explains why the arts of many of the civilizations in Southeast Asia look so similar—not that such similarities have fostered harmony between the neighboring countries. As has happened many times in the region, emotions quickly heat up when the fires of nationalism are stoked. In 2003, an angry Cambodian mob burned down the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh when it was reported (erroneously it turned out) that a Thai celebrity had suggested Cambodia’s Angkor Wat belonged to Thailand. Roxanna’s ceramics expertise covered the entire region and, according to her, she had been able to bridge gaps in the regional academic community simply because she was an outsider and seen as neutral.
But unfortunately that expertise was never taken on faith. Roxanna found it was something she had to prove over and over to each and every Thai she met. “How many times has some professor from the Thai government’s Fine Arts Department come to visit the museum and then asked to meet the director, and when I introduce myself they just look right past me? Who is this little old farang lady? Where’s Khun Rattana Ngerntong-dee?” Roxanna laughed, using an honorific with her Thai name.
She explained that when she took Thai citizenship she was told by immigration officials that she was required to come up with a Thai name to go along with her new nationality. Her husband suggested “Rattana,” which sounded fairly close to Roxanna. At home among her Thai family she was “Mem,” a nickname based on the English word “ma’am” and commonly given to women of European or Eurasian ethnicity.
Then there was her leg, or the lack of one. Thailand is a country where much importance is placed on outward appearances, and Roxanna’s disability was more of an obstacle than it might have been in other cultures. “It was a motorcycle accident. I was run over by a large truck. I survived, but you’re familiar with the whole karma thing. Most Buddhist Thais, even the educated ones, can’t get past their belief that bad things only happen to bad people, that somehow I deserved it based on something I did in a past life or earlier in this one. Of course, they never say that directly to my face!” she said with a laugh, showing she harbored no bitterness.
Roxanna went on to describe the world of collecting ceramic antiquities. “My biggest problem has been fighting the tide of fakes that has flooded the market. You would not believe the lengths dealers go to in order to convince collectors they’re getting the real thing. I’ve met collectors who have been to unauthorized digs hundreds of miles from anywhere and watched as fakes were ‘unearthed’ right before their eyes.” Roxanna shook her head in disbelief. “Imagine the collector who witnesses something like this and who sincerely wants to believe he had the luck to be there just in time to make the purchase!
“My museum was founded by the man who founded the university. His Southeast Asian ceramics collection is extraordinary and it’s the core of the museum’s collection, but there are fakes in his collection. One thing I’ve learned is that most collectors do not want to be told when they’ve been duped. They just don’t want to know about it. Okay, that’s fine, but what do I do when those fakes end up in the museum that I’ve hung my reputation on, and the founder wants to know why I refuse to display certain items? Do I open my mouth and risk upsetting him? Most collectors would hate the messenger as much as they hated the message being delivered.”
It was clear how much passion Roxanna had for the subject, but there was also a tinge of despair in her voice. While talking about fakes she seemed so vexed that I tried to change the subject. It was the first time I had seen her agitated, and she obviously needed to vent. “The whole system is rotten. Perfect replicas are aged and certified as antiquities while the few genuine pieces that are being found are passed off as reproductions in order to export them. I seriously doubt anyone knows what’s real and what’s fake anymore. It’s just gotten so jumbled that there’s really no way to appraise anything. The value of something is simply what somebody is willing to pay for it. And if I’m the only one who can tell a piece is fake but nobody else believes me, is the piece really a fake? I don’t know; you tell me.”
“I’m sure glad that hasn’t happened with opium antiques. There’s not enough demand,” I said.
“Oh, it’ll happen eventually. Willi told me you’re working on a book. Do you have a publisher?”
I told her about having finally found one, a small local publisher based in Chiang Mai called Silkworm Books. The writing was finished and the photographing of my collection had been completed, but the firm needed time to come up with the money to have my book printed. Despite the delays, I was grateful to have a publisher that understood my idea of p
resenting antique opium paraphernalia as art, and that was willing to take a chance on a book about it.
Roxanna said that I should use the waiting time to collect as much as possible before demand went up. She warned me that not only would values increase as demand rose, but that the number of fakes would increase as well. It is a cycle that feeds on itself, and it happens with every Asian collectible that becomes established with Western collectors.
“As soon as somebody publishes a book about something new, as soon as there is a reliable reference, not only does that get attention for a potential collectible, it will enable people who know nothing about it to start collecting. And once amateur collectors start throwing money around, nothing will stop the dealers from supplying them … with fakes if necessary.”
I didn’t think the warning applied to me and my odd little niche. There were at that time probably no more than ten serious collectors of antique opium-smoking paraphernalia. Word about the online auctions had already gotten out and competition had increased, but I was still able to buy stunning antique pipes for only a few hundred dollars.
In 2003, I was one of a handful of people interviewed by a reporter from The Wall Street Journal Europe for a story—the premise of which was “Is there anything left to collect in Asia?” Another collector of opium antiques was quoted in the article, a Dutchman named Armand Hoorde who lived in Amsterdam. He was also a collector of “Chinese erotica,” painted and sculpted images that were essentially very early pornography. He claimed in the article to have been attracted to antique opium-smoking paraphernalia because of the drug’s historical associations with prostitution in China. I remember reading that comment and thinking about how journalists often latch onto some quote because of its color, not because it is relevant to the interview as a whole. Over the next few years I heard bits and pieces about Hoorde. He was said to be very wealthy, but he didn’t make annual trips to Asia like Helmut P. Instead, he relied on Parisian antiques dealers to bring pieces to him. Other collectors who had glimpsed Hoorde’s collection had pronounced it magnificent.
Not long after I began joining Roxanna for regular sessions, I was contacted by Hoorde, who said he would be traveling to Thailand with his family and wanted to meet me. I was glad for the chance to get to know him. When he arrived I made my way across town to meet him at his posh hotel. “Armie,” as he insisted I call him, was pushing sixty but a full head of hair made him look much younger. He was warm and boyishly enthusiastic, and we hit it off right away. Hoorde was traveling with his wife, who I later learned was descended from Javanese nobility, and their stunningly beautiful twentysomething daughter, Pearl.
Although I had for years been freely sharing photographic images of my collection via email to most anybody who was interested, I almost never invited anyone to come to my apartment to view my collection in person—a result of collector’s paranoia combined with embarrassment at my having capitulated in the war against Bangkok’s dust. Hoorde pleaded to see my collection, and because I had a good feeling about him, I brought him up to have a look. The visit went well. He asked good questions and professed abundant envy—the quickest way to a collector’s heart. Later I took him to a nearby coffee shop, the old-fashioned kind of which there were once dozens in Chinatown: Occupying the ground floor of a shophouse, it had ceiling fans, marble-top tables, and highly sweetened coffee strained through a bag that looked like a sock.
Hoorde had some propositions for me. He asked if I would consider collecting for him, purchasing pieces in Bangkok and then reselling them to him. He promised top dollar. He also told me about an exhibition that he was working to arrange at a museum in Rotterdam. He said he needed help writing the exhibition catalog, intimating that if I agreed to this, an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe would be part of the deal, timed so that I could be on hand for the opening of his show. Hoorde said that he regularly smoked opium at his home in Amsterdam—where it was perfectly legal to do so—and that he was interested in observing my rolling technique. He asked if I knew how to roll. I lied and said yes.
I admitted to him that I didn’t think I would be much of a source for opium antiques. As much as I liked buying, I never enjoyed selling no matter how much profit I could gain from it. Old opium-smoking paraphernalia is so rare that it’s not uncommon for an item to be completely unique—the sole surviving example of its kind. If I sold such a piece, there might not be any chance of discovering another, no matter how much I was willing to pay. I knew that anything I was interested enough to buy, I would have to keep for myself. There was no way my possessiveness would allow me to resell to Hoorde, despite his promise of lucrative transactions.
However, I was keen to contribute to the catalog. Work of this sort I didn’t even consider work—the recognition that would come from being involved with the exhibition seemed payment enough—so I agreed to do it for free. The trip to Europe would be raisins in the pudding. Hoorde was very pleased, and he returned to Holland promising to be in touch. I had a year to prepare myself for Europe. I called Roxanna and told her the news, and we set a date for my first rolling lesson.
Roxanna was a patient teacher. She kept up a good-natured banter as I rolled her precious chandu, pretending not to notice when in my ineptness I wasted it by letting pills melt and drop into the lamp. It took several sessions before I gained some confidence, but just when I thought I was getting the hang of it there were days when nothing worked. Some pills inexplicably burst into flames as I toasted them over the lamp, flaring like match heads while I desperately tried to blow them out. Some pills stuck messily to the bowl as I was trying to shape them. Later, while seating the pill upon the bowl, some refused to adhere to its surface. Heating pills a second time for another attempt at sticking made them dry and delicate, and this caused some pills to shatter, the tiny pieces of opium skittering across the layout tray like bits of peanut brittle.
On days when I could do nothing right, Roxanna took over the rolling duties and amplified my frustrations by preparing one perfect pipe after another. “Don’t feel bad. That happens to me, too. Opium is alive and has its moods. There are days when it’s against you and there’s not a thing you can do to get back in its favor.”
To the uninitiated such claims will seem fanciful. I had read similar sentiments in old accounts—especially by French smokers—but before I started rolling I had assumed the authors were simply trying to romanticize their vice. Yet while learning to roll—toasting the fickle treacle over the flame—there were times when I could swear the opium was testing my devotion to it.
During those days of unsteady rolling I was treated to Roxanna’s life story. She told me about growing up on a chicken farm in Illinois, the eldest child in a loveless family headed by a stern and belittling father. She talked about how she had left for New York as soon as she was old enough, finding a job at the World’s Fair. Later, she flew to Australia and then Southeast Asia, where her brother was serving in Vietnam. She said she naively thought she could bring him home, but instead she found herself drawn to the excitement of the war. In Roxanna’s bedroom I saw a souvenir of those days in Vietnam, a framed black-and-white photograph of a fresh-faced and beautiful Roxanna dressed in camouflage fatigues, and once she showed me an article in a back issue of the magazine Soldier of Fortune—titled “Between Roxanna and a Hard Place”—which portrayed her as a pistol-packing femme fatale. “That story is utter nonsense!” Roxanna said, laughing and obviously a bit flattered. “I contacted the author when I heard about it and he apologized, saying he thought I’d never see it.”
After the war, Roxanna said, she gravitated to Hong Kong, where she edited a magazine about Asian art. The Cultural Revolution had turned China on its ear, but British-run Hong Kong was a time capsule on the China coast, its illegal opium dens the last visible remnants of the infamous Opium Wars. Roxanna’s recreational opium use, which had its beginnings in Vietnam, became heavier in Hong Kong—but unlike Southeast Asia, the British colony actually enforced its anti
-opium laws. A colleague turned informer notified the police, and Roxanna was arrested and deported.
She next came to Thailand, where she married and put down roots. Jamie was born and she settled in with her new Thai family. Tacked up on a wall in her bedroom were snapshots of that happy time. Her motorcycle accident changed all that. Roxanna was not expected to survive and, to make her last hours as painless as possible, the doctors pumped her full of morphine. When she began to recover, after weeks of being rocked in morphine’s gentle cradle, there was no easy way to discontinue the medication. Opiates would forever be a part of Roxanna’s life. “I’m lucky. If I lived in the States or Europe I would’ve had to resort to methadone or, God forbid, heroin. At least here I can get quality opium. The main problem is worrying about whether or not I’ll ever run out. I wish I could buy enough to always have a supply until I die, but it’s so rare and expensive that it’s just not possible.”
After her accident Roxanna’s husband left her, but her in-laws remained loyal. She confessed that she was in constant pain and each morning was greeted with the realization that she faced another day in agony. “Every morning I wake up feeling like a corpse that’s been brought back to life. My whole body’s in pain and too stiff to move. I have to set my alarm long before I go to work because it takes me a full hour to slowly stretch out every muscle and loosen up enough just to get out of bed. Then I have a few pipes to fortify myself before going to the museum.”
Opium Fiend Page 19
