The Story of Ajahn Suchart.
7 August 2023
“I was just an ordinary man”.
My father, Somchai Reungtanasarn, was from Suphanburi. My grandmother had three daughters and two sons, my father being the eldest.
At this time (Nov. 2019), two of my fatherʼs younger sisters are still alive: my aunt who lives in Suphanburi and an aunt who lives in Laem Chabang, Chonburi Province. My uncle and elder aunt have since passed away.
The younger aunts still occasionally come to visit me here.
My grandparents came from China, because our birth certificates were still using Sae Eung.
Eventually, my father changed his surname to my uncleʼs, “Reungtanasarn.”
Life was tough for my father growing up because his father passed away when he was young. At that time, my grandmother sold coffee in the market and my father had to help her out. He had no chance to study or go to school, but my father was resourceful. He would have the people who came for coffee teach him the ABCs. Whenever people came to drink coffee, heʼd ask them, “Could you teach me a bit, please?” Thatʼs how my father learned how to read and write.
When my father was a teenager, 15 or 16 years old, he left home and took a boat to Bangkok.
Back then, that was how you got from Suphanburi to Bangkok: by boat. He went looking for work and to learn whatever jobs came his way. It was there that he met my mother, Mrs. Surin Reungtanasarn.
Eventually, they married.
My mother, a Thai of Cantonese descent, was from Bangkok. Her parents had a business in the Odeon Circle area [of Bangkokʼs Chinatown]. She was educated in a Chinese school, and had a very good command of the Chinese language.
She worked as a receptionist for Dr. Promathat of Hua Chiew Hospital, who had a clinic near Si Phraya Intersection.
I was born on Sunday, November 2, 1947 (Year of the Pig, 4th waning moon in the 11th month of the Lunar Year) at St. Louis Hospital, Sathorn Road. At that time my father was renting a house by the Sathorn Pier, but then he had an opportunity to work as a cook at Hat Yai [in Songkhla Province] with his uncle.
Later on, he moved to Tanyong Mat in Narathiwat Province, where he sold congee near the train station.
His move happened around the time I was born, so my father sent my mother and me to live with my grandmother in Suphanburi for a short while. Then we moved south. I lived and attended preschool in Tanyong Mat until I was four, when my father sent me back to live with my grandmother long term because both my parents were working and didnʼt have time to care for me.
When my parents entrusted me to my grandmother, she raised me as if I was her child so I did not feel deprived. I came to see her as a parent. I was the grandchild who stayed with her the longest because the other children all had places of their own to stay, leaving just me and my aunt with grandma for a total of three people living at her place at that time.
At that time, my grandmother no longer sold coffee, but there were still some snacks for sale. She made and sold Chinese specialties such as kanom geuoy (desserts) and ba jang (dumplings). She occasionally sold cakes of the type youʼd offer at a Chinese festival. They would make them together: the dumplings or whatever else would sell.
I was still a child and couldnʼt help with anything. As far as I can remember, I would mostly go play, not yet knowing how to do these things.
While living in Suphanburi, I spoke with the rural accent of the local people there. I lost my accent only after coming to study in Bangkok.
“Beyond Birth.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi_BnRZmNgECsJGS31F495g
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