Thai Pipe

[mso489]

My wife has a Small Planet guide to Thailand that includes a photo of an elderly man in traditional dress

smoking a tobacco pipe, with what appears to be a non-briar wood bowl and probably a reed stem. Sorry,

can't cop the copyright photo, but I think you get the idea. Whether this man crafted the pipe or bought it

from the crafts person, I suspect it is well made and durable. This old fellow isn't going to bother with anything

shoddy. Anyone been to Thailand and know about their pipes? It looks like a natural import item, if they would

maintain the quality and if customs didn't eat them alive. Move over Tsuge.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Just as a side note, to copy the address of the photo and then post it here, is not a violation of anything. The picture itself is a link, even if you can't click it, it is still being used in situ.
But, yes, one of our vendors also deals in Thai silver and jewelry, and he brings in these strange ebony looking pipes with hammered silver inlaid into cracks. Very heavy handed and rustic looking. The Hill Tribes produce a lot of very unique items. They have some special trade measures that are incentives for US businesses to do business with them. The more we trade with them, the less likely that they'll go back to growing poppy and processing heroine again. Making jewelry and other hand crafted good is their anti-drug.

 

[pruss]

I lived in northern Thailand and worked on an agriculture station there for six months on an exchange program in my last year of highschool. Smoking was popular among the rural Thai community and the various Hill Tribe communities I was exposed to (Hmong, Karean, Akha, Lisu mainly).
Smoking was an activity that was not just a leisure activity, but a lifestyle choice, which seemed to be equally shared amongst both men and women; at least among the rural Thai and their Hill Tribe neighbours. Most commonly, I saw folks smoking tobacco that was rolled up into a green palm-type leaf and was slow smoked all morning/day long; these long home-made cheroots would just burn, and burn, and burn, and burn... Pipes were visible at during leisure time, and at most homes, and were available at nearly every market. Bowls tended to be of a local hardwood, were figural, and were typically stained or oiled to a dark brown/black. The pipe shanks were either metal wrapped wood (sorry cosmicfolklore I don't have the technical knowledge to more accurately describe this) usually in nickel or silver, although some cheap and cheerful pipes were clearly steel. Sometimes the metal work continued onto the bit and button, sometimes even the bowl. Shanks tended to the long side, including pipes which were smokable from a seated position at a table with the bowl resting on the ground.
It should be mentioned, that not all of these pipes were exclusively for the use of tobacco. Poppy fields were a major source of income for the Hill Tribe people of northern Thailand, and the associated use/abuse of opium and hashish was something that was visible.
Amongst the middle class and more urban Thai communities smoking seemed to be more of an activity for men, and was largely centred around cigarettes.
I did not, in my time there, see anyone smoking a traditional briar pipe.
-- Pat

 

[redstar]

Prussia, thanks for a fascinating post.
Do you know if people inhaled or puffed the smoke from their pipes?

 

[pruss]

Do you know if people inhaled or puffed the smoke from their pipes?

Both. And there were some deep drags being taken from both the cheroots and the pipes.
-- Pat

 

[mso489]

I'm somewhat surprised that the tobacco pipes haven't hit the market here, at least peripherally. There is the problem

that the first impulse of non-pipe-smoking importers would be cheap souvenir pipes with maybe some toxic features in

the metals, lead etc. But if a good pipe person made the trip and connected with the truer crafts people who make pipes

for real tobacco smokers, it might find a brisk trade, and likely the pricing would be good even after customs. I doubt they'd

challenge briar, but I think they'd find a home on many pipe racks.