Good housing options in Surat Thani are hard to find. We have struggled. Good people, on the other hand, are found in abundance. The city of Surat Thani, once called Chaiya City, was officially renamed when Rama VI, the sixth king of the current Chakri Dynasty in Thailand, visited this provincial capital back in 1915 and changed its name to Surat Thani, which is translated as the “City of Good People.”

Varied are the reasons given for the name change. The official account says King Rama VI named it after the city of Surat in Gujarat, India, which he had visited and deeply admired. But when I asked a local for more information about the name change, he suggested that King Rama VI may have been trying to discourage a then-current crime problem and so thought a new name would encourage the people, giving citizens a new reputation to uphold. Fortunately, more people seem to think the town was already highly reputed for being a safe place to live when King Rama VI visited and that he was so impressed with the kindness of the people and their devotion to Buddhism that he named the already-worthy town “Surat Thani, City of Good People.”

Another popular legend I read about supports the theory of the city’s already-righteous reputation. It tells the story of an Indian merchant who came to do business in Surat Thani, even before King Rama VI’s official visit, when the city was still called Chaiya Town. He was told that in this town, wherever you go or stay, it’s not necessary to shut your doors or windows because no one ever steals. Hearing that, the Indian merchant decided to put to test the truth of the people’s reputation. So he went to a busy three-way intersection in town and pretended to accidentally drop some gold, letting it fall on the road as he walked along. He just left it there. 

Legend has it that he went back to India and, several years later, returned to Chaiya Town to do more business. During that trip he went back to the very spot of that busy intersection where he had dropped the gold. There, buried in the dirt, the Indian merchant found the gold that he had dropped years earlier. Amazed, the merchant exclaimed, “This is a city of good people!” It’s a nice legend, complete with doubtful details, but one that I imagine many a proud and well-meaning local parent or teacher of Surat Thani would be sure to pass on to their children to inspire honest living. 
 
But my all-time favorite story about the good people of Surat Thani is one I recently experienced for myself, a story that makes me even more excited to be preparing to live and minister in Surat Thani. More on that, though, in the next issue of Adventist Frontiers. In the meantime, would you help us pray for a decent and affordable house to live in? Thank you.  

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