| caption: |
pathetic Ang of Wakching; opium addiction |
| text: |
The present Ang of Wakching is a pathetic figure. (94) Actually he is not a proper Ang as his mother did not come from the Ang clan. The old Ang's two sons from his first blue-blooded marriage had both died young so that another son of a secondary wife became his successor. He soon wasted the entire fortune inherited from his father, especially on opium, and he allowed the house on the old Ang ground to fall apart. Nowadays he lives in the poor half-dilapidated house of a man who died some time ago. Because he had sold his own fields the village gave him some land and they still work one field for him, but he is so lazy that he does not even bother to look at his own fields. His influence and power naturally enough is nill. An interesting example for the decline of an institution. |
