| Deja
Who?
Imagine
that "To Tell The Truth" has been revived with a two-contestant
format that includes animals as well as people. Then imagine
that tonight's first contestants are two handsome cats. Contestant
number one is a biscuit-colored gentleman with dark, double-fudge-brown
coloring where his face, ears, legs and tail reside. Contestant
number two is a shimmering fellow whose coat, it has been
said, has "roots like clouds, and tips like silver" and whose
luminous, green, stop-your-heart-dead-in-its-tracks eyes "shine
like dewdrops on the lotus leaf."
"I am
the cat of the Siamese people," says the first contestant
with great conviction.
"I am
the cat of the Siamese," says contestant number two.
In the
interest of space and the carrying capacity of the current
metaphor, we shall fast-forward to the end of the segment
- to the part where the announcer says, "Will the real cat
of the Siamese people please stand up?"
Contestant
number one, the two-tone entry, flicks an ear as if he's about
to move (a standard ploy on this show), but ultimately the
sea-foam-and-silver cat stands up. Contestant number one,
after explaining that he is, indeed, a Siamese cat, but not
the cat of the Siamese people, is excused for the evening.
Meanwhile, contestant number two, who introduces himself as
a Korat, reports that even though he and the other cat are
indeed natives of Siam (which became Thailand in 1939), the
Thai people regard the Korat as their national cat.
We
Are Siamese
Although
the Korat is believed to have made its way to Siam from the
Malaysian jungles, no one knows exactly when that migration
took place. According to Daphne Negus, former editor of Cat
World magazine, the earliest known picture of a Korat
appears in The Cat-Book Poems, an ancient volume of
painting and verse that was produced during the Ayudhya Period
(1350-1767) in Siam.
A founding
member of the Korat Cat Fanciers Association, Negus explained
that although the Korat was named after a province in Thailand,
the cat is found in most of the other municipalities in its
native country. There the Korat is called the Si-Sawat, a
compound word that means "a mingled color of gray and light
green." Because the root word Sawat means "good luck," the
Korat is also known as the good luck cat.
In 1896
a blue-colored cat was entered in the Siamese class at the
National Cat Club show in England by a gentleman named Spearman,
who was recently home from Siam. When the judge rejected the
cat because its body was blue instead of biscuit-colored like
the other Siamese, Spearman protested that his cat was, indeed,
from Siam, and that he had seen others like it when he was
there.
Sixteen
years later one writer declared that Spearman's cat had been
the first bluepoint Siamese ever exhibited; but there is also
reason to believe that Spearman's cat was, instead, the first
Korat to be exhibited. For Korats and Siamese - and Burmese,
too - are all common to Siam.
We have
this on the authority of the anonymous author of the aforementioned
Cat-Book Poems, which is preserved in the Thai National
Library in Bangkok. This illustrated work, rescued from the
Siamese city of Ayudha when it was destroyed by Burmese invaders
in 1767, describes several kinds of "Siamese" cats.
One -
a white-haired variety with black tail, feet and ears - resembles
the modern Siamese. Another is a chocolate cat that could
be the ancestor of the Burmese (and/or the Havana brown).
A third is a blue cat, quite possibly the forebear of the
Korat. Since Ayudha was 417 years old when the Cat-Book
Poems was rescued, it is reasonable to assume that the
Korat is more than two centuries old, and perhaps much older.
(It is not reasonable to assume, however, that the Korat was
found only in the province after which it was named.)
Whether
that "Blue Siamese" exhibited in England in 1896 was a Korat
or a bluepoint Siamese is not certain, wrote former Cat Fanciers'
Association (CFA) president Richard H. Gebhardt, "but it has
been established that the sealpoint Siamese ... carries the
gene for blue color; and there surely had to have been some
cross-breedings between Siamese and the self-colored blue
cats in Siam, for it has also been reported that bluepoint
kittens appeared in the litters born to the earliest Korats
imported to this country. Thus it is safe to assume that the
Korat began life in the United States as an established hybrid,
which is how [CFA] classified the breed when it was first
recognized."
Baskin'
in Mr. Robins'
Although
a gentleman named Robins living in New York City in 1906 asserted
that blue cats then existed in the province of Korat, little
else was known about the breed in this country until a pair
of Korats was shipped to Jean Johnson of Gresham, Oregon,
from a friend in Thailand. The cats - a brother and sister
named Nara and Darra - reached Portland, Oregon, on June 12,
1959.
Johnson
and her husband Robert lived in Thailand from 1947 to 1953.
During that time she asked her Thai friends where she could
find a Siamese cat, which she described as cream-colored with
a dark face, etc. Her friends looked at her as though something
was getting lost in translation.
Johnson
was thinking of the basic sealpoint Siamese, and eventually
she obtained one; but when she did, her Thai friends told
her that while this was, indeed, a Siamese cat, it was not
the cat of the Siamese people. That honor belongs to the Korat.
Even in the dark, they explained, the initiated could tell
the difference because the eyes of the Siamese cat shine like
rubies, while the Korat's shine like emeralds.
In September
1964 the New York Times reported the appearance of
two Korats at the Empire Cat Club show. The following year
the Korat Cat Fanciers Association was formed. Its preliminary
membership consisted of 26 breeders and/or owners in North
America. These dedicated fanciers submitted a proposed breed
standard to several North American registries, and the Korat
was accepted for championship competition in 1966 by a few
of the minor cat associations. The following year CFA, the
largest registry in North America, granted the Korat championship
status, and now the Korat is universally accepted on this
continent.
Such acceptance
did not occur until the perseverance and enthusiasm of the
breed's earliest advocates had prevailed against opposition
of the sort expressed by a judge who remarked, "Why do we
need another blue cat?"
To be
sure the cat fancy already had at the time Russian blues and
British blues (a color, not a breed, but a blue cat nonetheless).
Daphne Negus provided one all-encompassing reason why there
was room for another blue cat in the pedigreed heavens. "Those
of us who live with Korats and love them find a satisfaction
and happiness in their companionship that we can never find
in any other." (What's more, the Russian blue has a modified
wedge-shaped head. The Korat has a heart-shaped face and larger
eyes.)
The
Bottom Lines
The Korat's
universal acceptance was preceded by much discussion about
whether the Korat might actually be a blue Burmese. "There
was a great similarity in body type between the two breeds
at the time," wrote Gebhardt, "and both had overly large eyes
and close-lying fur.
Consideration
was given to registering the Korat as a Burmese color, not
as a separate breed, but Burmese breeders would have rather
died than accept any color other than sable into their breed."
The Korat
has been a cat of good fortune indeed. There are no genetic
deficiencies attached to this breed. Although some outcrosses
were made to bluepoint Siamese in order to enlarge the Korat
gene pool after it had first been brought to the United States,
the overriding concern of the Korat breed club has been to
keep this cat as pure - and as true to its original look -
as possible. The breed club further requires that anyone wishing
to register a Korat must show proof that the cat originated
in Thailand.
The
Building Code
The Korat
is a shimmering, silver-blue cat with a heart-shaped face
and luminous green eyes. Viewed in profile the Korat exhibits
a slight stop between forehead and nose, and the latter is
graced by a lionesque, downward curve just above the nose
leather. While most registries count as undesirable a nose
"that appears either long or short in proportion," at least
one group prefers a short nose.
Unusually
prominent eyes invest the Korat's expression with remarkable
depth and brilliance. The eyes are well-rounded and oversized
for the face, but the eye aperture assumes an Asian slant
when fully or partially closed.
The Korat
has large ears, with rounded tips and considerable flare at
the base. Set high on the head, the ears contribute to the
Korat's keen, intelligent appearance.
All registries
agree that the Korat is "semicobby, neither compact nor svelte."
Medium in size, the Korat is broad-chested, muscular and supple,
has ample space between its forelegs, carries its back in
a curve, and may also carry in its tail a slight kink, as
long as it's not a visible one.
The Korat
is a single-coated cat with short or short-to-medium hair
that is glossy, fine, close-lying and tipped with silver -
the more liberally tipped, the better. The coat over the spine
is inclined to break when the cat walks.
Personality
Profile
We get
a tremendous amount of enjoyment out of our Korats," said
one Korat fancier from Smithtown, New York. "If my husband
is working at the computer, the cats have to help him print
out. If I'm housecleaning, they have to help there, too. They're
into the swing of things by the time they're two or three
months old."
For all
their inquisitiveness - "wherever you don't expect to find
a cat, that's where they'll be" - Korats are not a talkative
breed. "They seldom speak above a whisper, and that's another
thing I really appreciate about them."
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