"The cat Mal-ed has a body color like Doklao~
The hairs are smooth with roots like clouds and tips like silver~
The eyes shine like dew drops on a lotus leaf"

Cat-book Poems 1300-1700 AD

This magnificent, naturally occurring breed emerged from ancient Siam to be one of the most prized cats in Thailand, and later the world.

The earliest recorded image of a Korat can be found in a manuscript called THE CAT-BOOK POEMS. Currently in Bangkok's National Library, it is believed to have been completed sometime during the Ayudhya period of Siamese history (1350-1767). It is said; King Rama V named the breed when he first saw one, "What a pretty cat - where is it from?"' and was told "KORAT".

"I had no idea that she would be successful. In 1956 we arrived in the United States after spending nine years in Southeast Asia. We brought with us several Seal Point Siamese, original stock that we had obtained from Khun Ying Aphibol Rajamaitri. In 1959, six years after we had left Bangkok, I received a letter from my Siamese correspondent with the surprising news that she had at long last obtained for me a pair of Korat cats! She had made arrangements with Pan American World Airways to fly them to the States. On June 12, 1959, Pan American Airways called me from the International Airport at Portland, Oregon, advising me that two Korat cats had arrived from Bangkok, Thailand. Needless to say, I cleared them through U.S. Customs without delay. The cats were beautiful, half-grown specimens, in excellent condition and health. At last I was the proud owner of a pair of Korat cats, the first pair, I believe, imported into the United Stares. Nara - the handsome male, and Dara - the gentle female made a rapid adjustment to life in the USA, and became favorite pets of the household. With her first litter of kittens Dara demonstrated her devoted mothering quality. Nara and Dara have been exhibited in two Northwest Shows, and steps have been taken to establish the Korat cat as a breed in the United States."

In my first efforts to locate a Siamese cat, I was continually baffled by the behavior of my Siamese friends. In those early days I knew very little of the Siamese language, and my friends knew even less English. As a result, our early conversations consisted of an animated and congenial exchange of 'pidgin' English, broken Thai - and sign language. At the end of an evening of this kind of conversation you frequently find yourself back at the starting point. In this manner I would describe to them the Siamese cat I was looking for - a Seal Point Siamese a cream-colored cat with brown ears and a brown nose, brown feet, and a brown tail. This was not easy to do in sign language. My friends would get the idea of Siamese cat very quickly, but when it came to the colors everything went to pieces. In reply they would describe to me a Siamese cat that sounded to me as though it were solid gray! As I understand them, the cat was not only solid gray, but they suggested that the only way that I would probably ever be able to find one would be to go to the Korat Plateau, a wild and sparsely populated plain several hundred kilometers from the comforts of the capital.

Not only that, they said, these cats were so highly prized by their owners that I could never hope to buy one. At this point I would always feel that the conversation, somehow, had gone astray, and that they were telling me about some member of the wildcat family in which I was not interested. During our stay in Siam, whose name had meanwhile changed to Thailand, I saw only five or six specimens of the gray Korat cat. All of them were owned either by members of the Thai government, the Thai nobility, or high ranking representatives of foreign governments. The conditions of their ownership were such, that they were not for sale. They had been given or received under terms of highest honor, esteem, or respect, and endowed by the giver with the attribute of bringing good health and fortune to the recipient. When I left Thailand in 1954 to accompany my husband on a new assignment in Indochina, I had given up hope of ever owning a Korat cat. But I told a Siamese friend that if she were ever able to obtain a pair of Korats to send them to me.