Books on Thai Culture and Traditions
Intro |
The Expat Experience |
Contemporary fiction by Thai authors |
Thai politics, culture, and history
The Expat Experience
After reading the delightful Mai Pen Rai Means Never Mind (1965, ISBN 974-8303-35-7), one can't help but thinking that author Carol Hollinger has somehow become an old friend, and accessible by email, telephone, or samlor.
We only know she's passed away, she had a husband in the U.S. Foreign Service named Jack, and a daughter named Holly.
Of the nearly 100 mentions of her in search engines, none describes anything about her life or death, mentioning instead only her book, and a short synopsis.
This is an oversight that we hope one day will be corrected, because this book (her only one apparently) is a remarkably insightful, witty, and charming book, and one wonders how she sorted out her final years after returning to the U.S.
The cover of the book refers to her as an “American Housewife,” which is a little like classifying Hemingway as a fishermen, or Carême as a short-order cook.
A wonderful essayist in the manner of Marya Mannes, Hollinger is intelligently self-deprecating:
“... my social talents are non-existent. I do not shine at parties. In fact, if there is a gloomy spot, I am usually it. I am prone to the wrong dress and a lock of hair that juts the wrong way in my coiffure. My feet always hurt. The result of this combination of limiting factors is that I usually end up in a corner with a frantic gentleman. He is frantic because he cannot escape me politely.”
Hollinger offers remarkable insights into the interactions between farang and Thais, and, perhaps more interestingly, between Western expats themselves.
She's keenly aware of the intricacies and injustice of class structure, and unforgiving of the Americans living in Thailand who choose to adopt superior attitudes, particularly when involving servants.
Perhaps her finest writing is in the chapter entitled “The Joker in the Deck” in which she relates the beginning and end of her days as a card-reading fortune teller, who unwittingly predicted the death of a close friend's 19 year old daughter.
Addendum: Author Steve Rosse tracked down Hollinger’s daughter Holly in 1999, and now we know the story.
Carol Hollinger died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 45, and never saw her book in print, a fine writer who never got a shot at her second book.
We were overjoyed that Hugh Watson’s Siam Smile⁄s (2006, ISBN 974-94100-1-7) was so good, because it’s got the best cover we’ve ever seen on any book about Thailand (too bad we don’t know who illustrated it, someone deserves a medal).
Watson’s acerbic on Westerners as well as Thais, and lays bare such constructs as sin sot (dowry), village mother selling their daughters to institutions and renting them to farangs, and gambling Thai husbands.
He’s not any less sympathetic to Westerners, from geriatric farang stroller pushers to women’s libbers whose dislike of men propels fellows into the arms of dusky Thai demimondaines.
Watson’s a lot of fun, a good writer, and his essays are well thought-out.
Thailand Confidential (2005, ISBN 0-7946-0093-X) is a terrific collection of insightful essays by Jerry Hopkins.
Hopkins writes on the elements of Bangkok that Westerners find unusual, bizarre, and remarkable, including sex change operations, minor wives, Thai ambulances, and Thai whiskey.
His essays on culture run the gamut from tourism trends and numbers to the particular way Thais go about resolving traffic accidents.
This entertaining book is highly recommended for those of us who revel, marvel, and are more than occasionally annoyed, in the ways of the Land of Smiles, and wonder how they came to be.
Hopkins’ Bangkok Babylon (2005, ISBN 0-7946-0224-X) describes the real-life exploits of some of Bangkok’s most legendary expats.
Hang around Bangkok long enough, and you’re sure to run into one of the subjects of this book.
Among those profiled are writers Byron Bales (Family Business) and Richard Diran (The Vanishing Tribes of Burma), William Warren, Bernard Trink, Jason Schoonover, and Hopkins himself.
This book is a must for those who revel in literary Bangkok.
Warren Olson’s Confessions of a Bangkok Private Eye (2006, ISBN 9-8105-4832-X) has got to be the wildest Bangkok-related non-fiction book to appear in 2006, and details the annals of Olson’s detective business.
Mostly, it’s about Western men trying to figure out if their Thai girlfriends are playing round behind their backs (they are), the girls themselves (Olson’s typically on their side of the equation), and their differing expectations in terms of relationships.
Finally, Olson gets nailed in the end himself, the victim of an angry woman and standard Thai police procedures.
Well worth reading.
We sure wish we could write as well as William Warren.
Warren is a masterful, erudite, witty, and well-researched author, who's written on the Asia beat for decades.
The Truth About Anna... and Other Stories (2000, ISBN 981-3018-37-2), is an extremely interesting collection of observations from Thailand and Southeast Asia.
His interests vary from culinary delights, such as the durian and cobra, to witty chronicles of history from Rama V's Queen Saowapa, to the legendary Constantine “Monsieur Constance” Phaulkon of Ayutthaya.
The name of Jim Thompson, silk trader and collector of antiquities, is ubiquitous in Thailand.
Thompson disappeared mysteriously in 1967, and the circumstances of his death have been endlessly discussed and speculated upon.
William Warren was his friend, and has written extensively on Thompson's life and death.
His Jim Thompson: the Unsolved Mystery (1998, ISBN 981-3018-82-8), originally written in 1970, has been updated, and is fascinating look at his life as well as an analysis of the several theories of his demise.
We're not sure who crept into Chris Pirazzi and Vitida Vasant’s computer, and inserted six pages of the worst love advice imaginable into what is otherwise a very good book.
Thailand Fever: a Roadmap for Thai-Western Relationships (2004, ISBN 1-887521-48-8) contains extremely worthwhile advice on navigating Thai cultural obstacles for Westerners, and Western concepts for Thais.
The book has text in English, primarily for Western men, and Thai, for Thai women.
The best part of the book addresses Western concerns about supporting extended Thai families.
On page 150, however, the book recommends that any Thai woman who's been involved in the sex industry 'fess up and tell her husband's/boyfriend's Western parents!
Yikes! The book says they'll be understanding ... egads, on what planet, and in what era?
Any Thai girl who makes such a confession will get drummed out of the family quicker than a bug-zapper at a mosquito convention.
Overall, this is a well thought-out book, but honesty isn't always the best policy (ask any bargirl...)
Kay Danes' prose is a bit twisted at times, but her travails as a Western businesswoman unjustly accused of embezzlement are the stuff of terror.
Their business essentially stolen by Lao government officials, Danes and her husband spent nearly a year in Phonthong prison.
They were lucky to get out alive, and their story is chronicled in Deliver Us from Evil (2001, ISBN 1-74095-025-9).
The book contains valuable information on the relationship between the dark forces of Laos, and their counterparts in Thailand, and it's not pretty.
The book is a must-read for any Western person considering engaging in a business relationship with a Southeast Asian partner in-country.
Such a partnership most definitely could be hazardous to one's health.
Roger Welty was a true Renaissance man, a writer who was, at times, a monk, teacher, actor, playwright, ship's purser, and tour guide.
He loved Thailand, and interpreted its customs in a breezy, informative style in his now out-of-print The Thai & I.
This essential book has now been reprinted as a two-volume set, Thai Culture and Society (2004, ISBN 974-8303-83-7), and Successful Living in Thailand (2004, ISBN 974-8303-84-5.
He waxes on everything from amulets to the intricacies of weddings and funerals, to best techniques for success when using Thai ablutions facilities.
Christopher G. Moore's insightful Heart Talk (1992, ISBN 974-8495-60-4) details 330 Thai phrases using the word “heart,” and constitutes the most revealing linguistic analysis of the Thai mind we've yet read.
Many western men, after their initial taste of Thailand, get the fine idea that opening a go-go bar will be a panacea.
In Pattaya: Patpong on Steroids (2003, ISBN 0-9751349-0-6), Duncan Stern lays out the mechanics of managing a bar, from finances, to pay-offs, to hiring the girls.
The book also has valuable information on the cultural histories of the girls themselves, told in anecdotal fashion.
One of the more interesting chapters describes how the author was conned into be the unwitting victim of a '60 Minutes Australia' hot piece on the Pattaya scene.
Dave Walker and Richard Ehrlich's Hello My Big, Big Honey: Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls (2000, ISBN 0-86719-4731) has become rightfully legendary, describing the lives and scams of bar girls, through interviews and letters.
Several bar girls are interviewed, and their letters to and from overseas westerners are eye-opening.
Note: versions bought in the U.S. contain pictures, while editions in Thailand (printed earlier) do not.
Our recommendation? Buy this book in the U.S.
Possibly the most famous expat writer of the Bangkok scene is Bernard Trink, who for decades wrote weekly columns in Bangkok newspapers, giving intimate details of Bangkok adult-oriented bar life.
His column was discontinued in the Bangkok Post in late 2003, but you can read excerpts in Jennifer Bliss' unauthorized biography, But, I Don't Give a Hoot: the Life and Times of Bernard Trink (2000, ISBN 974-202-050-7).
Trink, who still frequents night spots, has always been reticent to divulge details of his personal life, and Bliss has done a fine job unveiling the mystery of the man behind what was for years the wildest column in any English-language daily, anywhere.
Cleo Odzer was a controversial writer who interviewed bar girls, bar managers, and customers in her astounding and self-revealing book Patpong Sisters (1994, ISBN 1-55970-372-5).
Perhaps the finest book we've yet seen on popular Thai culture is viewed from an expat perspective by writer Philip Cornwel-Smith and photographer John Goss in the fascinating Very Thai (2005, ISBN 974-9863-00-3).
Here, the authors take a madcap romp through everything from spirit houses to soi animals, explaining in detail the behind-the scenes stories behind many of the icons you'll see on the streets and back-sois of Thailand.
The book is extremely well researched, and a fun read.
Thailand's prisons are notoriously bad places, as soberly detailed in two outstanding books.
For sheer horror, drug convict Warren Fellows' The Damage Done: Twelve Years of Hell in a Bangkok Prison (1997, ISBN 0-330-36363-8) is hard to beat.
Fellows and co-author Jack Marx here descend into the inferno of Bang Kwang, Bangkok's notorious men's prison “where sewer rats and cockroaches are the only nutritious food,” and death, to the eyes of many, seems favorable to the miserable existence faced by Thai and expat convicts alike.
It serves as a scathing warning to anyone foolish enough to mess with drugs in the Land of Smiles.
Colin Martin's Welcome to Hell: One Man's Fight for Life Inside the Bangkok Hilton (2005, ISBN 1-905379-06-04), is both the tale of an unfortunate western businessman caught in the intrigue of a confidence game, and a primer for any westerner caught in the web of the Thai legal system.
Here, Martin discusses topics such as the proliferation of big Thai business interests in the Thai underworld, payments to police officials to arrest innocent parties, and the need for the imprisoned accused to bribe his prosecutor to show up for a court date.
While in detention, the author discovered that edible food could only be obtained by buying it directly from the guards (to their profit).
Guards also know how much money a prisoner has on account, and can thereby use the information to leverage sexual favors from the imprisoned's girlfriend or wife.
This didn't affect Martin's Thai wife, who absconded with his bail money, leaving Martin to wallow in prison.
All in all, Martin's key message seems to be: bribe your way out as early as you can, as longer detention equals larger bribe requests.
Steve Rosse mostly waxes poetic about his usually-idyllic life on Phuket in Expat Days: Making a Life in Thailand (2006, ISBN 974-94775-3-7).
The essays comprising this book were written between 1989 and 1997 for Phuket magazine and The Nation daily.
His moving story of Phi Odt (pp. 38-42) is a bittersweet tale that we found unforgettable.
Rosse’s Thai Vignettes (2005, ISBN 974-93439-2-1, reviewed on our Bangkok Fiction page) is another fine book combining fiction and non-fiction stories.
Ever thought about building a house or buying land in Thailand?
Of course you have.
Philip Bryce did both and wrote a pretty good book on it, aptly named How to Buy Land and Build a House in Thailand (2006, ISBN 1-997521-71-2).
Having researched the subject ourselves, we were at first a bit skeptical, as “investing” in property in Thailand is a good way to lose your money, your girl, and your life.
Bryce has it nailed really well, and tells you right away that it’s a “walk-away” situation (“A” for honesty).
Along the way, he discusses condo scams, building scams, and payment scams.
If, after reading Bryce’s many caveats, you still insist on going through with it, Bryce gives you neat templates, good specs on Thai building materials, and a very good guide to getting it done.
Intro |
The Expat Experience |
Contemporary fiction by Thai authors |
Thai politics, culture, and history
