Bangkok Babylon - Book Review from Bangkok Post
An acquired taste, but a builder of characters too
There's a curious attraction to Bangkok. For many foreigners drawn to Asia and the Asian way of life, only a few ever settle in this city. The extremes it offers are often just not suitable to most expats, preferring the more sculpted and trodden paths of Singapore and Hong Kong.
Those cities have a long history of foreign residents due to their colonial pasts and economic booms that attracted streams of multinationals to set up shop. With that the expats have followed, on postings of two to three years, living a luxurious high life far removed from the usual existence of most local residents.
In this regard Bangkok has always been the poorer cousin to Singapore and Hong Kong, who boast large communities of foreign bankers, insurance brokers and international traders.
But Bangkok has attracted a different expat breed of its own. Drawn to an edgy, schizophrenic and riotous city, where the extremes of Asia are lived out and where a depth of culture and character infuses every aspect of Thai life, the expats who inhabit Bangkok reflect all of the city's contradictions and challenges.
The sense of reinvention, escape and adventure, combined with the charming chaos and blissful frustrations of the city create an enticing cocktail even Q Bar founder David Jacobson cannot concoct.
He is one of 25 expats featured in Jerry Hopkins' Bangkok Babylon: The Real-Life Exploits of Bangkok's Legendary Expatriates Are Often Stranger than Fiction (450 baht/paperback) a title that encapsulates so much of this and more.
Approaching a book such as this is no easy task given the huge number of expats in the city, but rather than going taking a traditional approach, Mr Hopkins has sprinkled some pop-culture magic on the idea to expand on the theme, ``You never know who you're sitting next to at a bar in Bangkok, unless you ask''.
``When in Bangkok, do what your mama told you never to do. Talk to a stranger,'' he advises in the book.
The Author of 27 books, including the best-selling biography of Jim Morrison, No One Gets out of Here Alive, Mr Hopkins takes the reader on an unapologetic tour of Bangkok's bars and bedrooms, unearthing some of the most famous and infamous characters, he has encountered during the 10-plus years he has lived here.An advertising executive who photographs Bangkok's most beautiful bargirls, an insurance agent who became a modern bounty hunter, a Catholic priest who has lived and worked in the Klong Toey slums for 35 years, a retired Oscar-winning screenwriter, a piano teacher who ended up on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list, a circus dwarf turned computer programmer turned restaurateur, three Vietnam war veterans who opened a go-go bar, a documentary filmmaker who now lives with elephants.
The list provides a cheeky glimpse in the lives of many deranged, often outrageous and pioneering people who transformed themselves after leaving home.
The book kicks off with tales of Tony Poe, believed by many to be the inspiration for Colonel Kurtz in the film Apocalypse Now, and Jack Shirley, a CIA peer of Mr Poe's and his closest friend in Laos, where he trained Hmong tribesmen before finally drinking himself to death two years ago at the end of a Patpong bar.
It continues with exposes and opinionated commentary on expats who still live here, such as Patrick ``Shrimp'' Gauvain and Bernard Trink as he chuckles at the outrageous hedonism of the former and slates the irresponsible nature of the latter's writing on Bangkok's bar scene for over 30 years.
Father Joe Maier's story is the inspirational highlight, and the author also speaks to other old Thailand hands such as William Warren, Joe Cummings, Richard Lair, and recently published authors by Asia Books, Byron Bales, Jason Schoonover and Jim Eckardt.
But in many ways he leaves the best for last as he puts himself under the spotlight and under his own pen. It could have come across as self-serving, but it provides one the most hilarious profiles of the book _ a writer who at age 69 is having the time of his life and who, in a thoroughly enjoyable read, has captured the spirit of foreigners who became simply entranced by the country and never left.
Bangkok Babylon is a must read for all newly arrived expats _ who may become the subject of a sequel _ and all for Thais trying to understand what we're doing here in the first place.
David Johnson is managing director of Asia Books Publishing (ABP), e-mail: david@asiabooks.com. ABP publishes English-language books and magazines on Thailand and Southeast Asia, including `New Arrivals', the region's only books and lifestyle magazine. All books reviewed are available at Asia Books and all leading bookstores.
Source: Bangkok Post - (no link as they change like the wind, m'dear.)
Edited by: Dr Anne Thrope at: 29/10/05 4:08 pm
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