Sam Sen

I am so busy LIVING in each place I visit, that sometimes I forget what a driven traveler I used to be—how seeing as many important places as possible was. Now I am so much more relaxed. I did have two purposes in visiting Bangkok, though: 1) to see the locations of two celebrated works of Thai fiction I read (translated into English, of course) and 2) to practice my Thai in the heart of the “Central Dialect,” chosen to be standard Thai for the entire country. (There are four main dialects in the country.)

The first novel which inspired me, “Letters from Bangkok,” by Botan (a woman) told the story of a Chinese immigrant to Thailand in the years 1900-1965, through his letters home to his mother in China. It tells how the Chinese learned to be the worker bees in their new country, married Thais, and assimilated. I’m sure the exact same story might be only slightly updated to be true today. Botan, pen name of Suba Sirisingh, is still alive today, writing, and has published more than sixty novels!

So my first pilgrimage was to the Chinatown described in her book, a crowded, messy, stubbornly-not-to-be-gentrified part of central Bangkok. I was so overwhelmed by the busyness, the crowded narrow streets and the endless food stands, that I took not a single picture. Just go there!

The second work was an amazing novel called “Four Reigns,” by Kukrit Pramoj. It takes its heroine through four kings of Thailand, up to the modern era, describing her life first in the Royal Court, and then in a nearby Bangkok neighborhood. Mr. Pramoj was also a politician, journalist, actor, and polymath regarding traditional Thai arts. So, I had to visit his house, which has been made a special landmark in Bangkok. It consists of five separate wooden buildings in Thai style, and are beautifully laid out. To my great surprise and intense pleasure, his younger brother actually emerged from a room, and we had a very nice conversation. He is very old indeed, but spoke perfect American English, his first language. He told me about his brother’s contact with a relative who worked in the Royal Palace, and how he was able to extricate many details of court life from her. For more information about Kukrit Pramoj, read here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukrit_Pramoj

Another excursion was to see the Museum of the Royal Barges. These elegant long-tail boats are being readied for the coronation of the new King of Thailand some time in February? March? No one seems to know. The restorers were hard at work, and I interviewed one of them. She unfortunately had great difficulty in understanding my Thai (my teacher later explained why it was unintelligible to her) but I persevered anyway. Here is a link to this 2-minute video:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ka5gZ0rUQQI&t…

I also met up with Kittichai (in charge of technical support for my Add1Challenge) and his lovely girlfriend for dinner at Terminal 21, a huge shopping mall near the Skytrain station of Siam. We ate sukiyaki, and they generously allowed me to stumble around in Thai for a few hours.

Otherwise, I just walked around and had a good look at the city—sabai-sabai—so relaxed!
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