Blending Fact & Fiction: Paul & Yuangrat Wedel Return to Discuss Their Novels Set in 1900s Siam [S7.E25]

Speaker 1 (00:00:00) - Side by foot.

Greg (00:00:05) - On part one of two. We welcome back Paul and Jung Ra Wedel to talk about their historical fiction novels set in southern Thailand.

Ed (00:00:12) - So if you're interested in good stories, well told and the dramatic changes that took place in Thailand during the turn of the 20th century, you'll love this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.

Greg (00:00:39) - So what the crap? And welcome to the Bangkok Podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Thailand in 2001 to teach the iconic Canadian sport of curling, but has yet to find the right broom and plastic shoe combo to let me start practicing.

Ed (00:00:54) - Yeah, that's gonna that's going to be a rough, a rough thing to get make work in Thailand. But but good luck.

Greg (00:01:00) - Thanks, man. I told my students when I was teaching, I told them about curling and they didn't believe me. Straight up didn't believe me. They thought I was making it up. I had to show them photos that it was a real thing.

Ed (00:01:09) - It is a bit of an odd sport.

Ed (00:01:10) - Yeah, and I met Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract 23 years ago, fell in love with trying to find a way to wave down a taxi. That always works. And I'm still trying, so I never left.

Greg (00:01:25) - You just jump right in front of it.

Ed (00:01:27) - Honestly. Like that. I mean, it's funny you said that because I actually have done that on occasion. I've come to the conclusion that. And what's your take on this? I think it's more annoying when a taxi has its light on that says they're free and they don't even stop for you, as opposed to one that stops but then won't go where you want to go on the meter. I think when they just pass you by, it's an even greater insult.

Greg (00:01:55) - Yeah, interesting. I think it all depends on your perspective. Because what I do, if they pass me by, I'm like, well, who knows, maybe he's off. Maybe his daughter's giving birth at the hospital right now.

Greg (00:02:03) - He's in a hurry to go to the house. Maybe. Maybe he's got. Okay.

Ed (00:02:06) - You're right. Why have the light on? Why have the light on?

Greg (00:02:09) - What I hate is when I'm going to cross the street and I'm just about to see. Okay, there's a good spot to go. All right. After this car, I can go. And then a taxi slows down and just completely messes up my traffic crossing mojo. I'm like, I'm not waiting for a taxi. I'm waiting to cross. Oh, that's.

Ed (00:02:24) - A very that's a very specific Bangkok thing. But I know, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Greg (00:02:29) - I'll stop yelling.

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Ed (00:02:56) - On this week's bonus show, we chatted about Thailand's historic ruling that makes same sex marriage illegal. Finally, a few quick addendums to my Hong Kong takeaways from last week, and a rant about 7-Eleven in Thailand and why the most convenient, ubiquitous shop in the whole country is also seemingly the only place that doesn't let you pay by scanning a QR code. So annoying to learn how to become a patron and get all this good stuff. Plus full access to over 700 bonus and regular back episodes. Click the support button at the top of our website.

Greg (00:03:34) - That's right. And as always, if you have a comment, show idea, or just want to say hi, head to Bangkok podcast.com and click the little microphone button on the bottom right to leave us a voicemail that we'll play on the show, as we will do a little bit later in the show. So on this episode, we welcome back two of our favorite previous guests, authors Paul and Yuangrat Wedel. Now, you might remember them from season six, episode 31 when they discussed their book Radical Thought to My Mind.

Greg (00:04:00) - But they are back to talk about their new book, or should I say books. In 2021, they released beads on a string a novel of Ambition, revenge, love and tragedy that takes place in southern Thailand during the tumultuous turn of the 20th century. And very recently, they released part two of the trilogy called Dark Karma that continues their complex tale that mixes fiction with historical characters and real life locations. Are very happy to have them back on the show to talk about how the story took shape and the research they did to bring the characters to life. We love chatting with these guys, two lovely and fascinating people. So here is part one of our conversation with Paul and Ewan Wedel. Well, we are very happy to welcome back to the show. Paul and young rat Weddell. You may remember them from a previous show we did on their, one of their earlier books called Radical Thought. To my mind. And as prolific authors, they are back to talk about their new series of books, which is a really, really interesting discussion.

Greg (00:05:06) - So Paul and Yuangrat, welcome back to the Bangkok Podcast.

Paul (00:05:09) - Thank you. It's good to be back.

Greg (00:05:11) - Yeah. We are sitting here in a room in downtown Bangkok. The aircon is blessedly on. Yeah. And, I think we're doing well. We might even be able to hear it in the background, but I think we're all right. So really quickly here. So you have come out with the second part of your ongoing series of books about Thailand in the late 19th, early 20th centuries, specifically southern Thailand and some families and political and dynastic intrigue.

Ed (00:05:36) - Well, we should point out this is fiction.

Greg (00:05:39) - It is a fiction. Fiction, historical fiction. Is that the right way to historical fiction?

Paul (00:05:43) - Novel and and as we always like to say, the historical part of it is as close as we can get. Yeah. To the existing record and to recollections of people.

Ed (00:05:54) - Have either of you earlier in life written fiction or is this a new thing? Or when you were, did you ever write short stories, novels or anything like that before?

Yuangrat (00:06:04) - No, but I we wrote a economic book.

Yuangrat (00:06:07) - I thought I might write that. We also interview the radical students who came back from the forest. So we try to it was based on my thesis, but we try to update it and also interview the Richard and the yellow church. So a lot of interviews were doing.

Ed (00:06:25) - But this is technically your first foray into fiction.

Paul (00:06:28) - Well, I wrote a novel, when I was in college. Oh, you did, and, I had it in my backpack when I was hitchhiking around Europe in 1970. Wow. And I left it in someone's car. Oh, really? Oh, those were the days when all you had was the TypeScript. No backup? No.

Ed (00:06:49) - Maybe someone found it, published it and made millions. And you don't even know anything about.

Paul (00:06:53) - It, I think. Well, that that would be interesting, but I always look back.

Greg (00:06:58) - Salman Rushdie found it and was like, this is really good.

Paul (00:07:00) - I should be an author. I think actually the reverse is probably good. It never saw the light of day.

Paul (00:07:09) - We'd be fighting back against that reputation.

Greg (00:07:13) - Well, I, I've always said, that I reading is not something I have time to do these days. But I did buy this book and I had a few days off recently, and I'm about a third of the way through. I really wanted to get it finished before we did the interview, but I'm sorry, I'm only through to the way through, but I got to say, and I'm not blowing smoke, it is really goddamn good. I'm really, really enjoying it. first of all, it's way hornier than I thought. There's there’s a lot of sexy stuff in there.

Paul (00:07:37) - Well, it's a family story, a family saga. And as we tend to say, you can't have families without sex. That's right.

Greg (00:07:46) - That's right, that's right. So talk a little bit about about the book and why you chose this time and place in Thailand to write about and, and what, what like how it all came together and why you decided to.

Paul (00:07:57) - Let me start that off, send it over to you if you miss something.

Paul (00:08:00) - First of all, the end of King Chulalongkorn s regime is actually critical to understanding what Thailand is going through today. at that time, he completely revised the governing system of the country, centralized power in Bangkok, and removed, the traditional rulers in the outlying provinces. This was particularly acute in Pattani, where the Sultan, was seen as the center of legitimate power. And then he was removed. How did that happen? How did it affect people? These were interesting questions. But even places like Tamora had a king, until the middle of the 19th century. And in in that province, in some class, they were replaced by centrally appointed governors and, administrators who were there to carry out the will of the king in Bangkok. So how did that change things? The other side of it was that, because of the centralization, more people from the central Thailand, other areas of Thailand came to the south at the same time that Chinese migration was reaching a peak and thousands of Chinese who were coming into the country, while unrest in Burma was sending refugees from Burma, particularly the.

Paul (00:09:43) - Minorities such as Hmong and the existing Malays were. Trying to deal with this pressure from the centre to conform. And we thought of this in the sense of what does it mean to be a tie? Yeah. Is it mean that you're a royalist, conservative central tie, or is there room in the definition of a tie for the Malays and the Mons and the Chinese? So we were trying to show through fiction that, you know, the idea of what it means to be a tie is actually very complicated. Now, fortunately for our storytelling, Yuangrat's family actually combines all these ethnicities. She has four grandparents. Aman, a Thai, a Chinese and Malay. Malay.

Ed (00:10:43) - Wow.

Yuangrat (00:10:44) - That is according to. That's amazing characters that we try to. I'm trying to say this story was inspired by my ancestors, that you know how partly it was my grandfather who wrote to Rani Monton, right? And then my grandmother from my mother's side was from Hong Kong, and then my father's father from Burma, who owned the the barge, the boats.

Yuangrat (00:11:19) - Because coming.

Paul (00:11:20) - From China.

Yuangrat (00:11:21) - China, China. Okay. And and, ethnic ties.

Paul (00:11:26) - And your mother's mother.

Yuangrat (00:11:27) - On the gambling den. Okay. Which is very based on what's happening in that period.

Greg (00:11:35) - Your grandmother owned the gambling den. Wow. Okay, so that's Ploy in the story.

Yuangrat (00:11:38) - Yeah.

Paul (00:11:39) - Wow. So we took this as a starting point, but then let our imaginations kind of run wild with the story and looked at both these basic characters and how they would have reacted to the political, social, economic challenges of that time.

Greg (00:11:58) - And you grew up in the South, is that.

Yuangrat (00:12:00) - Yeah. Yeah.

Greg (00:12:01) - Right.

Yuangrat (00:12:02) - So I was from Surat, and then we moved to the corn, educated in the corn from primary one through high school. Wow. So the whole family. So this means families to interact, you know, really.

Greg (00:12:13) - I was happy to see, Khanom mentioned in the book, which is one of my favorite. My one of my favorite places. I always say it wrong. I don't mean snack. I mean, is that the right tone? I that's right. Anyway, it's one it's one of my favorite villages in Thailand. I really love it. Down there.

Ed (00:12:26) - Yeah, I've noticed that, when people talk about the Thai South, the a lot of people, especially foreigners, think it's just homogenous, or they think like, oh, that's the Muslim part of Thailand. But luckily, over the years, I mean, since I've been here so long, I've learned how mixed it is. And I remember, our buddy Stu, who's the polyglot. I happen to watch a YouTube video of his where he was in Phuket, and he apparently there's a cat dialogue, like, there's like a pug at ease. And he was doing a language thing on just the Puckett language. And I was like, oh, my God.

Paul (00:13:02) - Southern Thai has its own dialect, right? And you know, he's playing now.

Yuangrat (00:13:11) - And that's one of the.

Paul (00:13:12) - Things I learned when I was different.

Yuangrat (00:13:13) - Than Akan are different than the, you know, are they all different?

Paul (00:13:19) - But they're only slightly different. No. The big difference is between the South and Bangkok. Sure. And, there are tone changes there. Maybe 20% of the vocabulary is different and then some words are the same, but the meaning is a little different. Yeah. Right, right. But see, but.

Yuangrat (00:13:38) - See, which means a lot of jargon in each province. Yeah. Right.

Greg (00:13:44) - The so for this interview I thought it'd be interesting, but as I was reading the book, I'm highlighting certain phrases and passages in the Kindle that I, that I find particularly interesting or that I want to talk about. So I thought maybe we could just go through some of the some of these and maybe have you read them, Paul? And then we can talk about them, because they sort of popped the question in my mind about this. So the one theme that I got from the book so far, and again, I'm only about a third of the way through, is this was just such a radical time of change in Thai culture, you know, in technologically, culturally, religion, internationally, economically, globally, you know, there's just all these new unions and things being formed.

Greg (00:14:23) - So it was just such a massive time of change. So maybe you could read that little section there, and it talks a little bit about how they're adapting to these things.

Paul (00:14:32) - We are now doubly colonized. Ooh. Huntington said the Burman’s crushed our king almost a century and a half ago. They banned the use of the modern language. Even today, the Burman's undermine our language and customs. While the British monopolized political power and control the economy. We have to contend not only with our old Burman enemies, but also with the Indian and Chinese bloodsuckers getting favorable treatment.

Greg (00:15:01) - Yeah. So things are things are changing all over the place. So I can see why this was such an interesting time. But I'll talk about that a little bit more. I mean, the British were in Thailand, the French were fighting. you know, I don't have a really deep understanding of all of the, of the regional geopolitics that was going on at the time. But what was what was happening in Thailand? You mentioned earlier the king was sort of changing how things worked, like what was the psyche of the Thai people at the time?

Paul (00:15:29) - Well, an interesting thing is, how they thought they should meet those challenges from the colonizing powers that had these weapons of war and armies and a keen interest in the economies of the region.

Paul (00:15:45) - And that pressure was keenly felt by King Chulalongkorn and the centralization of the Thai bureaucracy that we mentioned a bit earlier was a direct result. He thought that was necessary to fend off the colonizers. At the same time, young members of the royal family were being sent to Britain and Germany and France to get educated, and they saw that challenge almost from the inside and were working pretty hard to, fend off by non-military means by showing one that Thailand was a real country. Or actually, I should tell you, Siam was a real country, that it had an effective administration, that it was modernizing, and that there was room in the economy for businessmen from Britain and France. and we talked a little bit about the motivations for that, but particularly in the South, the challenge was that Thailand had or Siam had traditionally exerted influence and extracted tribute from the sultanate that are now southern Thai, Thailand and Malaysia. but the British were interested in those places, too, and had established protectorates over many of those, little fiefdoms.

Paul (00:17:19) - And the Thai king was worried that all the Malay provinces would, would become British. Right.

Ed (00:17:28) - I guess I was going to ask, I probably should know this, but were those provinces ever officially part of the British Malaysia?

Yuangrat (00:17:36) - No, no no no, they were never officially.

Yuangrat (00:17:38) - Thailand historically, because in the past, you know, that the Thai kings, they they ruled the country by the Congo. Right? You are strong. And the way to show that they are colonized by you, just colonized, but in fact, just paying the tribute each year to show that they are submitted to Bangkok, but nobody else but they and they could not resist against the central administration. They have to obey the laws that's been practiced not only in the South at that time, also in Cambodia and Laos, which we didn't mention at all, because it's not in, you know, in southern history. And the Thai kings not only bring about the fifth or sixth, they because they were educated abroad in Europe, Germany and Russia too.

Yuangrat (00:18:33) - So they they see that the West, to really keep our independence is to willingly sacrifice some parts of the country. So the king sacrifice. The four provinces to British rule New Zealand and South Korea, okay and Laos to British and some part of of Cambodia to Vietnam.

Greg (00:19:05) - I was gonna say you also saw that in.

Yuangrat (00:19:06) - North the same.

Yuangrat (00:19:07) - Time with Indochina.

Ed (00:19:08) - So they were officially so they were officially under British rule.

Paul (00:19:13) - no. Those, all those Sultanate s were semi-independent. some of them, submitted to British protection, which meant a British advisor was placed in the Istana. Oh, I see the ruling palace and advised. But that advice had a lot of power behind it. Not just, military power, but economic power. so that was a deal that some of those sultans did to maintain, a semblance at least of their independence. But the sultan did not. And that became an issue. And as you go through the book, you'll you'll see how the Thais, worked to shore up their control of botany and botany.

Paul (00:20:09) - also included the provinces of Nareta, Narathiwat, Satun, and, and so on. The, the deal that was eventually done between the British and the Thai king, was officially signed, I think, in 1904. And that made the the boundary clear, so that the people of those four southern provinces could not go to the British for protection, and the British would respect Thai sovereignty over those four. And in return got all the other Malay Sultanate.

Greg (00:20:52) - Okay.

Ed (00:20:53) - No, this is this is going back to your your point about Thai identity. I wonder if at this time, in the early 1900s, would the average person down there would they identify as Thai? Would they say I am tired or would they say I am Malay? Or maybe sometimes they have a regional identity, like they might just locally identify themselves? Because I know some people up north, they think of themselves as northern.

Paul (00:21:20) - Oh, Lana.

Ed (00:21:21) - Lana. Lana. So what do you think the identity was for people down there?

Paul (00:21:25) - Very ethnically oriented.

Ed (00:21:27) - Oh, so someone might say I am.

Paul (00:21:29) - Well, first of all, Thai was a language and an intensity, not a political identity or or.

Yuangrat (00:21:37) - Became.

Paul (00:21:38) - 137 years later.

Yuangrat (00:21:40) - historically.

Yuangrat (00:21:41) - We are very unified country. You know, we are 90% Buddhist, right? And then we speak Thai as a central language at the same time, we allow the ethnic groups, you know, like the one near the loud speak loud in the North, speak not in London, but we have a central language, Thai. Officially, when you go to high school, you have to use Thai language textbooks and spoken lectures and all that.

Ed (00:22:08) - But in terms of identity.

Paul (00:22:09) - Well, if we're talking about 1900, right? Yeah. The Malays would have identified themselves as, as citizens of Pattani.

Ed (00:22:20) - Citizens of Pattani.

Paul (00:22:21) - And ethnic Malays. I think Malay Chinese still thought of themselves as Chinese and.

Ed (00:22:27) - A lot of Chinese today. It's funny, I have a I have a good friend who is Chinese Malay and his family is from down south.

Ed (00:22:34) - I'll try to figure out. So his his family is non-Muslim but quite wealthy southern family. So I'll figure it out. You might have heard of the family name. I'm not sure, but he. He said that when he goes down to visit his family down there, they call themselves Chinese. Yeah. Even today, like, they're, they're they're 100% Thai.

Yuangrat (00:22:54) - There was some some subtle answer to that because of the King's policy, I think we are pretty successful on the policy of assimilation. If you comparative comparatively to Indonesia or Burma, you know, we allow the Chinese sure to own land after they leave in Thailand for a while and give them the nationality. Yeah. In Indonesia, no matter how long you stay, you you Chinese, you never be able to change your nationality, which means you cannot own the land. Even in Burma, they don't allow the Indian to dress in their national costume.

Greg (00:23:37) - Oh, really?

Yuangrat (00:23:37) - In Thailand we are very flexible. We are practical. So we know that by giving them nationality, they have the right like Thai citizen. So the. So proud to be Thai, right? They even changed the last name, right? I'm Chinese, by the way. I'm one fourth right now. So I changed my last name to ???, which is after my grandfather. So, you know.

Greg (00:24:05) - So talking, talking about Thai practicality. It's something I want to read here, Paul, maybe you could read this next quote about this.

Paul (00:24:12) - According to father, the Siamese kings approach to the aggression of the foreign devils was far more clever. The white ghost just want to make money. If you stop them from making money that want to take over the whole country. Look at Burma, Laos and a Nam electorate. So the Siamese king lets them make some money. Gives them a few bits and pieces of outlying territory, but never gives them a chance to take over.

Greg (00:24:41) - Yeah, that seems to me that several of our guests over the recently and over the past history of the podcast have commented on the ties, how practical they are, and we talked about that in World War Two.

Greg (00:24:51) - Just before we started recording, we were talking about in World War Two. You know, how they never officially declared war, you know, because.

Paul (00:24:59) - They they tried.

Greg (00:25:00) - They tried, they tried. But there was there was still someone who was like, maybe this isn't the best thing to do. So so it's interesting. So, you know, back in the book, there's definitely a really interesting sort of intrigue around the practicality of ties and how they navigate these turbulence. Yeah.

Paul (00:25:17) - When you get into book two, Dark Karma, you'll see the theme of Chinese assimilation or the it was not as smooth road to assimilation. There were bumps along the way and many of the Chinese organizations were outlawed. the Thai king badmouthed the Chinese as the Jews of the East and saw them as money grubbers. but at the same time, the ties were practical enough to allow them to establish businesses to, really start the mining industry. And very importantly, as an economic counterbalance to the British, the the Thais were smart enough to realize that if anybody was going to seize control of the economy, they would lose political control.

Paul (00:26:12) - So they tried to make sure the British were balanced by the Chinese.

Yuangrat (00:26:17) - And talking about practicality again in our book, Barclay was asked by his major wife to marry to the Chinese daughter who has many, many daughters, in order for economic reasons so he can be supported, you know, rich or that, and become friends with the rich Chinese families and even now, if you can see the royal family, very practical, if you trace back all the billionaires in Thailand, you know, owner of the Bangkok Bank, when it said it made it to the Thai.

Yuangrat (00:26:57) - Aristocrats.

Yuangrat (00:26:58) - Aristocrats, a lot of them. Yeah. Because to to to integrate and nothing better than become relatives. Right. Yeah.

Greg (00:27:06) - It's it's funny because I did have another quote in here that I wanted to read, but then I took it out because I figured I the quote was about it was, it was it was suicide suicides, colleagues talking about, you know, one of the characters is named suicide, and her colleagues were trying to guide her on which suit her to choose based on how much land he owned and what his family was like.

Greg (00:27:29) - And I thought that was interesting. But then I thought, well, I mean, every place is like that. Even even today. You're like, well, this guy's really rich. I'm going to marry him. But maybe we can talk. I should have I should not have cut it out because there's a deeper level to it in this time. In the book, too, there was the religion, the ethnic, the ethnicity, the background. And it wasn't just about about he's rich. And can you supply me with a comfortable life? It was, you know, it was power. It was connections. It was family. It was building a legacy much more complicated, it seems, than it is today, which is usually just about money.

Paul (00:28:02) - And and it was about ethnicity and culture, because at that time, the Hmong culture was kind of in retreat. The Mormons had once controlled all of Burma and much of Thailand, what is now Thailand. Oh, but the with the rise of the Burman ethnics and then later the takeover by the British, they were now a rather powerless and challenged minority.

Paul (00:28:34) - And, Susa is a Mon, and she's really looking to marry a Mon. And she had a choice, if you remember, in the book. And, I think she made the right choice, but,

Ed (00:28:50) - No spoilers.

Paul (00:28:53) - Yeah, and I won't say what that right choice is.

Greg (00:28:57) - speaking about about changing changing names, which you mentioned a few minutes ago. maybe you could read this next one. Paul here too. This was also a quote from someone about about names, because I like I said, I'm only a third of the way through the book and already three major characters have changed their names. Yeah. yeah. Which which is something that we still see today. Ed and I've talked about that. We've both worked with people who have just randomly one day changed their name. So, Paul, maybe you could read that quote there.

Paul (00:29:24) - Okay. this is a quote from, one of, two brothers who play important roles in, in the book, one named Huat, and they have a Chinese father and a Thai mother, And Hurt is talking about his mother. I don't think she was ever happy with our Chinese names. Who had said she always had Thai nicknames for us. But father wouldn't let her use them when he was around and wouldn't register them with the district office. He wanted us to be as Chinese as possible. He even talked about sending us back home to learn to be a proper Chinese man, and to find a Chinese wife. I was never sure what to call myself. Chinese name or Thai nickname. Nicknames are one thing. Everyone has them who had said, but with Chinese names that Thais see us as foreigners, as chinks.

Greg (00:30:25) - Yeah, there's a kind of harsh, harsh word there, but, it was like you said, Yang. Not that the there was, a real practicality to changing your name to a Thai name. And wasn't it required, like at a certain. Around this time it was made the law.

Paul (00:30:39) - Yeah. there's a part in the book where the two half Chinese brothers, have to register a last name.

Paul (00:30:47) - Actually, everyone in Thailand has to register a last name, and that became the opportunity for them, along with. Well, who won't give the no spoilers to The Father, but, they felt free to become more Thai. Yeah.

Yuangrat (00:31:02) - Yeah, they.

Yuangrat (00:31:03) - Said that because they feel that being Thai, they belong to Thailand. You know, they want to have some rice like a citizen. Sure.

Ed (00:31:11) - Now, I haven't had a chance to start the book yet, but in the midst of this is also Muslim culture or Muslim identity. is did that play a role in the story or.

Yuangrat (00:31:23) - Oh, very much. Oh, okay.

Ed (00:31:26) - So there's really hard.

Paul (00:31:27) - To talk about it without giving things away.

Ed (00:31:29) - Well, in addition to all these ethnicities, there's just religious stuff going on too.

Yuangrat (00:31:34) - Yeah.

Paul (00:31:34) - That's right. Yeah. And we have one character that kind of shows the conflict because he knows that to get ahead in the royal bureaucracy, he has to convince everyone he's Thai, but he's actually Malay.

Greg (00:31:53) - Yeah. And that's another another really surprising element of this book as I'm going along and just just getting to the part, I assume you're talking about Paddy and where he's doing some stuff, and it seems to me to be getting into sort of some, some espionage almost work, which I wasn't expecting, but it's really interesting. Yeah.

Ed (00:32:13) - You're making me want to read the book, for sure.

Paul (00:32:15) - But that's the purpose.

Ed (00:32:28) - Man, I got to say, these two are. They have to be two of the easiest people to interview. Like, they're just interesting people. They have a lot to say. they just carry the conversation, and you and I can just kind of sit back and, like, bask in their experience.

Greg (00:32:42) - Yeah, those are always the best conversations, right? Like, even if the microphones weren't there, you'd still want to sit down and have the exact same conversation with. Right, right.

Ed (00:32:49) - But there's no, you know, there's no pulling information out from them.

Ed (00:32:53) - They just have interesting stuff to talk about, whether it's fictional, historical, or from their own life. Like how they learned all this stuff. so just just super easy people to interview and, they're welcome back on the show anytime.

Greg (00:33:08) - Yeah. They're one of the short list of people that have an open invite to come on whenever. So you'll be happy to hear that I'm. I'm still slowly making my way through the first part of their of their trilogy, and I'm still enjoying it. It's a really, really interesting book. I really do like it. And, it's one of these things, like, I think us in our little Bangkok bubble up here, and even within that, the farang bubble, inside the Bangkok bubble. I think a lot of people don't really know a lot about the South, and there's a lot of people that do. But yeah, I don't know a lot of them.

Ed (00:33:37) - That's right. Yeah. You know, I think we mentioned that a little bit in the interview.

Ed (00:33:41) - And then, you and I also went to hear them speak at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand. Right. You know, introducing this book. So we talked about some of these issues, but it's just fascinating that, you have, the fictional component, which of course, is not easy to do. It's not easy to write a novel that's pure fiction, but then to somehow combine it with actual history and get your facts right on the history, especially about its place as complex as the southern Thailand, which has just multiple, multiple cultural influences. that is not easy to do.

Greg (00:34:18) - No, it's not. And they do it. Do they do a very a very good job of it and they make it very believable. And of course, a lot of it is based on you young rats, relatives and, you know, ancestors who did the things that the characters do in the book. So it's based in a, in a very real reality, even though some of the things might not have happened, a lot of the characters and places are all based on people and places that do or did exist.

Greg (00:34:41) - So yeah. yeah, yeah. Great book. Love talking to them. So thank you Paul and Young Rat and come back next week when we will get into part two for sure. For sure. All right. Well we ask our listener to send us a voicemail using the little microphone button on our website if they have something to say. And this week we heard from our pal Joe Piloto. Joe, take it away.

Joe (00:35:00) - Okay, this is going to make me sound like a professional level creep, but in response to the massage girls saying handsome man, I didn't mind that when I was in Bangkok. Obviously it gets a little repetitive, but now I live in a different city with sex workers on the street and they just say massage. and, you know, not to belittle their work. It's a hard job. It's not a job that I can do, but I do want to pull them aside. And like you said, be like, listen, there are more things you could say. They're more even.

Joe (00:35:23) - Just calling the men handsome is going to up your numbers by a little bit, at least. Probably. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know, maybe they're better at their jobs than I am. entirely unrelated. I do appreciate The cremation of Sam McGee referenced Greg. I actually have that poem memorized. So if I ever come to town, I'll perform it for you. And what I'm sure will be many baffled Thai people.

Ed (00:35:46) - Dude, man, he agrees with you that these girls need some game.

Greg (00:35:49) - Yeah. You know, like, it might not be a family friendly thing, but these places do exist and these women are trying to make a living. And what they do is they sort of try to catch your attention by yelling, massage, handsome men, massage. And Joe agrees with you, man, you got to come up with a better sales pitch. And I think for the world's oldest profession, I think it it demands a more stringent, effective promotional tool.

Ed (00:36:13) - Agreed. So maybe maybe this can be a little sideline for you.

Ed (00:36:16) - You can be a kind of a marketing consultant for, for these girls. You you got a future. You got a future in that.

Yuangrat (00:36:21) - That's right.

Greg (00:36:22) - I got to I got to come up with like the one phrase that's just going to, it's going to cross all socioeconomic barriers and appeal to the broad.

Ed (00:36:30) - You need to put. I think you need to put together a seminar like a PowerPoint, like make it like a Saturday day long thing, like include lunch and then just go sign girls up.

Greg (00:36:40) - I'm telling you, a girl jumps out in front of the sidewalk in front of me and says, how's it going, Big Daddy? You look like the kind of guy that knows how to party. How about you and me head over to the corner and talk business like, I think that's a bit more compelling than mustard.

Ed (00:36:54) - Well, you and Joe are definitely on the same page, no doubt.

Greg (00:36:57) - About that together. And, thanks for the, shout out for my poem to a Joe. It's it's impressive that you got that, Cremation of Sam McGee memorized.

Greg (00:37:07) - It's a long one. I think I was starting a parallel poetry podcast. maybe me and Joe and team up on that. The next one I'm going to do is the only other poem that I've got memorized, which is Invictus by William Ernest Henley, which I will do everyone a favor by not reading now. So. Yeah. Anyway, we need to move on.

Ed (00:37:23) - Let's just move on.

Yuangrat (00:37:24) - Thanks, Joe.

Ed (00:37:25) - Thank you. Joe. All right, a final thanks to our patrons who support the show. Patrons get a ton of cool perks and the warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that they're helping and are never ending. Quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online or bank our podcast on social media. Bangkok podcast.com on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast at gmail.com. We love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages.

Greg (00:37:51) - Both show. You can also listen to each episode on YouTube. You can send us a voicemail through our website like we just did, and you can hit me up on threads at BC.

Greg (00:37:59) - Greg, thank you for listening. Everyone. Take it easy out there. Stay cool. See you back here next week.