Of all the faces in Thailand, Mum Jokmok’s must surely be the most brilliant. It’s rare that a face can portray so many different emotions, and rarer still that a face can instill those same feelings in an audience. If there was ever to be done a great study of magnificent faces, one would hope that Mum would be included in the final list. Watch Cherm if you still have any doubts.

Looking for a quiet area in which to read a book, Lumphini Park seemed as good a place as any, but even in such a zone of alienation it was difficult to stay still for more than a few minutes at a time without a sprinkler being turned on, or a man in a boat unleashing havoc with a hosepipe, or a truck driving by and joining in the fun. While a book was eventually finished, there were other achievements in the form of sunburn and minor heatstroke. All this for the sake of achieving peace in Bangkok.

Another fashion week came and went. Attending some catwalk shows last year, the initial feeling of excitement was quickly replaced with boredom. Everything ran late. I put on an interested face, but ultimately was excluded from the inner circle of self-congratulation. And what of the life of the fashion journalist? What a hollow, menial profession that must be, documenting the trends and fads of the elites and passing that knowledge onto the masses. As with all fashion shows in Bangkok, there was a closing party with a free bar. At least the masses could make some contribution.

Finally I found a shop that sold Manga comics in English. I bought the first volume of Death Note for 334 baht from Books Kinokuniya in Paragon and thought it was expensive, especially as there were around ten volumes. My Thai workmates laughed at me the next day because Thai comics cost just 40 baht. They can buy an entire series for the cost of one volume in English. I decided I should only buy one volume a month to save money, but this will mean it takes the best part of a year to finish any given series. The only solution is to learn to read Thai; if ever there was a reason to do so this would be it.

I have a friend from Southern Thailand named Mojo. He paid me a visit recently and stayed in Bangkok for over a week. To my surprise, on the days I went to work, he was able to find his way round the city and make his way back to Victory Monument to meet me in the evenings. Good for him, I thought. His departure was to be on a Tuesday, and I offered to take the day off work to help him, but he declined my offer and, sure enough, he found his way out of the city and back home without any assistance. What a remarkable fellow.

There is nothing more infuriating in this city than people who walk slowly.

Someone from a modeling agency phoned last week. I laughed out loud when I received the call. He invited me to a casting for a commercial. It was either for a superstore named Finland, or a Finnish superstore, I couldn’t ascertain which. I started making my excuses when he said that the pay would be 30-40,000 baht for two days work. No wonder there are so many models in Thailand, I thought to myself. Money, drinks, food… perhaps I’m approaching my life in the wrong way. I didn’t go to the casting, but for a moment I could understand why someone would, yet the models’ world is not one I wish to explore.

Laurent Garnier played at Bed a few weeks ago. Did a lot of the people there understand the magnitude of such an event? There were an absurd number of socialites wearing sunglasses indoors. That’s the trouble with Bed: It’s a great club, the design work is spectacular, it has a dancefloor, a decent sound system, good bar staff, etc. But the clientele seemed content to watch from the rafters looking indifferent. Laurent Garnier was fantastic. It was amazing to see so many ecstatic French people. By all accounts his afterparty set at Tunnel was even better.

The problems in the South seem to be getting worse. On average, five people are killed every day. When the CNS took power from the whole country, Prime Minister Surayud made a point to visit the South and apologize for the failure of the previous government to quell the situation. That was five months ago. Innocent people are still dying, and people live in fear under the constant shadow of terrorist attacks. Surayud still states that the problems must be solved by peaceful means. Surely now, after eight innocent commuters were murdered in an ambush, the time has come for the government to be more decisive. The rift between Thais and Muslims is being continually aggravated. The prime minister has promised that his peace talks will solve the problems, despite admitting that he wasn’t sure who to talk to; the anonymity of the terrorists is a problem. “I will talk with reasonable people,” he said. That’s a noble gesture, but ultimately it doesn’t achieve much.

The poor dogs of Bangkok. The soi dogs don’t realize how lucky they are. Perhaps they dream of domestication, but it’s the housebound hounds we should give our pity to. They never get to run around or explore, having to spend most of their time being carried around in handbags. You can tell from the maniacal looks on their faces that they long for something else, something resembling freedom; they are restless.

Is it so wrong to be attracted to the aesthetics qualities of the Thai Girl? So she may be fascinated with all farang, but it works both ways. What harm is there in a smile, a fleeting glance, a brief contact of eyes? It doesn’t equate to sex, and it is not to look down upon the Thai Girl, and so who is anybody to call such curiosity a disrespectful act? It is not even a question of conversation. (It is mere observation; a fascination of something unfamiliar.) Conversation often destroys the fantasy. The most beautiful girl can become ugly when you speak to her and, conversely, it is the girl who has something to say, with some common outlook, who becomes the most beautiful. A girl is girl, but one cannot escape the differences in appearance from one race to the next, and therefore the initial feeling of that smile, that glance, that contact is undeniable. Better to forget conversation and stay at a distance. A wise man once said: “Pretty girls from economically disadvantaged countries will always smile at you.” Maybe it is I who will always smile at them.

I turned my phone off for three days and people assumed I had either gone mad or descended into a state of depression. It would appear that phones really are an extension of the self. Without them, the outside world is lost. In Bangkok this can be a good thing. Even children, no older than six or seven, spend their time with their phones glued to the sides of their heads. Who does a child of six or seven call?

Techno’ tags: Fragments, Thoughts, Life, Bangkok, Thailand