Turning Bangkok inside out

Turning Bangkok inside out

Ehito Kimura, Contributor, Jakarta

Bangkok Inside Out
Daniel Ziv and Guy Sharett
176 pp
Equinox Publishing

Equal parts insight and wit, Bangkok Inside Out give readers a unique view into Thailand's pulsating capital city. The guidebook consists of short reflections and sleek photos that together give readers an honest glimpse of urban life in Bangkok.

Some themes will be familiar to residents of Jakarta: the cultural melange, the urban cacophony, the trendy nightlife, the nightmarish traffic.

But readers will quickly find that Bangkok has flavors all its own.

Amidst a prominent Buddhist culture that reveres the Monarchy lies a thriving kathoey (transgender) subculture. Roaming the streets aren't just cars and buses, but urban elephants and mangy mutts.

Many Jakartans will recognize Daniel Ziv's handiwork here. Ziv made his mark by founding Djakarta!, an English-language monthly that covers the city's social and cultural life, then went on to write his bestselling and widely acclaimed Jakarta Inside Out.

Jakarta Inside Out was notable for its original layout and design. Ziv chose some 60 topics on the city -- from "Asongan" to "Wartel" and wrote a few punchy paragraphs about each. He then placed a large eye-catching photo alongside every mini-essay. Each two-page spread tackles one topic, but taken together, they form a tapestry of this complex capital.

Bangkok is another ideal place to apply the Inside Out formula.

Ziv, with co-author Guy Sharett, take on the City of Angels with the same enthusiasm, grit and humor of the original. The result is a book worthy of its predecessor.

The brief essays in Bangkok Inside Out are a joy to read. They're sprinkled with anecdotes -- see "Operation Ding-Ding" -- bits of history, social commentary and political analysis. The writing is light, hip, funny and smart.

Only the puns are bad, and they're supposed to be.

The photography in this book is also impressive. Photojournalist Sasa Kralj captures city life from the mundane (construction sites) to the outrageous (Jumbo Queen Pageant).

The photos also reveal the city's yawning economic gap (the lofty "hi-so" nightlife vs. Khlong Toey's slums) its cultural diversity (in Bangkok, bule are called farang) and the everyday activities of its residents (street food anyone?).

Let's be clear here, I have my gripes.

What, no section on tuk-tuk, those lovable three-wheeled rickshaws that sputter along the congested streets? Yes, farang means foreigner, but tell the reader it's originally a reference to the French! And a whole spread on "sounds"?

I guess Bangkok has distinctive sounds but come on, how about those tuk-tuk?

These shortcomings, of omission and of commission, are admittedly a little subjective. And to be fair, Ziv and Sharrett have done an outstanding job choosing their topics to show as "real" or "true" a picture of Bangkok as they can.

Academic training compels me to put words like real and true in inverted quotes, but the authors should be commended for their honest and evenhanded efforts to portray the city in a variety of lights.

Bangkok is an amazingly complex and contradictory city, and Ziv and Sharett are ideal guides. They don't just know the city inside and out, they are also simultaneously insiders and outsiders.

Said differently, they know the beast but they keep their distance, and it makes for a refreshing, engaging and candid perspective.

Ziv's closing essay, "My Weekend at the Grace Hotel (a stay at the notorious Soi Nana)", reinforces this point.

Overall, this book is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the urban megapolis that is Bangkok.

But don't read Bangkok Inside Out cover to cover. Flip through, skip around, take in the essays and absorb the photos.

In short, enjoy it.

The reviewer is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin- Madison Department of Political Science, and worked in Bangkok from 1997 to 1999 at a research non-governmental organization. He presently resides in Jakarta, where he is conducting field research for his doctoral thesis on Indonesian politics.