“I am the Intrepid Traveler – Never a dull moment” Jim Thompson
I sip a cup of Siamese black tea at the Oss – a corner of ineffable Orientalist aesthetics, warmed by the colours of the teak, the gold of the lanterns crowding the brass ceiling, the details of the eye-catching American Bar. Asian hedonism assails the tea-time hedonists, who dangle their gaze over the Chao Praya River with every sip, following the wandering, sleepy motion of the boats that glide past the shantytowns by the river, almost observing the velvety rhythm of Louis Armstrong, playing the sensual The Little Brown Book at low volume on a sultry, monsoon August afternoon in Bangkok.
The Oss bar is a metaphor for one man, Jim Thompson, the most enigmatic, iconic, memorable farang in the ‘city of angels’. He landed in Algiers through Operation Torch, in June 1943, to prepare for the landing in Sicily. Already recruited by American wartime intelligence, in January ‘45 he moved into the Indo-Burmese theatre of conflict until the Japanese surrendered. Later Jim, wearing his rayban wayfarer, joined the Thai liberation movement, arriving in the capital on August 1945. He never left Thailand again, became an attaché at the American Embassy in Bangkok, until he left the post to remain in Siam officially as a businessman. The prince of the superfine farangs is him, western, vicious, perceptive, multifaceted, cunning, irresistibly inscrutable. Just like his mansion, which I have just finished visiting: a jumble of objects and architectural delights overshadowed by tropical nature, growing luxuriant at the foot of the skyscrapers of the noisy, polluted, damp and smelly metropolis.
Jim chose to live here, where Bangkok evaporates in all its aroma in the sultriness of the putrid waters of the riverfront, facing the slums, in the midst of the obnoxious yet adorably addictive and intoxicating smell of this seductive city.
The Americans settled in Siam after liberating it from the Japanese, a ‘favour’ that they cashed in by laying the foundations for the presence of their largest military contingent and the most extensive diplomatic base in South-East Asia. Everyone knows in Sukhumvit, the trendy business district of the farangs, that the American ambassador still retains the right to pay only €1 per year rent for his residence. The American presence in Thailand is in a nutshell a postmodern version of the capitulation system, in which the hieraticism of the monarchy is protected by the local military junta in cooperation with American tenants.
The city’s dissolute and cursed reputation was born with the arrival of the Allies. The overlords of the West used Bangkok as a base of operations in the decolonising Indo-Chinese war scenarios, then to militarily organise the Vietnam War. Thailand’s reputation as the land of smiles, the kingdom of cosmopolitanism and the paradise of sex originated during those years. It was at this time that the first mixed couples gave birth to luk khrueng, half-blooded Thai citizens who were, and to some extent continue to be, exposed to discrimination by locals. Today, the sex industry survives proliferating especially in certain areas of the country, starting with the disgusting Soy Cowboy in Sukhumvit. Here in the evening the Chinese, the Japanese, the farangs who leave the clubs, the chicest restaurants, the Thai massages, the sleaziest pubs, enter the various red-light clubs after a long walk in the squalor of a commodified human capital. Some clubs are run by the military, others are Japanese-owned, the only thing I remember is that colossal losers enter. Gross. Federico, my compatriot friend who moved to Bangkok for work six years ago, warned me ‘I asked you if you preferred rooftop bars or tits? And you chose boobs! Your choice, now don’t complain about what you see.’ I wanted to see what the stereotype on this land, which I was fast becoming fond of, came from. In fact, I believe that the image of Thailand as the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in sweet and sour sauce is an all-Western invention, created by a bunch of Europeans at a rather boring stage of their historical existence. In reality it is a politically rather conservative and authoritarian nation, obsessed with fitness, health, and an eccentric sense of aesthetics. In Bangkok alone there are about 100 penis whitening procedures a month and the 7Eleven (the ubiquitous convenient stores) are imploding with whitening face creams. But Thailand is not so particularly neurotic or obsessive about sex: that might be our “premium” Western tourists.
I forgot, Jim. Jim had instead a lot of style. An old American rogue who founded an oriental fashion empire, launching Jim Thompson silk, a brand that is still synonymous with excellence in clothing, furnishings, timeless appeal, an orientalist glamour and at the same time irresistibly colonialist. Jim came from a wealthy family that owned a textile industry, so it was natural for him to invest his capital and talent in rediscovering the Thai silk tradition, benefiting from his friendship with Prime Minister Pridi Banomyong. Pridi had served as a leader of the anti-Japanese resistance and was instrumental in the realisation of the Thai Silk Company Limited project. In the chaotic and persuasive post-war Bangkok, Jim easily slipped into the image of the eclectic and eccentric businessman, amiably watering down his activities as a service informant (which/which ones?), displaying his fine silks in the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental and enriching his networking in the long cocktails at the Bamboo Bar.
This bar’s timeless reputation comes precisely from being part of one of Asia’s oldest hotels, overlooking the Chao Praya. There is the culture of luxury and the luxury of culture. The Mandarin Oriental is a place to appreciate the passing of time, the cultural space in which the sophisticated traveller can imbue himself with the Asian spirit that is redefining the Orient while spreading to the West. It was once owned by Louis Thomas Leonowens, son of the famous Anna Leonowens, tutor to the modernising King Mongkut during the years of the Bowring Trade Treaty (1855) between the Kingdom of Siam, Great Britain and Ireland. The infamous Bamboo bar is still an icon of Bangkok, where old money travellers and star system figures go to observe or be noticed. It is an intensely aesthetic place, where I go to immerse myself in a Prohibition-esque atmosphere of oriental allure clad in dark wood, rattan chairs, marble tables and distinctive fans that fade the cigar smells of the upper class. A perfect place for Jim Thompson, for the farang, (for me?), for the spoilt and vicious foreigners who have always been subjected to the locals’ merciless radiological scrutiny.
They judge white people as a murky, insinuating cocktail, caught in the tension between internationalisation, progress and attachment to Thai roots: this is the geopolitical concept of siwilai, a real theme in the Thai identity-political debate, personified by the glittering Iconsiam and Central Embassy malls, a captivating mixture of architectural futurism, western brands and a colourful reconstruction of a floating market in the food court area.
Speaking of progressivism, just in the last few days the Kao Klai (Move Forward) party has been outlawed for advocating the abolition of the crime of lese majesty of the sovereign. In a great flight forward, the notorious Shinawatra family has been rehabilitated from confinement, and Paetongtarn, the daughter of the notorious Thaksin, has been appointed Thailand’s new premier. A turnabout that aims to keep the establishment firmly on the populist line, strong in electoral support from the complicated southern regions, loyal to the status quo and conniving, again, with a monarchy that relies on the unity of the country and the support of the military. The same military that seized power in a coup in 2014, coming to hold the power to select all 250 members of the Thai Senate under the new 2017 Constitution. This has made the military an excellent guarantee of balance as well as a safe interlocutor for the stars and stripes, who demand regime stability from the heights of their military stronghold in South-East Asia, so that they can devise the anti-Chinese posture of the coming years undisturbed. Always them, always the farangs. But what do they want?
Jim Thompson disappeared one day in late March 1967 in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia, where he had gone for a short holiday and where he owned a cottage. He is said to have gone for a short walk. He never returned. In all these years, the search yielded no results, investigating the hypothesis of accident, murder, kidnapping. Some say he left, changing his identity forever. Jim’s story is shrouded in the fascinating aura of legend, in the unknown of his true identity, concealed and confused in an intelligible web of intrigues, double truths and a controversial personality, destined to become a metaphor for all the farangs living in this ‘glass kingdom’ that is Thailand.
A Thai proverb says ‘Kwam lub mai mee nai loke – There are no secrets in this world’. Behind glass, one is always under surveillance, and shelter can turn out to be a prison, even in the muffled atmosphere of The Oss bar. Will all of us arrogant, orientalist farangs be doomed to end up like Jim in the City of Angels?
