Pattaya Mail reviews Bizarre Thailand

Adding to the positive media coverage of Bizarre Thailand in the local press is Lang Reid’s review of the book for the Pattaya Mail and Chiang Mai Mail.

The reviewer describes author Jim Algie as “a good descriptive writer and able to keep the pace belting along at a good clip, making this an easy read.”

Check out the other reviews of Bizarre Thailand here.

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Grief Tourism

The tsunami that struck on December 26, 2004 was the worst natural disaster of our lifetimes. In taking stock of the cataclysm from this vantage point in time, the magnitude is clearer, but the big picture remains hazy.

How could any story do justice to a disaster that claimed some 250,000 lives?

In the Bizarre Thailand profile of Dr. Porntip, the forensic investigator, she talks about the rigours and horrors of identifying more than 5,000 corpses in tropical heat that soon made it difficult to tell whether they were Asian or Caucasian, male or female.

Much has been made in the press lately about some Indonesian travel agencies promoting trips to the recently erupted Mount Erapi. After the volcano blew its top, some 350 villagers died and 400,000 people were left homeless. The tours lead up to a village buried under volcanic vomit.

Some think that so-called “grief tourism” is morbid, that it’s tasteless, that it speaks to the hyena side of human nature. I don’t think that’s true. Most of the visitors coming to see the devastation in Haiti, or the tsunami museum in Aceh (the Indonesian province near-obliterated by the tsunami), and the various memorials in Thailand, like the police boat swept a kilometre inland, are respectful. They are mourners not voyeurs. They’re making a brave effort to comprehend the incomprehensible.

Part of this feature, “Six Years After the Tsunami” (updated from last year) is an overview of the disaster, containing some of the positive things to emerge from it, and a look at the “grief tourism” attractions in the area of Khao Lak.

For those who lived through it, and for those of us who showed up shortly after to write and shoot stories about the aftermath, the tsunami is still the stuff of daylight nightmares and deathbed hauntings.

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The Nation reviews Bizarre Thailand

Paul Dorsey at The Nation recently reviewed Bizarre Thailand, calling it: “the perfect Christmas gift if you’re looking to put some sharp edge back on a holiday softened by all that tedious family warmth.”

He commends Jim for his “Smart… funny” writing.

Reade the full review here.

Check out more reviews of Bizarre Thailand by browsing the In the Media category.

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Bizarre Thailand launch party – 7pm Friday, December 17, 2010

Come to the launch party for Jim Algie’s new nonfiction collection Bizarre Thailand: Tales of Crime, Sex and Black Magic on Friday December 17, 2010 at the WTF Café and Gallery in Bangkok.

Complimentary Bizarre Thailand cocktails, sponsored Stolichnaya Vodka, will be served from 7-9pm.

Throughout Bizarre Thailand, Algie takes a provocative but affectionate look at the dark and mysterious aspects of Thailand’s vibrant culture that evade coverage in glossy magazines and tourism brochures, as he embarks on detours off the country’s superhighway of well-mapped-out attractions.

Over the course of 24 chapters in six different sections, ranging from “Crime Scenes” to “Misadventure Travels” and “The Sex Files” to “The Supernatural”, Bizarre Thailand forms a companion piece for first-timers, repeat visitors and old hands. Readers can ride shotgun on a visit to a cowboys and Indians theme resort based on a 19th-century Nevada ghost town; meet the country’s last executioner; tour the shrine devoted to
Siam’s “female Dracula”; venture through a town overrun with sacred tortoises; and get an insider’s look at the world’s only bar run for and by sex workers.

In writing Bizarre Thailand, Algie said, “I drew on 18 years of experience in the country travelling through about 50 different provinces. Some of the different events like the Vegetarian Festival and different interview subjects like Dr. Porntip Rojanasunan, the forensics investigator, I followed over the course of a decade to include the most comprehensive versions of these stories. The protests of 2010 figured heavily in the revised and updated stories on military tourism and the influence of the occult on Thai politics.”

Thailand’s most prolific and popular expat author Christopher Moore wrote in a recent review: “I’d recommend Bizarre Thailand to anyone who wants a new perspective about Thai cultural elements that have made and continue to make Thailand unique and amazing. Algie has taken his journalistic instincts inside the half-concealed enclaves, which shields the most interesting people and has used his literary skills to reveal their complexity. He takes the reader along for a memorable, authentic, and exciting journey  into the heart and soul of Thailand.”

WTF Café and Gallery is hosting the launch party and signing for Bizarre Thailand: Tales of Sex, Crime and Black Magic on Friday, December 17, 2010. Complimentary drinks and snacks will be available from 7-9pm.

Asia Books will be selling copies of Bizarre Thailand at the discounted price of 500 baht (down from 595 baht) on the night.

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Jim Algie’s Bizarre Thailand

Randy tortoises fornicate in the streets of a Khon Kaen town.

CNNGo.com has just published a selection of Jim’s favourite oddball places to visit in the kingdom that are featured in Bizarre Thailand: Tales of Crime, Sex and Black Magic.

It’s an excellent introduction to the book.

Posted in Bizarre Thailand, Creature Features, Crime Scenes, In the media | 2 Comments

An Asian Horror Show

Was this an exhibition or a haunted mansion? That’s what most visitors must have thought as they descended into the darkness of the first room with voices whispering in the background and exhibits popping up like spectres in a funhouse.

The exhibition Spirits: Creativities from Beyond, which continues until January 9th at TCDC on the sixth floor of Bangkok’s Emporium, sheds light on the dark world of the supernatural in Asia, with displays of shaman’s robes, funeral offerings and rituals designed to ward off evil. The eeriest part is the room devoted to waxworks versions of Thai ghouls like the phi kraseu (a woman’s face atop dangling entrails that float through the air flashing on and off like a will ‘o’ the wisp) and phi pop (a flesh-eating zombie). These exhibits were combined with replicas of Ju-on (the crawling, grudge-bearing Japanese ghoul from the movie franchise) and even Count Dracula.

There is also a mannequin of Nang Nak, the most famous of all Thai phantasms. One story in Bizarre Thailand celebrates her legacy and examines why so many people come to pray at a shrine devoted this mass murderess on Sukhumvit Road.

As the most arch-conservative of all literary genres, horror has always traded on morality tales. Placards reveal the morals behind the mayhem. The phi krasue, for instance, or “filth ghost” is spread by saliva. Its hideous presence is a reminder that “cleanliness is next to godliness”. The phi pop, conversely, is a loner or social outcast. Though the exhibition doesn’t mention it, there was allegedly a real “ghost town” up in Chiang Dao more than a century ago, populated by villagers-cum-ghosts who had been shunned by their respective communities.

Spirits: Creativities from Beyond is a pan-Asian horror show. One section is devoted to funeral rites (nothing quite as ghastly as the last story in Bizarre Thailand) but that’s a small bone to pick. Many of the offerings for the dead, such as paper money and mobile phones, are burned by Chinese communities for their relatives to use in the Great Beyond. In spite of the effort of Taiwanese authorities to stop this practice, for fear it contributes to greenhouse gases, and in spite of their admonitions for relatives to donate the offerings on-line or give money to charities, the 6,000-strong Yue clan descended on their hometown outside Taipei last year to burn some 10 tons of paper offerings.

In unearthing the animistic roots of Japan, the exhibition presents viewers with a contemporary quandary: the Tamagotchi game, in which people nurture a mechanical pet, was founded on the animistic belief that all objects have a soul.

The exhibition zeroes in on the history of Thai comics, horror movies, and radio shows like the long-running “Shock FM” which must be the world’s only radio program entirely devoted to callers reciting ghost stories on air. (That story is also in “The Supernatural” section of the book.)

One of the most poignant elements is the tallying of expenses for funerals in Thailand: around 35 billion baht (more than US$3 billion) per year for the ceremonies, flowers, catering, souvenirs for mourners, caskets, etcetera. On the other palm, a survey undertaken by the Kasikorn Research Center revealed that the business of fortunetelling (including “offerings made to monks, astrological handbooks and activities to remove bad luck”) was worth almost 2.5 billion baht in the year 2008.

The exhibition does not shy away from taking a few pot shots at popular culture’s pantheon of money-raking ghosts. “When fear is entertainment, all the old beliefs in ghosts and spirits are cultural assets with the potential for big profits. New sound and image technology is scaring the money out of horror fans’ wallets both at home and abroad.”

But Spirits: Creativities from Beyond walks an almost invisible line between half-creepy, half-corny entertainment and confronting viewers with a fear of our own mortality that has haunted humankind for as long as these vengeful spectres and deathly rituals. As Stephen King observed in his memoir On Writing, “Horror stories are dress rehearsals for our own deaths.”

And there’s nothing corny about that.

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Christopher G Moore reviews Bizarre Thailand

“I’d recommend Bizarre Thailand to anyone who wants a new perspective about Thai cultural elements that have made and continue to make Thailand unique and amazing. Algie has taken his journalistic instincts inside the half-concealed enclaves, which shields the most interesting people and has used his literary skills to reveal their complexity. He takes the reader along for a memorable, authentic, and exciting journey into the heart and soul of Thailand.” — Christopher G Moore

Renowned Bangkok novelist Christopher G Moore has posted an excellent review of Bizarre Thailand on his blog, complimenting the book, and Jim, for drawing out fascinating and under-reported aspects of Thai life and culture.

As he said: “My first impression was this would be a book that you would dip into. That wasn’t the case for me. I read this collection of articles from cover to cover with admiration for the way Algie was able to keep my concentration and focus on subjects that I thought that I knew inside out.”

Thanks Chris. You can read the full review here on his site.

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TTO Magazine extract of Bizarre Thailand’s “The Black Sex Magician of the Body Politic”

TTO magazine has just published this excerpt of “The Black Sex Magician of the Body Politic”, a chapter from The Sex Files section in Bizarre Thailand.

The story deals with Nen Aer, a novice monk who gained notoriety in 1995 for indulging in occult practices which included roasting the corpses of dead babies to create a powerful magic charm. But it also takes a closer look at how the darker side of mysticism permeates all echelons of Thai society.

Read the extract here: TTO magazine – Extract from Bizarre Thailand

Also, a big shout out to TTO editor Ben Hopkins for his excellent, original illustrations to accompany the extract.

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Introducing Bizarre Thailand: Into the Thai Twilight Zone

It’s really exciting to have Bizarre Thailand in print.

The book is the product of my fascination with the arcane and occult aspects of Thailand’s fascinating culture. I’ve followed many of the issues and people covered in the book for years. If you want to take a sneak pic inside the book (hopefully before deciding to buy a copy, which you can get at Asia Books by the way), then check out the introduction to the book here.

In the coming weeks and months I’ll be posting updates and observations relating to Bizarre Thailand and the stories it covers.

Enjoy your read.

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Mystical Mayhem: Phuket’s vegetarian festival

During the grisliest and most riotously colourful festival in Southeast Asia, the participants claim to be possessed by a number of different deities who say the gods give them the strength to pierce their faces with skewers, swordfish, and the occasional AK-47.

This year’s celebration of Taoist Lent runs – and dances on strings of exploding firecrackers – from 8-16 October on Phuket. All the piercing and fire-walking rituals take place on the last three days of the innocuously named Vegetarian Festival. At this point, it’s probably too late to get a room in the city of Phuket, where much of the action takes place, including the incendiary grand finale during the “Farewell to the Gods” ceremony on the final night, but it’s easy enough to get there from other beaches, provided you don’t fall prey to the tuk-tuk extortionists. Continue reading

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