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Published on January 20, 2008

Bangkok Blondes
By the Bangkok Women’s Writers Group
Published by Bangkok Books
Available at Asia Books, Bt395
Reviewed by James Eckardt
The Nation


Off the bat, there are two good things to say about “Bangkok Blondes”. One is that the book has a beautiful cover. Two, this is a collection of stories and poems by Western women living in Bangkok, which is a refreshing change from the stacks of books penned by expat men who write either bargirl novels or detective novels or, occasionally, bargirl detective novels.
Most of these women represent the upper echelons of society. They are ladies who lunch at Central Chidlom, shop at the Emporium and pamper themselves at luxury spas. They live in nice apartments and have maids and drivers who address them as “Madame”. A few are struggling English teachers married to Thai men.
In terms of writing skills, though, none is Bangkok’s answer to Alice Munro.
But that is holding them to excessively high standards. The 14 writers represented in this book are members of the Bangkok Women’s Writers Group, founded in 2000. And, with two exceptions, they are not writing traditional short stories but rather genial firstperson anecdotes about life in the Big Mango.
It took me a while to figure this out, so I was annoyed by the first two stories: “Me, Myself and the Thai Girl”, a fluffy piece about a farang woman getting a Thai hair extension, and “The Last of the Great White Lovers”, a vapid paean to a boyfriend.
But by the third and fourth stories, things began to click.
“Ghostbusters” is the comical tale of a farang woman having lunch with her Thai girlfriends. She confesses to having repeated nightmares at her new apartment. That’s because it’s old and haunted, her girlfriends say knowingly, and promptly talk her into performing an exorcism on the balcony.
This is followed by “No Horns, Please, We’re Thai”, which is a wonderfully precise and colourful description of driving from an Soi Ekamai to a school in Chang Wattana and back again. Martha Scherzer tells the tale in vivid, warm, humorous prose. This is someone who loves Bangkok and revels in its sights, sounds and smells.
And so it is for the best of these stories: sharp insights into the everyday life of expatriate women.
Three stories by Chloe Trindall on “Love Bangkok Style” are about her romance with a Thai vendor on Khao San Road, which eventually led to marriage and emigration to Australia. Two stories by the lone Thai member of the group, Jess Tansutat, address directly the romantic dilemma of her farang women friends in Bangkok.
“The choices for decent men are limited here,” she writes. “There are several possible factors. Although Thai and Asian men are generally sweet and gentle, they can also be a bit immature and too feminine. The ones who are goodlooking, dress well and smart can turn out to be the ‘sorry, lady, I’m gay’ type.”
Janet Geddes traverses the cultural divide with a genuine short story about a university student kept by a rich man. The student cleverly plots her way further up the social ladder, scoring a new BMW to boot.
Anna Bennetts turns in a very funny story about working as a hiso extra on a TV commercial touting mobile phones. Confusion reigns on the set. 
“This confusion doesn’t surprise me,” she writes. “So often as a farang in Thailand I find myself in situations that evoke feelings similar to those of childhood. Much of my emotional memory of children involves a feeling of complete confusion, a sense of being led around by allknowing parents to places and events, situations and scenarios over which I had little control and scant understanding.
“A lot of my Thai experience mirrors this, as I suspect it does for many farangs, particularly those who fail to learn the language properly. However, even friends who are fluent Thai speakers say that this sense of feeling lost as an expat in Thailand never quite leaves you, that things in this enigmatic city can only ever, at most, be partially understood.”
Ellen Boonstra writes a trio of hilarious stories about language and cultural snafus and the best strategy for grabbing a seat on the Skytrain. She notes that fat farang geezers and scantily clad young Thai women and katoey get off at Nana Plaza, while the Japanese contingent disembark at Phrom Phong and the Emporium. Beware of old Japanese ladies swinging pocketbooks.
Not all of these stories work well. One by an NGO “gender specialist” is written in opaque PC bureaucratic prose.
There are two stories devoted solely to the pleasures of health spas. And of course there’s all that shopping, especially for shoes, especially for those that fit: “Gold, green, orange, red, beaded, striped, or shiny – they were all there in and in a onesizefitsall fashion! Yes!!!!!!!” 
James Eckardt’s eighth book, “Singapore Girl”, published by Monsoon Books, is on sale at Kinokuniya, Bookazine and Asia Books.