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Published on March 20, 2008

In 1641, Gerrit van Wuysthoff, an under-merchant of the Dutch East-India Company, travelled from the company's office in Cambodia along the Mekong River to Vientiane, the capital of the kingdom of Lan-Xang (present-day Laos). The main purpose of his visit was to investigate the trade possibilities that the landlocked kingdom offered for the Dutch. But the journey was also made to test the suitability of the Mekong as a trade route into the Southeast Asian mainland.

The pioneering journey that Van Wuysthoff undertook was documented in the travelogue that he wrote for his superiors in the Netherlands, which incorporated his observations on Lao politics, culture and customs ranging from religious habits to local cuisine.

Rikkerink will discuss various aspects of van Wuysthoff's trip including the political and economic circumstances under which the Dutch established themselves in Southeast Asia.

For more, visit www.Museumvolunteersbkk.net.

Expat writers ponder their future

"Expatriate Authors in Asia: Writing for a Niche Market or a Wider World?" is the title of a round-table discussion featuring writers Dean Barrett, Christopher Moore, Stephen Leather and Colin Cotterill on March 26 at 8pm at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand. The cover charge for non-members is Bt300.

 These perpetrators of the genre will be asking what the future holds for expat fiction in Southeast Asia and, more to the point, is it any good? The "sexpat" fiction for the local market didn't need to be good - the subject itself was the draw. It was a nice bonus if the story was well written besides. But writing for a wider world means competing with the literary output of that world for readers and sales.

Each speaker comes to the craft from a different perspective, and having all four together in one place to talk about the present state and future direction of expat fiction in this part of the world is a rare treat.

l Dean Barrett: Since he first arrived in Thailand, as a Mandarin linguist with the US Army in 1966, a steady stream of fiction and non-fiction books set in New York and Asia has flowed from Barrett's pen. Seventeen years living in Hong Kong produced a string of novels about the Ch'ing Dynasty; 14 years in New York as a librettist, lyricist and playwright resulted in a variety of works for the stage.

l Christopher Moore: Having given up teaching law at the University of British Columbia to become a full-time writer in 1985 after his first book, "His Lordship's Arsenal", was published, Christopher Moore now has 17 novels to his credit. Many of them chronicle the dark side of expat life in Thailand.

l Stephen Leather: Born in Manchester, Stephen Leather took up serious fiction writing after a career in journalism working for papers like the Daily Mirror, the Daily Mail, the South China Morning Post and the Times. His first book, "Pay Off", was published in 1986 by Harper Collins.

l Colin Cotterill: Born in London in 1952, Colin Cotterill trained as a teacher, working in Israel, Australia, the United States and Japan before arriving in Southeast Asia to teach in Thailand, Laos and along the Burmese border. Along the way, he became involved with child-protection projects dealing with issues like child trafficking, work that became the stimulus for his first novel, "The Night Bastard". He has since written nine more books, the last four of which were set in 1970s Laos. His latest, "Curse of the Pogo Stick", will be published later this year in the United States. 

E-mail info@fccthai.com.