Real Life Thai Soap Opera

For quite a while now, I have been following with fascination the writings of Bill Yaryan on his blog located at http://wyaryan.blogspot.com/

Starting a year ago, when he arrived in Bangkok in late August 2007, he has been chronicling his life in Thailand, including falling in love with a Thai lady half his age. He has been writing about his feelings and emotions as the relationship had its ups and downs, and now in September 2008, it has ended. The primary problem was "loss of face". His Thai partner, Pim, could not tell her family and friends that she was living with an old farang. At one point, she suggested he marry her mother.

He lived on Sukhumvit Soi 4 for quite a while, and includes a lot of pictures of that area. This makes me homesick for Bangkok, as I spent 2.5 years in that area, living at Amar Garden on Soi 2 and then Nana Condo on Soi 4 while I wrote Speak Easy Thai and got it packaged and finished and into the bookstores.

Bill was in Berkeley, California, in the sixties, and got into the music business and met many famous people, such as Bob Dylan. Berkeley was the centre of the "flower-power revolution"; I was a teen in Toronto, Canada, at the time.

His story of his relationship with Pim, including the letters she wrote to him, makes for fascinating reading. I suspect his relationship is typical of many young Thai woman - old farang man relationships, but I do have two Canadian friends who married educated Thai women close to their own ages; those relationships have lasted many years. Sphere: Related Content

Amazing Thailand - Prime Minister Convicted

Today Prime Minister Samak was convicted of a conflict of interest by the Constitution Court because he hosts a TV cooking show. Or perhaps one could turn it around: TV Cooking Show Host Convicted for Impersonating a Prime Minister.

Thailand never ceases to amaze me. Sphere: Related Content