Preface

Summary

More than half a century ago, upon my initial encounter with Bangkok, I discovered a labyrinthine city of joyous confusion, the exotic Orient in all its enigmatic splendor. From my well-situated home base on Worachak Road I first explored, always on foot, my neighbourhood from Wat Saket to Wang Burapha and then gradually stretched my reconnoiterings across an ever-expanding urban terrain, reaching from the Grand Palace and Sanam Luang to Sampheng's raucous waterfront. Wandering the city's dusty byways I sought to find the order behind the clutter but was stymied at every turn. In the process of negotiating the baffling metropolis I found that many locals faced as much difficulty as I in directing me to my destination. Few street signs — and those few only in indecipherable Thai — were available to guide my way, and house numbers were aligned in no apparent sequence; even a reasonable city map was unavailable. Only many years later was I able to acquire my first reliable Bangkok street-guide (Tanya 1984), which still occupies its cherished place on my bookshelf as a memorial to those bygone days. That unforgettable experience inspired me, in my abiding conviction in the innate rationality of mankind, to continue to the present day my search for the logical underpinnings of Bangkok's apparent spatial chaos.

Similar dissonance met my efforts to identify the guiding principles of Thai culture and society. A clear sense of easy acquaintance, happy camaraderie, and calm self-effacement overrode less affable undertones of nationalist sensitivity, class prejudice, and an elemental dialectic of seniority and servility. Bangkok's social cacophony was a pervasive presence. From dancing the ramwong (a formerly popular Thai dance form) at a sumptuous charity ball where the capital's elite flaunted their wealth, to sharing bamboo-joints of khao lam (steamed sweetened sticky rice) and tin cups of nam tan sot (watered palm sugar) at a roadside stall with a gang of sam-lo (three-wheeler) taxi drivers was tantamount to crossing civilizations. Yet all were Bangkok natives, and proud of it. Searching the city's few English language bookshops for clarification of that jumbled scenario, all I could find was an assortment of esoteric monographs on the “loosely structured” Thai social order (Evers 1969), elaborating on a curiously chaotic theory of the amiable incongruities of Thai life so evident all around me.