My Jasmine Night

Last night in Bangkok I attended the graduation ceremony of the MBA class of Mountbatten Institute & American International College for which I was one of the professors – teaching about digital marketing. As these things go it was a nice evening with of course too many speeches with too many of the platitudes you’d expect – but then to expect anything different would be delusional.

There was chamber music and choir directed by this short, portly Thai man with long, stringy graying hair and a somewhat maniacal way of directing the music – waving his arms this way and that. He had what looked like oversized shoes – or maybe just filled with big feet that by the way I couldn’t tell if under his dark suit if he had socks on or not. And so I sized up and wondered about who is this rather disheveled man with the passion for leading his little tribe of singers.

After all the speeches and handing out of diplomas he was introduced and asked to deliver the closing comments. To my amazement and utter delight I found out he was S.P.Somtow, described as the renaissance man of Thailand and the author of “Jasmine Nights” – my favorite book set in Thailand and one of my all time favorite novels, period. Highly recommend to anyone. Perhaps back in the blog somewhere I wrote a review but if not – just go buy it.

As he started to speak, barely tall enough to be seen over the lectern, he rambled on about this and that, then and there weaving a magical story that had me on the edge of my seat. He spoke of the need to be creatures of two cultures and of the contradictions of things. Of the Thai (Buddhist) ability to hold two conflicting things as both true simultaneously – something we can’t do in the west. It’s these things that make our respective cultures seem confusing to each other. Anyway he said it so much more eloquently and much more.

After he finished and the event was closed I couldn’t help myself and rushed over to him, a gushing fan to tell him how much I love the book. He responded in some wacky absent minded professor way “I guess I was responsible for that…”. I was just happy to have had the opportunity to listen to him and say thanks.

Go read “Jasmine Nights” - you can learn about S.P.Somtow the book, his music and his art on his blog. 

Comments

[Ron]

Thanks very much for the book recommendation. I finished it on the plane coming back and will definitely read it again. At times I was tempted to feel that Mr. Somtow had fallen overboard into farce but I've since become convinced that it couldn't have been any other way and that he was in absolute total control of his writing. What a pleasure!

Yes! It's the contradictions and oppositions. If only I could live with those contradictions in this so-called, (pos),red neck culture I live in.