The real art these days in Thailand is to say something by not saying it. What cannot be said can still be said, just chose a careful wording. Some say though that some are still too cautious. As a trusted friend advised: “The boundaries have been stretched enough to allow you more space to roam.” Well, I don’t trust the “Thai spring” yet. There’s no Thai spring far and wide and I wouldn’t be surprised if all of a sudden reactionary hard-hitting forces take over again, killing all dissent and throwing the kingdom back into even darker ages. Common sense is hard to find in these divisive times. Just look what’s going on with our costly dowsing rods aka GT200.

They’re a con, a fraud, a crime, reports the Bangkok Post, but our honorable army defiantly insists they’re working. It’s encouraging to say the least that there’s an open conflict between the civilian and army leadership. Our dear prime minister, all diplomat, implicitly called the dowsing rods a fraud. Without actually being aware of it even our dear army chef confirmed they’re hardly working. The device had performed some 300 rounds successfully over the past few years, Anupong Paojinda was quoted as saying. Some 535 devices are used in the violence-plagued south. Do the math. Meaning, roughly every second device worked once over the past few years …

There’s actually no difference between a soldier trying to detect bombs holding a GT200 and a Big Mac … This is Thailand. If you dare to and have the backing you can just stand there and say something is true even though the whole world knows it is not. Anyway, this blatant mockery of sanity and reason makes it an even bigger pleasure to introduce Chef Tummy, an American and chef dedicated to adventurous Thai cooking who will hopefully become a regular writer on aB.com with his focus on Thai food culture. Trying to stay sane we have to have some more positive content on this site. Got a politics hangover? It’s good to stay away from politics – Thai politics! – once in a while. And Chef Tummy may have an answer or two:

By Chef Tummy of Chef Tummy’s Thai Cooking School

Drink This, It Will Give You Power! … Oops, I did it again. Last night I drank Thai herb and honey-infused medicinal liquor called yaa dawng with a Thai friend. This man is the duke of drinkers, the sultan of shots, the baron of booze. We sang songs and drank shots and talked about the world and women, although not in that order. I was assured that the yaa dawng would give me “power” although this morning I felt like my battery and brain had been drained.

Travelers to Thailand are often pleased with warmth of the people and their willingness to bridge cultural gaps, one drink at a time. These jovial offerings of various types of alcohol are given with the best intentions. But the morning after can leave the drinker with a queasy stomach and regret over exploring a culture too closely through spirited drinking.

What can the alcohol adventurer use to appease a queasy stomach the next morning when a robust gulping of native liquor drunk with abandon has left you with the feeling like your head is full of rocks and you are on a bouncy road? What do native drinkers in Thailand do to rid themselves of the uncomfortable feeling of the dreaded morning after the night before? Here is a summary of some of more lethal Thai beverages and some recommendations for calming the aching head and tummy troubles the day after.

What’s Your Poison?

It always seems to start when I think: “When is the next chance I’ll have to drink a homemade moonshine that was cooked in an old lawnmower engine and strained through a gym sock?” Then one thing leads to another and one drink to another. These delightful but dangerous cross-cultural booze-ups can come in many forms.

On one visit to Northeastern Thailand to observe a rice planting festival, I was offered homemade moonshine called lao theuan or “wild liquor.” The name should have been warning enough. When I asked for the recipe for the moonshine, it was described as a mixture of “things we had around the house” which I inferred meant sticky rice and sugar, plus, well, let your imagination run wild. With the help of this “liquid phrase book” I made many new friends, sang songs, and told stories, or so I was told the next day. I wasn’t the drunkest one in the crowd, either. Some of the other merrymakers who vigorously enjoyed the lao theuan were seen blissfully asleep in drainage ditches, or slumped unconscious, tied with rope to the driver on a scooter so they wouldn’t fall off, or having prolonged discussions with water buffalos.

Thai Chang (or Elephant brand) beer with 6.4% alcohol can make you feel like your head has been sandwiched between the two elephants on the label or that your liver has trampled by elephants in a National Geographic special. Overindulgence in the weighty Chang beer can lead to what is called a “Chang-over” – a feeling of lethargy and need for a saline drip in your arm.

Yaa Dawng – “Pickled Liquor” or Liquid Lobotomy?

Some Thai people have much expertise in the making of alcohol-based medicinal herbal folk remedies they call lao yaa dawng. Lao means “liquor,” yaa means “medicine” and dawng means “pickled” in this traditional recipe. Although many formulas exist, they have in common the practice of steeping dried roots, berries, herbs and seeds in rice alcohol to make a medicinal tonic. The liquor acts as a solvent to extract the health benefits in the other ingredients. The alcohol also preserves the tonic by pickling the mixture to help prevent it from spoiling. Too much of the rough alcohol elixir may also pickle the drinker, so most of these mixtures are best consumed in moderation. Drinkers who survive an overzealous drinking bout of lao yaa dawng might translate the Thai words into English as “blurred vision” or “liver damage” or “liquid lobotomy.”

No matter how it is described, the result is a flavored, tea-colored tonic thought to have positive health effects ranging from increased blood circulation to heightened libido or as a cure for aching limbs. Drinking sociable drams of yaa dawng can also lead to temporary feelings of enlightenment, inappropriate dancing with other peoples’ spouses or a need to call your embassy for medical evacuation to a liver treatment center, immediately.

The Morning After Cure: Food, Fluids & a Cooling Fan

It is the morning after the night before. Your head feels like there is a marching band inside playing “When The Saints Come Marching In” and your stomach is doing somersaults. Here are some cures for this passing hell, Thai style.

Some Thais take a restorative bowl of boiled rice soup with small pork meatballs seasoned with garlic and coriander – filling and easy to digest after an evening of imbibing.

The chillies and fresh vegetables like garlic, holy basil, and spring onion in the Thai dish called drunkard’s noodles (pad khii mao) help replace the vitamins and minerals you destroyed the night before when you were singing “Hotel California” off-key. The dish is loaded with chillies and thus thought to resuscitate a drinker or take the edge off a hangover. The chilli itself has lots of Vitamin C and B6 as well as iron, potassium and magnesium, all of which get washed out with the booze.

Try a banana shake – the vitamins and potassium in the shake will replace what you lost during your exploration of Thai culture, one drink at a time. What you really need is a large volume of non-alcoholic liquids, some food to replace the nutrients you left behind when you lost your mind and finished the bottle, and a nice long nap under a cooling fan. Wake me up when the next batch of yaa dawng is ready.

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There is a limit to what the human mind can absorb. Especially in Thai politics. Hearing the names of Abhisit, Thaksin and the likes just gives me a bad mood these days. The latest newsletter by the one sent into exile a year ago on February 6th was a lonely bright light amid cheats and pretenders. But hey, I still feel good, and this is why:

Am eating nothing but bread and homemade cheese products made from pure natural ingredients only, with no preservatives or artificial additives, produced from fresh, straight-from-the-farm organic milk – and yes, made in the heart of Bangkok. I’m living on Thai cheese and yogurt these days. And it feels great.

Once in a while you just have to ignore these political clowns out here and enjoy the beautiful sides Thailand has to offer. One of them is fresh Thai cheese. Yes, I’m a cheese addict, and to know that from now on I can get natural homemade cheese at decent prices delivered to my doorsteps is kind of the best news of this year so far.

Well, it’s cheese made from fresh organic milk that’s delivered from the north, but the Homemade Cheese Co. is actually managed by some perfectionist Israelis who know their trade. Manager Elad Bryn – yep, almost like the Google Brin! – gave me a nice intro into the making of cheese in the middle of Bangkok. Well, they have their own cheese chef and by now deliver Bangkok 5-star hotels and private customers with their prime milk products.

Make no mistake, we’re not talking about old aged cheese, but fresh cheese milk products – of a quality that even Western chefs at top hotels here in Bangkok want nothing else anymore than the yogurt, quark and fresh cheese of the Thai-Israeli company. Chefs, says Elad, love his sour yogurt, while I’d go for the plain yogurt at 80 baht half the liter – that’s right, the prices are more than fair.

My favorite? The beautifully refreshing Tzatziki Greek Yogurt & Cucumber Dip. You’ll get hooked, I promise. They got a firm and a soft feta cheese on offer – the soft one has a surprising creamy texture. And try the hearty cottage cheese. And the Garlic & Dill White Quark Cheese … with only 3% fat lighter, healthier and more natural than cream cheese.

Yogurt flavors range from blueberry to strawberry to mango to peach and and, while the fresh cheese is enriched with green onions, olives, smoked salmon, chili (!) and and. Or care for mascarpone? The menu with contact and ordering details is available here – and again, prices are more than fair given the exorbitant price you have to pay for imported cheese here in Thailand. And milk’s not cheap here at some 30 baht for the pasteurized liter …

This “inequality” was one of the reasons why the Israelis set up this venture. Cheese is very expensive here – even the worst quality from Australia. And well, it’s a green business bringing jobs and makes sense. Still, lots of determination was needed tells me an Israeli partner – just to mention to get the FDA approval.

Elad’s happy with the response to their dairy products – they can see it in sales growth and customer satisfaction. Homemade Cheese doesn’t want to grow too quickly to ensure utmost quality. It’s a family business, with a cheese dairy in the heart of Bangkok. And yes, my bet is you can order a cheese with any ingredient – they’ll try to satisfy any customer. Reads the brochure: “Our chefs keep an open mind and are ready to work with you to create a whole new product to suit a certain taste or match the requirements of any cuisine.”

That’s why they’re working in close cooperation with chefs of major hotels, getting their feedback and adapting production. Once a product is on the level of their expectation, they market it.

Interesting as well to have regional delicacies such as Lebanese Hummus and Haloumi on the menu, a traditional cypriot cheese not too different from a soya product you can buy here locally. Haloumi is a eaten fried or barbecued like a steak and usually marinated with olive oil. It is is Cyprus’ national dish – also called the king of cheese.

Lebanon, Greece, Cyprus, Israel … Homemade Cheese is a Thai-Israeli-Mediterranean cheesery so to say, right here in the kingdom where cheese is still considered a ridiculously priced luxury product.

No longer, thanks to this determined family business producing dairy products of quality, texture and naturalness you’ll hardly find back home. You won’t find their products in supermarkets. Reason being with the exception of Foodlands they all switch off their aircons during the night. You won’t recognize a yogurt the next day when it’s not full of preservatives and such.

It’s premium quality dairy products they make at Homemade Cheese – always keeping your health in mind. And I’m living proof for that. Haven’t felt that good in a long time after being on a dairy diet.

By the way, Thailand just had a Milk Festival with a celebrity dressed up as a bunny cow … Who says milk’s no fun.

+++ Download the price list here. For details call 02 439 45 10 or order by email.

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Finally we see some focused government action in these trying times. Not only the Ministry of Information & Communication Technology is overly active these days to ensure a pure and prosperous society.

We learn that the Ministry of Health “is considering action against alcohol beverage firms that distribute calendars clearly showing their brand names or logos – but with no constructive or educational information of value to society.” Instead they show sexy girls. Wow.

Another Protect-the-Nation’s-Dignity campaign by our puritan leaders. Say thanks to the chosen ones behind the yellow movement who want to ban alcohol altogether. Mens sana in corpore sano. Never mind the endless political bickering and hate. It all comes down to, it seems, loose morals and abounding obscenities in today’s Thai society.

All this place needs is some discipline and we’d be fine.

Sexual stimulation could lead to violence, we read in The Nation article linked above, and authorities are urged to take up the issue seriously with major investors and the public in condemning a certain beer company’s PR moves, that is, women’s movements really.

Who doesn’t like women’s movements – as long as they’re rhythmic.

Hey, it’s all body paint anyway. Mostly.

Beauty, we’re told, can be harmful to your health.

“Enough is enough,” the owners of beer Lao/Singha said, some of the richest people in Thailand. The heiress of the Bhirombhakdi-empire took their cause to Govt House (where she actually works!), we learn from Thai Intelligent News, where they distributed 500 calendars and “pissed off and embarrassed politicians.”

Seems like everyone wanted a calendar. If the commerce minister has a role in this whole thing I hear someone asking? …

But what a turn of events. The PM staffer and Singha heiress resigned … A beautiful woman fighting for the rights of beautiful women. Where can I sign up for a Chitpas Bhirombhakdi fan club?

Before our dear dark ages officials get their way and censor these splendid gifts of nature – the Jessica Alba look-alike’s my fav -, here are some Beer Leo 2010 Body Paint Calendar Girls:

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Thanks to good friend Andy who, while shooting a film upcountry, came across this so typical Thai sound. And caught it.

He played around with it, cleaned up background noise, edited it – et voilà, here are the MP3 and MP4 ringtones for your phone.

Says Andy that recently in a Bangkok taxi his phone rang and the surprised taxi driver was so astonished to hear that sound in his car that he started looking around for …

Click the file to listen to it. Right-click for download to install on your cell phone. Will sure turn some heads.

Here’s the MP3, here the MP4.

Thanks again Andy!

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An Indian once told me with the cutest of accents: “Women. Who can live with them. Who can live without them.”

Same applies to the iPhone. Who doesn’t have one yet. And if you don’t have one yet, how can you get along without.

The phone’s complex simplicity is astonishing, not to mention the huge resource of applications. Most are trash. There are some jewels out there, some may even facilitate your life in Bangkok. Here are my picks:

- WhatzUP Thai ($0.99): Never ever again bored in Bangkok. Festivals, shows, concerts, fairs, seminars, shopping, art and more, constantly updated.

- BKK Transit (free): Bangkok’s public transport bible. Skytrain, subway, Chao Phraya boats and more.

- iTraffic (free): Helps you beat traffic, only available in Thai though. Still, even if Thai-illiterate, those live CCTV shots are worth a download and basic English descriptions are provided.

- Major Movie (free): Getting the correct movie program and showtimes can be a daunting task in Thailand. No more.

- Bangkok Post News (free): Yes, now even the Post has a dedicated iPhone app. Worth a download.

- Nation News (free): Handy news app by The Nation with Top Stories, Breaking News, Business and Politics sections. There’s also the newer The Nation Exclusive app. Free to download, but then subscription only.

- Lonely Planet Bangkok Guide ($15.99): Bangkok inside out in your pocket. Best part of it being iPhone apps get updated now and then …

- iPoodThai ($2.99): English-Thai language survival app for beginners and slightly advanced speakers. Or try the free World Nomads Thai offering the bare basics such as the glorious phrases “Don’t shoot!” or “Those drugs aren’t mine!” in Thai …

- Thai Stock Watch (free): The Thai stock market in your hand. Password “fxpass” – app seems to have some issues though lately. Or not elaborate enough for you? There’s always Settrade Streaming, but you need a local broker account.

- Thai Cuties Lite (free): Debatable. Well there’s always the more promising, not free Pro version ($0.99) … Or you’re into Ladyboys ($0.99)?

- App Popular (free): Last but not least an über-app! App Popular lets you browse free and paid apps by country. Be alerted when Thai apps you want go on sale, create wishlists and more.

Forgot something? Other must-have apps? There are quite some English-Thai language apps available. Not sure which one to recommend for what level. Your take?

Other essential apps, not Thai related: Skype, Google Mobile App and Echofon for Twitter (the ad-free Pro version is $4.99). And Adobe’s Photoshop.com Mobile has just come out. A must.

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So you’re in Thailand maybe since years and you’re not able to speak a single coherent Thai sentence. Told me an Aussie friend here recently whose local business spiraled downwards that in a meeting with his Thai in-laws the long unsaid was finally said to him: “You don’t speak Thai, that’s why!”

There’s a hidden world out there, right in front of your tip of the nose, indecipherable. There’d be plenty of resources by now if you’re serious about learning Thai – just to mention the phenomenal Learn Thai Podcast or the resource-rich Women Learn Thai (you illiterate men don’t get scared off by a name).

For all who wish to take a short cut but still dig deeper, there’s Frenchman Marcel Barang with his new website Thai Fiction; an oeuvre in the making that’s not only a treasure trove of Thai literature translated into English and French. That site serves as that polite kick in your bottom encouraging you to “Know Thailand: Read Thai.” Here’s the man himself:

Dozens of Thai book translated, you must master the Thai language better than many Thais by now Marcel.

Certainly not. My Thai-educated daughter keeps correcting me. I’ve only been at it for thirty-one years and am still learning. I was 33 when I started learning Thai: at that age, Christ was already nailed on the cross. It’s too late in life to be totally fluent. But fear not: there are very good dictionaries around, especially the (frustratringly incomplete) Donmern-Sathienpong, and the best translators are not those who are well versed in the language they translate (although that helps of course) but are good writers in the language they translate into.

Why Thai literature, why this fascination of yours?

Happenstance and professional interest: in a previous life, I taught French, English and fine arts; in the current one, two things happened: I learned Thai and had a row with my boss, who left me with nothing to do on full salary for six months, so I decided to busy myself with Thai novels. One thing led to another: Thai Modern Classics in the early 90s and again now, with a successful incursion into French translation in the meantime.

In case you wonder, my boss is my friend of 35 years through thick and thin and his name is Sondhi Limthongkul – never mind his politics: without his sponsorship, there would be no full-time literary translator from the Thai named Marcel Barang.

Is Thai literature unique? If so, what makes it unique?

Too encompassing a question. The safe answer is, literature is, beyond an exercice in beauty, a mirror for a given country at a given time, and a key to understanding what makes that country tick. So if you want to understand Thailand, read Thai novels and short stories. In other words, Know Thailand: Read Thai.

Thai books one must read?

The best are all on thaifiction.com – all but one: High Banks Heavy Logs by Nikom Rayawa, well translated by David Laird and published by Penguin Australia. More specifically, one absolute, if incomplete, masterpiece, The White Shadow by Saneh Sangsuk, which you’ll love or hate, depending on which side you dress; The Judgment, Mad Dogs & Co and Time by Chart Korbjitti; and all the others of the 20 Thai Modern Classics series and budding thaifiction series.

Is there such a thing as a perfect translation? Impossible? What are your main guidelines in difficult cases when there are no equivalent words or phrases?

Perfection in translation is like objectivity in journalism: an ideal, always striven for, never reached. A good translator is like a middle-of-the-road politician or diplomat, always striving for the best compromise. Jokes and puns seldom translate, so you search for equivalents; any footnote explaining a pun is an admission of failure. My method is unorthodox: I favour the word-by-word approach, and it works wonders to respect not just the meaning but also the style of an author. When I translate twenty authors, I must end up with twenty different styles. I don’t believe in “the genius of the language” as an excuse for substituting your personal style to the author’s. If the matter interests you, I wrote at some length On literary translation from the Thai in my blog.

The classic Thai authors, who are they?

How do you define “classic”? If you mean classical literature of yore, the usual culprits are Sunthorn Phu and See Prart, poets both. The Thai novel is less than a hundred years old and the classics are the first generation of great novelists, namely Dorkmai Sot (Noblesse Oblige), Seeboorapha (Behind the Picture) and even Ma-lai Choophinit (The Field of the Great).

What about Thai poetry then?

Beautiful, exceedingly beautiful, but very seldom meaningful throughout the ages, although the post-1973 generations have given some muscle to the rubber skin that glitters. But as you know poetry doesn’t translate, the few current translations on the market are appallingly bad, and I’m not enough of a poet, let alone could I find the time, to translate Thai poetry myself.

What authors are currently hot?

My money is on Siriworn Kaewkan (The Murder Case of Tok Imam Storpa Karde and A Scattered World) rather than moddy Prabda Yun. The 2009 SEA Write Awardee, Uthis Haemamool, yet untranslated, is promised a great future if he learns how to write krachap (concisely). And I keep an eye on a whole pool of new talents in the short story genre who will sooner or later bloom into full-fledged novelists. These days more than ever, the Thai short story is where the action is.

How has your work with Thai literature formed your Thailand? It’s a no-brainer I gather that being into Thai literature must lead to a deeper cultural and social understanding?

It does that. Actually, it’s a toss-up whether I learned more about Thailand from my would-be-hi-so middle-class ex-wife over a quarter century or from Thai literature in the past fifteen years. Different things for sure. If you want to understand today’s Thai political scene in depth, only read Thutiyawiseit, a novel of the 70s by Bunluea – oh, but I forget you won’t have access to it, though it’s fully translated: her heirs, the elusive ML Bunluea Fund, have yet to approach me to give me permission to publish; I’ve been trying to get their attention since last February. Same thing for the royal side of things with that masterpiece of royal propaganda, Four Reigns by Kukrit Pramoj, the 1,262 pages of which I’m busy translating (yet again without permission, but it must be done). But there are dozens of other novels, each with a particular focus highlighting this or that aspect of Thai society, very often in a fairly crude light quite alien to the fluff peddled in sponsored magazines or in bestselling romances.

What’s the predominant theme of Thai classics and Thai literature – are they a harbinger of modern-day Thai soap operas? Or a completely different genre?

Thai classics of centuries past run the whole gamut of human foibles, as do modern-day Thai soaps. However, the former, being rooted in myth and folk lore, usually of ancient Hindu origins, more often than not have a magical dimension obviously missing from the latter. Thai soaps stem primarily from the popular sub-literature, imported mainly from the West, if you discount ghost stories, which are part of the common popular stock. They basically or increasingly carry urban middle-class values, whereas Thai classics, for all their depicting common people, were more geared towards palace entertainment.

Your favorite Thai novel?

Jao Jan Phom Hom by Mala Khamchan. Untranslatable, at least by me: I’d need to know Scouse or Welsh besides English, despite that one year in Cheshire in the late 60s.

How does Thai literature deal with the current political crisis? Or it’s not dealt with at all?

There’s a fairly strong line of short stories that deal with current events and transpose them to some extent. Some are worth translating and indeed, I’ve translated a few on a monthly basis (first Monday of the month, Outlook section) for the Bangkok Post, which frowns on the most daring ones in its paranoid wisdom: one exceedingly droll tale by Kanthorn Aksornnam was refused because the baboon in it that bit President Bush’s ears was baptized Bin Laden …

Thais are not known to be eager readers. So any Thai writer has to be a romantic? Are there authors making money?

Romantic? Nah. Nuts, rather. Apart from peddlers of romance or crime stories, Thai writers who can live off their writings can be counted on the fingers of one hand: there is Chart Korbjitti, there is Win Lyovarin and then there is – uh, well, you tell me.

Most resort to serializing their novels in magazines, which favours volume over quality, or have other jobs. It takes a madman like Saneh Sangsuk to live in penury in the boondocks for the sake of his art, and even he must make ends meet by neglecting his world-class writing in order to translate English novels that are trash compared to his own.

True Thai writers are held in high esteem in literary circles that can’t possibly number more than ten thousand true readers given that a novel selling 3,000 copies in a year is a definite success (I’m not talking S.E.A. Write here, which multiplies sales by ten or a hundred as social, hip phenomenon) – and are ignored by the rest of the populace. Which might explain why their foremost translator into English and French, with his decoration from the Translators & Interpreters Association of Thailand, is still hassled by officialdom every year for the renewal of his “non-immigrant” visa given that in their eyes he is a mere “specialist in the English language” and a Frenchman to boot. Sigh.

You’re about to write your own coming-of-age novel? In Thai?

I’m not that corny, thanks. And certainly not in Thai, which I can’t type. But then, I’ve been mulling over bilingual French-English memoirs of the three dozen women in my life. But this can wait, as putting my talent to servicing other people’s creative genius is more urgent.

Merci bien Marcel.

(I’d be interested in readers’ recommendations – fiction and non-fiction for that. Thanks!)

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