Jim Thompson: Thailand's Silk Savior

We spent a really interesting morning touring the home of Jim Thompson, American ex-pat who fell in love with Thailand at the end of World War II.

Jim Thompson, a New York architect, enlisted in the Army when the U.S. entered the war. He became a member of the intelligence services (OSS) and was sent to South East Asia in 1945 to be parachuted into northeastern Thailand to work with Thai insurgents against the Japanese. However, the atomic bombs dropped on Japan brought an unexpected end to the war and Jim's mission was changed. He was appointed the OSS Station Chief in Bangkok and spent the next year reestablishing the American embassy. He fell in love with Thailand and when he was discharged in 1946 he remained in the country as his adopted home.

Thompson became fascinated by the intricate colors and patterns of hand-woven Thai silk which had all but ceased to exist due to competition from machine-made  silk cloth. He learned that a community of Muslim silk weavers lived along a canal on the outskirts of Bangkok; and it was here, across the canal from the weavers, that he built his home.

Jim Thompson's home is actually a combination of six Thai houses that he purchased, had disassembled, barged down the canal, and reassembled according to his own design. The buildings are all hand-wrought Thai teak and face the canal. 

One of the home's buildings was actually assembled inside-out because Thompson wanted the intricately carved exterior paneling to be seen whenever anyone was in the room.

Thompson wrote a friend saying that he lived in a jungle because the gardens in and around his home were native plants allowed to grow naturally. Walkways weave throughout the gardens and give those using them a sense of being far away from citylife (even though Bangkok surrounds the home today).

 

Over a period of twenty years, in addition to almost single-handedly saving the Thai silk industry, Thompson developed a fascination for ancient Buddhist religious art. Priceless sculptures, paintings, weavings, and carvings are displayed throughout the home and its open air pavilions. There are even a pair of wrought iron gates that once guarded the entrance to a Chinese pawn shop but which Thompson bought for the entrance to his library.

 

In March of 1967, while on holiday with friends in the highlands of Malaysia, Jim Thompson went for an afternoon walk - and was never seen or heard from again. His disappearance remains a complete mystery to this day.

The James H. W. Thompson Foundation maintains his home as a memorial and museum to this unique American ex-pat's Thai connection.

Hindus in Bangkok - Sri Maha Mariamman Temple

Sri Maha Mariamman Temple is a Tamil Hindu temple in Bangkok. It is located at the intersection of Silom and Pan Roads. The City English Project offices are located on Pan Road about 300 yards from this temple.

 

In 1858, in opposition to British colonization, a large group of Tamils left India and settled in Bangkok. In 1859, Vaithi Padayatchi, one of the group's leaders, built this temple for his community, making Sri Maha Mariamman the oldest and most important Tamil temple in all of Thailand.

The temple's structures were originally open to the sky; but today they are covered by a network of tent-like awnings. 

As is the case with many of Bangkok's historic buildings and temples, Sri Maha Mariamman is today located on a busy corner in the center of this city's ultra-modern downtown. 

The temple is open daily for visitors and worshipers.
 











Once inside, there are restrictions on what may and may not be photographed because, as the young Hindu priest, recently moved to Bangkok from Delhi, India, told me, "These are our gods."

 







On the streets outside the temple can be found a variety of Hindu memorials as well as shops selling flowers, sacred items and cultural mementos.

Bangkok's Streets and Sois

Greater Bangkok has a population of over 14 million. It often seems as if all of them are in vehicles or on the sidewalks at the same time - especially during the morning and evening "rush hours." 

Friends told us that it often takes three hours to travel 8 miles across the city just to get their children to school.

The only vehicles that never seem to stop moving are the thousands of motorcycles - constantly weaving in and around the hundreds of cars, trucks and buses.

 

Yet, even the motorcycles have to stop when faced with intersections where 4, 5 or even 6 roads come together and traffic signals last up to 2 minutes.

Bangkok is a 21st century metropolis and its upscale neighborhoods and city streets are home to world famous shops and businesses. It has impressive multi-storied malls, high rise hotels and condominiums and the wealthy drive, or are driven in, Mercedes, Jaguars, BMWs, Porches, and a few Rolls Royce and Maseratis. 

 


But life for everyday folk occurs not on the major streets but along the narrow alleys, or Sois. 

 

Here you'll find real Thai life: street food, coffee cafes, massage shops, and the ubiquitous 7-11 stores (where you can purchase food, drinks, magazines, medicines, and also pay your electric and utility bills).

The Soi is where Thais live and move and have their being. 







 







We loved walking through Bangkok's sois and wished we'd had more time to explore their sights, smells and personalities.

Learning English "Thais" Us Together

 


The CITY ENGLISH PROJECT offers introductory English classes (City Talk) and advanced classes in English and Western worldview (Exploring Worldview).

The program's main offices and classrooms are located in a building at the end of a long driveway on Pan Road in the heart of downtown Bangkok. Pan Road is strategically situated in the city as it connects two of Bangkok's most important business streets: Strathorn and Silom.  This makes City English easily accessible by all of Bangkok's public transportation services: motorcycle taxi, tuk tuk, conventional taxi, bus, and Sky Train.

Classes are not only offered at the Pan Road facility but also in various locations around Bangkok. City English Project has reached out to businesses and vocational schools throughout the city and made its teachers available to conduct classes on site and at times convenient to the businesses. 

CEP has even begun to tailor instructional offerings to the needs of specific clients. A new course is presently being developed focusing on the conversational English needs of Bangkok's thousands of restaurants, coffee shops and cafes.

One of the more interesting and unique aspects of CEP's program is that it utilizes short-term volunteer teachers from the U.S. who come for one or two weeks to teach alongside a bilingual Thai translator in each class.  The American volunteers each receive training in teaching English as a foreign language before arriving in Bangkok and serve as "native speakers" in the classes. 

Beth and I taught two different classes: City Talk and Exploring Worldview. The classes met for an hour-and-a-half each day for one week. We really enjoyed both classes and found interesting and special differences in each one. 

The people in the City Talk class had never met one another before the first evening's class and therefore it took a few days for them to become comfortable with one another - at the same time they were trying to understand the two new Americans speaking much too fast for them (even though we thought we were speaking slowly). However, by our final class we all felt more comfortable and, after each student received a certificate of completion, we all spent time exchanging contact information before we said good bye.

The people in the Exploring Worldview class had previously taken the City Talk class together and were incredibly friendly and engaging during our class times. We met with them in the early afternoon and on the final day they brought lunch for everyone to enjoy after class.  What an incredible spread of Thai gustatory goodness they shared with us!

It was an honor and a pleasure for us to participate in the work of City English Project.

Sunday Morning Church in Bangkok

Our first Sunday morning in Thailand was spent meeting and worshiping with brothers and sisters in Lampang. Our second Sunday was spent in Bangkok among another group of Thai brothers and sisters.

This new and developing congregation welcomed us warmly and it was a blessing to worship together with them. The service we had attended in Lampang was all in Thai; but the service in Bangkok, fortunately for us, was a mixture of both Thai and English.

We sang a variety of hymns and contemporary Christian songs, led by the congregation's worship leader, Ben Dooley, a well-known and highly regarded Thai musician. The words to the songs we sang were projected onto a screen which really only helped us when there were English subtitles. Still, we knew the music to most of the songs and so even when there were no subtitles, we were able to hum the melody or harmonize as the rest of the congregation sang out in Thai.

Dave Bruner, Global Impact Pastor of East Cooper Baptist Church and our team leader, delivered the morning's sermon: Unity as the essence of church life and ministry.

Ben served as Dave's translator and it was neat watching them work together. Every so often they would stop to engage in brief clarifying discussions before moving on.

Dave and Ben had an extended conversation following the service about the role of a translator and the complexity of  how to translate what was being spoken. The translator has to ensure that the translation is true to what the speaker is saying and do so within the linguistic constraints of the second language while always taking into consideration what the audience will understand.

Following the service, everyone gathered in an  adjoining space for the weekly congregational meal. It was a grand time of getting to know new folks and enjoy some great food.

 

The afternoon concluded with a team meeting to discuss the schedule of classes, assignment of teaching groups and translators (each teaching team has a Thai translator for each class they teach), and the week's schedule. We reviewed three lesson books, one for each of the 3 levels of courses, and then, as if we had not had enough to eat at lunch, all went out to dinner together.