We at WoWasis originally found furniture designer Caryl Olivieri on the top floor of his Artitude shop at Bangkok’s Gaysorn shopping complex. We were impressed by the designer’s bold, colorful furniture uses of traditional rattan, but with a new twist: it was woven into fine strips, and molded in contours that snake around cushions, armrests, […]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'Crime Scams & Espionage' Category
US drug enforcement funds going to Bangkok girly bars?
Thousands of beer bottle coolers (known in Bangkok as “beer condoms”), in all probability funded by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), have been distributed and remain in hundreds of Bangkok go-go bars, beer bars, and hotel bars in the aftermath of Operation Hot Spot. This law enforcement inititaive was launched as a joint […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: Joseph Smith’s ‘Portrait of a Cold Warrior’
Perhaps the most telling element of Joseph Burkholder Smith’s compelling and controversial exposé of his life as a CIA agent, Portrait of a Cold Warrior: Second Thoughts of a Top CIA Agent (1976 ISBN 0-345-29839-X) is what amounts to something of an apology, although, as he states several pages later, he’s not exactly apologizing. He […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: Jonathan Kwitny’s ‘Crimes of Patriots’
Here’s a book about one of the great bank swindles of the 20th century, that touched countries as disparate as the U.S., Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, and Indonesia. And it touched them all in a big way. The bank was called Nugan Hand, named after its co-founders, lawyer Frank […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis film review: Cambodia’s ‘Enemies of the People’
It is estimated that between 2 and 3 million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge before North Vietnamese troops put an end to the carnage and the regime in 1979. Unlike several other films that deal with mass atrocities (Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman’s Nanking of 2007 being one of them), Rob Lemkin and […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis’ Burma Bookshelf: Fiction
(see also WoWasis’ Burma Non-Fiction bookshelf) The exoticism of Burma has been well-documented in fact and fiction. Well-known writers such as George Orwell have based their novels on Burmese political and cultural life, while a number of non-fiction writers have investigated Burmese topics ranging from the flora and fauna of the country to its complex […]
Read the rest of this entry »Bachelor in Bangkok: Khun Lee’s 10 rules for being a bar girl
When I first started writing this column I explored the top ten rules for dealing with regular gals as well as a top ten for surviving with bar gals. I received a lot of positive feedback from both readers and close mates of mine who have to be constantly bombarded by my rants and unsolicited […]
Read the rest of this entry »The Good Manner: Lost Motorbike, or is my Thai girlfriend cheating me?
The Good Manner: Advice on Thailand from WoWasis’ Pa Farang This week’s dilemma: The Lost Motorbike: is my Thai girlfriend cheating me? Dear Pa Farang, I am a pensioner living in Krabi, enjoying a bit of the good life after many a cold winter in Manchester. Last year, a met a charming girl in her […]
Read the rest of this entry »WoWasis book review: ‘Yakuza: The Explosive Account of Japan’s Criminal Underworld’
If you’re looking for a comprehensive book that provides great insight on Yakuaza business, history, culture, scams, players, this book is it, even though it was first published in 1986. Where it falls short is in the area of Yakuza and prostitution, where frankly, it has a lot of it wrong. We’ll explain why, but […]
Read the rest of this entry »The Good Manner: Should I pay a dowry for my Thai wife?
The Good Manner: Advice on Thailand from WoWasis’ Pa Farang This week’s dilemma: Should I pay a dowry for my Thai wife? Note from Pa Farang: This week, I have received two letters that deal with two sides of the same coin. They appear consecutively, as they are thematically intertwined. Dear Pa Farang, My lovely […]
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