THAI CULTURE BOOKS

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Summary: William J. Klausner's love and understanding of Thailand have made him an effective bridge between the cultures of the East and the West. This book of collected articles is an eloquent summary of the author's efforts to achieve understanding and rapport and overcome conflict and tension resulting from the contact of different cultures.

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Summary: William J. Klausner's love and understanding of Thailand have made him an effective bridge between the cultures of the East and the West. This book is mainly concerned with cultural transition and transformation and is thus a logical extension of the author's Reflections on Thai culture which focused on traditional patterns of Thai culture.

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Summary: This book gives deep explanation on Thai important days such as public holidays, religious days, administration days.

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Summary: An American housewife's host love affair with the Irrepressible people of Thailand.

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Summary: Folk takes of Thailand have a unique affinity with those of India. This is because the Thais have preserved and followed many Indian traditions, which the Indian have lost or are in the process of losing. Folk takes play an important role in Thai culture, and the Thai attitudes and values of life are well expressed in them.

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Summary: ...the essays inside are the most informative stories ever written by the Thai authors. Moreover, the book can be used not only for further reference but also for enhancing general knowledge about Thailand, especially for foreign visitors who want to become acquainted with local situations and the Thai way of life...

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Summary: The book is a descriptive overview of the culture of the villages. It contains material on the villagers' housing, rice farming and other means of livelihood, community life, festivals, weddings, funerals, sorcerers and healers, as well as village Buddhism. The author draws surprising parallels between the worldviews of peoples of Thailand and Finland, the past and future of local cultures. The book also speaks through the voices of villagers themselves and village monks. They describe the everyday lives of local people, and how they cope under conditions of a constant flux of change, what they think about life, the future, and the fate of human beings after death.

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Summary: Whether for a long-term stay or a lazy weekend, Culture Shock! Thailand will provide you with a fun-filles crash course on the do's and don'ts, through topics such as language, food and entertaining, social customs, festivals, relationships, helpful business tips, as well as explanations of daily sights and scenes that might confuse or deter the visitor from a desire to learn and live with surroundings that are sometimes alien and uncomfortable.

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Summary: Denis Segaller grew so fond of Thailand that he decided to make it his permanent home. He married a Thai, switched careers to a newspaper writer at the age of 59, and soon afterwrads, somewhat to his surprise, suddenly became a Buddhist. This book is a collection of his writing in his regular weekly column "Thai Ways" which appeared in the now defunct BangkokWorld from 1975-1985.

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Summary: More Thai ways, a sequel to Thai Ways, is a collection of the latest and most memorable articles from the author's weekly column in the former Bangkok World. Together they represent the reader with a fascinating background to Thailand and the Thai way of life. The weekly "Thai Ways" column stopped in 1985.

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Summary: It shows daily life in Thailand through the eyes of a curious westerner trying to sort out the meaning of it all. The weekly "Kat's Window" column stopped in 2002.

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Summary: Many Thai traditions are deeply explained such as wedding, Phi Ta Khon, Monk ordination, playing kites, hunting cat fishes, ฝังลูกนิมิต, พิธีบ่ายศรีสู่ขวัญ...

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Summary: A pioneering celebration of Thai pop and folk culture, Very Thai delves beyond the traditional icons to reveal the everyday expressions of Thainess that so delight and puzzle. Through colourful text and 500 quicky photos, explore the country's alternative sights, from truck art and taxi altars to buffalo cart furniture and drinks in bags. The Siamese blend of finess with fun resounds through home and street, bar and spa, fashion and music. See how ancient ideas infuse modern trends, whether cute or occult, undeground or on TV. And discover how imports got customised into the tuk-tuk, the poodle bush and neo-classical shophouses. You'll never look at Thailand the same way again.

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Summary: A teeming, chaoticmetropolis of ten million, Bangkok has long been subjected to endless cliches and over-exoticized imagery. Bangkok inside out makes sense of all the madness, leading readers on a humorous, no-holds-barred journey through the real Bangkok. Like the city itself, this book is packed with idiosyncrasies, inside scoops and outrageous anecdotes, exposing Bangkok's charm and quicks with irreverent prose and striking photography. From soi dogs to street food, lotteries to ladyboys, traffic to tabloids and gambling to gem scams, Bangkok inside out is an illuminating pop culture exploration of life in Thailand's frenzied capital.

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Summary: This book deals with Thailand's Northeast - Isan. The region is a large and populous area that, despite ever-closer integration with the Thai nation and great cultural diversy, retains its distinctiveness. This book provides insights into village life in an accessible format and style. It explains the esence of village life in the Northeast, showing how this has changed under the pressures of centralisation and economic development. The focus is on popular wisdom as displayed in the dynamics of daily life, the villagers' special occasions, their religious and cultural rites, rituals, festivals and celebrations, their work and entetainment, and their moments of joy and grief. As the pace of change has accelerated, so the struggle for self-reliance has become more difficult.

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Summary: Over fifty percent of marriages in the UK end in divorce! Dating/ marriage agencies have never had it so good. Many middle aged lonely divorcees turn to such agencies in desperation to kick start their lives. One such lonely, downtrodden man was Mike. At forty-eight and living with two children, two cats, two chinchillasm one dog and a cocateil with perfect pitch, he felt the need to look for a new partner before all his hair and teeth fell out. So, armed with a bottle of light oak hair colour and aftershave that was guaranteed to be alluring, he began a journey that would eventually take him to the other side of the world in his search for a new wife.

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Summary: The book deals with some of the Hindu deities of Thailand with special reference to the Erawan shrine of Bangkok, consecrated to lord Brahma. There are 22 small chapters, besides select references. The author has described from the origin of Erawan worship to Thailand to the various facets of hinduism and Buddhism in different chapters, besides the mode of worship dances, music etc. at the Erawan Shrine. The author also traces the association of elephants woth Lord Brahma, the signifiance of lotus flower, symbolism of swan, Brahma's family, Brahma worship in India and Nepal etc.

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Summary: I hope that these materials will help the students and those interested understand Thai society from the angle of Thai folklore. I think this is perhaps the first time that research papers on Thai folklore written in English are put together as a volume, and it is also the first time to have a book on Thai Studies viewed from the aspects of Thai folklore.

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Summary: The Khon Muang, or "People of the Principalities", inhabit the hills and valley of Northern Thailand - formerly known as Lan Na, or the "Kingdom of a Million Rice Fields". In times past the people of the north spoke a different language to the central Thais. They dressed differently, women wore their hair long in contrast to the cropped fashion of Bangkok, and the men covered their bodies with tattoos to ward of sickness and injury in times of war. The Golden Age of the Lanna Kingdom was in the 13th-15th centuries, when Chiang Mai, the region's capital, treated on equal terms with Siam, Burma, Laos and even distant Sri Lanka. then came Burmese conquest, Siamese invasion, and subequent cultural domination by Bangkok. In recent years, amid signs of a general cultural rebirth, the Khon Muang have started to rediscover their past.

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Summary: The country that we now refer to as Thailand only achieved its present form in the nineteenth century. Beofre that, there florished Lanna (meaning 'one million rice fields'), a region whose documented history began in the eight century; in 1931 it was incorporated into Siam and ceased to exist as a political entity, but its cultural influences is far reaching. Taking the region valley by valley, the author explains how the principal cities and sites developed, but most importantly, he provides a fascinating guide to Thailand's northern kingdom as it is nowadays - all accompanied by stunning photography.

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Summary: Bill Womsley went to Thailand as a Fulbright Scholar in 1989. He taught Anthropology at Silpakorn University in Bangkok. Over the course of the next year he came to know and love the people and culture of Thailand. With faculty and student colleagues from Silpakorn, he visited towns, cities, and rural villages thoughout Thailand, including an extended trip through Isan where he and a group of Chinese photographers followed the course of the Mekong river along Thailand's northeastern borders. He attended weddings, funerals, cremations and festivals. He conducted research aimed at understanding the urban adaptations of migrants from rural Isan as they brought their hopes and lives to Bangkok. He focused on activities of tutuk and taxi drivers, sidewalk food vendors, and go-go dancers. As an anthropologist he participated in their lives, as they did in his. Thailights is the story of that year and the people and activities that led the author to be seduced by Siam.

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Summary: The editor and authors expect this volume to merely provide background on Thai society and culture for new students and those who recently become interested in the field. The book is interdisciplinary and consist of diverse topics such as traditional Buddhist World View, Traditional but Changing World View, Contemporary WorldView and Value Systems.

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Summary: With a few exceptions, most of the stories as indicated by the title of the book deal with the disappearing local craftmanship and local communities in Thailand. With his simple downright style, the author touches the life of the grass roots who hardly have a place in the history. From remote villages, he puts the modern artists on the pedestal. From forgotten back rooms, he brought their work to light.

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Summary: This book explores many issues mean from a Thai point of view. Newcomers and tourists will encounter nuggests of information and insight that may help make their stay interesting and more enjoyable. Those who have lived here a few years already may profit from explanations of Thai behaviour and attitudes that constantly baffle them. Long-term resident of the Kingdom will find plenty of matter intended to provoke their laughter, tears, sneers, or vehement agreement.

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Summary: This book gives deep explanation on Thai important festivals in all 4 regions, i.e. North, Central, South and Northeast.

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Summary: This book is offering an introduction to Thai food and a comprehensive list of Thai restaurants in Hong Kong and Macau.

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Summary: This book is written to entertain. The author is convinced that the flavour of Thai society can only really be appreciated when taken with a large dose of salty humour. This humour is capriciously directed at many of the thoughts, goals, interpretations and preconceptions the expatriate in Thailand wittingly or unwittingly brings from home and carries with him in situation involving Thais. Some of his excess baggage serves no useful function and encumbers a smooth path to integration. The author invites the reader to lighten up by lightening that load and brings his lifelong experience with Thailand and the Thais to focus on those areas of Thai culture that most trouble or confuse a foreigner, even one living in the country for several years. This book is written principally for the expatriate who is in Thailand for the long haul.

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Summary: Social customs and cultural traits that ties all Thais together. With as many as 62 concise but complete topics related to Thai social custom and cultural traits, the book provides non-Thai readers with the background knowledge they need to understand Thailand and Thai people.

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Summary: This is a Thai Folklore story.

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Summary: This is a Thai Folklore story.

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Summary: From the soaring chedis of Sukhothai to the homes of ordinary village people, Thailand offers a plethora of arts and crafts of an exceptionally high quality. Be they items created for royalty and wealthy patrons, devotional objects made in the service of Buddhism, or simply rural crafts of daily life, they offer insight into Thai culture and customs. Photographed entirely in Thailand, the objects showcased range from elegant lacquerware and mother-of-pearl inlay pieces, to woodcarvings and decoration in monasteries, to day-to-day items such as homespun textiles, farming implements and basketry.

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Summary: Dr. Iain Corness fell in love with Thailand while on holiday there in 1975, and finally managed to move there permanently in 1997. As a settled farang, or foreigner, he enjoys a unique perspective on Thai life and all its eccentricities; looking in from the outside while also getting to see the things most foreigners don't. Like all good doctors and authors, Corness provides comfort for the aches and pains of ex-pat life. His stories and anecdotes are full of the joys of life, and celebrate this exotic and exciting land in all its glory, with painfully funny observations. From a date with a fortune teller to tales of a reincarnated squid, Corness revels in the chaos and charm of 'the only country where you can be run over by a shop.' This is a book to be enjoyed by tourists and Thai people alike.

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Summary: This book contains photographs, stories, and records of all things Thai that are fading from popularity and memory, such as Thai dishes, desserts, toys, household items, and others. 352 pages. Produced and published in Thailand. Bilingual.

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Summary: This book relates the adventure of doing anthropology in an unruly period (1975-1978), when events sometimes affected the resarch. The story is basically concerned with the process of coming to grips with the logic of Thai life, such as formally recorded in Everyday Life in Thailand: an Interpretation and Inside Thai society. The present narrative, however, links the insights gained directly to raw data and experiences, and so provides light-hearted and serious reading at the same time. Some interesting insights on village scouts, western culture influence on Thai culture, on spirits corruption and rituals, on 1970s social movies and so on...

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Summary: In Grandmother's House is the fascinating true story of a boy's childhoof in a remote Thai village. Brought up by his grandmother - the village matriarch, healer and midwife - Sorasing Kaowai retells some of the folk stories , traditions and superstitions that his grandmother passed on to him, including the strange tale pf a mysterious forest-dwelling tribe of pygmies, a fifteen-meter-long python and even a local Bigfoot! Sorasing recounts how village healers diagnosed and treated illnesses with a ball of sticky rice and a length of string or, in especially difficult cases, an egg. He explains why some Thai men were, and still are, terrified of being visited by Phi Mae Mai, a female ghost with an insatiable sexual appetite, and he remembers his delight at seeing his first tractor, only to be warned off the machine by his grandmother: And what does a tractor return to the Earth Mother? Thailand has developed greatly since Sorasing's grandmother returned to the Earth Mother last century. Many of the ancient rural traditions that influenced and guided her long life have now been lost and forgotten. This book records few of them for future generations.

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Summary: Strings of beads and amulets hang from rearview mirrors, swaying as the driver negotiates his taxi through Bangkok's chaotic streets. Statuettes of the Buddha glued to dashboards sit patiently beside flower garlands and beribboned objects. Buddhist ritual patterns adorn the ceilings, and image of monks are everywhere. The author Dale Konstanz has spent over four years documentating the interior of Bangkok taxis, photographing the iconography and asking what it means to the drivers. In Thai Taxi Talismans, he recollects and ruminates as to the meaning of those mini-altars, accompanied by colourful photographs and the explanations and philosophies of the Bangkok cabby. The book is a cultural study of Thai beliefs, an appreciation of Thai popular design and a document of the daily existence of Bangkok taxi drivers. It is fascinating, fun and culturally significant. This book features 160 pages and 261 colour illustrations.

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Summary: Never a dull moment in old Bangkok. Glittering temples, Siamese twins, pirates, palace intrigue and exotic delights. Come along as Chris Burslem guides you through the rich past of the "land of the white elephant", from the days when it was the remote floating capital of a closed kingdom to its emergence as a bustling modern metro polis. The stories - painstakingly collected from firsthand accounts, postcards, local legend and elsewhere - paint a scintillating atmospheric portrait of one of Asia's most alluring cities. It has rich stories from the Land of the White Elephant.

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Summary: Who invented the dish Pad Thai and why? What is the prime minister's monthly salary? What are the most common nicknames in Thailand? How much does a sex change operation cost? What are the rules of cockfighting? How many Thai women smoke tobacco? What is the most popular insect to eat? How much green space is there in Bangkok per person? How many books does the average Thai read in a year? What will you be fined for the unlawful possession of an elephant? "Thailand at Random" provides the answers to the questions and offers many other fun and fascinating insights into the country.

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ThaiWorldView Culture library contains 38 items.

ThaiWorldView library contains 162 items.

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