A lyrical memoir of falling in love with Thailand’s capital city, Janet Brown’s Tone Deaf In Bangkok shows a more gentle side to the City Of Angels
Much of the writing you’ll find about living in Bangkok tends to follow the same lurid formula – Western man arrives in city, is dazzled by the nightlife and seeming lack of rules about anything, proceeds to overindulge in every possible vice and then ends up penniless, dead or in prison (sometimes all three). There will always be a market for writing that cashes in on Bangkok’s reputation, but there are many other aspects to the city besides the fleshpots of Patpong and Soi Cowboy. Tone Deaf In Bangkok shows a different side of Bangkok that rarely gets a look-in in most accounts of the city – the sheer bewilderment, wonder, and exhilaration of arriving in Bangkok and trying to come to grips with a culture utterly different to the west. Capturing these moments – especially after you’ve become an old hand at living in the city – is where the real magic of travel happens, the moments where the everyday of somewhere else is still exotic and life-affirming – even lifechanging.
Brown first arrived in Bangkok in the 1990s before the economic crash of 1997, when the Westernisation of Bangkok was still relatively new and foreigners had to integrate if they wanted to get the most basic things done. Her vignettes of everyday life – going for food, exploring the city, going out clubbing, trying (and failing) to learn the delicate tonal nuances of the Thai language – provide a fascinating picture of how this American middle-aged woman gradually fell in love with the chaotic, polluted concrete jungle that is Bangkok. Brown’s deft portraits of routine tasks provide a deeper insight into the Thai psyche and how a foreigner will always brush up against it however hard they try to integrate. Her prose conveys a deep love of her surroundings without being gushing or blind to Bangkok’s darker side, and she shares her own frequent faux pas with great comic timing. There is also something here about Brown finding a sort of peace of mind for herself within the city – although she left to return to America for several years, she has recently returned to Bangkok for good. For anyone looking to spend time in Bangkok beyond the usual tourist haunts, I’d say this was still an essential insight into what the guidebooks aren’t able to tell you.
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