Grafitti garland

Trasher report!

Last night’s Trasher party, which I had been looking forward to so much, turned out to be a bit of an anticlimax on two fronts. The party itself has changed from the gritty, tongue-in-cheek little gay gathering I remembered to a very straight, very mainstream and quite glam night.It was held at Narz, a towering, Vegas-like nightclub on Sukhumvit 23, all sweeping staircases and lasers, playing commercial hip hop downstairs while the Trasher “Rihanna” party was happening upstairs. I actually thought at first we had arrived on the wrong night. Unlike the rough-around-the-edges, full of spunk homemade costumes I remembered from the “old days” (last year), there was a handful of queens in expensive-looking “Rihanna” getup and a whole lot of girls in short, expensive skirts, high heels and fake lashes. Uh, parrrrty….not.

And as if that was not weird enough, the party shut down at 1.45am! There was a police raid, the music was turned off and everyone was told to piss in a cup – a random dugs test was underway (as I later discovered, it was in clubs across the city that night). As luck would have it, I was taking a breather outside with my friends and missed all the drama and commotion anyway – we jsut wondered where the party had gone!

Perturbing.

And doubly disappointing after the amazing video the promoters had made for the party – with all the grit, humour and knowing camp that made the original so fun. But other than on the screen – where was that on the night?

ABAC: Heaven can wait

I have always been a fan of Bangkok’s flamboyant architecture, some of which pops up in very unexpected places. Take Assumption University’s Bangna campus for example (usually referred to as ABAC). It appears – all gleaming spires and golden angels – literally out of rice fields beside a freeway lined with car lots and auto wholesalers.

Like 99.9% of Bangkok visitors, I had never heard of the place – until the Brown Eyed Girls flew in from Korea to shoot a video there. Wise choice, it would make an incredible film set. After watching the video I did a quick google search online and quickly decided to visit when I got the chance.

The place is amazing. Crowned by its comic book Gothic-Stalinist skyscraper (above), the university is constructed on a monumental scale. The architecture can only be described as  triumphalist California-Meditarranean-revivalist. It is as if 1920s L.A. married the Vatican,  became a fascist state and settled down in the Bangkok ‘burbs.

 
Dead straight boulevards cut past huge buildings decorated with busts of Einstein and carved with figures of Catholic saints. On the roof of one building, and on its doors, gold glints in the tropical sun. Everywhere is white, and marble, and spotless. But it is also shaded and softened by  immaculate gardens with palm trees and beautiful lawns.

   

At the centre of the complex is a lake, standing beneath the central tower. Besides this is the university’s lone departure from its signature Santa Monica-cum-Pyongyang hybrid architectural style, a glittering Thai pavilion. Black swans float by on the water or nestle on the palm shaded grass, and an incredible sculpture of horses bolting across the surface of the water appears in the distance.

  

And to think all this was built with private money! If the idea is to promote Christianity (this being  Catholic institution), they have done a pretty good job. It is the closest place I have ever been to Heaven. Or perhaps the Truman Show. And utterly, utterly unlike the anarchic, colour-clashing, pulsating city around it.

Sixth sense

And here it is, once again, straight outta Bangna- 2011′s greatest video as shot on campus at ABAC (although I could be wrong, but I think the White House-alike structure behind rapper Miryo is the huge-ass mansion that lords over the mouth of Thonglor Soi 38.)

Also incidentally, Miryo’s solo album is due out by the end of the month and promised to be “electro-reggae!”

  

The fantasy world of Sumet Jumsai

On the way out to ABAC I happened to pass by another interesting piece of architecture, also in Bangna. This was Sumet Jumsai’s “word processor” building, a headquarters for the Nation Media group. The self-described “surrealist” Thai architect is known for his whimsical take on sculptural architecture with works including Sukhumvit Soi 31′s “Bird Building” (where I stayed), the astounding “Elephant Building” and the 1980s “Robot building” in Sathorn.

In his book on Bangkok, Asian cultural commenator Alex Kerr remarked on Bangkok’s fondness for buildings that “look like things” suggesting it resonates deeply in traditions of Thai art where the idea of “transformation” is central; a piece of fruit becomes a flower through carving, a mask turns a dancer into a demon. So why can’t an office building be a typewriter?

Or a bird?

Or an elephant? It is certainly hard to think of another city that is playful enough to turn its architecture into a practical joke, and laugh along with it.

Gods of the banyan tree

 

Street corner

Old graveyard

Sitting almost underneath the Skytrain tracks at Chong Nonsi lies the remains of Bangkok’s spookiest and atmospheric cemetery. As I reported previously on the blog, much of it has already been destroyed and the bodies disinterred and transferred, to make way for construction of a glitzy condo tower that will be come Thailand’s tallest building (seemingly a  prime scenario for one of the horror movies the country pumps out so enthusiastically).

But the Chinese cemetery is still there, usually behind locked gates. I happened to be passing at midday though and the gates had been flung over to make access to an impromptu foodcourt in the carpark. It was a good opportunity to look around.

The site must have very poor drainage (not great for a graveyard, surely?) because much of it was flooded, lending it an even eerie, forlorn atmosphere. I was a little nervous too as I had heard it was a notorious haunt for stray dogs -and sure enough I saw a pack of about a dozen of them dozing on a sunny grave.

Other than them, the Skytrains whizzing by and the laughter echoing from the nearby foodcourt, I had the graves all to myself.

Wasps nest?

From Harare with love

Gallery H is a privately-run art gallery housed in an airy old wooden house, one of the few left in Sathorn. I went to see a small exhibition of contemporary Zimbabwean artists (something we would never get  in Hong Kong – not commercial enough). The work was actually really interesting, much of it utilizing “found” and “recycled” materials (as does much of the Southern African art I have seen). I was even tempted to buy one piece, a stunning, wire bead and duct tape hanging sculpture by artist Moffat Tadikawa for fifty thousand baht.

I have nowhere to put it though.

Freedom of expression

  

Thai subcultures with Palmy

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a soft spot for the Thai pop singer Palmy. For her new single, she has recorded a series of mini-videos, featuring different subcultures (rockabilly, hip hop, lindyhop and disco). The various dancers all appear in the final video at some point too. Its an odd, jaunty, harmonica-driven ditty – apparently the lyrics say “throw you stress and your worries to the crows”, hence the crow references.

And here is the video in full:

Bangkok Treehouse

 

This is a whole other side of Bangkok. Across the river is the city’s swampy “green belt” of Bangkrachao, a loop in the sluggish Chao Phraya river within sight of downtown skyscrapers but almost entirely undeveloped. Here, amid jungly canals, villages on stilts and waving palm trees, an amazing new hotel has been developed. Opening just this week, the Bangkok Treehouse is an eco-lodge composed of simple but luxurious “pods” linked by walkways at the canopy level of the nearby trees, (although unfortunately one of the biggest fell down in the flood-causing rains just months before the building’s completion!)

  

The building features glass floors (in some units), private rooftop terraces (with the view in the photo, above) and an innovative chlorine free lap pool that uses lotus-like aquatic plans to filter the water naturally. An organic restaurant, on a bamboo landing by the river, is to open next month.

But the greatest thing about the hotel is just its incredible calm; birds twitter and the noise and business of Bangkok quickly fade away. Guests can tour local fruit orchards, hire bikes to explore the countryside, or see the two hundred year old chapels of the littleknown local temple. Or just – relax. I’m looking forward to a weekend here before too long.

To get there, take the Skytrain to the new Udom Suk station then a taxi to the pier. From here. you can either hire a longtail boat to take you across, or wait for the half-hourly motorbike ferry which taxis across locals and their bikes.

Motorcyclist in blue

Dome does down under

Thai heartthrob Dome Pakorn is currently starring in this Australian-filmed commercial showing on the Bangkok skytrain. The sexy singer DJed last month at the one-year anniversary of  the Mansion7 haunted mall (having made a tacit admission of his lack of vocal prowess with a mid-career change to celebrity DJing).

Tiger, teddy and pussycat

  

Bangkok!