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| Very Thai: Everyday Popular Culture |
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The interactive version of the bestselling book by Philip Cornwel-Smith
WEBSITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION. APOLOGIES FOR THE WORK-IN-PROGRESS LOOK!
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 Philip Cornwel-Smith, author & photographer
Author: Philip Cornwel-Smith
Photographs: John Goss & Philip Cornwel-Smith
River Books (Bangkok & London, 2005)
This pioneering insight into contemporary Thai folk culture delves beyond the traditional Thai icons to reveal the casual, everyday expressions of Thainess that so delight and puzzle. From floral truck bolts and taxi altars to buffalo cart furniture and drinks in a bag, the same exquisite care, craft and improvisation resounds through home and street, bar and wardrobe.
Never colonised, Thai culture retains nuanced ancient meaning in the most mundane things. The days are colour coded, lucky numbers dictate prices, window grilles become guardian angels, tattoos entrance the wearer. Philip scoured each region to show how indigenous wisdom both adapts to the present and customizes imports, applying Roman architecture to shophouses, morphing rock into festive farm music, turning the Japanese motor-rickshaw into the tuk-tuk.
Colour-saturated illustrations help you navigate various social traits, whether white-faced hi-so matrons or Red Bull-swilling workers wearing coins in their ear. This is Thai culture as it has never been shown before.
Very Thai has become a bestseller. It received full-page feature coverage in Time by Andrew Marshall, and leading Asia pundit Donald Richie selected Very Thai as one of his "3 best books of 2005" in the Japan Times. It has also been reviewed in the Asian Wall Street Journal, The Independent (UK), the South China Morning Post, The Australian, and other leading international publications.
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EditionsFirst published in December 2004 by River Books
Reprinted in July 2005, January 2006, February 2007, January 2008 (light update).
ISBN
Price: 995 baht
256pp
500 colour photographs
Library cataloguing data: Thailand, design, popular culture, social history
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Worldwide Distribution
Thailand, Cambodia and Burma: River Books
USA: Antique Collectors’ Club
Rest of world: Thames and Hudson
Online vendors, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Dymmocks
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TranslationsTypisch Thai
The German translation will be published in early 2008 by River Books.
ISBN
Tottemo Thai
The Japanese translation will be published in late 2008 by River Books.
ISBN
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CopyrightCopyright for this website resides with © Philip Cornwel-Smith, collective works © XXXXXX
Text and images in this website are the property of © Philip Cornwel-Smith, except for photographs captioned individually, and the Preface written by © Alex Kerr.
For rights to reproduction contact the author.
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| The Creators of Very Thai |
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Author & photographer: Philip Cornwel-Smith
Photographer: John Goss
Editor: Alex Kerr
Publisher: River Books
Designer: Holger Jacobs
Webmaster: Paripat Sandhinand, Bartl.net
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Author & photographer: Philip Cornwel-Smith
Born in England, Philip never expected to live in
Thailand for over a decade. He’d been in the capital only four days
before becoming the founding editor of its first international-standard
city listings magazine, Bangkok Metro, which he helmed until 2002.
Throughout his time in Thailand, Philip has organized events, from film
festivals and dance productions to themed parties and award ceremonies.
He also acted as location consultant on several international projects,
including the Grammy-nominated video-album ‘1GiantLeap’ and the Discovery Channel cityguide ‘Noodle Box: Bangkok’, which he presented.
Among the other publications Philip’s edited or contributed to are Thailand: A Traveller’s Companion, Eyewitness: Thailand guidebook, Lonely Planet’s World Food: Thailand and the city’s first mobile phone guide for Nokia. International magazines he’s worked on include Wallpaper, Colors, World Architecture, Attitude, and Inside: Australian Design Review.
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Photographer: John GossAn American artist based in Bangkok, John works collaboratively and individually on projects using both traditional and electronic media. A past recipient of a fellowship from the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts, he has created multi-media performances combining text, movement, lasers, computers, image projection, and digital music. His video works and photography have been widely exhibited around the world.
Now in his mid-forties, John continues to write, photograph, and search for unexpected beauty on his travels around Asia. He is currently working in Los Angeles as art director on a major feature film.
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Editor: Alex KerrThe concept of Very Thai germinated out of discussion in 1999 between Philip and Alex, who went on to edit the book. One of the world’s leading writers about Japan, Alex is an expert on traditional Asian culture in the contemporary context. He passes on this knowledge through his Origin cultural programmes located in Kyoto, Japan and in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand. His Kyoto Origin centre was included in the US presidential visit to Japan. Alex is also known for staging authentic cultural experiences.
A periodic columnist in Time, Newsweek and other prominent magazine, he is the author of Lost Japan, Lonely Planet’s biggest selling non-guidebook. Born in America, but raised across the world, Alex originally wrote Lost Japan in Japanese, becoming the first foreigner to win Japan’s non-fiction Shincho Literature Prize.
He went on to pen another best-seller, Dogs & Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan, which has wrought huge influence on how both the Japanese, and the outside world view modern Japan. Regularly featured on television in Japan, Korea and now China, Alex has been named Special Ambassador for Tokushima Prefecture, and advises the Japanese Prime Minister on tourism and heritage.
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Publisher: River BooksRiver Books Press, founded in 1990, is the major publisher of Southeast Asia art and culture books. It focuses on both the antiquity and the living culture of Mainland Southeast Asia in various aspects including archaeology, architecture, textile, artefact and way-of-life. River Books also publishes books in Thai language and bilingual dictionaries.
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Book Designer: Holger JacobsBorn in Germany, but working in London, Holger specialises in the design of books about Asia, with more than 20 such titles in his portfolio. He is also a photographer and is producing a book of his own images about the pop cultural fads of Japan.
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Webmaster: Paripat Sandhinand, Bartl.netThai-born but based in Austria since 1998, Pepsi, as he’s better known, has designed websites for leading European clients of Bartl.net, including designer Helmut Lang and singer Nina Hagen. A student at Bangkok’s leading art academy, Silpakorn University, Pepsi went on to work as a creative director for Lintas advertising before joining specialising in website design.
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| Extracts |
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Text and pictures from Very Thai have been reproduced or serialised in abridged form in several publications
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Bangkok 101 MagazineSerialisation in this Bangkok cultural monthly magazine since January 2007
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MTV Cool AsiaBook about trends in contemporary Asian youth culture, published by MTV Asia and distributed worldwide
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Kyoto JournalJapanese cultural magazine
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MoodItalian fashion magazine
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The Interior World of Tom DixonDesign book by Tom Dixon (Conran Octopus, Sept 2008)
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