Authors
Alex Kerr
BooksThailand.com teamed up with Alex Kerr. Alex Kerr has lived most of his life outside of America, largely in Japan and Thailand, both of which he thinks of as "home". His great passion is the traditional arts and environment of East Asia which he believes have so much to teach the world.
His first trip to Thailand was in the mid 1970's as a student, but he began visiting in earnest in the late 1980's when he tried to get Trammell Crow Co to invest in Bangkok. He became so interested in the arts of Southeast Asia in general and Thailand in particular that in 1997 he moved his base from Kyoto to Bangkok. He now lives about half the year in his home in Kameoka; and the other half in an apartment in Bangkok.
His great dream is the Origin Program of Traditional Asian Arts. The Oomoto program was unique, and in the process of running it they developed a unique way of teaching traditional Japanese arts to modern people. He is now trying to revive that program, using the superb facilities (Noh stage, martial arts hall, tea ceremony rooms etc) of Iori Co in Kyoto. At the same time, he's establishing a similar program for traditional arts at an old house in the Ladprao district of Bangkok, and at a complex of old houses on the grounds of Chiangmai University in Chiangmai in northern Thailand.
Evocative and incisive, Bangkok Found looks deep within traditional culture to discover how Bangkok is like no other contemporary city. It's the book you read after you've seen the temples and enjoyed the nightlife - and then start to wonder where the mysterious appeal of Bangkok really lies. With wit and a wealth of anecdotes from Kerr's thirty years of experience in Thailand,Bangkok Found,sequel to his award-winning Lost Japan,takes you on a journey to the essential and the quirky, the factual and the mythical. In this series of meditations on the city, old culture meets global fusion in the crossroads that is Bangkok.
Review of 'Bangkok Found':
The joy of the book is that Alex Kerr arrived in Bangkok as a seeker, and now takes us along for a replay of the ride. At the end he admits Bangkok is too elusive to truly be "found". But he has written probably the best single "guide" for a visitor to Bangkok, short- or long-term, who wants to be provoked into looking at the city as it is, not as it is often portrayed.
The joy of the book is that Alex Kerr arrived in Bangkok as a seeker, and now takes us along for a replay of the ride. At the end he admits Bangkok is too elusive to truly be "found". But he has written probably the best single "guide" for a visitor to Bangkok, short- or long-term, who wants to be provoked into looking at the city as it is, not as it is often portrayed. To read more of the review please follow this link.
