About
Author: Rattawut Lapcharoensap (Thailand)
Genre: Short Stories
Setting
Place: Thailand
Time: 1970s-1990s
My Rating (see what this means)
My Subjective Rating: 3
My ‘Objective’ Rating: 1.77
Introduction
Each of the story in the Sightseeing collection (barring one) has a young protagonist about to learn an important lesson during their inevitable march to adulthood. The lessons chip away their innocence (occasionally more than a little bit) and you can’t help but hope that they faced these situations maybe a little later in life – maybe not at all.
Set in Thailand, the stories capture the hustle and bustle of Bangkok as well as the paradises of the country’s several islands. In Farangs – a Thai boy falls for an American tourist visiting his beautiful island. In Priscilla, the Cambodian – 2 young boys befriend a young refugee girl with golden teeth.
All stories, including the last story – Cockfighter which is effectively a novella, are written in first person – and the protagonist-narrator directly talks to us about their experience – bringing in a lot of pathos to their stories
Review
It isn’t difficult to empathize with the characters of each of the stories – as they are a sweet and simple people. The situations they find themselves in are well communicated – be it then be a heartbreak, a crossroad, or guilt. And the narrative backdrop seems reasonably chosen.
My favourite story – Draft day
[Spoilers] Guilt eats away a young boy as he is waiting with his closest friend for a military draft lottery knowing fully well his name is not going to be pulled out.
My least favourite story – Cockfighter
[Spoilers] A young girl deals with her father’s cockfighting addiction which is upending their lives.
I found the situations in the novella very unrelatable – be it then the cockfighting as a sport, or an out-of-a-movie village villain. The backstory about the mystery aunt seem half-baked. And I didn’t get the ending – if the narrator was attracted to the Filipino, the story wasn’t fleshed out well either.
A pleasant surprise – Don’t let me die in this place
[Spoilers] The story is an exception in the collection in that it is narrated by an old, partially-paralyzed American who has moved to Thailand to spend his frail years with his son and his Thai family.
All the previous stories had a sorrowful ending and I was very much expecting a similar ending but was happy the story it didn’t.
Picture Credits:
1. https://www.peta.org/blog/cockfighting/
2. https://www.qantas.com/travelinsider/en/experiences/nature/places-where-animals-outnumber-humans.html