TheMagazine

This is something I do for a living. In my recent article for The Magazine, Bangkok Post. I did a profile on M.R. Thanadsri Svasti, one of Thailand’s most renowned food critics and historians. People always asked me what famous people are like in real person. I have been a real fan for Khun Chai since I was young; my mother a real fan of him with our house streamed with his live radio show all afternoons. My dad used to nag my mom about her choice of program – for Khun Chai was a real charm. He was also a singer and an actor, too.

Anyway, we (the whole team of photography crew, our team coordinator, and me) arrived at the meeting venue sharp at the said time of 11pm. We were supposed to have lunch together and an informal interview during the meal. The venue was Royal River Hotel down on the other side of the River. However, after waiting for may be half an hour, we decided to call up his secretary .. Good that we did because we then learned that Khun Chai was still working. Obviously he had totally forgotten about our meeting and he had some very important unfinished work to, well, finish. !! He suggested us to come ’some other times’ but we persisted. So, after a long deep thought, his secretary told us that we would call again when Khun Chai seemed to finish his writing.

So we waited… waited and waited. One of the photographers took a nap in the dining room and we tried to create conversation topics among us. I, in fact, was very unhappy. If there’s anything that conveys the message of ‘I don’t give a damn about you.’ then being longer than 1 hour late is it for me. Khun Chai was not one hour late, he was 5 hours late. He arrived at the scene, apparently upset of being disturbed from his works, and really gave all of us a dizzy beginning with choices of words that would put anyone way off. Thanks to Nong Cherry, our team coordinator, who was a real angel, everything went as smooth as humanly possible. What should took me half an hour to get back home took me almost 3 hours – all because of the ‘easygoing’ lifestyle of this man.

Anyway – this is the story. He is a charming man who knows a lot. I hope he can capture what he knows in life into a good book so we all can curl up and read.

This article was published on 14 August 2008. Bangkok Post.

Here is another article I wrote for 2008’s Valentine’s Day - our chemical reactions on chocolate: