Thailand often writes checks its body can’t cash, putting great emphasis on plans and initiatives that, on the surface, sound pretty good but actually have very little chance of developing into anything useful due to lack of support and/or mismanagement. The disastrous Elite Card program comes to mind, as does Bangkok being the fashion capital of Asia, and Thailand being pushed as the ‘Detroit of Asia’ (have you seen Detroit lately? No thanks). The latest is PM Abhisit’s declaration that Thailand should be a creative ASEAN hub. It’s catching a bit of flack, but there have been several examples where Thai artisans have shown that they can be outstandingly creative – as in the example below.
I was wandering around MBK shopping mall one day and noticed a wee little counter that had the neatest little dolls for sale. When I got closer, I noticed that they were actually hand made caricatures of people. Clearly, this is something that would immediately improve my life, so I ordered one up. The guy that runs the place is named Toh, and his business is called Took Gatoon. All he needs is a few pictures of you – head-on and profile, and one of your body – and that’s it. He snapped a few of me with his digital camera, I paid him (1,400 baht – a bit steep, but it was a pretty unique little thing), and that was it. I was told to come back in a week.
The resemblance is remarkable, right down to the fact that my head is 53% of my entire body mass.
I guess it’s not a good thing to say that I don’t have a lot of detail to my face, but what little detail I do have, he nailed. It’s too bad I didn’t smile though, my little dude looks a bit grumpy. The material – after it’s baked and cools – is a bit squishy, like a Nerf doll. And to top it all off – it’s also a 2GB USB drive! I always knew I had a good memory…
A USB drive as well! What an amazing feet.
Anyway, just a neat little example of another cool thing in Bangkok. Check out his website and stop by to see his work. His table is on the 6th floor of MBK, way back among all the tourist crap that gets made for $4 a metric ton and then sold as if it were handmade – an ironic location for Took Gatoon.
this is awesome. It also looks like one of my committee members. Maybe I should acquire one for him. LOL.
That’s awesome, me wants one of those!
Also quick tip, guessing you took those snaps on your new camera, try setting the white balance from Auto to Tungsten Light when shooting indoors to make the colours more natural and not make everything so yellowy/brown.