WHO’S WHO

Local Personalities: Yan Friis

by Dr. Iain Corness

One of Pattaya’s foremost ambassadors in Europe is Norwegian writer/journalist Yan Friis. He is a man who has sipped coffee with Beatle Paul McCartney in the Abbey Road studios and even shared a ‘funny cigarette’ with Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. However, these days he is a man who says, “Burn my bags, I’m home,” every time his plane lands in Bangkok! And at this stage, that’s been more than 30 landings.

I caught up with Yan on his latest trip to Pattaya with his new book called “Hanumans Maske” under his arm, a book which he hopes will counter some of the negative press about Pattaya and Thailand in his native Norway. While the first print run is also in his native tongue, the next, due by Easter 2004, will be in English.

Yan comes from an artistic family, both his parents being accredited painters in Scandinavia; however, the young Yan was, from a very early age, more adept with pencil than palette. Before he was 12 years old he was laboriously hand writing weekly ‘newspapers’ at home with a circulation of two. After his 12th birthday, when he was given a typewriter, his flow of words became greater and the circulation jumped to six.

He continued, and by the time he went to college he was the editor of the students’ newspaper and was writing original poems. “I thought I was going to be a great poet,” said Yan, laughing at the memories of his childhood ambitions.

Poetry would not support even the most meager lifestyle, but newspapers could, and he began his professional writing life doing record reviews for the local newspaper. The record reviews in time led to interviews with the rock stars themselves and eventually coffee with the Beatles, and from there Yan found that he had the knack of expanding his interview subjects to cover personalities much more diverse than just long haired rock and rollers.

As a specialty interviewer, he joined the staff of “Vi Menn” a Norwegian lifestyle magazine, and has been all over the world chasing the best lifestyle articles and interviews. Vi Menn, by the way, has a circulation of 110,000 copies every week, so the Norwegians take their lifestyles seriously.

He ‘almost’ made it to Thailand 20 years ago. He had been in China covering the music tour with composer Jean Michel Jarre and was given the option of a stop-over in Thailand on the way home. “I didn’t. I was a fool. I saw other Norwegians that did get off the plane in Bangkok and never came home again! They stayed.”

It took another 13 years before he landed in Bangkok himself, when he was sent to cover the story of a Norwegian incarcerated in a Bangkok prison. “That was seven years ago. I knew nothing about the country - other than what I’d read and I really didn’t look forward to it. I thought it was just one giant whorehouse.” Yan Friis is not one to skirt around his subject!

Knowing nobody, he attended a Norwegian society monthly meeting in Bangkok and met his countrymen, who began telling him a different story from the one the pulp press was feeding the masses back in northern Europe. “I got told to stop calling them whores. I was told very strongly that they (the service girls) are nice people with their own stories to tell.”

To find out more about these stories, he traveled all over Thailand and up into the poorer Esarn regions. “The picture was more complicated than I thought,” said Yan. “In some instances, it is the mother who sends the girls to work in the bars of Bangkok, to buy (something like) a better refrigerator. They are not starving, they just want more. The mother (in this instance) is the pimp.”

His research into Thailand and Thai people took him to the Ramakien, the Thai version of the Ramayana, that wonderful tale of Phra Rama and the monkey god Hanuman. “I am fascinated by the Ramakien and its characters.” He then went on to expound and expand, obviously still enthralled by the visual imagery. It was part of that fascination that led to his using Hanuman in the book title.

The book Hanumans Maske actually began in Malaysia, during a four hour taxi ride, when his mind conjured up a scene which he knew was just too good to let fall on stony ground. “It was dark eroticism and I thought to myself, I’ll have to write this down.” He did, with the theme becoming part of the central drama in the book. From there it was necessary to continue writing and as an opening he thought he would have a deceased journalist lying in the police morgue in Bangkok. His friend and local personality Jan-Olav Aamlid arranged the visit, though declining a look inside himself!

Yan explained some of the reasons behind the book. “I didn’t want to write a detective novel. I wanted to write about my experiences in Thailand, including the effects of mass tourism on a culture and I wanted to counteract the negative western press. (Yan’s desire to present Thailand in a better light resulted previously in his being given the “Friends of Thailand Award” by the Tourism Authority in 2000.)

So what does a professional writer do for a hobby? “I write. I love writing,” said Yan. He plays soccer twice a week, “To keep young,” he said, “but I’m fooling myself.” Music? Since that was the start of his literary career? “I listen to music in the car, that’s all.”

Yan Friis did not come across as someone following a 10 year or 5 year or even 1 year plan, but I asked if he had some goal or ambition. “Keep writing,” was his reply, “as long as it takes me here (to Thailand). I use a lot of energy finding new excuses for coming here, and when I get my pension, I’ll definitely be here.”