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.”