My husband and I traveled to Thailand in November, visiting temples and beaches. I always like to read a novel from the country I’m visiting. I saw a copy of Letters from Thailand by Botan in an airport bookstore and tried to find it in the Berkeley Public Library on my return. Our library didn’t have it but I was able to obtain it through the LINK system, that provides access to many other libraries. It turned out that the nearest copy was at the University of Nevada, Reno.

It’s an epistolary novel, 20 years of letters sent from a Chinese man who emigrated to Thailand in 1945 to his mother back in China. But you learn in the prologue that his mother never received the letters because life in Thailand appeared better than life in China, so they were censored. It was a fascinating window into Thai society, with emphasis on the relationship between the Chinese merchant class and the Thai people. The main character marries and has children, who are caught between the two cultures. Near the end of the novel, the father admits:

“I can love my children, argue with them and attempt to guide their steps, but I cannot protect them from the times in which they must live. Whatever I may think of it, this is their world and not mine, and who is to say that they will not make a better peace with it than their father made with the world of his own youth?”

I found that a hopeful parental thought in our own difficult times.

Toni Martin Writes