THOMAS PODVIN’S FREELANCE WORK
Freelance writer - translator - Editor

Korean pop culture has been fashionable in China for several years now, and enthusiasts will be delighted with this work by one of the country’s leading cartoonists. Seyeong O's Buja’s Diary offers, in manwa form (Korean comics), an insightful, incisive commentary on Korean life in the 80s and 90s with thirteen stories in black-and-white panels. The author tackles a number of subjects in societal, familial and behavioral patterns – in a mature and thoughtful manner. “The Leather Pouch”, for instance, examines the national wound caused by the North and South division; “The Real Estate Agency”, the lack of filial devotion in the younger generation; while “Buja’s Pictures Diary” looks at the precarious situation of a single mother through the eyes of her daughter. Other entries, however, are less easy for non-Koreans to comprehend. After all, though Korean culture is more widespread than, say, a decade ago, is it hardly as universal as American. Fortunately, an epilogue written by Seoul International Comics Festival organizer Han Chang-wan provides astute comments (and context) on the Seyeong O’s work.
NBM Publishing/available at www.nbmpublishing.com

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
May 2006 issue

A sequel to the best-seller Bangkok 8 (reviewed in our March issue), Bangkok Tattoo once again features the devout and incorruptible Royal Thai Police detective, Sonchai Jitpleecheep. And once again, in this installment, Burdett proves that he’s no stranger to the city; indeed, he knows the drill. This colorful, head-spinning novel presents street-walkers as Buddhists; army captains as drug barons; police colonels as assassins; and CIA agents as drunken, neurotic voyeurs. Throughout, the theme dwells on the clash of civilizations: Eastern spirituality versus degenerate Western rationality. Burdett delights in exposing what he perceives as a fundamental cultural gap between east and west. This works fine to a point, but the author eventually succumbs to cynicism. He addresses the reader as farang (foreigner), the Thai word for white foreigner, which is symbolic of Burdett’s rigid partition of the Thai culture from the rest of the world. After 150 pages or so, this becomes tiresome; after 200 it just seems over the top, leaving the reader feeling uncomfortably out of the game. At another level however, and sociology aside, Bangkok Tattoo delivers: it fuses sex, violence, mystery and spirituality in an altogether fresh fashion. That is if you haven’t read the first book.
Random House

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
May 2006 issue