Adam Renton
     
      With such a seemingly vast range of subject matter, so many books written by foreigners about Thailand always seem to fall into the same old clichéd traps. And when I say ‘foreigners’, I mean honkies, crackers and white devils – just like me – from the Western world. What you lot call farang.
      Now, please distract your attention from me having the cheek to talk about clichés and ‘falling into traps’ in the same sentence, and cast your eye (oops, I did it again) along the shelves of a typical Bangkok second-hand bookshop.
      These places are always overstocked with novels that are barely more than vanity publishing, with Thailand as the setting for these particularly well-worn stories. You know the kind of thing – East meets West, cultures clash, sexy 21-year-old prostitute takes 55-year-old divorcee from Bristol for a ride and rinses his bank account.
      Similarly, we can conclude from most of the books written about cross-cultural relationships here, that falling in love with a prostitute is, more often than not, a bad idea.
      Then there are the books about wasted years spent in Bangkok prisons, mainly for drug offences. Some are better written than others, but rarely make any greater point than that life behind bars, especially here, is not much fun.
      This photographic collection from Thomas Kalak is indeed Same, Same, But Different. Firstly, the preface is written in German (with English translations), which makes a change, and secondly, it avoids clichés. A Thai person who has never left Thailand may never understand the point of these photographs, but I get them.
      This book is a tribute to Thai improvisation: bamboo scaffolding, knotted aerial lines, hand painted signs and converted plastic bags. Surprisingly enough this isn’t a subject that has been covered – to the best of my knowledge – in too much detail.
      It’s an amusing and original book, which doesn’t really need any words. I’m not going to get all pretentious and say that there is beauty in much of the ugliness documented, but I can’t help but admire the way that seemingly useless material in some of the photos has been made functional.
     
      Available at Asia Books. We’ve got three copies of Thailand: Same Same, But Different to give away. Just head over to the survey section at the top of the page; register, vote and comment on our survey question for a chance to win.