Author John Burdett’s Perspective on the Thai Floods

Anchor Marco Werman talks to British crime novelist and Bangkok resident, John Burdett, about his perspective on the recent flooding in the Thai capital.

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Marco Werman: In Bangkok these days knowing where your fish comes from, sadly, maybe pretty easy. That’s because parts of the Thai capital are under water and they have been for weeks. Thailand’s unprecedented flooding began in late July. More than 500 people have died, and now there’s hardly a province that hasn’t been affected. Writer John Burdett lives in Bangkok part of the time and he centers many of his novels there. His fictional police detective, Sonchai Jitpleecheep, often finds himself reflecting on the Chao Phraya River. The river bisects Bangkok and that river has burst its banks. Here’s one description Burdett wrote of the Chao Phraya in his mystery, Bangkok Haunts.

Narrator: In the midstream brightly painted tugs tow barges with big eyes painted on their bows, while long tails with gigantic former bus engines with outboard propellors shafts about 15′ long roar up and down packed with tourists. The river is still the only jam-free thoroughfare for a lot of people commuting to work and back. So the long, thin passenger ferries are packed. The arrive and depart the floating docks among a frenzy of hysterical whistles from pilots at the stern who like to give the impression of catastrophe narrowly averted.

Werman: A passage from John Burdett’s novel, Bangkok Haunts. Burdett says the flooding has given rise to some eery scenes in downtown Bangkok.

John Burdett: There is a very large crocodile that some men caught that came down, and a giant catfish…

Werman: What, like in the middle of the street or something?

Burdett: Yeah, it was, it was literally in a flooded street they got hold of this crocodile…I mean there aren’t a lot of crocodiles, but just one was quite of a shock. And this giant catfish, it was floating down a high street as well. There’s this wonderful old lady, a grandmother, who’s used what must be her grandchild’s little plastic swimming pool. She sat in that and floated in that, and used a bit of wood as an oar to get herself across the road.

Werman: Wow.

Burdett: Kids, of course, kids love to play in the water, so amongst all the scenes of considerable distress you’ve got kids having a great time and laughing their heads off.

Werman: We featured a story on our program recently about a makeshift Bangkok dike that was one of the last lines of defense for the city. And now, apparently villagers on the far side of the barrier who are frustrated because their homes are being flooded, tore the barrier down and that flooded homeowners on the other side. I’m just wondering what this flooding has meant for the tension between rich and poor in Bangkok.

Burdett: Yeah, it’s highlighted that in a sad way. You’re quite right. A lot of the poorer people in Bangkok, they live in single story buildings, basically wooden structures which are very often right on a canal or near the river. And if it’s a single story of course, you don’t have any choice, you’ve got to evacuate and all of your belongings are destroyed. So these people were actually on like the poor side of the tracks, except this is the poor side of the water, and so they forcibly opened the gates so that it would distribute the water more fairly. They thought that distributing the water down that side of the canal meant that some seriously important parts of central Bangkok would have been flooded. So those people thought well, that’s because they’re rich and they’ve got more power. There’s a point to that, but also Yingluck, the prime minister, made the point, she said look, if we can’t even save the center of our capital city what are foreigners gonna think of us? Who’s gonna want to trade with us if we can’t even organize ourselves to that extent? You know, you get these conflicting stories, but the result is serious tension between various camps, yeah.

Werman: And do you get a sense the authorities have the flooding under control? Have they talked about a strategy for taking care of the problem?

Burdett: No, this has been a big problem, simply because you can’t rely on what the government says. For example, me, I’m here now because we were told time and time again that there’s no way the water would get to Bangkok. Otherwise, I would’ve probably left the country or gone down to stay on a beach somewhere because I didn’t want to get caught in Bangkok with no exit. It’s really quite difficult to get out of Bangkok by road at the moment, although that’s improved dramatically over the last couple of days. And this is because of misinformation or disinformation, or inaccurate information by the government, the various agencies that are supposed to be dealing with this. People are very frustrated, very angry.

Werman: If you live with a river in your city it sort of becomes a welcomed reference point. Because of the flooding though I’m wondering if people in Bangkok are just getting sick of water and seeing the Chao Phraya River?

Burdett: Well, they’re sick of seeing water, that’s for sure. But the water, you have to envisage a massive sheet of water coming hundreds of miles down from the north, so it’s not really the river that bothered people, it’s this huge sheet quite a few miles wide. But part of the problem is of course, the last really big flood they had was 50 years ago. Since that time they’ve concreted over a lot of land. They’ve built on the land for like Japanese car parts manufacturers have opened factories on places where the water used to flood. And now those factories up in the Ayutthaya are flooded and so the government is very worried. I should think that some foreign industry will not be interested in investing in Thailand unless they do something about water management.

Werman: Now, Sonchai Jitpleecheep is the police detective and protagonist in your police mystery set in Bangkok. How would Sonchai be dealing with the floods right now?

Burdett: I think he’d be at his mother’s bar, you know, hanging our in Soi Cowboy, the red light district. As someone rather maliciously pointed out, that God seems to have spared all the red light districts, but he has it in for car part manufacturers.

Werman: Well, John Burdett, great to speak with you.

Burdett: Thank you, Marco, thank you very much.

Werman: Crime novelist’s new Bangkok mystery, Vulture Peak, will be out in January.

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