As a kid felt I had to be good because my parents were both teachers. There was a little competition among teachers’ children to be ahead of each other. But my parents never pressured me.

My dad bought me nice stuff like mechanical pencils, which were really cool back then. He even offered to buy me a gold necklace if I ever came first in an exam, but I never did.

I really had no idea what I wanted to be until I went to see a dance show by students from Kalasin College of Dramatic Arts.

It was like seeing an epic tale come to life. They looked like angels. At that moment, I wanted to be like them. My dream became to attend Kalasin College and I did.

I nearly lost my dream when I was in grade 8. My mom told that we had debts and no money. It’s a bit of a given in a teacher’s life. She told me I should quit school and allow my two sisters to continue with their studies.

My dad heard that and they had a big fight. He said “Even if I have to die, I will find money to send my daughter to school.”

At that moment I promised myself I would do everything to make my family happy and wealthy. I even thought about buying life insurance and killing myself so they could use the money to pay their debts. But that was just a stupid idea.

I got a few gigs while I was studying so I made a little pocket money to reduce my family’s burden. Living away from home at a convent school since the age of 13, I learned how to be tough.

I wanted to challenge myself by applying to Srinakharinwirot University, and I made it in. I stood in a phone booth and called to hear my entrance exam results over and over. It was a really joyful moment.

Everyone at university called me “Lao,” but in an affectionate way. I always spoke Isaan with my family, and I never hid where I come from.

My confidence comes from the fact that I am doing what I love. I had dreamed about it, and now I am living the dream.

I joined Eed Ponglangsaon’s troupe because I loved his style of performance. It’s unorthodox and lots of fun. After we gained a reputation from playing at restaurants, we finally got a contract at RS.

My life is still the same as before, despite being famous. I just have to meet a lot more people. Eed rebuked me once when I turned down a photo with fans because I was sweaty. He taught me that no matter how tired you are, fans come first.

I saved money from my performances and sent it to my family. I was really proud to repay all my family’s debts, while my parents were proud that I became famous and could take care of them. I just finished building them a new house.

I get really upset when people say they don’t have time for their parents, even though they live under the same roof. I actually want to stay with my parents but my schedule and the distance keep me away from them.

I want to be a good daughter. I don’t want others to think of that Thai aphorism, “having a daughter is like having a toilet at the doorstep.” Being a woman, you have to make yourself valuable.

Now I am worried about my youngest sister. My parents warn me that I spoil her by giving her expensive stuff, but it’s only because I don’t want her to feel inferior like I used to feel in the past.

This year my mom will get a very special gift. She will appear before Princess Soamsavali when I receive the Filial Children Award this Mother’s Day.

As I get older, I no longer dream of a perfect man. I just want someone to take care of me and love my parents—not someone who will be a leech.

I would fix the traffic and prostitution problems if I were Bangkok’s governor. Having prostitutes near the Grand Palace tarnishes the image of the country.

I feel pity for women prostitutes. They only get a couple of hundred baht to have sex. Is this the value of a woman? Our income is low, and our human value is even lower.

I dream to open a pub or restaurant that has performances every night. I love the limelight and I love to dance.

How did your passion for boxing start?
I played a lot of sports when I was a kid, and my favorite was actually horse riding. But because my father is a former boxer, he taught me how to fight. I really enjoyed it and wanted to take it seriously. After three months of training, my dad sent me to a fight at a temple fair in Saraburi. I won my first match, and I was inspired to keep going.

You’ve been on an international tour. Any memorable matches?
I went to Japan last year for the Muay Thai Challenge. I defeated a Japanese female boxer, who had challenged me, and won the World Professional Muay Thai Federation female 112lbs Champion belt. My first time in Japan, I had to the defend title, and I won.

What do you like about Muay Thai?
Muay Thai is a Thai martial art. It’s called an art because of the beautiful movements we can create, not just punching like in normal boxing. In Muay Thai, we can kick, which can be quite graceful.

What do you think of today’s Muay Thai scene? Where do you fit in?
Muay Thai hasn’t been getting much attention from Thais, who only watch big events, like the Olympics and the Asian Games, neither of which include Thai boxing. I’d love to see Thai boxing become an Olympic event. As a boxer, all I can do is fight. Maybe if I fight more, Thai people will recognize me and start watching the sport.

Are there a lot of female boxers today?
Yes, I’ve seen a lot of new faces and a lot of my female friends are becoming interested and taking Muay Thai courses. But most just think of it as exercise, not a career.

What’s the most apt way to describe our local design culture?
It’s a very small scene—which is a good and bad thing. The pros are that everyone tends to be either really supportive or really critical of each other, and that makes a kind of hothouse. The con is that there are not enough weirdos to make things really interesting. Singapore isn’t a place where we can develop a Werner Herzog or Peter Saville because everyone tends to influence each other too much.

You’re known for your projection mapping; how do you think it affects the overall aural experience?
I think mapping and visuals create a framework and a language to digest intention. Music is a very innate thing; it hits the pre-logical and pre-rational centers of our heads in a way that moving pictures haven’t reached yet. It’s kind of hardcoded. Having the visual element tiered to the music in some way creates a dichotomy, which makes it interesting. Basically what I do is use the intentions of the music to piggyback visual ideas that create new dialogues.

How do you evoke feelings and rich textures in a medium that is falsely perceived as cold and mechanical?
Well I hope the work I do provokes some kind of response that isn’t just mechanical. I work primarily in animation using 3D software, which in itself is pretty hard to remove connotations of being kind of techy, or should I say tacky? The challenge then, like any artist, is to transcend their medium and create epiphanies. That’s why I tend to use material that already has strong visual baggage in the opposite direction—therefore my preoccupation with skulls, fur and that giant pink dildo train in the Kidkanevil video.

Are you doing anything special for the event?
There’s always something interesting in the works … I could always haul out the black latex zentai suit one of these days and do the gig dressed like that.

Check out Make Local Your Focal on Aug 6 at Home Club

An animal in a cage is… like a human in a box.

Nature is… the real cage for animals.

My camera is… a Canon 5D MKII, it’s my favorite toy too!

Home is… Normandy, the country and the sea.

Color is… not necessary.

Shadows are… sons of light.

Satisfaction is… never reached.

Passion is… in us.

Nicolas Evariste’s photography exhibition runs through Aug 31 at Vue Privée.

You look so young; have you ever been ID-ed trying to get into a venue that you’re playing?
Oh, absolutely! This happens quite a lot whenever I play in nightclubs. I’m used to it and don’t take it personally.

Favorite genre?
At the moment I’m really into whatever sounds a bit “special” or different, mostly around 128bpm. To make it easier for the dude on the street to understand, somewhere between house and electro house.

You use Traktor and a Macbook to mix. Do you ever get looked down on by diehard vinyl DJs?
This is possible. People never told me to my face but I’m sure some DJs had that thought in their heads. To be honest with you I don’t really care about what people think, I don’t care about what equipment other DJs use or how they technically DJ—I just want people who come to my shows to have a fantastic time; that’s all I care about.

What’s your epitaph going to say?
“Zedd’s Not Dead, Baby!”

You’re from Germany: Can you sum up your home country in one sentence?
A clean and secure country with a (sometimes) strange taste in music.

Make a date with Zedd on Aug 5.

How are the plays similar?
Charged and Nadirah both discuss pertinent social issues in an emotionally poignant way with a tint of humor. I hope this is achieved through acute observations that I made about interactions and daily life in our nation.

Why are these plays pertinent?
Singaporeans usually avoid sensitive issues like sex, politics, race and religion. I think this is pernicious; we should instead engage in proper dialogue to discuss these issues. In fact, when we ignore such issues, that’s when prejudice and antagonism creep in, with serious consequences for the fabric of the nation.

What is Charged about?
Charged is contextualized with a typical Singaporean male coming-of-age ritual: National Service. Using that familiar setting, the cast and crew have explored a no-holds barred, highly physical meditation on sociopolitical issues—primarily race and religion—in contemporary Singapore.

What is Nadirah about?
It is a narrative of how faith is part of an individual’s personal terrain. This is a clever, richly nuanced work that presents a microscopic view on the daily life of the eponymous heroine.

Why are you looking forward to the Man Singapore Theatre Festival?
During the first run of Charged in 2009, I was five months pregnant and wasn’t feeling well two weeks before the premiere. I was stuck at home and couldn’t even direct. I guess the encore for the Man Singapore Theatre Festival gives me the long awaited chance to direct it again.

Catch Charged from Aug 6-7 and Nadirah from Aug 17-21.

The Man Singapore Theatre Festival runs from Aug 3-21.

Cooling Off Day is a story about Singapore. When people wrote about Singapore’s history in the past, it was often from a singular perspective. An example of this would be class textbooks, which are strictly based on one viewpoint. I wanted to examine the idea of counter-narratives sending a message, which has never really been legitimized so far.

I have often wanted to write a story about something really simple, like a love story between two people who meet in Eastpoint. But I always end up zooming right into the details, and some things just happen in Singapore that make me feel like I can’t turn my back on them… it always ends up being relevant.

I like to imagine Singapore as a kid from a military family, one that moves around a lot in a kind of nomadic way, and never gets the chance to properly settle in to a town or school before it has to uproot again.

Sometimes I think we’re being naïve by assuming a nation state is an idea still worth pursuing.

I feel as though we have a sort of post-colonial cultural void, where we’re lacking a sense of pride or identity.

Before the elections a lot of people had been bottling in their personal opinions.

Once the elections were over, many ordinary people were desperate to get the initial emotion off their chest and have their moment of political expression.

Your uncles and aunties in kopitiams don’t keep blogs. But just because someone doesn’t use the prerequisite political vocabulary doesn’t mean their opinion isn’t valid.

It’s difficult to really belong to a community in Singapore, because there’s so much rapid change that no one has any time to stop and breathe.

You become familiar with a neighborhood, then suddenly half the buildings have been knocked down and there’s a new mall. It’s like the development is being forced too fast, and the idea of locality becomes meaningless.

Politics is all about entertainment. And entertainment is all about politics. Politics is all about performance; you have this whole political theater where how you perform dictates how you carve your name into history.

I have responsibilities as a playwright. One thing I feel very strongly about is that I am able to bring controversy to the table.

It’s necessary for me to raise issues that journalists and the media are not covering, if they’re not serving us adequately over political issues.

People need the opportunity to hear what others are saying. You should expect your political views to be challenged, not always confirmed. My play may be about politics, but it isn’t a prescriptive kind of play; you will be bearing witness to a whole spectrum of views. Like living in a democracy!

Cooling Off Day is on from Aug 10-14.

The Man Singapore Theatre Festival runs from Aug 3-21.

Tell us about your previous work. What subjects concern you?
As I was born in Pattani where there is a lot of political and social instability, I wanted to deliver a point of view that people can’t get from the news. My first exhibition focused on the Por Noh (local Islamic schools) which have been thought to be a place of militant training. The conflict in the South is still going on and there are so many points to clarify. My other work deals with women’s rights, as it’s tough to be a woman in that area.

How did you conceive of this new exhibition?
When I was studying at the Ecole Nationale Superieure de la Photographie in Arles, the French government banned the burqa. But to me, wearing a burqa is a matter of belief, and nobody has the right to judge it. So, I ordered some burqas from my hometown in Pattani and took photos in public places. I did self-portraits as this exhibition represents a personal view. I looked for locations to shoot at, and of course, the Eiffel Tower was the best one. When you look at the photo, the movement of the burqa in the wind explains it all.

As a Muslim, do you normally wear a burqa?
Never. My parents gave me the right to choose what I wanted. I started wearing the hijab [a headscarf without the veil]. I have some concerns about women’s rights. It’s true that people perceive that Muslim women as forced by the religion to wear the burqa but actually we just simply do it from belief.

From your perspective, how could the French law affect society?
When I was in France, none of my French friends looked down on women wearing a burqa, and all of them felt outraged by the law. There are a lot of Muslims all over the world and passing a law like this is obviously opposing us. For a long time, Muslims have been perceived negatively, and this law just strengthens that perception.

Do you think the law could make the new generation lose their faith?
The belief of kids depends directly on how they are raised, what their family looks like and in which community they live. But if they have the right to understand their religion, this law can’t affect them.

What’s next?
I want to show my exhibition in France—if immigration doesn’t kick me out.

Keeping up with  Ampannee Satoh at Burqa

I was about four when I moved to Bangkok. I was actually born in Uthaithani.

My parents were strict when I was a kid. My mom is a teacher and my dad is a cop. They were both busy at work so I was mostly raised by my granny in police housing.

My musical career started with a big “no” from my parents. I formed a girl band with my friends at my junior high school and it created problems at home. I had to stay late at night to practice and my parents didn’t get the point. They wanted me to quit.

My dad used every possible method to stop me from making music, like cutting off my pocket money. Still, I tried every possible way to keep playing music. I made up my mind that nothing would stop me from doing what I love.

I would sneak out of my house at night to play gigs at pubs. I would make about B150 per night. One day, my dad walked into a pub in police uniform and dragged me out.

He even hit me hard once because I went home so late. I cried so hard that night, and he did too. He thought I was just being a bad girl. But my granny kept me on track. She always supported me and my love for music.

The Royal Thai  Navy Band School was where my dad wanted me to study. He thought it might good for my future to work in the military. I refused because it sounded boring.

I joined Endorphine after meeting them at an event. My ex-bandmates had stopped playing music when they enrolled in university.

Our debut album happened so quickly. We went to a studio to make our first demo and the studio owner asked us to burn him a CD. It was later given to a GMM producer who called us to sign a contract the following week. My dad was shocked and relieved that I was on the right path.

I decided to drop out of Endorphine after the second album because I wanted to move on to another level, while others in the band weren’t so keen. Two of them quit to work with their parents.

People say my music has changed since my first album. It’s true. Music never stops changing. It’s dynamic, like me.

I don’t think of myself as a superstar. I would rather be known as a role model. It feels good when I get letters from girls who say that I’ve impacted their lives positively.

I plan to open a music studio. Studios in Bangkok are all depressing square rooms. I want my studio to be in a garden, a living space that has a kitchen, living room and recording space.

The Netherlands is my dream country. I want to go backpack there for a month.

I used to feel being famous stole my teenage years. Now I feel lucky that I’m not stuck with a desk job. My career gives me the energy to live my life and have fun. I do what I love and take care of my family while my school friends still complain that they can’t find a job.

I used to be depressed. I didn’t go out for six months when I broke up with my boyfriend. Luckily, work kept me on track. Now I am single.

I don’t like guys with big egos. I don’t want a guy who is famous or handsome, but he must understand life and be outspoken and friendly.

I think women today are bolder in relationships and sex. We talk more openly about it with friends, like in Sex and the City. It’s a good thing. It creates more sex education and increases awareness about women’s rights.

I believe there will be a doomsday but not in 2012. Our world is so tempestuous now. The next generations will face the worst disasters. They might be survivors.

I want Bangkok to have more bicycle lanes and green space. I want to organize things to make Bangkok’s standard of living better. We can do better than this.

Keep smiling no matter what you’re facing. You can create energy on your own. Interview by Nat Tantisukrit

How did you guys become Love Me Please?
Joob: The band was started by Pun and me after he came back from America. Pun started writing lyrics and let me handle the music. Then Pun asked Donut to join and dragged Gae (Kongpun) and Gae (Thanongchai) to be our bassist and drummer.
Donut: The name actually came from a som tam restaurant that Pun, Joob and I love. It’s kind of cute and wooing at the same time.

Why do you choose a duck as your logo?
Pun: A duck can do many things, but none particularly well, just like us.

What do you do, apart from singing?
Pun: I work at publishers and do jingles for commercials. I also compose songs for soap operas at Channel 7.
Donut: I am studying at Kasetsart University.
Tum: I used to be with the band K9 for nine years. Now I work at GMM’s Work Gang as a producer. I used to produce Leo Put’s album. I also teach music at Rangsit University.
Gae (Thanongchai): I earn a living being a back-up drummer for bands. I also play for Academy Fantasia and New-Jiew duo artists.
Gae (Kongpan): I play at pubs at night and in the back-up band for Calories Bla Bla. I also do work for RS sometimes.
Joob: My main job is at GMM’s Work Gang. I used to do music with Calories Bla Bla and Bird Thongchai.

How would you describe your musical style?
Tum: A bit like The Beatles highlighting guitars and the vocals from our three singers, Joob, Donut and Pun.

What was the inspiration for “Zoo”?
Pun: I composed the song because I’d seen animals being hurt. No matter how big or small they are, they all have life. So I wrote the song based on that feeling.
Joob: We added some jokes to make it cute, like a teenage love song, so it wouldn’t be too serious.

Have you saved any animals?
Gea (Thanongchai): We mostly make donations to animal charities. Pun and I don’t even kill mosquitoes.
Donut: I donated a bit of money to help a dog with a big neck wound. Parents should teach their children to love animals.
Gea (Kongpan): When it comes to wildlife hunting, we should fix the problem at the market end. If there’s no demand, there’ll be no supply and no killings.
Joob: I once saw a dog get hit by a car. I picked it up and it died in my arms. I felt life and death when I looked into his eyes. Interview by Nat Tantisukrit