I grew up in Bangkok. But we lost our house after my dad couldn’t pay the mortgage. After that, we had to move often.

At 17 years old, I got pregnant after having sex with one of my cousins. It was my first time. I dropped out of school in ninth grade but he didn’t take care of me and once hit me. So I had to go look for a job.

I did a lot of odd jobs, like washing dishes and helping at a shop, until a friend invited me to work in Pattaya, as a waitress.

It turned out I had to sit in front of a mirror waiting for customers to pick me and go drink with them. At that time, I still didn’t know what this could lead to.

I had no customer for four days and only four baht in my pocket. The mama san introduced me to a client who later took me to a hotel for sex. I told him I was not a prostitute and asked to leave. He gave me 4,000 baht, though we didn’t do anything.

I realized how easy the money was and I made up my mind to be a prostitute.

I only slept with foreigners. I was too embarrassed to sleep with Thai guys.

I never let my family know anything about my career. I think they were curious but never dared to ask.

After a few months, I came back to Bangkok. I didn’t want to do this job anymore. I started selling cigarettes in Patpong but the money wasn’t anything like my old job.

I always dreamed of going abroad. When an agent asked me to be a prostitute in Hong Kong, I immediately accepted, even after he warned me that I would have to be with 20-30 men per day.

It was really traumatic. After three weeks, I went to the police to beg them to arrest me and deport me. I made about B80,000 from my stay there.

After a week in Thailand, I took another job in Japan. I met a powerful yakuza in Shinjuku and he let me run his hostess bar for a year. He also gave me a new nickname, Eri, which means perfect lady.

I made millions of baht but I lost it all to gambling.

I tried to run away but the yakuza beat me. Finally, he was arrested in a murder case. I met an ex-client, and we got married.

While I was waiting for my wedding visa in Thailand, I was arrested and accused of intoxicating a guy to steal his money. In fact, he nearly raped me. I was jailed for three years.

This is the problem with Thai justice. Many people in jail are innocent. They don’t have money to fight in court and they get tricked by the police. My accuser even cried to me that he was sorry to send me to jail.

I tried out a lot of jobs but none of the jobs worked out because I was too old.

So I went back to being a prostitute. I met a guy who said my story was extraordinary and said I should write a book.

I never expected that my story would gain this much attention and win an award.

I have nothing to lose from telling my story. I just want to say that our lives are not easy. We’re miserable and don’t have any options. We need organizations to teach us skills.

I can’t stop other girls from going into prostitution but I want to warn them that this work brings money but not a good life.

Poverty is the main problem. If people weren’t so poor, they would have more opportunities to be something else.

I dream of having some skills to make an honest living, as a make-up artist, manicurist or hairdresser—anything.

Don’t discriminate based on age or people’s past profession. We’re human. We’re all equal. We have more ability than people might think. Just give us a chance.“Chan Kue Eri” is available at bookstores nationwide (in Thai) for B159.

In your opinion, what does it take to be a good chef?
Passion, for sure. Dedication, compassion and motivation. You’ve got to be able to be understood, but also to understand your customer and your staff. If you’re not motivated to cook, to create and work hard, it can be very painful and depressing as a chef. It’s also really important to have a good team. Without my team, I’d be nothing. But you don’t get a great team just like that; you have to build it. A good chef is also someone who knows how to cook everything. But to be a great chef takes perseverance.

As the host of After Hours with Daniel, what are some of your favorite haunts?
If I want to be pampered, I go to my friends like Eric Ripert, Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Thomas Keller. When I eat casual, I like to discover places. For quite a while now, my wife and daughter have refused to go out with me because we’d arrive at a restaurant and the chef will want to show that he can cook. They’d send so much food out that finally, my family couldn’t stand it. They said, “No way. We’re not going out with you anymore.” After that, they put their foot down and insisted on ordering a la carte. It’s good to be well-treated, but sometimes, it’s good not to be known. It’s a real pleasure to just go out, eat and drink what you like. And it doesn’t take three days to recover because the chef wanted you to taste the entire menu.

Having been born in France and after spending a long time in the US, how has that influenced your cooking?
It motivates me to bring more of France to New York. I wanted to represent both countries in db Bistro Moderne, which is a chef-driven French-American bistro. I’ve always loved burgers and I wanted to represent America and France at the same time, so that’s how the db burger was born. I’m a big proponent of American food and culture. It’s like here, food is part of life.

You have been in the industry for a long time and seen it through its metamorphosis. What would you like to see more of?
I want to see more identity and authenticity, because food is about memory. You remember the dishes you enjoyed when you were young and look for a chance to have dishes that allow you to experience the same emotion and connection. We create dishes all the time, but the ones we are remembered for which make people come back, are the ones that are simple and recreate an emotional experience. I’m at an age where I’ve been cooking for more than 40 years and I’m still proving everyday who I am. So when I see young chefs, I just want to wish them well, because it’s not easy to get to and stay at the top.

BK: How did you guys come together?
Dew: We were close at Assumption School Lampang.
Fung: Then during the U-Band Battle, I wanted the band to become stronger, so I invited Bas to join us.

BK: What genre are your songs?
Fung: Pop with influences from Europe. It’s a mix of Brit, French and Swedish pop that Thai people can appreciate.

BK: Why did you name the album Better Than Looks?
Dew: We want to tell people to not judge us by our appearances. We would like them to come and watch our shows, then judge us.

BK: How did you begin as a band?
Fung: We started the band playing cover songs at the pub.
In Lampang, we were the only student band to play there.Dew: Our friends would also come and support us, but when the police came, they would all run up to different floors, hide in the kitchen, or act like another band member, since they were underaged. We just acted cool.

BK: When did you first compose your own songs?
Fung: It was in our first year of college. We thought we played too many covers.
Tum: We had to move on in order to achieve our dreams.

BK: Any difficulties you faced as a band?
Fung: The difficulty we first faced was when we had to be separated during college years.
Dew: It was a tragedy. Fung went to study at Bangkok University. I went to Chiang Mai University with Jack.
Tum: We met up during the holidays and breaks and played together. We talked to each other everyday through phone, MSN and even letters.

BK: What was the most unforgettable experience you had on stage?
Dew: Right before going up the stage, I realized that my zip broke so I tried to cover it with my shirt. During the performance, I unconsciously raised both of my arms in the air, revealing my broken zipper. A fan uploaded and tagged me on Facebook. I’m also called “the blue man” because I wore blue underwear that day.

Interview by Monruedee Jansuttipan and Heyun Kim

I grew up in Malacca, my family moved there when I was four or five. We lived in this shophouse on Jonker Street and I was the baby of the family for a while. We had this kind of dungeon at the back which doubled up as a toilet; when you went into it, you never knew if you were going to come out.

My downfall began when I discovered the wonderful world of girls through a secondary school production of the musical Oliver. At the auditions there were 17-year-old girls just flouncing around in all their pubescent glory and from then on, I was hooked.

I’ve been an actor for 18 years now and it’s a pretty silly occupation when you think about it. The whole notion of pretending to be someone else, speaking somebody else’s lines and getting paid for it is ridiculous.

It’s a misconception that actors choose all their roles and productions. A lot of the time, there’s no choice. We’re doing this for a living to feed our families. Sometimes you just have to take a job and try to imbue it with some semblance of credibility and dignity. If you have a script that’s a pile of s**t, no one can save it.

To be involved in the creative process from the start, to be involved in coming up with the story, the characters, and the script is very liberating. It’s being able to find a voice for yourself as an individual.

The theater scene has been very vibrant in the past year, with theater groups producing more and more varied works, but it’s still hard for the scene as a whole to really “grow” if arts funding keeps getting cut year after year. It’s really been a case of same s**t, different year.

It would make a world of difference to fledgling companies to be able to sustain themselves financially with some dignity, and keep producing work with integrity and consistency. If only the declaration that Singapore is an “arts hub” was actually supported by a viable infrastructure that justifies it.

There is the time and place for fun-filled, feel-good fluff, but theater is also so much more than that. The challenge is to make people choose to come to the theater for intellectual stimulation—without being pretentious—and an emotional experience—without being wanky.

I am proud to say that I learned my so-called craft on the stage and I would go so far as to say an actor hasn’t tasted what it really feels like to act unless they go on stage.

How do I want to be remembered? I don’t know. Without Tracie and my boys, I’d be nothing. My two boys are the production that I’m proudest of; it’s corny perhaps, but they are. If anything, I’d like to be remembered for being their father.

I’ve always been terrified of being stuck in a rut. When you’re stuck, you start looking back and reminiscing and there’s something icky about that. Keep on moving, keep on moving forward, otherwise you’ll die. I’m like a shark; you stay still, you die!

The hand: For Lorenzo Quinn, this human appendage plays a fundamental role in how his art communicates with people, and its presence is apparent throughout his impressive body of work.

“The hand is a universal symbol for love and relationships. You can get through to a lot of people with the hand. In some cultures, the depiction of the full human figure is not accepted but most of the time, the hand is. It is a powerful symbol—the hand can create, destroy, love and hate,” explains Quinn.

The Barcelona-based sculptor was in town last month to promote his works in an ongoing exhibition, Transmissions of Life at the Ode To Art gallery in Marina Bay Sands. The one-time actor, philanthropist and artist is renowned worldwide as one of the most influential and avant-garde sculptors of his time. The exhibition showcases Quinn’s new sculpture works alongside some of his most powerful pieces from previously unseen collections. 

Quinn’s works are internationally acclaimed. Major commissions include the United Nations and the Vatican. His prominence is recognized in Absolut Lorenzo, an advert for Absolut Vodka featuring top international artists. He is also highly regarded in the Middle Eastern arts scene and his iconic sculpture "Rise through Education" stands proudly in Doha, Qatar. In Singapore, his “Force of Nature” sculpture is on display at the Marina Barrage. A weighty work featuring a woman with the world in her hands, it’s an allegory to the power of Mother Nature and how man takes it for granted.

“Man likes to think that we are more powerful than nature. But it is of course quite the contrary. I made it (Force of Nature) right after the tsunami to show just how potent nature is,” Quinn explains of the work.

Painting, however, was the artist’s first love and he indulged in it for about two years before moving on to sculpture in the late ‘80s. “I was very jealous of my painting. I never liked the fact that I would never see it again after it was sold. Sculpture is more like sharing,” Quinn says.

That said, Quinn is impressed by the number of sculptures on public display in Singapore and stresses the importance of public art. “Art in public spaces is essential in any developed country, and Singapore is doing a good job at it. The fact that such a young country has so much art for the masses is impressive. Art embellishes our lives. You don’t need art to survive, but it will be pretty boring without it,” he says.

“You can survive on a bowl of rice but if you can add some condiments, it will be very much tastier.” 

See Lorenzo’s Quinn’s inspiring works, Transmissions of Life at Ode to Art, #01-19 The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, 2, Bayfront Ave., 6250-1901. Ongoing

Who are we talking to today? Matthew E, Quiet Village, Sea Devils, Rekid or Radio Slave?
Matt Edwards! I’m the sum of all these parts.

Who is Matt Edwards really?
I’m just a crazy record collector and I’m still learning everyday.

What’s in a name?
The Radio Slave name was born as I needed to come up with something that suited what I was doing at the time. Around the end of 2000, I was working on a lot of re-edits of pop records and working on mash ups for Kylie Minogue, etc, so I was a slave to radio music (mainly pop). So the name Radio Slave was perfect!

Many consider you a remixer extraordinaire—you’ve put your essential touch to tracks from Talking Heads, Trentemøller and even Sir Elton John. How do you approach a track?
Every remix is like painting a different picture and the palette you have is of the parts from the artist or band involved. This can either be a very limited range of colors or a palette of sounds so large that the remix is already done when you start the work. I don’t know if this makes sense but that’s the point. And for me, if I like the artist then I will do as much as I can to respect the original song.

You’ve remixed over 260 tracks and counting compared to your personal releases of about 25 tracks. That’s quite a stat.
I’m just fascinated with seeing how other artists work and it’s so interesting to receive a track in its parts. I’ve learned so much from this and it led me to start releasing more of my own music.

We really can’t wait for your brand of brain stimulation at your forthcoming gig at Velvet Underground ...
I love the food in Singapore and the people are very welcoming, and Zouk is just an awesome club! It’s a unique space and I’m always itching to come back there to play. Expect house music all night long! I’m just super excited to be coming back to Singapore and I’m sure we’re going to have a great party!

Free up your schedule for a house music escape with Radio Slave on Jan 15, 10pm at Velvet Underground, Zouk, 17 Jiak Kim St., 6738-2988. $28-35 includes two drinks.

What is the Phra Sumen Crew?
Phra Sumen Crew is the name for the locals who gather at Phra Sumen (Fort) to do b-boy dancing, breakdance, tag art and DJing. Then there is also a group for younger kids called Phra Sumen Juniors which has around 40 members aged between 9-14.

What else do you do here?
I am actually working on another project, called Mur-dee Panakorn (ancient warrior), which is an ongoing project to make different types of education more available to the kids.

How did you get involved?
Coming here gave me a more open mind, to know and talk with other people (which often includes many foreigners). It gave me some English—it’s all from here. So I teach the kids and then they make money, but I also teach them to share their opportunities for new experiences too.

What do you dislike about this area?
Sometimes the attitude gets a little annoying. It’s been more than 10 years since we’ve been doing this kind of stuff here. We have some sponsors that will help improve the park, but the park authorities won’t adapt it for our needs. We have been asking for more lights for years, but many Thais, and specifically the people making the decisions, don’t see the value in this culture so they never make an effort to help. Secondly, this area is a bit too mafia-heavy for me. Maybe not specifically here on Phra Athit, but closer to Khao San, it’s too much. It’s not real mafia but thugs. They are gangsters that think they rule this area. If you want to do anything, you have to pay.

Is there any advice you can offer someone visiting the area?
Come visit Santi Chaipakran Park to check out what’s going on, anything from dance to capoeira to exercise. Every month sees new events and competitions. As for Khao San, try to get out of the bars and talk with some locals on the street about the history of the area; Bang Lampu has a rich history in music and art.

What message are you trying to convey?
These kids are our next generation. They are our future; they also have hopes and dreams. They are artistic, and if you give them a stage to express themselves they will. Don’t stereotype and judge them just because they don’t have money and they are not in what people consider ‘proper’ society. These kids should be given full and equal opportunities.
Check out videos of Phra Sumen Juniors on youtube.

What’s your job?
I’m responsible for the traffic at Khao San, Rambuttri and Ratchadamnoen roads. I try to make sure the taxis and tuk-tuks park in an orderly fashion, make the traffic run smooth and direct cars during rush hours.

What do you like most about working on Khao San Road?
The fact that it’s a walking street filled with a lot of foreigners in the afternoon and evening. It’s great to see the happiness that foreigners get from this street. As an official stationed here, I feel that Khao San is one of the unique selling points of Thailand.

What do you like least?
I don’t really have anything I don’t like about it, except when things aren’t properly organized and orderly.

Have you seen any strange things on this road?
Just magic shows. Parisa Pichitmarn

How long have you been working here?
About seven years now.

Why Khao San?
My boss provided me with a shop complete with all the equipment, so why not? Plus, I get along with everybody else who works here.

How have things changed in the last seven years?
We were one of the first shops to appear in Khao San, and the only one to have survived today in this building [Buddy Lodge]. Back then it was difficult to open a tattoo shop because of a local mafia, but now there must be more than 40 places around here. We’ve managed to survive in this competitive business because we offer quality and safety. People sometimes complain about our prices, which start from B1,000, but our shop is set in a clean, air-con room. Would you rather pay a bit less and risk getting an infection in a dirty makeshift hut on a sidewalk?

Are tourists back, despite last year’s protests?
It wasn’t that bad actually. The backpackers have a mind of their own. If they want to travel, they will. What really affected us, though, was the currency exchange. We haven’t increased our fees, but some of the return customers thought we did because they get less baht for their money than they used to.

What do you think will be the future of Khao San?
I think it has reached the point where it no longer needs any new businesses. What I want to see happen is some kind of quality control over tattoo parlors. The government should set a standard and shut down all the shops that don’t live up to those standards.
Pumpkin Tattoo Studio. Buddy Lodge Hotel. 256 Khao San Rd., 02-629-4412

BK: What were you doing before Yes or No?
Tina: I studied in Ratchaburi province before I moved to Bangkok after sixth grade to study at Satriwit School. I managed to get in because of my skills in creating a website. I lost all the sample code they gave me and ended up writing my own. They found out what I did and that’s how I got in.

BK: So you are a bit of a computer geek?
Tina: My mom supported me in studying anything I wanted. I love to play with computers, so I decided to study how to make websites using various programs like Dreamweaver and Flash. I participated in the Nectec computing competition when I was in the sixth grade and won first prize.

BK: How did you get involved with the movie?
Tina: My senior told me to go for the casting for this project. They had been planning to make this movie for two years and couldn’t find a tomboy who had a character close to the one in the movie. They picked me because of the natural girly way I say “ka” or “nu” which other tomboys don’t. The character in this movie doesn’t start out as a tomboy at first but slowly becomes one.

BK: How did you find acting for the first time?
Tina: It’s pretty hard because I had never done it before. The team sent me to train with an acting coach and I just did the best that I could.

BK: Who should go and watch the film?
Tina: I would say anyone of any gender should watch it. I even know guys who’ve seen it thinking it would just be a lesbian film, but it’s actually just a love story between two people.

BK: Are you working on any other film projects?
Tina: Not yet, but I also work as a DJ at Pynk 98 FM every Mon-Fri 8.30pm-10pm.

BK: How do you manage your time between work and study?
Tina: I just dropped my course in International Software Engineering at Chiang Mai University because it’s too far and it’s hard to study in this field. It’s so science-focused. So I plan to study in Bangkok.

BK: And what are your plans for the future?
Tina:

Whatever happens, I plan to continue working in entertainment. I really like it. I also really want to get into the communication arts program at Chulalongkorn University but the scores needed may be too high. I definitely want to continue my studies though.