Jim Thompson is an American architect and former U.S. military intelligence officer who became a silk entrepeneur in Bangkok in the 1950s and mysteriously disappeared in 1967 in Malaysia. Jim fell in love with Thailand culture and the people and transformed the silk industry for Thailand. His life story is very interesting and another must-see in Bangkok.
The girls (Delcie and Amanda) and I visited the Jim Thompson museum on October 7th. We had a great girl day. We had a touching experience by visiting a Thai silk shop off the beaten path along the canal (klong). This shop made and sold silk to Jim Thompson back in the 1950s when the owner of the shop that we met was a young boy. There is an awesome picture of the owner when he was a young boy sitting along the canal with Jim Thompson inspecting a piece of silk made by this boy's family. It's a legendary picture that is captured in Jim Thompson books today.
We got to experience the Thai workers beating the freshly died silk. Take note that the workers aren't wearing shoes in the pictures; the shoe story for Thailand is another blog to report on. The owner's wife insisted we have our picture taken by her loom that she weaves the silk on. She wouldn't let us take a picture of her because she is shy. I've noticed that some of the older Thai ladies are shy of Americans. This little shop isn't air conditioned and is a very small shop in a very Thai neighborhood complete with goats. One must see it to believe it. What an experience. We only adventured into this neighborhood with Delcie's Thai driver or we wouldn't have done this alone. Of course English isn't spoken at all in this area.
Here are many pictures from our day and we hope to visit the Jim Thompson warehouse soon.
I also added a picture of an ice cream motorcycle delivery.
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