November 18th, 2006
English translation of “The Culture of Poverty?”
After many months of on-and-off work, I’ve finally managed to translate Prof. Dr. Nidhi Eoseewong’s The Culture of Poverty? book from Thai into English. A collection of “Cultural Review” column he wrote for the now-defunct Trendy Man magazine, this book is one of my most favorite works in Prof. Dr. Nidhi’s repertoire, and one that really showcases the breadth and depth of his knowledge in both Thai and Western cultures.
This translation will hopefully be published sometime in the coming months(/years?), but in the meantime, Prof. Dr. Nidhi has graciously allowed me to offer this entire book up for download from this blog. Before you download the file, please be aware that the quality of this English translation is currently only as good as its translator’s, which is to say that it is “rough” in many places and could use some editorial cleanup (hopefully the book version will be better). In my humble opinion, my translation doesn’t do justice to Prof. Dr. Nidhi’s wonderful original text in Thai.
If you consider yourself sufficiently warned but undeterred, you can download the file here [PDF format, 58 pages]. I’ve also added it to the Downloads page of this blog. The original Thai version of this book has also been available for a while now. If you can read Thai, check out this page at NIDA MBE11 website - it contains a comprehensive collection of Prof. Dr. Nidhi’s articles written for Matichon Weekly and other magazines.
You are free to distribute this file on a non-commercial basis and refer to any parts of it as long as you attribute Prof. Dr. Nidhi, the original author. The file has been prepared under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Creative Commons license.
The Internet has sparse background in English about Prof. Dr. Nidhi, my most favorite Thai public intellectual and in my opinion the best (and most controversial) historian of his generation. There is a decent translation of his speech at the Nippon Foundation, and a listing of Pen & Sail, the first English translation of his major work.
I hope English visitors to this site will enjoy the book, or at least find some bits of it interesting. All comments, criticisms, and blames will be greatly appreciated. I plan to post a chapter from this book every 5-6 weeks to spur some cross-cultural discussion on various interesting topics raised therein. Feel free to cast your votes as to which chapter you would like to discuss first 
(Other than the two chapters I posted months ago while working on the translation: The Culture of Poverty? and The Concept of Freedom in Thai Culture)
[A brief note to HOTU visitors: yes, I know the forum is in a mess (in fact, it’s so appallingly messy I don’t know how to begin sorting it out). Yes, I know it’s been almost 11 months since I last updated the site. In the past months, I actually have done 20+ new underdog reviews (including 2 rare abandonware titles), but I’ve been waiting for the Wiki system. Now that it looks delayed for a while yet, I’ll update the site in its current incarnation before the year-end. Sorry for the very long wait, but I honestly have been in over my head, almost literally speaking.]
Popularity: 11% [?]
November 19th, 2006 at 4:12 am
The “Thai version” links is broken.
btw, nice profile
November 19th, 2006 at 6:48 am
I suppose this is http://www.fringer.org/wp-content/writings/poverty.pdf I found this ranked first on google.
A great initiative to introduce Ajarn Nidhi’s work to the anglophone
November 19th, 2006 at 7:35 am
Bangkok Pundit & Chin: Thank you for the heads-up, I fixed the Thai book download link now
November 20th, 2006 at 8:42 am
Quite another good article again. Hope that I can read it all before you update your blog.
November 20th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
This really does look fascinating.
I’m not sure if you’re looking for help in editing the English, but if so then email me. It looks like you’ve done a fantastic job on the translation, but there are of course inevitable typos. I’d love to host a proofed version of the book on my site.
November 23rd, 2006 at 3:11 am
Thank you, I’ve been looking for something like this.
I’ll try to comment when I can.
November 25th, 2006 at 2:50 am
[…] Thai bridge bogger at Fringer.org has translated thai intellectual Dr. Nidhi Eoseewong’s book titled “The Culture of Poverty” from Thai to English. The blogger offers the translation as a free download. The book is a collection of essays that will help anyone interested in Thailand to better understand the culture and the dynamics of Thai society. Preetam Rai […]
November 29th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Well, I finally got around to reading the first article about the superfluous westerner. Some thoughts: at first he came across as a xenophobe prone to generalizing, I almost stopped reading, but I’m glad I kept going because what he had to say at the end (about education and holding institutions accountable through civic action groups) was very interesting. I will say more about that when/if you put that article up for discussion.
About the xenophobia: I’m not sure if I really understood where he was coming from in the first half of the article, possibly all of that is tongue in cheek and is poking fun at all parties. Judging from the forward (which is very funny) he’s got a subtle and pointed sense of humor and maybe I’m missing some of that in translation. I’ll try reading it again when I’m more clearheaded and looked at some of the other stuff.
The translation is good, for the most part I was taking it all in without a problem. In a very few places the style is a little akward and I wasn’t sure I was getting his whole meaning, maybe this is as much a problem with cultural translation as it is with lingual. One example is the last sentence, ending I think with “their lives are already in the balance.” I don’t think the meaning is conveyed completely there, or maybe it’s just me.
Anyway, If you want I can go all over it with a red pen, but I’m sure you have an editor already.
November 29th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
uranderson: Thanks for your comments and an offer to help. As you suspected, stylistic problems including awkward sentences were more a result of my (failed) attempt to translate the book as literally as possible, than any problem with the original. I’m glad you see some “subtle humor” in the text, because that is in my opinion one of the best things about ajarn Nidhi’s writings; I wasn’t sure whether it was was retained in English or not. On the editing front, Khun Kirit has kindly offered to edit the document for me, and so far he’s done a very thorough edit of the first few chapters. So, if all goes well, I should be able to replace this file with a better version in due time
November 30th, 2006 at 3:51 am
Yes, I’ve done some amatuer poetry translations and the hardest part was always knowing when to take liberties and when to stay as literal as possible. It certainly wasn’t easy and I was using languages (spanish and english) that have many cognates and similar sentence construction patterns, a luxury you don’t have I imagine. Good luck, I look forward to reading more of this and seeing how the final edited version turns out.
January 13th, 2007 at 12:13 am
Nice and interesting reading. i won´t comment on the translation since i´m no native speaker myself, it´s as easy to read and understand as could be for a foreigner..=)
As good literature usually leaves me with more questions than answers this one is no exception.
Especially the influence of the so called western culture on everyday´s life in thailand is what kept me reading on.
but i couldn´t help but wonder what exactly this western culture should be. our perception what defines “eastern” or “western” cultures seems to be “ambiguously defined” at best(sql-speech). Unfortunately there´s not enough room here to discuss this matter with all the intensity that it deserves so let me just contribute with some of my thoughts.
i think most of the attributes that are commonly assigned to a “culture” are actually shaped by a more or less distorted view through the lenses of mass media then and today, depending on the agenda they served.
since i come from central europe i certainly know that there´s no such thing as a typical western culture. and so i don´t think that there´s a thing we could call a typical asian culture. (unless we base it on the mere physical fact that westerners are usually caucasian with round eyes and most asians seem to have yellowish skin and slanted eyes..but then again, that´s a very superficial way to view things and rules out half the population in both east and west..
Thanks again for this interesting reading, a lot of thought food.