Irreverent, informed and downright eclectic books and reportage from Southeast Asia and beyond
When I first traveled around Asia in the early 1990s, I collaborated with the British Library on a long term recording project of indigenous music from the region.
Hundreds of hours of recordings from Pakistan to the Philippines resulted from these travels and they are now deposited with the British [...]
The photobook of Thailand’s Hill Tribes and Sea Nomads by photographer Aroon Thaewchatturat is a companion guide to Tom Vater’s Kulturschock title of the same name, published in Germany in 2006 with Reise-Know How Verlag.
The Moken sea gypsies, a small indigenous fishing community in Thailand, relied on their deep knowledge of the sea to save the lives of tourists and locals when the giant tsunami that devastated coastal communities in South Asia swept across their islands. Yet the Moken are facing stark choices in the aftermath of the catastrophe, [...]
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Vater’s observations on the human condition, as he experiences it firsthand along the less tourist-beaten paths of South and Southeast Asia, result in a no-holds-barred account of life in the region, distinctly as not described in the glossy brochures. Figuratively and at times literally far removed from the glittering urban centers and pampering resorts - [...]
The Moken - Sea Gypsies of the Andaman Sea is available from Topic Records (UK). The songs of the Moken, the last sea nomads of the Andaman Sea, where recorded by Tom Vater in Ko Surin National Park in 1999, located off the west coast of Thailand. Photos by Aroon Thaewchatturat. Liner notes by Tom Vater.