[I’ve been sent a set of questions from a fan of this blog who wanted to write about it for his homework assignment. Since it took me some time to answer, and since my answers may be of interest to some people who follow this blog, I have asked and been given permission to post a full set of Q&A here. Thank you, Khun Apin, for your questions and allowing me to post my answers :)]
[เพิ่งเขียนตอบนักศึกษาไทยในอเมริกาท่านหนึ่งที่อยากทำรายงานเกี่ยวกับบล็อกนี้ ก็เลยเอามาแปะไว้ในนี้เผื่อใครจะสนใจค่ะ ยังไม่มีเวลาแปลเป็นภาษาไทย (การบ้านเขาเป็นภาษาอังกฤษ) – เอาไว้ว่างๆ จะแปลนะคะ หรือถ้าใครอยากแปลให้ก็จะยินดีอย่างยิ่ง ;)]
1. Personal background
Question: How would you describe your life journey until the day you start blogging? Please describe where you’re from, where you studied, and where you worked. Also, how have they shaped your life as a blogger.
Answer: My life journey had been fairly typical and predictable right up to the day I started blogging (and then it got less and less predictable thereafter, but also at the same time more and more exciting, so I can’t complain :)). I got a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard in 1996 and MBA in finance from New York University in 2000. I worked in banking (1996-1998) and finance (2000-2006) industries before starting my own blog at www.fringer.org in August 2005. At that time I was assistant VP of corporate strategy at SCB Securities, an investment bank in Thailand.
My interests in business and financial sector, as well as the interference of politics (and politicians) in them, explain why the content on my blog (and later on in my books and columns) has been heavily skewed toward those topics. Also, the fact that Thai journalists in general don’t know much about the intricacies of deals, and the “insiders” don’t want to divulge information that’s necessary for them to know, made blogging about these issues particularly attractive to me – I felt like I was writing about something that’s totally “new” to people outside the realm of finance.
My blog wasn’t so much a “getaway” from my full-time work, as it was a place to share my thoughts on work-related issues that I thought might be of public interest. (Also, trying to explain arcane subjects and technicalities (e.g. securities laws) in easily-understood terms for non-finance types was, and has since been, a fun challenge).
[I’ve been sent a set of questions from a fan of this blog who wanted to write about it for his homework assignment. Since it took me some time to answer, and since my answers may be of interest to some people who follow this blog, I have asked and been given permission to post a full set of Q&A here. Thank you, Khun Apin, for your questions and allowing me to post my answers :)]
[เพิ่งเขียนตอบนักศึกษาไทยในอเมริกาท่านหนึ่งที่อยากทำรายงานเกี่ยวกับบล็อกนี้ ก็เลยเอามาแปะไว้ในนี้เผื่อใครจะสนใจค่ะ ยังไม่มีเวลาแปลเป็นภาษาไทย (การบ้านเขาเป็นภาษาอังกฤษ) – เอาไว้ว่างๆ จะแปลนะคะ หรือถ้าใครอยากแปลให้ก็จะยินดีอย่างยิ่ง ;)]
1. Personal background
Question: How would you describe your life journey until the day you start blogging? Please describe where you’re from, where you studied, and where you worked. Also, how have they shaped your life as a blogger.
Answer: My life journey had been fairly typical and predictable right up to the day I started blogging (and then it got less and less predictable thereafter, but also at the same time more and more exciting, so I can’t complain :)). I got a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard in 1996 and MBA in finance from New York University in 2000. I worked in banking (1996-1998) and finance (2000-2006) industries before starting my own blog at www.fringer.org in August 2005. At that time I was assistant VP of corporate strategy at SCB Securities, an investment bank in Thailand.
My interests in business and financial sector, as well as the interference of politics (and politicians) in them, explain why the content on my blog (and later on in my books and columns) has been heavily skewed toward those topics. Also, the fact that Thai journalists in general don’t know much about the intricacies of deals, and the “insiders” don’t want to divulge information that’s necessary for them to know, made blogging about these issues particularly attractive to me – I felt like I was writing about something that’s totally “new” to people outside the realm of finance.
My blog wasn’t so much a “getaway” from my full-time work, as it was a place to share my thoughts on work-related issues that I thought might be of public interest. (Also, trying to explain arcane subjects and technicalities (e.g. securities laws) in easily-understood terms for non-finance types was, and has since been, a fun challenge).
Question: Looking back to when you were in the beginning or middle of previous, have you ever thought that you would ever become a blogger? Have you ever regretted abandoning your job to become a blogger and writer?
Answer: I started this blog as a hobby; after reading other people’s blogs in English for months, I started looking around the Internet for Thai blogs. The more I read them, the more I felt compelled to start my own blog. At the time I never really thought of myself as “blogger” as such. I also never really had a specific goal that one day I would “abandon” my job in order to blog and write full-time. As it happened, the opportunities just sort of presented themselves in a way that led me to write more and more (and so naturally has less and less time to devote to full-time job). For example, my blogging led me to an invitation from Pokpong Junvith, economics professor and the first editor of Open Online, a Thai webzine, to write a monthly column. That opened the door for me to having my own columns in newspapers, translation contracts for books that I like, research project for Thai think tanks, and a teaching gig at Thammasat University as adjunct professor. At one point I simply realized that I enjoy writing much more than investment banking, and I could actually make a living out of all of these writing-related or writing-led things I was doing combined. That made my decision to quit full-time job at the end of 2008 an easy one to make. Since I’ve been having a heck of a time after that, I never regret becoming a blogger and writer (although I have neither the urge nor the time to blog regularly anymore, since my columns in newspapers and magazines have become primary outlets for my writings).
Question: Generally, who do you admire? (I see names like Gramsci, Marx, Nietzsche,… but who is your role model? and why?)
Answer: I admire many people, easily in the hundreds. Typically they are or were writers, doers, and thinkers who wrote my favorite books or run my favorite companies or social enterprises. Personal “heroes” who have greatly inspired me and about whom I try to write about as much as possible include Professor Muhammad Yunus, Professor Lawrence Lessig, Professor Amartya Sen, and Paul Hawken. I sincerely believe that their visions are exactly what the human race needs to survive and progress in the 21st century. As for the likes of Gramsci and Nietzsche, I read them now and then to remind myself how cruel the world is, so that I wouldn’t be too lazy or complacent 🙂
2. Blogging life
Question: What made you blog? What was the major motivation? Is there anyone that inspire you to blog?
Answer: I started a blog as a hobby, mainly to practice writing in Thai (which was getting rusty, since my office uses English for most pitches and legal agreements) and to share my thoughts and interests on various topics to anyone who might be interested. I decided to start my own blog after seeing how easy it is to set one up. Reading many bloggers inspired me to start my own blog, but two blogs in particular that inspired me were Boing Boing and Daily Kos. Originally I wanted to blog in English also, as I knew there would be some non-Thai fans of my previous website (Home of the Underdogs, a large repository of “abandonware” games) who ‘discovered’ my blog through web search. But as time went on, and as anti-Thaksin (the then-Prime Minister) political rallies in Thailand became more intense and I got drawn into them, I began writing more and more blog posts in Thai.
Question: What do you mean by ‘fringer.org’?
Answer: I wanted a name that would be easy to remember and reflect who I am to some extent. Since bleeding-heart liberals in Thailand seem to be a rare breed compared to the more numerous (and vocal) Marxists/socialists and (ultra) conservatives, I thought the name “fringer” would fit – someone who is on the “fringe” of Thai society. Also, “fringer” when translated to Thai is “kon chai kob,” which typically refers to the disadvantaged who live on the fringes of society. I thought this meaning of “physical fringe” is a nice analogy to “intellectual fringe” that I found myself on.
Question: How long have you been blogging? What has been the most significant/memorable work since you have started?
Answer: I have been blogging for about 5 and a half years (starting in August 2005). Among blog posts that I like the most are one post about Doraemon toy (Doraemon is one of the most famous Japanese manga in Thailand) and two travel series: one trip to Bhutan (which later became half a book), and another one to Trang, a province in the south of Thailand. They may not be “significant” in terms of attracting visitors to my blog, but they were a blast for me to write and post various accompanying pictures. I also stayed up very late writing these posts, so that made them even more memorable.
Question: What genre is your blog?
Answer: I’m not sure what “genre” you would call it. I just post whatever I find interesting and think some people out there might find interesting too. Judging from the content in the past 5 years, I guess you could call the genre “commentary” – on Thai business, politics, social issues, and the incompetence of Thailand’s Internet regulators. Travelogues, games recommendations, and random musings (gripes) are also part of this blog.
Question: Where do you get the information to write?
Answer: Depends on the topic. If it’s about something I already know quite well (capital market laws, for instance), I don’t have to find much more information to start a post. If it’s about something I hardly know about (say, climate change), then I will try to do as much research as I can beforehand (from books and the Internet).
Question: What do you hope to accomplish through fringer.org?
Answer: I never hoped to “accomplish” anything through this blog. I started blogging for fun, and for fun it shall remain. I think the moment that I start thinking about your question would be the moment that blogging stops being fun for me 😉
3. Other matters I find interesting 🙂
Question: Besides blogging regularly, I learned that you also write for other magazines. Which ones? And, what are they about? How would you compare those to what you blog?
Answer: As I mentioned earlier, I am now a full-time freelance writer (sorry if this sounds like an oxymoron – I just wanted to stress that I am a very busy ‘freelance’ :P), thanks to blogging that opened up a new career path for me. So I now write for various magazines and newspapers, including Krungthep Turakit, Sarakadee, Prachachat Turakit, and Women & Home. The columns range from commentary on capital markets, sustainability, social investment, to tales of inspiring thinkers and doers. They are more or less the same topics that I would blog about if I were to continue blogging regularly, since they are the topics that I am interested in. But since these columns have length limits and regular deadlines, I have to approach them differently (basically more systematically) from blogging, which can be done at any time and at any length I want.
Question: On your Facebook page, the ‘About’ section, it says ‘Building bridges, with words’ – What do you mean by that?
Answer: I don’t really have any original or Earth-shattering ideas to offer readers, and writing about those who do have those great ideas already can take up all of my life. Therefore, when I write, I feel more like a “bridge builder” who tries to bring these great ideas to the general audience, than someone who builds a house or some edifice from scratch.
Question: Would you consider yourself as a journalist? What would your definition of a journalist be? Is there anything you do that may overlap with what a mainstream journalist does?
Answer: I don’t consider myself a journalist, because I was never trained in journalism, and I never want to become one. I think the term “journalist” should refer to a “professional” who was trained formally in journalism. But I believe every blogger, especially one that writes about matters of public interest, should adhere to some basic principles of journalism, i.e. fact-checking and accountability. Being “neutral” or “well-rounded” is less important here, because blogging is more like a personal commentary than straightforward news. I think it’s okay to take sides, as long as the blogger clearly separates between “facts” and “opinions” and tell the readers where he/she got the facts from.
Question: Where do you see yourself in ten years? Do you think you will still blog regularly or move on to other things?
Answer: In ten years I will probably still be doing pretty much the same combination of things that I am doing today: writing, translating, teaching, and researching – with heavy emphasis on the first two. Since I see fringer.org as my own “personal public space” as well as the launching pad that steered me toward a more fulfilling life as a writer (to me anyhow), I don’t think I will ever let the blog disappear, even if I won’t have time to blog regularly ever again due to regular writing commitments.