Mice and a mystery

[heliopausa]

So, I was in Bangkok, with time on my hands, and decided to randomly jump on the public transport canal boat. 
"Where to?" asked the bus-conductor-equivalent - but I didn't know what might be possible, nor where the canal-boat was heading for. So I said
"Two stops", thinking that if it came to the crunch, I could probably walk back from two stops away.
And when the boat got two stops on, lo! there was a sign saying "To Jim Thompson's house".  So to Jim Thompson's house I went!

It was more a complex of houses, built from materials taken from local Thai people's houses - a handsome door here, a window there, a staircase, a few whole house-frames - as well as from other places - a chandelier, and old marble floor-tiles collected from post-war Belgium and Italy. 
Jim Thompson himself was an architect and a businessman (who started the whole modern Thai silk trade) and a collector - of architectural bits and pieces, of art, of experiences - and "Jim Thompson's House" serves as museum for some of his collection, including this wonderful nineteenth-century mouse-house, which was used for both amusement and gambling.


(Photo taken from jimthompson.com website)

He was also maybe an adventurer, and had been a member of the CIA-predecessor, the OSS, until 1946.  After the war he worked in the US legation in Bangkok (doing what exactly?  I don't know.) and made friends, and got into the silk trade and collected, and built his house... and one Sunday afternoon, he disappeared.

He had gone with a friend for a weekend over the border, in the hills resort district of Malaysia.  They were staying at the bungalow of Penang friends, and had all lunched together.  After lunch he said he would take a stroll along the road - the bungalow was on a hill, with just one access road, about a mile long, leading to it.  At 4:00 pm he dropped in to a house further down the road, the Lutheran Mission bungalow.  Half an hour later he was seen - but this report is less certain - talking to someone in a white car. 

And that was it.  He was never seen again.

The alarm was raised at 6:00 pm, and an intense search followed, involving, to quote Wikipedia, "the army, the Malaysian police field force, Orang Asli trekkers, Gurkhas, reward hunters, tourists, residents, mystics, scouts, missionaries, adventure seekers, American school students and British servicemen convalescing at the resort." 
But they found nothing, and investigations came up blank, and to this day the whole affair is subject of speculation. 

So there it is - the mystery.  How did, or why did, a confident, successful, fit, trained military man disappear on a mile-long stretch of easy road in a hilltop resort?   I have no idea.

Comments

[marmota_b]

Whoa. It's like one of those off-hand remarks in Holmes stories, except it's real!
Also, a connection to textiles always piques my interest!

[heliopausa]

Oh, the textiles are very prominent at the House. Silk in cocoons, being spun, dyed and made up as shirts, ties, cushion-covers... as many many things.
We were told that Thompson's Thai silks were the only silks used in the original stage version (and I suppose, the film version) of The King and I - their sumptuousness was what sparked the whole industry from that point.

[asakiyume]

That must have been very cool to see. Did they add in those things for historical interest, or was his house also a small production site?

[heliopausa]

His house wasn't a production site, though production went on just over the road, and over the canal. But this was a demonstration, just for interest, to show how things were done.

[edenfalling]

How marvelously strange!

[heliopausa]

Yes, indeed. A son of mild privilege, a connoisseur, (he was on the board of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo!), a spy in wartime North Africa, then mightily dominant in trade in an impoverished land... like a pale unbloody shadow of Colonel Kurtz.

[judo100]

That sounds like a great find! What were you doing in Bangkok? Have you been traveling a lot in Asia?

[heliopausa]

Well, great to stumble across, though well-promoted to tourists in Thailand. :)
No, indeed - in Vietnam a fair bit, but this was my first glimpse of Thailand, and I haven't been much elsewhere in Asia.

[blueinkedfrost]

Splendid photograph, and what a story of strange disappearance! That was a marvellous find.

[heliopausa]

A great thing to come across by chance, but it's well-promoted as an attraction for visitors to Bangkok, with a shop to buy silk from etc etc. The story feels rather Conrad to me - Conrad, or Kipling? Some sort of fable about colonialism, anyway.
The photo's not mine - in fact photography was not allowed inside the House. I took it from one of their websites.

[moon_custafer]

After reading about Thompson’s disappearance I visited jimthompson.com and momentarily wondered if I had the wrong address as it seemed to be a clothing catalogue. Then I realized the silk company still exists, and if anything appears to be playing their founder’s mysterious fate as adding romance to the brand.

[heliopausa]

They do! Though they don't seem to put in the more political speculations, which must surely occur, given the date of his disappearance, at the height of the VN war, and his background as spy (North Africa, wartime) and OSS agent working on the Thai-Lao border.
There's more about the disappearance at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Jim_Thompson

[moon_custafer]

Yes, that’s where I looked first. I think Wikipedia draws at least some of the earlier biographical details from the company website.

[sovay]

But they found nothing, and investigations came up blank, and to this day the whole affair is subject of speculation.

That is an amazing mystery to walk into from just taking two stops on a canal boat.

[heliopausa]

I love just going and seeing where I end up - I call it 'bus bingo', but the canal boat was much more fun than a bus.

[harmony_lover]

Oh, my, what an amazing and mysterious story! And the house itself sounds fascinating. What an interesting man. Such a great thing to find by chance. :)

[heliopausa]

Yes, a man who led an extraordinary life, and then... even more strange!

[asakiyume]

Disappearances like this ought to be ominous--they're almost certainly due to something awful, especially if the disappearee was someone who worked for a spy agency--and yet when they disappear completely and without a trace or sign of struggle, there's always something kind of exciting and magical about them. (Or am I being callous here?)

[heliopausa]

Not trace of a struggle, nor of an accidental death by being struck by a passing car or truck, which otherwise could have been a probability - I can well see someone panicking at having accidentally killed the well-known wealthy foreigner, and just decamping with the body - but, as I say, there was no sign of that on the road.
But yes - 1967 - the height of the Vietnam War, and an old OSS hand may well have had an unknown mission (for any of the parties involved) to take him away suddenly, or some old enmity come to bite him, or someone trying to ensure he didn't get involved. But he was also a man with current enemies - there was anger about his collecting, and accusations that he had collected stolen artefacts (he was made to hand over three Buddha's heads to Thai authorities), and he had rivals in the silk trade, and he had a complicated love-life, which included romancing the wife of a Thai prince - I do think an ominous reading is the likeliest!