heliopausa: (Default)
[personal profile] 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.

Date: 2018-12-09 01:10 pm (UTC)
marmota_b: Photo of my groundhog plushie puppet, holding a wrapped present (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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!

Date: 2018-12-11 10:21 am (UTC)
asakiyume: created by the ninja girl (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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?

Date: 2018-12-09 02:22 pm (UTC)
edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
From: [personal profile] edenfalling
How marvelously strange!

Date: 2018-12-09 03:40 pm (UTC)
judo100: (Albino Bison Blues)
From: [personal profile] judo100
That sounds like a great find! What were you doing in Bangkok? Have you been traveling a lot in Asia?

Date: 2018-12-09 05:20 pm (UTC)
blueinkedfrost: (Default)
From: [personal profile] blueinkedfrost
Splendid photograph, and what a story of strange disappearance! That was a marvellous find.

Date: 2018-12-09 06:29 pm (UTC)
moon_custafer: sexy bookshop mnager Dorothy Malone (Acme Bookshop)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2018-12-10 11:37 am (UTC)
moon_custafer: sexy bookshop mnager Dorothy Malone (Acme Bookshop)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2018-12-09 07:13 pm (UTC)
sovay: (Renfield)
From: [personal profile] 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.

Date: 2018-12-10 04:06 pm (UTC)
harmony_lover: (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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. :)

Date: 2018-12-11 10:19 am (UTC)
asakiyume: created by the ninja girl (Default)
From: [personal profile] 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?)

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