Today’s piece is more a series of observations, a sort of diary entry, I suppose.
The first of the observations will be obvious to anyone in Thailand at the moment and that is the heat. The months of March and April are Thailand’s hottest. Even the schools have to shut down. It was 39c at 16:30 today, with a note on the meteorological site that it felt like 44c
I can confirm that it did too.
Still, Songkhran, the ancient Thai New Year, starts on the 14th and the welcome, cooling monsoon should arrive within a month of that, although it has been a month late before now, which is blamed on climate change.
The second of my observations concerns embarrassment. Mild embarrassment of the kind one feels on coming face to face with a stranger unexpectedly. In Thailand, many people will just look straight through you. However, men may nod; older women may smile and younger women may giggle, but none of them (in the villages) do what most Brits would do, which is say ‘Hello’.
They just don’t have the word.
The third of my observations is to do with the meaning of the word ‘paranormal’. I looked it up last night and as far as I remember the definition was: ‘Something not satisfactorily explained by science’. One source offered examples such as telepathy and clairvoyance.
OK, that will do for me.
So, what bothers me is authors labelling their books on vampires, zombies and the like ‘paranormal’. Are they saying that they believe in these creatures? Because if the accept that they don’t exist, then they cannot honestly label their stories as paranormal.
It is just a nagging thought at the moment, but it won’t go away.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not denigrating the stories! I have written a vampire story myself; I am only criticising the sloppy labelling, the nomenclature.
What do you think?
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Owen Jones, Amazon Best-Selling Author from Barry, Wales, has lived in several countries and travelled in many more. While studying Russian in the USSR in the '70's, he hobnobbed with spies on a regular basis; in Suriname, he got caught up in the 1982 coup; and while a company director, he joined the crew of four as the galley slave to sail from Barry to Gibraltar a home-made concrete yacht, which was almost rammed by a Russian oil tanker and an American aircraft carrier.
“I am a Celt, and we are romantic”, he said when asked about his writing style, “and I firmly believe in reincarnation, Karma and Fate, so, sayings like 'Do unto another...', and 'What goes round comes around' are central to my life and reflected in my work. I write about what I see, or think I see, or dream... and, in the end it is all the same really”. He speaks seven languages and is learning Thai, since he lives in Thailand with his Thai wife of fifteen years.
His first novel, Daddy's Hobby is from the seven-part series 'Behind The Smile: The Story of Lek, a Bar Girl in Pattaya', but his largest collection is 'The Megan Series', twenty-three novelettes on the psychic development of a teenage girl, the subtitle of which, 'A Spirit Guide, A Ghost Tiger and One Scary Mother!' sums them up nicely. He has written fifty novels and novelettes, including: Dead Centre; Andropov's Cuckoo; Fate Twister; The Disallowed (a philosophical comedy); Tiger Lily of Bangkok; and A Night in Annwn (Annwn being the ancient Welsh word for Heaven). Many have been translated into foreign languages and narrated into audio books.
Owen Jones writes stories set in Wales, Spain and Thailand, where he now lives. He is a life-long Spiritualist, and this belief is interwoven, in a very realistic way, into many of his books and storylines. If you like a touch of the 'supernatural', try his books
He sums his life up thus: “Born in the Land of Song, Living in the Land of Smiles”.
