With Halloween just behind us, I thought it an appropriate time to talk about the love affair Thais have (and many Asians, in fact) with capturing themselves on film. Casual self-portrait photos, or selfies, are insanely popular here. While the North American and European trend seems to be of young insensitive folks making a duck face at inappropriate venues and occasions, like funerals, Ground Zero, and Holocaust memorials, the Thais prefer their selfies to be more touristy, novelty, and kitschy. Case in point: At the end of the summer we visited Hua Hin, a tourist town two hours outside Bangkok. There, we checked out a themed outdoor mall. The façades and décor were “old cowboy meets 1920s meets 1950s”. The shop fronts were dark plank wood to give a saloon feel. There were a couple old cars on display in the walkways, and oldies music piping throughout. A mish-mash of eras, really. It was fun and hokey, and an ideal venue to memorialize oneself. There are two kinds of selfies: the traditional selfie, in which the photographer and subject are the same person; and the assisted selfie, in which someone takes your picture for you. In the latter case, you are expected to return the favour, so that everyone in the group has a photographic memento of the event. This is also the more interesting variety of selfie to observe. Take a look:

Taken in Pranburi, at the beachside hotel where we overnighted.

Posing for a shot

Be ONE with the car!

Smile, girls!

Look at the camera and say, “Groovy!”

Work it, baby, work it!

Halloween is not as big an event here, as in the U.S. and Canada, but it is celebrated in some expat communities. Many international schools celebrate Halloween with costumes, decorations, activities, and parties. The martial arts studio where Keeran takes jiu-jitsu also hosted a party on Halloween. That was understandable, as the studio owner is Canadian, and many of the students are expat kids. One of my favourite selfies (of the assisted variety, of course) was the one taken in my favourite cosmetics shop, the Beauty Buffet, located inside the sky train station nearest to us. It’s tiny, cheap-and-sweet, and the girls are so enthusiastic and cute and complimentary, they can cheer up even the grumpiest customer. I popped in there with Keeran after the martial arts studio’s Halloween party, for some nail polish remover. The girls were over the moon to see him all dressed up, and fawned over him good and proper. Tib, the shop manager, could not resist: here was an opportunity to pose with a real live Halloween-costumed foreign boy. It was touristy, novelty, and kitschy: jackpot! What more can a selfie aficionado ask for? Here it is, the jackpot selfie: