Title: Lost in the City
Year: 2006
Illustrator: Nikorn Studio
Volume: 4
Page: 48 / volume
Publisher: Thai Silk Co., Ltd.
Related Exhibition/Project: Lost in the City

Weaving history together with fantasy this 4-volume story recounts the remarkable life of American Jim Thompson. Thailand’s best-known foreign resident and a legend in his lifetime, he was responsible for reviving the fortunes of Thailand’s ailing silk industry. The tale begins in the present with struggling artist Navin making ends meet as a peanut seller while his best friend Dr. Piak has resorted to driving a tuk-tuk for a living. At the local bus station, Piak picks up a ride from a mysterious 100-year-old farang (foreign) man, who claims to live in Bangkok but cannot remember where. Enlisting Navin’s help, the two chancers make it their task to help the amnesiac man find his home. The ensuing journey takes them on a tour through history, the canals and different districts of Bangkok, and all the way back to the capital’s beginnings in 1782. Old Jim, who they mistakenly nickname Uncle Tom, is joined by his magical pet cockatoo Cocky, who enjoys pecking at Navin’s head.

As Navin and Piak struggle to keep up with Uncle Tom’s mission to find home, they take readers on a journey through a hilltop temple, an Indian restaurant, fabric market, massage parlour, eventually ending up at the famous tourist site of the Jim Thompson House Museum. Here Uncle Tom finally remembers the truth of his identity and then mysteriously disappears. Upon realising who he is, Navin and Piak come up with a hair-brained scheme to impersonate Thompson and fool the Silk Company’s management team into paying them for finding him!