richard s. ehrlich

foreign correspondent
photojournalist
radio reporter
illustrator
and author
reporting from asia
since 1978.

greetings from bangkok, thailand!



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click *here* to see more than 3,000 of my photos on flickr)

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animists' items Go to animists' photostream

click *here* to see more than 3,000 of my photos on flickr)



biographical information (columbia university's foreign correspondent's award & resume)


"Hello My Big Big Honey!"

I am also co-author and co-photographer of the nonfiction book of interviews, documentation and investigative journalism titled:

"Hello My Big Big Honey!"

Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews


Published in San Francisco in September 2000, this 252-page edition is illustrated with 25 color photographs.




TIME magazine hailed this book for its investigative journalism, interviews, and "intimate portrait" of the sex industry in Thailand.

"Does love conquer poverty, cultural barriers and the fear of AIDS? Sometimes..."

-- TIME



"A number of themes run through the book: prostitution, love, family, cultural stereotypes, AIDS. The most prominent, however, and perhaps the most interesting is money.

"'Hello My Big Big Honey!' is interesting and readable, surprising and engaging...intriguing...picking up a copy of 'Hello My Big Big Honey!' is worthwhile..."

-- Bangkok Post



A "masterwork" of "feminist research"

-- The British Library's Oriental and India Office Collections



"...very funny..."

-- Publishers Weekly



"...a Freudian whirlpool of sexual fantasies and frustration, of damaged egos and haunting super-egos, of dreams of pure love and acts of cold calculation, and a milieu of cross-cultural mayhem."

-- The Far Eastern Economic Review



Richard S. Ehrlich is the Bangkok-based co-author and co-photographer, along with Dave Walker, of a book of investigative journalism entitled, "Hello My Big Big Honey!" Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews.

Nearly all of the girls have flocked to the cities and resorts to escape their own prison: an impoverished existence in Thailand's rural expanses, whereas a night's takings from the city bar could sustain a family for a month.

From Isan's desperately poor, rice farming villages, where hunger is the norm, the bars of Bangkok or Pattaya are a welcome escape.

For girls with little education, they provide an opportunity to shine, and have the honour of providing for their families by sending new-found riches back home.

-- The Observer, U.K.



"Thailand super-expats Richard Ehrlich and Dave Walker have many distinguished lines on their resumes, though none quite so noteworthy as 'Hello My Big Big Honey!', their anthology of love letters written to Bangkok bar girls by men of all nationalities, who, once back in the lands of dowdy, nagging women, strip malls, and other nine-to-five drudgery, can't seem to get the exotic vacation trollops of Thailand out of their minds."

-- Smile When You're Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer, by Chuck Thompson



"'Hello My Big Big Honey!" Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews -- This classic study of the Bangkok bar scene has been extolled by anthropologists and sociologists throughout the world."

-- S. Tsow, The Nation newspaper, Thailand



"...our favorite is the timeless classic, 'Hello My Big Big Honey!'"

-- Bangkok Inside Out



This book is a collection of love letters, written by men from all over the world, to Thai women who work in bars on Bangkok's famous Patpong Road.

Plus revealing, in-depth, question-and-answer interviews with the women who receive them.

How does romance blossom amid the harsh streets?

"Hello My Big Big Honey!" devles beyond the neon, glitz, hype, and tragedy of Bangkok's red-lit nights and discovers a world of loneliness, depseration and -- sometimes -- love.


This latest American edition -- ISBN 0867194731 -- can be ordered through any local bookshop or Internet bookseller, including Amazon.com, for delivery worldwide.



The *Lonely Planet* Guide to Thailand, July 2001 edition, and the *Lonely Planet* Guide to Bangkok, August 2001 edition, both recommend this book in their *Culture and Society* section.

Lonely Planet's Joe Cummings -- winner of the "2002 Best Travel Writing, Peace Corps Writers' Awards" -- wrote:

"Hello My Big Big Honey!" Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews -- also published in French as 'Bonjour ma Grande Grande Cherie!' -- by Richard Ehrlich and Dave Walker, delivers exactly what the title describes.

This collection of letters between Thai bar workers and their farang (foreigners of European descent) clients and the verbatim question-and-answer interviews with the women, discloses more about the complex nature of these encounters than 10 academic treatises of similar size."


"Hello My Big Big Honey!" is also *one of only three* books recommended by the September 2002 edition of the *Lonely Planet* Bangkok: Condensed Guide written by Rebecca Turner.

She says in her "Bangkok in Print" section that "Hello My Big Big Honey!" is among the "better reads" and is "intriguing..."


Bangkok -- Thailand: Where an Old Man Can Think He is Debonair
The Observer, U.K.





Translations in German, Italian and French have been published, titled:




"HELLO MY BIG BIG HONEY!" (DEUTSCHE FASSUNG)

Liebesbriefe an Bangkok's Barmaedchen und ihre Aussagestarken Interviews




"HELLO MY BIG BIG HONEY!" ist cine his dahin nie erzahltc Darstellung der Liebesleben von Bangkoker Barmadchen und den Auslandern, von denen die Madchen gemietet werden -- und sich dazu in ihren eigenen Worten hekennen.

Eine Sammlung von Liebesleben aus derganzen Welt, an die Ladies of the Night, die in den Bars von Bangkok's beruhmter Patpong-Strabe arheiten. Dazu enthullende, in die Tiefe gehende Interviews mit den Frauen, die die Briefe empfangen.

Warum sind einige Manner so von Thai-Prostituierten besessen? Kann Geld wahre Liehe kaufen? Wie kann inmitten der rauhen Welt der Strabe eine Romance bluhen?

Heiraten Barmadchen ihre Kunden?

"HELLO MY BIG BIG HONEY!" forscht jenseits der Neonlichter nach, jenseits des Glanzes, cles Werberummels und der Tragodien von Bangkok's rot erleuchteten Nachten und entdeckt eine Welt der Einsam-keit, der Verzweiflung unclomanchmaloder Liehe.





"Buongiorno Mio Grande Grande Amore!"



"...un ritratto intimo..."
--TIME

"BUONGIORNO MIO GRANDE GRANDE AMORE!" presenta una ras-segna, mai vista prima, della vita sentimentale delle bar-girls di Bangkok e degli stranieri che le "noleggiano" -- raccontata dalle loro stesse parole.

Una raccolta di lettere d'amore provenienti da tutto il mondo, scritte alle signore della notte che lavorano nei bar della famosa Patpong Road di Bangkok. Inoltre, le interviste con le donne che le hanno ricevute, ne sono ancora piu profondamente rivelatrici.

Perche alcuni uomini sono ossessionati dalle prostitute Thailan-desi? Puo forse il denaro comperare il vero amore? Come puo fiorire un idillio in mezzo a quelle aspre strade?

Le bar-girls si sposano con i loro clienti?

"BUONGIORNO MIO GRANDE GRANDE AMORE!" scava al di la delle luci al neon, del luccichio, della eccitazione e della tragedia dei night a luci rosse di Bangkok e mette in luce un mondo di solitudine, disperazione e -- qualche volta -- di amore.


A French-language translation -- ISBN 9748434478 -- of the 172-page edition, titled: "Bonjour ma Grande Grande Cherie!" Lettres d'Amour aux Filles des Bars de Bangkok et Interviews Revelatrices, was published in Bangkok in 1998 and is also on sale at most bookshops throughout Thailand and the French-language book websites listed below.





Translated into French by Bangkok-based Le Figaro correspondent Florence Compain and France's RTL radio correspondent Cyril Payen, this book is also available titled:

"Bonjour ma Grande Grande Cherie!" Lettres d'Amour aux Filles des Bars de Bangkok et Interviews Revelatrices is available in bookshops throughout Thailand, including at the Alliance Francaise de Bangkok, and also worldwide via Amazon.com and other websites.

Gavroche magazine reviews the French edition

"entirely free of the greasy imprint of voyeurism"






"Hello My Big Big Honey!" is also available in the personal libraries of:


Robert Crumb, *underground* cartoonist

Matt Dillon, actor

DMX, rap star

Dennis Miller, comedian

Mandy Moore, singer and actress

George Meyer, writer on "The Simpsons"

Carmen Elecktra, actress and model

Eva Mendez, actress

Michael Bolton, singer

Chou Yun Fat, actor

Steven Seagal, actor

Tracy Quan, author of "Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl"

Terry Zwigoff, film director

Joe Bob Briggs, television personality

Warren Hinckle, Ramparts magazine's former editor

Jack Hirschman, "one of San Francisco's few remaining Beat poets who you can still find in North Beach's Cafe Trieste, making his usual rounds meeting his bohemian neighbors"

Jack Boulware, author of "Sex American Style: An Illustrated Romp Through the Golden Age of Heterosexuality" and "San Francisco Bizarro"

Sienna Guillory, actress in "Resident Evil: Apocalypse"

Nancy Reiko Kato, San Francisco's national organizer for Radical Women, a Trotskyist Feminist group

Tony Poe, notorious American C.I.A. paramilitary guerrilla leader in Laos, Tibet and Indonesia (alas, Tony passed away in July 2003 in San Francisco)





At the Tate Modern Gallery in London, "Hello My Big Big Honey!" appeared in an installation called, "Untitled (2006)" by conceptual artist Ms. Simryn Gill.




Click *here* to enter London's Tate Modern Gallery and witness the exhibition of "Hello My Big Big Honey!"

"When the Queen opened Tate Modern on May 11, 2000, London acquired its most important new museum since Edward VII opened the Tate Gallery at Millbank more than 100 years before.

"In transforming Sir Giles Gilbert Scott's Bankside Power Station into a pristine space for contemporary art, Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron lit a match that kindled a British love affair with modern art."

-- The Telegraph, U.K.


Tate Modern Odd: A Woman Obsessively Cuts Words From "Hello My Big Big Honey!"
*the correspondent* magazine, published by the foreign correspondents' club of hong kong



*free* excerpts


A 7,500-word *free* excerpt from "Hello My Big Big Honey!" Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews, is available for you to *save* along with:

book reviews
university thesis papers
readers' comments
details of how this book was written
and how to order this book through amazon and other internet sites

(or order the book at your local bookshop, and examine it there before deciding to buy)

for full details plus free text, go to

"hello my big big honey!" *click here*



san francisco book tour, etc.



"Hello My Big Big Book Tour"
*dateline* magazine, published by the foreign correspondents' club of thailand



Angels in Bikinis: Collecting Love Letters, Conducting Interviews, and Other Secrets About Writing the Book
*dateline* magazine, published by the foreign correspondents' club of thailand






I am one of the main researchers and writers of the 444-page non-fiction book about Thailand's history titled,


"1946-2009 Chronicle of Thailand: 64 Years of Headline News"


published in 2009 by the Bangkok Post and Editions Didier Millet. ISBN 9789814217125

The book documents, among other events, America's often brutal involvement in Thailand during the widening U.S.-Vietnam War, plus Thailand's military dictators who napalmed their own northern hill tribes and hunted down suspected Chinese and other communists while this Southeast Asian nation was roiled by multiple coups and attempted putsches.








I was also one of the reporters who did interviews for the non-fiction book titled,


"60 Stories of Royal Lineage"


portraying descendents of Thailand's royal families, which was published in Bangkok in 2008.

ISBN: 9789743835582





who am i?


photos by al rockoff


with the royal thai army on ratchadamri road, may 19, 2010,
during their final attack on the red shirts' barricades


Interview with Richard S. Ehrlich, foreign correspondent: Who are you? What is your background?
citylife chiang mai

Road Warriors: Interviewing Richard S. Ehrlich -- Warrior of Words
untamed travel magazine

Back From The Front: Interview with Richard Ehrlich
european press network

Xpat Files: Breathless in Bangkok
richard s. ehrlich's true confessions in travelocity magazine

Interviewing the Interviewer
richard s. ehrlich interrogated by scott murray

Kabul -- Afghan Blues
*dateline* magazine, published by the foreign correspondents' club of thailand

Kabul -- Trouble If You're An American Reporter
united press international


foreign correspondents club of cambodia

photo by tim page



biographical information (columbia university's foreign correspondent's award & resume)



I also endorse

The Media Legal Defence Initiative

The Media Legal Defence Initiative exists to help journalists and media outlets defend their rights.

"We do this by providing financial assistance to pay legal fees, helping to access free legal advice and taking on cases in international courts and supervisory bodies.

"If you are a journalist and you are being sued, or if you are a friend or family of a journalist who is in prison, we can:

-- Help you find and pay for a lawyer

-- Work with your lawyer to appeal your case to international courts and tribunals

-- Help get an international campaign going about your case

-- We help all journalists - broadcast or print, internet or traditional."




the following books reference,

and quote,

investigative news reporting

by "richard s. ehrlich"





to see inside the above
books which reference "richard s. ehrlich"
(or search for more books) click *here*




The worldwide copyright for all stories and photographs throughout this website remain those of Richard S. Ehrlich. Any commercial use of this website's text and photographs is forbidden, unless arranged by signed contract with Richard S. Ehrlich. (Non-commercial *saving* / *blogging* / *tweeting* / *posting* / *e-mailing* / and *linking* of all text and photos is free.)

richard s. ehrlich is a foreign correspondent, photojournalist, illustrator and author, reporting from asia since 1978.

if you would like to gift a financial contribution, please consider purchasing a *high quality print* of a photograph.

if you would like me to report for your media, please e-mail your payment rates to:

animists *at* yahoo *dot* com





www.asia-correspondent.110mb.com


*go to animists' photostream* to see more than 3,000 photos by richard s. ehrlich on flickr





want to read a free 7,500-word "hello my big big honey!" excerpt?


click *here* for a free 7,500-word excerpt





buy "Hello My Big Big Honey!" now on amazon.com





the newest, biggest, san francisco edition of this book is 252 pages, and includes including 25 color photographs (available from amazon.com and other websites.

the original bangkok edition of this book is 172 pages, without photographs (available at all bookshops throughout thailand, in the following languages: english, french, italian and german).



*click here* to read for *free* the latest news stories by richard s. ehrlich from

afghanistan
bangladesh
bhutan
burma
cambodia
china
east timor
hong kong
india
indonesia
laos
malaysia
nepal
pakistan
philippines
sri lanka
thailand
tibet
vietnam

and

amsterdam
budapest
istanbul
paris
prague
vatican city
san francisco
new york





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