Bangkok Noir

Mr. Tanaka hadn’t made his first job easy. In the real world there were no “cheat codes” to game the system. He had to figure out stuff one step at a time. Tanaka hadn’t stayed in any of the luxury hotels on Sukhumvit Road. Instead he had holed up, as if expecting trouble, in a compound in Thonglor—the heart of the Japanese expat community—ringed with CCTV cameras, security personnel and limited access. On screen, none of these obstacles would have taken more than a few keystrokes to blow through.

Tanaka droned on in a public speech fashion—all words, no images—with lots of very important people in the audience who actually appeared to be listening. Chinapat hated all of those words, and he hated more how the words made him captive, a passive, helpless, patient observer. Analogue boredom flowed like pain throughout the system.

The overhead lights dimmed, and behind him the film started.

The screening of The Taiji Truth ended with a slow fade to a group of fishermen sitting together with their wives and children. The villagers lived in Taiji, located in southwestern Japan. These were the same people who’d done the heavy work, the slicing and cutting, the killing in The Cove

. In this film the fishermen appeared as heroes, dressed like samurai. They talked about the history of their village and its simple, honest people, who only wanted to continue the traditions of their ancestors. Self-sufficient, modest, proud and very Japanese… but no one was talking about Academy Awards. The film had been financed by members of the far right in Japan and had been taken to Asian countries to show the true story of the people of Taiji and their relationship with the annual dolphin hunt.

The camera floated across the faces, making them look like humble, salt of the earth villagers who had little in terms of material possessions. The kind of people one rarely thought about as living in Japan. Chinapat thought they looked like men, women and children from a village near the Laotian border he’d once visited just to see what such a place looked like. He was more careful about unstructured visits, as they often led to little more than dust, barking dogs, chickens scratching the ground and the smell of wood fires. Bangkok was different. So was Taiji.

No more than five minutes into the documentary, there was a jump cut. Nothing gracefully prepared the audience for what came next.

A shudder arose as the screen filled with the Taiji bay boiled up a gruesome red. Blood gushed from dozens of gutted dolphins as local Japanese villagers slaughtered as if on a battleground, hacking and stabbing and cutting through the flesh. Tanaka started shouting in Japanese. A couple of the men in the first row ran to the front, using their sizeable bodies to block the screen. Other Japanese men from the second row ran to the projection room in the back. Chinapat heard them cursing in Japanese.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have had someone sabotage our film. Those who hate Japan stop at nothing to hurt us. What you are seeing is an example of the history of Anglo-Saxon cultural imperialism. They seek to interfere and bring down our traditions. We will stand together against such people.”

The Japanese in the audience applauded. After a few seconds they were on their feet giving Tanaka a standing ovation. It was Tanaka’s moment of glory. He actually smiled and bowed to the audience. The men outside the projection room were having difficulty getting in. The projectionist had locked the door from the inside.

“In Japan we follow the principle of sustainable use. Dolphins are a renewable resource.”

Chinapat kept his eye on the stage, watching the sea of dead and dying dolphins dancing over the faces and chests of the Japanese men from the audience who stood shoulder to shoulder, as if they’d practiced this formation. The shallow inland bay reminded him of Fanta strawberry red, one of Chinapat’s favorite drinks as a boy. The rest of the audience reacted with confusion and anger. Watching the men from the first five minutes gleefully slaughtering the dolphins horrified the women in the audience. They registered a common emotion, which exploded like a flock of birds that had spotted an eagle circling. The roaring sound of stale breath sucked deep back into the lungs, a rising tone of disgust salted with despair.

Finally the film stopped, and the men who’d been blocking the screen filed back and took their seats. Three other men came out of the project in booth, leaving a comrade inside to keep an eye on the projectionist.

As Tanaka resumed his speech, apologizing for the interruption and promising to file a complaint, he said, “What you’ve just seen is the work of terrorists.”