You Know Andrew Biggs? Isaan Thailand

When I first came to Thailand over 4 years ago to live, I moved to the lovely Isaan area of Ubon Ratchathani. Ubon is sleepy but is quite a big city and you can get virtually anything you need. I have the best of both worlds.

After arriving in Ubon and making my way about the place and meeting many of the lovely Isaan inhabitants, I would occasionally be asked, my name, where I was from, how old I was, if I had a girlfriend. These were the standard questions.

But there was one question that always used to throw me. “Do you know Andrew Biggs?” But when Thais said it, “Do you know Andew Bick?” Now even if they had asked the question correctly and pronounced his name right, it wouldn’t have helped.

If you Google, ‘Andrew Biggs Thailand,’ there are just under 50,000 page results. The man even has a Wikipedia page be it brief, he still has one.

The first time I was asked if I knew Andrew Biggs, I thought he must be a famous local guy. Then it would be charades, he is on TV, no hair, and on it went. Now all this was going on in Thai and broken English. 99% of the time I thought these people were a little insane. In the end I would nod politely and say, “Oh, Andrew, on TV. Yes, he good man.” Then I would quickly run away.

Then one night I was sitting and watching Thai TV with Miss Noot and on come a programme called English Minute, it was a foreigner (farang as we are known) with some kids doing a small English skit. It would present a small phrase in English and then explained in Thai. It was really clever.

I asked Miss Noot, who is the farang? That is Andrew Big (Biggs). Oh, that is the Andrew Biggs people always ask me about.

I asked Miss Noot, ‘Is he famous in Thailand?’ ‘Yes, he is,’ she replied.

So I finally knew who Andrew Biggs was, well I could put a face to his name now. Then over the years I found out how popular he was. He was hosting a morning show on TV, in movies, on radio, and of course a successful author and the creme de la creme a few guest appearances on a Thai TV soap or drama.

When I first actually researched who he was, I found many people bagging the guy in forums across Thailand. I am pretty sure most of these people didn’t know the guy from a bar of soap but bagged him because of the persona they had seen on TV or what he had written in his newspaper articles.

After reading so many people bagging him I thought maybe he was a bit of a tool. But then I read what the guy has achieved in Thailand since moving here.

If you want to get a brief history on how Andrew came to learn Thai so well, there are two articles he wrote in two parts which are really well written and entertaining. Here are the links for Ramkhamhaeng University secrets part 1 and Ramkhamhaeng University secrets part 2. I recommend these two articles, the are humourous.

Andrew has won some very prestigious awards; in 2005 he received the prestigious Phetch Siam Award for excellence in using the Thai language, the first Westerner to receive the award.

In July 2007 on Thai Language Day, the Thai Government's Ministry of Culture awarded him Excellent User of the Thai Language. It was the first time the award had been given to a foreigner.

Now, I don’t care what you say, you do not get recognition like this unless you are doing something right. So I shelved all those negative comments and put them down to the tall poppy syndrome. Just some expats, who were being tossers and shooting their mouths off at a guy who has succeeded in Thailand.

Andrew writes a blog andrewbiggs.com/blog2/ that he updates as often as he can being the busy man he is. There are some very interesting reads there. Last year he spoke about running a marathon and then blogged about his training and then the aftermath of the Bangkok Marathon. I gave him huge Kudos for running a marathon and the post is an excellent read on his experiences during the race.

This is a funny read on a Thai taxi driver who asked Andrew, Whose side he was on in the political debacle that was going on a while back. He writes about many things, really whatever is on his mind.

He wrote this article in the Bangkok post called, Sex in the Classroom and it is a really funny story. It goes over some of the small pronunciation problems Thais have.

Andrew Biggs Academy, is a popular extra curricular school he has opened. It teaches students from kindergarten to adults. There are also Thai classes for expats on offer as well.

Anyway after all these years, today I finally met the man. It was very briefly as he was busy. He was at Sunee Grand Hotel for an English Reading Marathon, this is what the flyers said that were circulated weeks before the day.

I wanted to get there about 10:30am but as things happen, I arrived late, just after lunchtime. Andrew had finished his morning presentation and was being whisked off to have some lunch before returning to judge a speech contest.



It had taken Andrew 50 minutes to walk from the 4th floor convention rooms to the van waiting for him. He had a crowd gathered around him as he looked at some stalls. He is seen as a star in Thailand, and in Ubon he would be elevated to superstar. He was very politely chatting to people, signing autographs and of course being in many photos.

I started to chat to the owner of the Toyota dealership here in Ubon. He has three sons who go to Assumption College; He was part of the lunch party and taking Andrew for lunch and invited me to tag along. This was incredibly generous and a genuine offer but I very politely declined as I hadn’t even met Andrew at that time and thought it would have been a little rude jumping in the van with them.

Anyway, I then had a chance to chat to Andrew. The first thing I said, “You are a lot taller than I thought.” He said that people always say this. The guy is 186cms tall.

What a stupid thing to say to the guy straight up, hey? From seeing him on TV I thought he was a little dumpy. I was wrong and he did say that he has been back exercising again after his marathon triumph.

We spoke for maybe 3 minutes, and all I can say is the guy was a champ. He seemed very genuine and I enjoyed the brief encounter. I wish I had enough time to do a small interview with him. We spoke about nothing over exciting. It was just two Aussies chatting.

He went off to lunch and I made my way to the speech contest area. There was a contest on and a few of our students from Assumption were competing. I was there to offer some support to them. Andrew returned a little late from his lunch date and the contest started.

I will blog on this in the next few days.

Brunty

P.S. Has anyone else met Andrew Biggs, and if you have. How did you find the man, the persona, the superstar?