One of my first introductions to Thai art was actually in Manila. I was wandering around the Ayala Museum and struck up a conversation with a woman who’d just moved there from Bangkok. When I told her it was my next destination, she whispered only one word to me, as if it were a secret to be shared only between good friends: Silpakorn.

It was good advice. Silpakorn is the top art university in Thailand (although there are other very good ones such as Bangkok University and Chiang Mai University) and it’s definitely worth a visit—especially if you’re going to the Grand Palace, which is right across the street.

Many of Thailand’s top artists graduated from Silpakorn and quite a few of them teach there as well. The easiest way to find it is to tell the taxi driver to take you to the Grand Palace. Be prepared for a traffic jam, but you’ll be rewarded with exhibitions at three galleries when you finally arrive. The last time I visited I saw shows of graduating students from the Faculty of Printmaking and Faculty of Architecture as well as a faculty group show. Other times, I’ve seen shows of Japanese printmakers and traditional Thai painting. Some of the works in the exhibitions are for sale. Just ask a student or inquire at one of the staff offices near the galleries.

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Last week I wrote about South Korean writer Kyung-Sook Shin’s novel, Please Look After Mom, and how it has become a surprise hit in the United States.

So unprecedented is the success of the book—a fictional account of one Korean family’s emotional journey—that Korean culture analyst and Prof. Jung-Sun Park told me this might actually suggest a new dimension of the Korean wave or Korea fever (known locally as hallyu), which is the term used to describe the rising popularity of Korean culture around the world.

If this is indeed going to take the reputation of Korean cultural exports to another level worldwide, it’s certainly a noteworthy event. So the question that first comes to mind is why now, and why Shin’s book? What is it about this title that has so far generated such interest amongst Western readers?

Park believes there are several factors that might have contributed to the positive reception of the book in the United States. First, because Please Look After Mom had already experienced such a high level of success in Shin’s native country of South Korea, she believes it’s proof that it has an appeal for readers generally. After all, said Park, while not all local critics responded positively to the book, in a country where it’s proven difficult for Korean writers to have million-selling books, Shin’s has sold 1.7 million copies to date.

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Has Japan’s love for robots failed the country in its greatest time of need? Yes, says Timothy Hornyak, author of Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots. I spoke last week with Hornyak, who also currently blogs regularly at CNet on science and technology topics.

He told me that despite having always had a great admiration for ‘the marvels of Japanese engineering’ in general, his enthusiasm for Japanese robots has been ‘severely dampened,’ with the ongoing Fukushima nuclear crisis. ‘If there’s any place a robot would be needed, it’s at a disaster zone like this,’ Hornyak explained. He even called TEPCO himself last month to inquire: ‘I called (them) and asked, “Do you guys have robots?” and they said, “No, we don’t.” That was shocking.’

A week later, he heard that instead, the American iRobot Corporation, ‘had sent two kinds of military-grade robots, the PackBot and the Warrior, to Fukushima.’ The PackBots was first used by US ground troops in Afghanistan in 2002.

So why wasn’t robot-loving Japan able to utilize any useful specimens in the crucial weeks following last month’s magnitude 9.0 earthquake?

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South Korean writer Kyung-Sook Shin’s novel, Please Look After Mom, an emotional tale of one family’s complicated relations, has become a runaway hit—in the United States. The translated book, Shin’s first English language release, has already sold 100,000 copies and has become the first Korean novel to make the New York Times bestseller list. It’s even been featured by US media mogul Oprah Winfrey as one of her ‘18 Books to Watch for in April 2011.’

I recently spoke to Korean culture analyst and professor at California State University at Dominguez Hills Jung-Sun Park on the subject, who said she finds it both ‘interesting and remarkable’ that Shin’s book has been so widely embraced in the United States by audiences, critics and the media alike.

Park was visiting her native South Korea when Please Look After Mom was first released domestically back in 2008, and she remembers what a huge impact it had. ‘Everyone was talking about it and I remember my neighbour asked me to pick her up a copy when I told her I was going to the bookstore,’ she recalls, ‘She’s a middle-aged woman who I don’t think reads a lot, but because it was so popular and widely-read, I think she wanted to read it so she could join the conversation. It’s just an indication of how popular the book was back then.’

The 48-year-old Shin is one of the country's most popular and critically acclaimed novelists, and Please Look after Mom has sold 1.7 million copies in South Korea to date.

Park added, ‘Although it's premature to predict whether this initial success will continue, this is quite a significant turning point for the globalization of Korean literature.’  She explained to me that even though Korean literature—whether classic, modern, contemporary, children's—has been introduced to the world, no work before Shin’s has received this amount of media coverage and acclaim from overseas.

She wondered aloud: ‘Could this be a new dimension of the Korean Wave?’

The Korean Wave phenomenon is something many people continue to follow with fascination, including myself, and so I’ll touch more on these topics next week, including Park’s theories on why this particular Korean book has really taken off in the US, and why Shin might be the first contemporary South Korean writer to hit it so big in America.

If your time in Bangkok is limited, but your love for art is great, then head right to the Silom Galleria—that I wrote about last week—and you’re likely to leave satiated. There are more than ten galleries there and you’ll get a great introduction to the Thai contemporary art scene.

If you have more time in the city or are around the multi-level shopping emporium known as Mahboonkrong, or MBK, center, here are a few more Bangkok art spots on my must-see list. (They’re all near the National Stadium Skytrain Station in the Pathumwan area.):

The Bangkok Art and Culture Center (BACC) is a good place to start, as it’s located right next to the National Stadium Skytrain Station. The space is hard-to-miss: big, new, shiny, white and with a rotunda. The building took a decade of discussion and planning before it was finally built two years ago. It couldn’t be more different than the very traditional art spaces you see around the Grand Palace.

On a previous visit there, I caught a terrific show of local works centered around the theme of the famous Thai smile, ‘Traces of Siamese Smile: Art + Faith + Politics + Love.’ And the exhibit went far beyond just images of happy faces—it explored topics such as the mythology of the expression as well. There were works from some of the best-known Thai artists, including Chatchai Puipia. When you go, remember this isn’t a museum, which is actually a good thing. There are no admission fees or guards and there’s a lot of noise. To me, it feels more like a university art festival. There’s art, commerce and excitement throughout.

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