It is in the accumulation of these details that Lapcharoensap reveals his strength as a writer. With immense skill, he treads the line between narrating a story that is driven by his engaging and plausible characters, and making serious socio-political points about the way in which Thais are debased by flogging themselves and a bastardised version of their culture to foreigners.
As in all good first-person writing, this story reveals far more than our narrator thinks he is telling us. He reminisces fondly about how, as a child, he used to climb trees to fetch coconuts for foreigners. When he tells us that "For added effect, we'd make monkey noises when we climbed, which always made them laugh," Lapcharoensap's point is abundantly clear. Equally, the description of the postcard from a Miami girl, who invites the narrator to come and visit but fails to provide a return address, is subtly telling.