This collection of sixteen short stories opens on a comic satire, “Michigan Test”. As for the fifteen others, the author claimed they were about “left and right, sadness and mirth, ghosts and poetry”. And yes, there is sad love as in “We live in the same street”, there are ghosts as in “The crow” and “The song of the leaves”, there are stories about the life conditions, moods and feelings of country bumpkins in town as in “The capital”, and about the political struggles of young people as in “Noree”. The collection has enjoyed a widespread readership, not just among the general public but also among writers for the quality of its prose, its exactitude and its ability to change from story to story to convey an entirely different atmosphere and mood, all the more so as the topics chosen are unusual and differ widely. For instance, the stories “Phatikam” (well-meaning improvement) and “The song of the leaves” show the value of Thai arts and culture Thai people should preserve as a national inheritance, while “Mortar and pestle” is a daring if comical written attack on credulous beliefs in sacred objects. The thinking triggered by these stories, as stinging or derisive as they are, is well-meaning towards society at large and Thai society in particular, whose culture this son of a Chinese immigrant found fascinating and valuable all his life. “I’ve already published several collections of my writings,” the author writes in the preface. “But I can state that the one that makes me feel that I have achieved maturity as a writer is this one, this book entitled ‘In the same soi’.”