So today I learned from interview with author Piper Drake about the Korean manwha Full House. Apparently Full House was so popular in the 90’s that it spawned manga/anime and a series of remakes. Goodreads can be a scary place for authors but in this case it was very informative since I was thinking about purchasing a copy of Full House.
The Full House graphic novel from 2004
Piper shares a lovely anecdote about how much her mom is enjoying these Thai dramas and in one of these versions of Full House, the love interest is apparently constantly eating Gang Kiew Wan Gai (green curry chicken) which in turn drives Piper to perfect her own recipe.
This interview was so interesting to me on so many levels. One, it had been many years since I had visited Thailand and it had never occured to me that one way to armchair travel in this Covid lockdown was to watch a Thai drama. Another thing that struck me was that Piper goes on to talk about how food is meaningful to her and it informs her own fiction writing. This is definitely true for me. When I write our Asian inspired Urban Fantasy, I absolutely savor the parts where I can incorporate food into our fiction.
Lastly, the other thing that I only just noticed was that the Thai word for chicken was gai, which is the same in Cantonese. (Similarly it’s “ji” in Mandarin and in Korean.)
Piper’s work can be found here.
