Touch the Dragon: A Thai Journal

New material including photos, maps and an afterword by Karen Connelly is included in this new format edition of her 1993 Governor General’s Award-winning classic, Touch the Dragon: A Thai Journal. At the age of 17, the adventure-seeking Calgary teenager went to Thailand on a Rotary exchange program and her life changed forever. Twenty-four years later, Connelly is still travelling and writing, inspiring the world with her stories.Through vivid imagery, humour and careful observation of the families, school friends and Buddhist rituals around her, Connelly brings to life the small village in northern Thailand where she stayed for a year.Initially homesick and frustrated by the habits and lifestyle of the gentle but patriarchal Thais, Connelly begins to view herself as one of them by the end of her stay. The idea of returning to Canada becomes terrifying and strange because she has become so accustomed to her new community and the Thai way of life. Put together from her journals written at the time, Connelly’s to-the-moment chronicling of her experience reveals a momentous growing experience in the heart and mind of a young woman.