Either Turn the Light on, or Make it Morning!

“J-J-J-J-J-Jim, is that you?”

Malaysian Hills, where orchids grow,
Around a jungle bungalow,
And rugged pathways climb and twist,
A rich man vanished in the mist

At the height of World War II, James Harrison Wilson Thompson was recruited to serve as an operative in the OSS, the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency. He spent much of his time in Asia. After the war he tried an assortment of fields, ultimately settling on silk design, in Thailand.

Thompson, an American, revitalized the Thai silk industry in the 1950s and 1960s. Among his brilliant marketing ploys, he supplied the fabrics for Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The King and I,” when it ran on Broadway. How often do you get that kind of product exposure?

Thompson accumulated wealth beyond measure and led a seemingly charmed life. At least until March 26, 1967, when during a visit to Malaysia’s remote and mountainous Cameron Highlands he just disappeared, never to be seen again. The theories varied wildly. Communist rebels kidnapped him. The CIA did something to him. Business competitors killed him. A tiger ate him.

More than 500 people were involved in the search. The army, police, mountain trekkers, Gurkhas, tourists, mystics, missionaries, adventure-seekers. The effort captured the world’s imagination but turned up nothing. Folks who showed up seeking a big reward went home empty-handed.

Big Jim Thompson, King of Silk,
Drank a glass of chocolate milk,
Went out for a jungle walk,
And disappeared at 4 o’clock

I have some early memories of the Thompson story. He disappeared less than one month before I began my very first job in journalism, which involved ripping news stories from the Associated Press and United Press International wire machines, at The Indianapolis News.

This was one of those very rare foreign stories that Americans really cared about, and the wire services were all over it. It ticked all the boxes. An American, a dashing former spy, an exotic locale, opulence, fashion and, of course, tiger food.

Fast-forward about 25 years. I was living in Hong Kong with my wife and son, working as a journalist for Reuters. I read somewhere about this very colorful hotel, a Tudor-style place called Ye Olde Smokehouse, that had been built originally to amuse homesick British expatriates more than half a century earlier.

The hotel, at 6,000 feet above sea level, was a home  away from home for rubber plantation overseers, orchid growers, tea farmers and others looking for the odd respite. It sounded too cool for me to pass up.

We met up with another Reuters family in the lush Highlands after a harrowing three-hour ride from Kuala Lumpur. The drive went up and up and up, moving in shrinking concentric circles to the top of a mountain, and it would be the only time I was ever car sick. Indeed, all of the Baslers were, and I imagine our driver mentally built-in extra time for all the retching. At least the scenery was nice while we were barfing.

After a ride like that nobody was interested in lunch, so we decided to explore. Our friend came armed with an old book about the Jim Thompson case, complete with a map of the last place where he was seen, a bungalow romantically known as “The Moonlight.”

We found the place, but the entrance was gated, chained, and bristling with warnings that nobody there wanted talk about Thompson. Apparently 25 years on, people were still curious. Obviously, we were.

Thus denied entry to the good stuff, we made do with a walk in the vicinity. Our son, Christopher, and our friend’s daughter, Kimmy, were eight-year-old friends back in Hong Kong, and they were going to make the most of this big adventure. Our walkabout was punctuated with frequent stops, as the children savored every random find as a definite clue to the mystery.

“Chris, check it out! This could be Jim’s walking stick!”

“Kimmy, I think this is his old Energizer battery!”

“Look! This has got to be his shoe!”

“Here’s an old Mountain Dew can! I bet he carried it on his walk!”

That’s how it went, for a couple of hours, as the two imaginative kids found enough artifacts to fill a police property room.

Sometimes I walk that orchid lane,
And see a cup, a boot, or a cane,
And think they might belong to Jim,
I hear a sound – could that be him?

Dinner was served in a secluded booth in our hotel, very British and very atmospheric. The adults consumed icy cold London dry gin, Nasi Goreng Kampung – a spicy fried rice dish – and satay, succulent chicken on a stick, drizzled with a rich peanut sauce. You’ve probably had it at Asian restaurants, as Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand all claim to have created it. Our kids ate cheeseburgers and fries.

A profound darkness enveloped us. Peering out a leaded glass window we could see exactly nothing. It was a moonless, overcast night, with not a glimmer or twinkle anywhere beyond our hotel. We hovered alone in the universe.

If you have children, or know any children, you already know the dinner conversation never wandered far from talk of Jim Thompson. How long would it have taken a tiger to eat him, and what would have been left? If he fell off a cliff, did he scream all the way down? The demand for Jim Thompson information was so insatiable that the adults had to begin using their imaginations, just to keep up with it.

“You know, legend has it, there was a mysterious school bus that picked up 20 children, and Jim Thompson was the driver.”

“No! And what happened to them?”

“They were never seen again, and the bus was never found.”

“Ooooooooh! Never?”

“Never.”

After a dessert of some below-average English trifle, we went up to our rooms, gloomy spaces with dark wood beams, thick stucco walls and lazy ceiling fans. The view from our second-story window was the same nothingness we had seen from the dinner table.

We tucked Christopher into his cot, said our good-nights and turned out the room light. Click.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!”

“What’s wrong, Christopher?”

“Either you turn the light on, or you make it morning!”

“If we turn on the light, we won’t get to sleep.”

“I said, either you turn the light on, or you make it morning!”

At night, beneath the Malay moon,
I hear the screech of a red baboon,
And see verandah shadows play,
And wish the dark would turn to day

The light came on, and it stayed on. A similar drama was being played out in our friends’ room as well, as we learned the next morning over a heavy British fry-up breakfast. How can those people eat baked beans so early? And mushrooms? And black pudding? Get a life, British folks!

But I digress. Freshly emboldened by the daylight, Christopher and Kimmy wanted more Jim Thompson stories. The scarier the better, they said. Last night never happened. That’s just how kids roll.

And since I was in the habit of writing poems for Christopher’s amusement, this big adventure found its way into verse, later to be turned into a children’s song, “The King of Silk.” You can find singer Karen Dean’s rendition of it on Apple Music, in our CD called “Pie in the Sky.” If you give it a listen, wait for the very end, for a young Christopher saying, fearfully, “J-J-J-J-Jim, is that you?”

And though I’m sure there’s nothing there,
I stop and say a little prayer,
And drink a glass of chocolate milk,
For Big Jim Thompson, the King of Silk