It’s a good thing I have a blog. If I’d posted this title to start a thread over at SGT, I’d be in for a world of hurt. But then that’s why SGT is the gay Thailand forum that gets the most readers, it’s the car wreck of gay message boards. Everyone says, “How horrible!” but can’t resist craning their neck to take a look. When it comes to touri in Thailand, bugs elicit the same reaction: “Ewww Yuk!,” quickly followed by, “Look at that thing!”

Bugs – big ones – are everywhere in Thailand. Locals eat them, touri gawk at them. Whether they are being eaten by a local or not. Bugs in Thailand are plentiful and if you are going to make a profit off of them your cost is zilch. But as a dining option they don’t have a large attraction to the people with big wads of baht in their pockets: touri. So a few years ago some genius decided nothing would make a better souvenir from the Kingdom than a big fat gross bug. And started offering take home insects encapsulated in resin. It wasn’t long before there were several vendors at every market a touri might shop at offering bug keychains, necklaces, and bottle openers. The first time I saw a booth crammed full with the bug souvenirs, I shook my head thinking, “What idiot came up with that idea? They’ll never sell.”

Well, not only did they sell, but they sold well. And still do. It wasn’t long before I began seeing them for sale back home at street fairs. Where they also sold well. For some reason, far too many people think wearing a dead cockroach around your neck is the height of fashion. I can see the appeal to an eight-year-old boy, but otherwise fashionable women in their thirties were all of a sudden decked out in bug jewelry. I just don’t get it. And slightly pissed that I wasn’t the first to offer them in the U.S.

A lot of the hot items, supposedly handcrafted, that I see at street fairs back in the states I ran across in Thailand first. On my first trip to Bangkok and to the Weekend Market, there was a stall selling science fiction movie creatures made from metal scrap, mostly nuts and bolts. They were cool. At least to look at. Now you see them all over Thailand. And all over the U.S., too. Ask any vendor selling them in either place and they’ll tell you they make them themselves. Definite bullshit, but then the plastic encased bug jewelry sellers tell you the same thing.

Bug jewelry was not the first Thai attempt at using the local fauna to make a buck. Years before those hit the streets, someone decided touri would love a bottle of cheap whiskey with a large bug in it. Mexico hit this market first, though with a smaller bug and better booze. Eating the worm at the bottom of a bottle of tequila is a rite of passage. Eating a humongous cockroach lodged in the neck of a bottle of cheap Thai whiskey does not have the same appeal. You’d think this would be a better product than the bug jewelry, it’d make sense that you’d have to be pretty drunk to buy a gross insect as a souvenir. But most of the bug booze you see displayed has been sitting around for quite a while, dust adding it’s own patina to the bottles. Not that slow sales mean low availability. I’ve seen bug booze, often with snakes and other gross creatures floating in the alcohol, for sale in Laos and Cambodia, too. The snake version is popular in Taiwan at Snake Alley, but seems to actually sell there.

While the plastic bauble with a bug in it is a popular item of jewelry, the Thais also use the iridescent wings of the Jewel Beetle to make earrings and necklaces. Still a bug, but the shimmering metallic greens and blues of the beetle’s wing cases are strikingly beautiful. I first saw these wings used in a pair of massive chandeliers inside The Ananda Samakhon Throne Hall on the grounds of The Dusit Palace when I attended the memorial for the King’s dead sister. The wings were traditionally sewn into cloth to make shawls and sabai cloth, an ancient art form that has been preserved and encouraged to be used in modern art by Queen Sirikit. I see jewelry made from these beetle wings occasionally in Thailand, but not with the same frequency as the cockroach necklaces. Goes to show you what people like: pass on the beautiful bug jewelry with historical and cultural significance, load up on the gross bug jewelry in plastic. Go figure.

I still don’t get the appeal of bug jewelry or bug booze, and missed out on making a few bucks by failing to take into account the publics’ general lack of taste. But I’m working on developing a bug jewelry phone app, so maybe I’ll still be able to cash in on the craze.