Even off the screen, Oom's still an overachiever

SIRIYAKORN “OOM” Pukkavesa Marquardt was an actress, model, presenter, designer and magazine publisher – clearly she had too much going on. So she dropped out of the limelight for almost three years and found something much easier to do – raise a child.

We’re just kidding about child-rearing being easy, but Oom – now living in Portland, Oregon, on the US Northwest with her husband, Christopher Marquardt, and their daughter – makes it look easy, because she’s got her own publishing house. And she’s just been back to Thailand to launch two books, “Life is a Journey” and “Little Jill and the Butterfly”. Yes, they’re children’s books, so it’s clear where her focus is these days.

Oom, star of “Monrak Transistor”, was on the screen for 13 years, constantly surprising fans with her changes in style and interests. She went from naive to glamorous to street-chic, then she got all artistic on us, and now she’s utterly down to earth and pursuing the organic life.

According to her website, her main interests are farming, sustainable living, cooking, baking, meditating and “unlocking the secrets of the good life” – and yet she’s still a full-time mother! She’s pretty much given up on the acting, though. The long commute from the States is getting in the way. 

In the meantime, while Oom’s daughter is sleeping, she stays busy with the publishing, aiming to bring out more good books for her own baby and other children. Her fans can expect a long list of new titles to match every stage of her daughter’s childhood.

 

 

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The un-beautiful game

“Racism has no place in football,” say the superstars of the game in a Fifa social campaign, but ugly incidents still keep cropping up in most of the European leagues – and, okay, in Thailand too.

If you watch Thai Premier League, you probably saw Bangkok Glass FC striker Lazarus Kaimbi punch Buriram United captain Suchao Nutnum in the face during a match last Wednesday. Kaimbi had just tackled another Buriram player and Suchao stormed over to complain, only to get whacked in the jaw. Kaimbi got a red card and Suchao finished up with a yellow card and four stitches in his lips. 

That’s where it might have ended had Kaimbi not decided to elaborate on Instagram, where, under the hashtag “SayNoToRacismInFootball”, he admitted it was a sloppy tackle and he was ready to take his punishment. “I stood with my hands behind my back waiting for the referee’s decision,” he said. But then the Buriram skipper rushed over, chest-butted him and called him an “[expletive] monkey”, poking him in the eye for good measure. “That’s when I punched him,” said Kaimbi, who’s from Namibia. “I’m a human being, not a monkey!” 

Suchao picked up the fumes and posted a rebuttal on his social networks, saying his English is nowhere near good enough that he would use such a “specific” discriminatory term. In fact, he said, he told Kaimbi, “You play fair play! You don’t play football this!” (He may be right about his English.) “That’s all I could think of. I was angry to see him play it rough with my team – that’s why I complained and showed my anger.” 

Determined to clear his name, Suchao filed a defamation charge with the police. He says he’s prepared to accept a one-match ban from the national football association for giving Kaimbi a shove, but any accusations of discrimination can go to court. “Then we know who tell the truth.”