Life on East Asia's Party Circuit

Filed in archive Events on November 3, 2007

Karl Taro Greenfeld, now a well known journalist who (mis)spent his younger days on Asia's party circuit, claimed in his book Standard Deviations that there were a hundred thousand westerners who spent their time working a Asia's economic capitals and partying on "the circuit."

The circuit runs from Tokyo and Seoul all the way south to Bangkok, Ko Pha Ngan's infamous Full Moon Parties, and the hippie outpost of Goa. Though today's circuit isn't as unbridled as it was five years ago, it still is a major subculture among East Asia's expats and long-term tourists.

Like several characters in Greenfeld's Standard Deviations, those with the financial means occasionally do drop out of the rat race completely. Setting up a life in one of the stops along the circuit is ease and relatively cheap. For most travelers, though, Asia's party circuit is a fleeting trip through a world influenced by the hippie generation and even the expat lifestyles of Hemingway and Fitzgerald.

These days, places like Jakarta and Phnom Penh are are stops on the circuit. What's nice about places like this is that, unlike Goa and Koh Pha Ngan, the entire place is not one huge party scene. If the post-hippie haze gets to be too much, you can simply catch a taxi to a quieter part of the city.