Jade Rouge

As Bangkok’s burlesque queen, I’m used to spectacle. I live for energy, theatre and peeling back the layers to find the truth. So, when I sat down with Richard Quest in the sprawling Ritz-Carlton Suite at The Ritz-Carlton, Bangkok, it felt less like an interview and more like a masterclass in performance – with a surprising amount of soul. It’s not every day you meet a legend. Richard Quest, the face of CNN’s Quest Means Business and Quest's World of Wonder, is in town. As I began my introduction, he immediately jumped in, ‘When you say it like that, even I'm impressed. And I lived it. I mean, I think this is a very good and generous way of saying, he's old. He's been around and he knows where the bodies are buried.’ And just like that, we were off. He was in Bangkok on a 'potpourri' of projects, a classic high-speed Quest trip. ‘The reality is that when you're based in New York... you put together a lot of different projects,’ he explained. He was interviewing the CEO of Thai Airways, meeting officials and filming. It was, he quipped, very If Today is Tuesday, This Must be Belgium. ‘I always get a bit of a feeling, you know, today's Wednesday, this must be Bangkok.’ I mentioned it was 'winter' in Bangkok, and he looked at me, utterly bemused. ‘Really?’ he exclaimed, as the air-con blasted. ‘I'm sweating in places you don't want to know.’ This candour set the tone. While business was his pretext, his connection to Thailand is also deeply personal. ‘I had my honeymoon in Thail