Hey
His Majesty, The King
The Thai people sure do love their King. Travelers are advised in guidebooks to not say anything negative or in jest about the King (and the royal family for that matter) -- it is deeply insulting. All over Thailand, in small towns and busy cities, there are larger-than-life framed portraits of the King and the Queen erected on the roadside and in the middle of traffic circles (in fact, I think the traffic circles were built specially for this purpose). Sometimes there are huge archways spanning roads and highways with a collage of royal people and royal acts of kindness, the backdrop for an oval-shaped portrait of a smiling (and young) Queen or a pensive (and young) King.
At movie theaters, after the trailers and advertising but before the feature presentation, a similar collage springs to life in motion on the screen. The national anthem plays while still images of the King fade in and out in time. You see him visiting hill tribes and helping the handicapped... breaking ground and cutting ribbons... Most memorable is the scene of a dry, parched earth, the kind of earth that is so arid, there are cracks in the ground that look like a special glaze on a piece of fine china. Upon this thirsty land, a farmer stands in vain with hoe in hand, looking towards the sky in despondent hope. Cut to the King and back to the wilted landscape and you see, miraculously, a fine storm fill the skies... rain pours from the clouds... the land becomes fertile and the farmer raises his fist in the air in victory. The King, apparently, holds court with the gods of the sky. Back to the movie theater: the audience stands for this royal interlude. They put down their popcorn and softdrinks and rise in tribute to the King. Only then can the show go on... (and by the way, falang (foreigners) in Thailand are expected to do the same. Stand up or risk getting boo-d out of the theater).
There's a Sunday market held each week in Chiang Mai. It's ginormous. Imagine the busiest shopping day of the year in the States... at a mall... with thousands of distracted people purveying and purusing goods and edibles for sale. You know the confusion, the noise, the hustle and bustle of the crowd... That's what the Sunday market is like come early evening. And that's when the national anthem is played over loud speakers across the blocks upon blocks of city streets that have been closed to everything but pedestrians, shopping. Suddenly, everyone stops what they're doing and if they're sitting, they stand. No-one moves a muscle or utters a sound. Manic noise and motion dies to silence. The national anthem plays on in complete stillness. And when the last note of the anthem grows faint, there is a split second of absolute quiet before thousands of people -- all at once -- pick up where they left off a minute or so before. Like an orchestra going from a soundless pause to a full crescendo, bustle returns and the air is full of noise as if nothing happened. It's amazing -- a-m-a-z-i-n-g -- to still such a large amount of people, each individual doing his or her own thing... to still them all at the same time. I felt like I was in one of the movies where someone has acquired the ability to stop time and everyone around them freezes in place. It's like that, but it's the national anthem that freezes the people, not a super-hero talent.
Thailand changes when the King or Queen has a birthday, an event. On the King's birthday, everything closes, shuts down. People stay home. Right now, in Chiang Mai, they haved ripped up roads and are installing new ones to honor the King's 60th coronation. Every so often, the King grants amnesty to prisoners in jail, cutting their sentences in half -- maybe it's the Queen's birthday... or maybe he's just feeling generous.
He is King Bhumibol and he rose to the throne in 1946 at the age of 18 with no training for the job. His promise: to "reign with righteousness for the benefit and happiness of the Siamese people." And I'd say he's doing a damn fine job. People don't love their King without reason. And considering most of the countries that border Thailand are 20 -50 years behind in terms of development, the guy is obviously doing something right. According to a source on the internet, "the response he gets from his people in rural Thailand today is almost beyond the understanding of the Western mind: Thai villagers lay down handkerchiefs for him to walk on and then they save the scraps of cloth with his footprint in shrines at their homes."
According to Asiaweek magazine: "It is probably safe to say that no monarch in the world is as popular as King Bhumibol. Or so revered. Or so present. His portrait hangs in virtually every home and office in the land, a kind of benevolent father watching over his children. Every night all TV channels run footage of royal family members attending official functions. Some, such as visits by foreign heads of state, are clearly significant; others would make little television sense anywhere else. But, as former premier Anand Panyarachun says, over the years the King has earned the admiration of his people in a manner that cannot be fully comprehended by foreigners."
At movie theaters, after the trailers and advertising but before the feature presentation, a similar collage springs to life in motion on the screen. The national anthem plays while still images of the King fade in and out in time. You see him visiting hill tribes and helping the handicapped... breaking ground and cutting ribbons... Most memorable is the scene of a dry, parched earth, the kind of earth that is so arid, there are cracks in the ground that look like a special glaze on a piece of fine china. Upon this thirsty land, a farmer stands in vain with hoe in hand, looking towards the sky in despondent hope. Cut to the King and back to the wilted landscape and you see, miraculously, a fine storm fill the skies... rain pours from the clouds... the land becomes fertile and the farmer raises his fist in the air in victory. The King, apparently, holds court with the gods of the sky. Back to the movie theater: the audience stands for this royal interlude. They put down their popcorn and softdrinks and rise in tribute to the King. Only then can the show go on... (and by the way, falang (foreigners) in Thailand are expected to do the same. Stand up or risk getting boo-d out of the theater).
There's a Sunday market held each week in Chiang Mai. It's ginormous. Imagine the busiest shopping day of the year in the States... at a mall... with thousands of distracted people purveying and purusing goods and edibles for sale. You know the confusion, the noise, the hustle and bustle of the crowd... That's what the Sunday market is like come early evening. And that's when the national anthem is played over loud speakers across the blocks upon blocks of city streets that have been closed to everything but pedestrians, shopping. Suddenly, everyone stops what they're doing and if they're sitting, they stand. No-one moves a muscle or utters a sound. Manic noise and motion dies to silence. The national anthem plays on in complete stillness. And when the last note of the anthem grows faint, there is a split second of absolute quiet before thousands of people -- all at once -- pick up where they left off a minute or so before. Like an orchestra going from a soundless pause to a full crescendo, bustle returns and the air is full of noise as if nothing happened. It's amazing -- a-m-a-z-i-n-g -- to still such a large amount of people, each individual doing his or her own thing... to still them all at the same time. I felt like I was in one of the movies where someone has acquired the ability to stop time and everyone around them freezes in place. It's like that, but it's the national anthem that freezes the people, not a super-hero talent.
Thailand changes when the King or Queen has a birthday, an event. On the King's birthday, everything closes, shuts down. People stay home. Right now, in Chiang Mai, they haved ripped up roads and are installing new ones to honor the King's 60th coronation. Every so often, the King grants amnesty to prisoners in jail, cutting their sentences in half -- maybe it's the Queen's birthday... or maybe he's just feeling generous.
He is King Bhumibol and he rose to the throne in 1946 at the age of 18 with no training for the job. His promise: to "reign with righteousness for the benefit and happiness of the Siamese people." And I'd say he's doing a damn fine job. People don't love their King without reason. And considering most of the countries that border Thailand are 20 -50 years behind in terms of development, the guy is obviously doing something right. According to a source on the internet, "the response he gets from his people in rural Thailand today is almost beyond the understanding of the Western mind: Thai villagers lay down handkerchiefs for him to walk on and then they save the scraps of cloth with his footprint in shrines at their homes."
According to Asiaweek magazine: "It is probably safe to say that no monarch in the world is as popular as King Bhumibol. Or so revered. Or so present. His portrait hangs in virtually every home and office in the land, a kind of benevolent father watching over his children. Every night all TV channels run footage of royal family members attending official functions. Some, such as visits by foreign heads of state, are clearly significant; others would make little television sense anywhere else. But, as former premier Anand Panyarachun says, over the years the King has earned the admiration of his people in a manner that cannot be fully comprehended by foreigners."
posted by Cheryn at 5:18 PM
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