Painting the Roses Red

The Thai royal family is very interesting if you ever have the time to read up on them. King Bhumibol Adulyadej Rama IX has been King and Head of State of Thailand since 1946, which makes him the world’s longest-serving current head of state and longest-serving monarch in Thai history. The King is held in very high regard by the Thai people and is even seen as being semi-divine. This is obvious when you get to Thailand, you will see large posters of him in every shop, restaurant, or home. There are massive billboards of him in his younger years everywhere and it is usually the first thing you see when you first drive into a new city, no matter what the size. There are shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, etc. everywhere that declare, “We Love the King!”. Similar to the yellow Lance Armstrong wristbands, there are "We Love the King!" wristbands that everyone here wears. The King is protected by lese majeste laws which means that any criticism of him can put you in jail for 3-15 years. Actually, very recently, an Australian man who had lived in Thailand for a while published a book that was critical of the King and Thai Royal Family and he was sentenced to 3 years in jail. Writing this is even making me a little nervous! The King is very interesting himself, he was born in the United States where his father was studying at Harvard, he went to schools in Switzerland and France before becoming King. The King had three daughters and a son. His second eldest daughter, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, from what I can tell, appears to be favored by the Thai public. She is very involved in royal projects, which ultimately brought her to Thawangpha last Friday and to the school that I have been teaching at. Apparently, she has some ties with Nan Province specifically and has made a number of previous visits to the area.

For the past month, many preparations took place at the school for the Princess’ visit. What started off as basic improvements to the campus, evolved into a complete facelift of the entire school. Buildings were painted top to bottom, new sod was put down, new plants and trees were planted, other older trees were torn down. The school was a frenzy of activity day and even night. I remember one Saturday I was so shocked to see students that I couldn’t even get to show up for any of my classes, spending their weekend painting the fence that runs around the school. The week of her visit, classes ceased and everyone was decorating the school with yards and yards of white and purple cloth (her color, she as born on a Saturday). All of this reminded me of the scene from the Disney movie Alice in Wonderland where the jacks are all painting the roses red (otherwise, it’s off with our head!). I don’t think it was all done in fear of the princess, but in such a desire to impress her. Shaleas brought up a good point one day when she asked, “Why don’t you just leave it as it is, and then she will see that the school needs more money”. I kind of agreed with her, rumor has it that the school borrowed close to 200,000 Baht to make all of these renovations. I think that this is one of those cultural differences that is hard for us Farang to understand. It made me think about what would have been done to my high school had the US President come to visit. More than likely it would have been cleaned up a little bit, but nothing to the extent that was done here. Her visit was such an honor that they wanted everything to be perfect.

The security was also interesting to experience. About a month before her visit a group of about 30-40 military and police officers came to assess the campus. Since I have been here, I have never once heard a plane, helicopter, or even a kite fly over Thawangpha, yet the day before her visit, while I am out doing yoga; five military-looking helicopters are surveying things from above. The morning of her visit, I woke up to find military and police officers right outside of our building and standing every 20 feet or so. The whole thing made me quite nervous, especially being such an obvious foreigner, there was no way for me to blend in. We were told exactly what outfits we should wear and how to style our hair. I couldn’t wear my watch or my ring, just in case it could be used as a weapon. Marianne, Shaleas, and I pretty much camped out inside one of the offices all morning. Once she arrived, she spent a few hours visiting various rooms that had been set up for her and watching students perform traditional Thai music. At around noon, we were called out for pictures. We were in Group 3 to take our picture with her and I knelt about 2 feet away from her. She appeared to be a very modest and kind woman, even smiling for the pictures. After that, she went to eat lunch and then she left.

It was an interesting experience, I am sure that I will always remember the time that I “met” Thai royalty. I will definitely never forget the frenzy of preparations that took place beforehand; it was a true taste of how much the Thai love their Royal Family.