The present king and his mother were among the few other people in those rooms that night. At the time of the murder, the monarchy in Thailand hung by a thread, and some reports say the brother Ananda was ready to decline the whole mess and return to his pristine life in Switzerland (which is where the queen mother actually lived for most of her life following the murder and the rise of her second son).

It seems clear that the present king dedicated his life to restoring and protecting the monarchy, not the people. It really worked, but look at the sees her sowed:

His heir, the crown prince, who appears to be a mental deficient (possibly due to inbreeding in the royal line — Chulalongkorn married and had children by five of his half sisters and the present line is descended from them)is a detested creep who has left an entire cesspool of ugly actions in his wake.

Another daughter appeals to be another inbred deficient who is rumored to be a recipient of one of the infamous Saudi jewels.

The oldest daughter married an American and was essentially banished by the king, though she is working hard to get back in good graces now.

The only apparently normal one of the bunch, the fat princess, is a lesbian who will probably never be allowed to reign.

One has to wonder is it was worth killing his brother. If money and power is the object, I guess so — he is said to be worth $65 billion — but what and ugly legacy.

How often do you read from men living in Thailand that they have met their wife’s in a bar? Are all of the wife’s teachers?

The first thing I learned after spending some time in Thailand is that everybody is living on lies.

You can hardly find an honest person anywhere. Not dishonest to me, but to them selves.

You have to understand Thailand culture my woman constantly telling me.

No, I say. I am norwegian, I have my own culture. When you comes to Norway I am not telling you to follow norwegian culture.

I think the thai people biggest problem is to open their eyes. Sometimes it looks for me that they dont want to see the truth.

Most thais are afraid of the unknown.

Am I talking about my woman? NO!! She has proven for me that thai can lift them selves after the hair. Just give them the chance.

Do you guys know where you find buddhist people? No? I can tell you. You find them on the west side of Norway.

My woman call me angry man. I am proud of beeing angry. Also against my selves sometime.

You call the CPB a “Frankenstein of Darwinian Capitalism.” Wouldn’t it be better described as a Frankenstein of crony capitalism? Considering its history, it’s not particularly fit, rather it has simply sweetheart dealt/looted itself out of trouble by using the levers of power.

He aint splitting hairs. What is the use of an article that describes a country the way it most definitely isn’t. Live in the country and learn the language, then you can write an article about it, while you most likely still won’t understand what is really going on.

The article is just the typical foreign “journalism” that does not even bother to try and understand the background of a culture but immediately judges it on one’s own cultural values. Its worse than useless as it creates a completely unrealistic image for the readers, at worst creating or supporting stereotypes.

Still living in Thailand I can say that Anonymous is far closer to the truth.

@27 If he is clearly writing from a tourist perspective he should refrain from certain statements that are just plain wrong such as the King’s family being unpopular. I am sorry but even as a tourist you should get the idea that this ain’t the case.- If you plan to write an article on a country, even if its from a tourist perspective make sure you get a more balanced view.

A bunch of haters on the Interwebs got something better from Mom’s basement, you say? Either fuck off or sign up and write for the rag. You can disagree with a civil tongue in your head.

And, yes, Anonymous Commenter is completely splitting hairs.

=

Dumbest paragraph that I’ve ever read. Even if this is the context under which the term was invented, this definition is currently completely irrelevant.

I’m not going to go through all of the items I disagree on or see differently, but I think the writer does make some very broad generalizations of the society there.

They are unmistakably “poor” by Western standards and the people at the top do have a vast majority of power and wealth (where have we heard that before? But I don’t see any reason why one would expect things to be any different than they are.

This is a largely undereducated, economically immature country with a mainly rural population. Of course you will find extreme poverty and prostitution in this environment. Should one expect it to be like an upper-middle class city in Europe or the US?

It sounds a bit like the writer has just arrived in Thailand and is absorbing all of the shocking differences that Bangkok has in comparison with the United States. In an effort to make sense of it he is trying to find reasons why it could be in such a “dismal” state.

Evil monarchy…corrupt politicians…crashing economy…all the usual, most obvious suspects are present.

In my opinion, the reasons behind why so many people have less is much more complex than whats been outlined.

I’m no genius, but I can see that things are never as simple as they seem on the surface.

BTW, Thai’s are quite accepting to the shit that life throws at them due to their religion. I think thats something to be commended rather than looked down upon.

Interesting and well represented article regardless. Thanks for sharing your opinions.

They have dicks.

It’s also trying to get readers to take the reverence of the King that they see in the Western media with a few grains of salt.

As a writer, I know that any time you take on a subject that people know a lot about, you open yourself up to criticism–some of it warranted, but not all.

I spent almost 5 years in Kazakhstan and Russia and once you learn to speak the language(s) and strip off the patina of culture shock and fascination, you often find that the society you are living in is nothing like the one you experienced in your first few months. Matt’s article, while entertaining, reminds me of the type of simplifications you get from hack journalists writing about Russia from their laptops at the Posh Cafe on Kamergersky Pereulok. They tend to be the kind of people who never learn Russian, never venture beyond Koltsevaya unless they’re going to the airport, and think that English speaking liberal Russians are unfiltered conduits of truth. I spent a few months in Thailand but what I really know is superficial. You really have to dig in and live in a place for some time to get even a glimmer of what’s going on, but most people would rather just write colorfully about what’s apparent after a week or two of backpacking. Maybe you should start writing, you’ve got that unobstructed view that most seem to be lacking.

The article is okay, but it smacks of someone who’s been to Thailand once, for a week or two.

Also, it’s full of typos and spelling errors.

Did you see me disputing the absurdity of the laws that prompted me to mention that? No. I’m not disputing that at all and the author gets points for nailing some of the complexity in application, though it’s also worth noting that it’s even more complex than stated and that The King has protested the existence of the laws publicly on more than one occasion and regularly pardons foreigners prosecuted under them. They’re really useful for clubbing political opponents over the head though if you’re a Thai politician, so they remain.

“Mostly, it’s important however to point out that you seem bent on splitting hairs.”

Disagree. It’s not at all splitting hairs to point out the succession issue, without which any discussion on the topic of what’s going on with the political actors here is like discussing healthcare reform in the US without discussing campaign finance. Pointing out the spelling of Sukhumvit was splitting hairs for sure.

“What you do not add to that last comment is that, before he took the throne, Bhumibol returned to Switzerland after the murder. Weird.” Yeah, I didn’t feel the need to add that as it wasn’t directly relevant to the point I was addressing. I also didn’t add the conspiracy theories and the rest of the story, which is pretty interesting and which I’d recommend just on general interest.

As for the general thrust of what you’re getting at, look, people fly over here all the time, visit some go-go bars, see some bums on the street, see the tourist activity and then write an article about it. We see it day in and day out. It’s a popular destination and it’s easy to stereotype. I did not dispute some of the focus of the article, but it’s needlessly hyperbolic to the point of misrepresenting what Thailand’s like and has a number of facts either wrong or misrepresented. I didn’t even bring up why the cab driver is quiet. It’s because the author doesn’t speak Thai to him. Speak some Thai and I guarantee he won’t pipe down about Thaksin and the police forcing him to pay bribes and how much it costs to rent his taxi for a day and whether you have a Thai wife and how many kids you have and how many kids he has and everything else that most taxi drivers talk to you about. But a stereotypically meditating brown third worlder makes a more compelling character than a flesh and blood taxi driver (probably a farmer from Nong Khai).

I think it’s important when you’re attempting journalism to get the facts straight and I don’t think what I did was mostly nitpicking. If the piece didn’t go out of its way to paint a specific picture of Thailand then I would consider it hair splitting to point out that the beggars aren’t usually Thai and that tourism is not the only sector of the economy and that Thaksin was not run out of office for promoting social programs and that you actually do pay taxes here. Yeah, it’s a corrupt third world country, but it’s not a banana republic from a cartoon. It’s a complex society with its own political ecology that goes beyond bargirls and beggars and massive disparity of wealth.

Really the fact that Thaksin was, himself, a massively corrupt shitheel and the complete omission of The Crown Prince are the most two important takeaways from what I wrote. If you take interest in further reading on nothing else, you’ll want to read up on those topics because you simply cannot begin to grasp what’s going on here without familiarizing yourself with the trajectories of those two. And it’s an interesting bunch of political intrigue, frankly.