Temporarily Thairish: Joker's Wild

Temporarily Thairish received a rather worrying email from the English editor of a Bangkok-based lifestyle magazine recently. Having come across this column somewhere or other (most likely inside the large brown envelope I had mailed to him), this fellow professional was full of praise for my journalistic skills, thought that my by-line photo was quite simply the most striking he had ever seen, and generously offered me gainful employment at whatever remuneration I felt appropriate. The usual stuff I get in my Hotmail inbox.

The worrying part came in his PS, which read, “By the way, I’d be a little more circumspect about how you write about the Thai royal family in future. If your column was seen by the wrong person there’d definitely be an uproar, and you could find yourself being deported with a black mark on your passport. Or worse!”
Gulp! I made some discreet enquiries and discovered that he was serious. Joking about the royals is no joke over here. I’ve written (jokily) a couple of times before in this column about the Thai crime of lese-majesty, but I wasn’t aware that I was actually committing it. It doesn’t happen very often, but anyone who insults the royal family is risking seven years banged-up in the Bangkok Hilton. This is in stark contrast to the UK, where anyone who insults the royal family is automatically up for a prestigious journalistic award and/or a primetime C4 chat-show of their own.
Of course, you might not even make it as far as the prison if the natives get their hands on you. A few years ago, an excitable Frenchman (a tautology, I know) who felt he’d been ripped-off in a restaurant, threw his change on the floor and stamped on it. All Thai banknotes have the King’s image on them, and the sight of the King’s picture being squashed by the feet of a Frenchman (feet being the lowliest part of the body in Buddhist culture) proved too much for the Thais sitting at the adjoining table. They beat the living shit out of the guy – and were widely praised for doing so.
I’ve been living in Thailand for almost six months now, and like many farangs before me, I‘ve developed a huge respect for King Bhumibol and his family. The world’s longest-reigning monarch (he’s been on the throne since 1946), King Bhumibol still manages to cover an average 50,000 kilometres a year, much of it in jeeps he drives himself, visiting people in the most dangerous and isolated parts of the Kingdom. He’s been having some health problems recently, but still he puts his people first. And they rightly love him for it. He’s also an environmentalist with three worldwide patents to his name, a gifted linguist, a widely-exhibited photographer and an accomplished jazz musician, playing both saxophone and clarinet.
King Bhumibol has even released a couple of albums. One of his songs, the wittily titled ‘HM Blues”, features the following lyrics: “We’ve got the Hungry Men’s Blues / You’ll be hungry too, if you’re in this band / Don’t you think our music is grand? / We’ve got the Hungry Men’s Blues / You’ve eaten now, all of you / We’d like to eat with you too / That’s why we’ve got the H.M. Blues.” Echoes of early Dylan there, don’t you think?
Seriously though, anything I’ve said in this column has been written in harmless jest – and in ignorance of just how seriously the Thais take their royalty.But if the worst comes to the worst, and the secret services storm my beach-hut, I sincerely hope that this brown-nosing article will be enough to save me from His Majesty’s Prison.
Believe you me, I don’t want a Thai record. Unless, of course, it’s one of His Majesty’s.
Things aren’t as bad as they used to be though. Even today, many Thai citizens view the royals as being, if not quite living gods, certainly several cuts above mere flesh and blood mortals. In the late 19th century, however, it was illegal to even touch a royal, and there were many rules and regulations designed to segregate and protect them from their commoner subjects.
This resulted in a senseless tragedy during the 1868 – 1910 reign of King Chulalongkorn, when his Queen Consort and daughter tragically drowned in a quiet waterway, just metres away from their numerous servants and bodyguards. When the heartbroken King demanded to know why nobody had attempted to rescue them, he was directed to the following regulations:
“If a boat founders, the boatmen must swim away; if they remain near the boat they are to be executed. If the boat founders and the royal person falls into the water and is about to drown, let the boatmen stretch out the signal-spear and throw the coconuts so that he may grasp them if he can. If he cannot, they may let him seize the signal-spear. If they lay hold of him to rescue him, they are to be executed. He who throws the coconuts is to be rewarded with forty ticals of silver and one gold basin. If the barge sinks and someone else sees the coconuts thrown and goes to save the royal person, the punishment is double and all his family is to be exterminated. If the barge founders and someone throws the coconuts so that they float towards the shore (i.e. away from the royal person), his throat is to be cut and his home confiscated.” [From ‘Siamese State Ceremonies’ by H.G. Quaritch-Wales].
The Queen Consort and her daughter drowned to the pitiful sight of all of their subjects and servants on their hands and knees, doing a pathetic Wayne’s World-style “We’re not worthy!” routine. Unsurprisingly disgusted, King Chulalongkorn threw out the rulebook, and subsequently built a reputation as a great modernising monarch.
King Bhumibol was in the news last week, signing into law Prime Minister Thaksin’s executive decree to combat political unrest in the deep south. Actually, King Bhumibol is in the news every week, but this thing in the south is getting really serious, with more than 800 fatalities since the troubles began in January 2004. Following the most recent shootings and bomb attacks in Yala on July 14th (allegedly carried out by Muslim separatists), the Thai Rak Thai government have decided enough is enough, and have all but declared a state of emergency.
PM Thaksin’s executive decree gives him a ludicrous amount of power. If fully passed, the authorities will have the right to impose curfews, prohibit the sale and distribution of newspapers and magazines, close down radio stations, forcefully evacuate people from their homes, examine letters, telegrams and emails, and tap telephones – all without court warrants. They’ll also have the right to send in the military to impose order, with almost no restraint. According to the decree, “Authorities performing duties as ordered by the prime minister’s orders are exempt from civil, criminal and disciplinary actions.”
Naturally, civil rights groups have expressed strong disapproval, claiming that the emergency decree is totally over the top, and nothing more than a recipe for even worse violence. As I write, the government is bowing to public pressure, and claiming that it will waive the more extreme parts of the decree. However, close examination of the trimmed-down decree reveals that the same powers are all still there, albeit in “stealth mode.”
There may be trouble ahead. . .
When not busy fighting extremism in the south, the Thai authorities are spending much of their time (and budget) on nobly fighting the war against drugs. The initial phases of the Thaksin government’s anti-drug strategy resulted in many arrests, more than 2,500 “extra-judicial” executions, and the enforced 2am closure of all of the country’s bars and nightclubs. Now, though, they’re really taking the piss. That’s right – they’re collecting urine samples!
Recently a number of Bangkok’s trendiest bars and clubs have been raided by the Drug Suppression Squad, who arrive en-masse, fully equipped with Port-A-Loos and a team of government chemists. The music is stopped, the bar is closed and the customers are all forced to piss into little glass bottles. The most commonly abused drugs in Thailand are amphetamines and, if there’s any speed in your system, the on-the-spot test will turn your urine sample purple. Anybody who “pisses-purple” (as they call it) is immediately arrested and then taken to hospital for further blood testing. If you’re found to be on illegal drugs, you’ll almost definitely be sent to prison, where your only consolation will be that you’ll get to write a best-selling book about the experience. Of course, it may be quite some time before you get to spend the royalty cheque.
Unfortunately, while cocaine, ecstasy and speed will all show up purple in the tests, so too will many diet pills (which are perfectly legal in Thailand) and certain cold and flu remedies. A number of farangs (westerners) recently arrested for “pissing purple” in the ultra-trendy Q Bar in Sukhumvit Soi 11, were subsequently released when it was discovered that the drugs they had taken were legal over-the-counter substances. It also turned out, following complaints to various embassies, that such random tests are totally illegal under Thai law.
Apparently there were purple faces all round.
Temporarily Thairish fell ill recently (hate to disappoint you all, but it was nothing serious) and had to seek medical assistance. The middle-aged doctor was a jovial enough type, but it proved quite difficult to keep his attention. Having established my name, nationality and the fact that I had full and comprehensive medical insurance (I didn’t have the information to hand, but there was a form I could fill out), he said to me, “Okay Mr. Stokes, what seem to be nature of the problem?”
“Well doctor,” I replied, “for a start, you can call me Niall. Anyway, it’s a wee bit embarrassing but I seem to have been pissing purp. . .”
“Oh – hang on a minute!” he interrupted, looking pointedly over my shoulder. “I think Lek has finally found out about Supinya and Surakiat’s affair!”
I turned my head and noticed that there was a small television on in the corner of his surgery. When I looked back, the doctor was busily trying to locate the remote control. He found it, pointed it, and then glared at me when the volume failed to increase. “Move outta the way!” he commanded. Always happy to take medical advice, I obliged by getting out of my seat and, signal unimpeded, the volume went up. On the screen, two cute Thai schoolgirls were having a sweaty catfight. “Oh Buddha!” exclaimed the doctor, a little breathlessly. Then he hit a buzzer on his desk and urgently summoned his receptionist.
When she arrived in, the doctor said, “Look – Lek is velly angry with Supinya!” The receptionist squealed with delight and plonked herself down in my chair, leaving me standing. As the onscreen fight continued, I decided not to be annoyed at the situation and instead, to show what good sports us farangs can be, and how patient us patients can be, I feigned some interest. “Which one’s Lek?” I asked. “The one in the short skirt or the one with the pigtails?”
Without taking their eyes from the screen, doctor and receptionist replied in unison, “Shut up! Can’t you see we’re trying to watch!”
My visa was up earlier this week but, unfortunately, I was still feeling under the weather. Never mind that the weather I was under was tropically hot sunshine, there was no way I was going to be able to survive the 12-hour round bus trip to the Malaysian or Burmese borders to renew my visa. It took most of my strength just to make it across the water to the Samui Immigration Office to apply for a temporary extension.
Like most bureaucratic offices, Samui Immigration was a dull colourless place that stank to high heaven of sweat, frustration and two-day-old Pad Thai. The officials behind the glass screens looked bored and disinterested, and most of the farangs on the other side looked angry and annoyed. I was stuck queuing there for about 90 minutes and, in that time, more than one dissatisfied customer banged on the glass screens shouting something like, “Why didn’t you fucking tell me that last time?”, “This is a fucking joke!” or “You can’t be fucking serious!”
anted a visa-extension, the girl behind the counter asked me for passport photos for their forms. “I need passport photos?” I asked, helplessly. “You can get them over there,” she explained, pointing to a separate queue.
“But if I have to join that queue, I’ll lose my place here,” I pleaded. “I have to get back to Ko Pha-Ngan tonight and I’m going to miss my ferry.”
She gave me a withering look that said, “Not my problem.” The dreadlocked Swedish wanker behind me, sensing that he might get to the hatch sooner than he’d anticipated, started making disparaging remarks about the kind of stupid people who don’t know that they need passport photos for their visa extension forms. All appeared to be lost (well, my place in the queue at least), when inspiration struck. Looking at the television screen on top of the filing cabinets behind her, I saw that poor old Lek was in floods of tears.
“That Supinya’s a right old bitch, isn’t she?” I said to the official, indicating the screen. Her face brightened. “Oh, you like this show?” she asked, delightedly. “Can’t bear to miss it,” I replied. “Why do you think I want a visa extension?”
Ten minutes later, visa-extended, I was heading happily back towards the pier.