I used to think we were born poor and that was that…I have opened my mind to a new way of thinking: We need to change from the rule of the aristocracy to a real democracy.

– Thanida Paveen, “who grew up in the provinces but now lives in Bangkok and rents out rooms to factory workers in the city’s industrial outskirts”, quoted in Thomas Fuller, “Young Thai Protesters Shed Culture of Restraint”, The New York Times, 31 March 2010.