Ha ha. Usually you can rely in your kids to tell you when you look ridiculous. That ain’t gonna happen here.
Ironically, the scholars and journalists who revealed the extent of the Crown Properties helped enable this type of behavior. Unlike the older generation of Mahidols, this prince has no need to insist that he is a modest and frugal person.
Like Kate Middleton, however, he appears to be recycling some of his favorite clothes.
I realize that cultural analysis, gender analysis and feminism are new to this site, along with female commentators and apparently a sense of humor, but that’s kind of the point.
I did not denigrate you or your work. On this and related threads, I commented on connections between family structure, prostitution, politics and discourse; symbolic meanings of dress and tattoo; erasure of my work from mainstream Thai studies or its inclusion, sudden or otherwise; the timing of scholarly commentary on the subject of Thai royalty ; and journalism and attitude.
One line of attack is simply to focus on the truly trivial, like a grammatical or spellcheck error, rather than the bigger picture. I would guess NM has heard from many, many expatriates, and sexpatriates as well. If the shoe doesn’t fit, why worry about it?
So a lot of interesting and fun comments and ideas. What though this all really generated was the new photo Andrew obtained which provided evidence that the prince is regularly using giant tattoo stickers, and also habitually wearing that undersized tank top (or singlet). That raises another set of questions, but needs the psychoanalysts out there to answer. Yes it’s kind of weird, but I can sympathise a little…I’m close to his age, and sometimes think I should have a tattoo… and maybe a slim woman half my age on my arm. But I’m also around people, including by dear wife, who would let me know what is excessive, what looks ridiculous and embarrassing, at least in my family and my social circles. Even if it is temporary.
So what’s going on with this guy? Is someone telling him this is ok? Or is it just going native, assuming no one back home will see it? Or he just doesn’t care?
And what does it say when he is photographed strolling around Bavaria looking like this, and very openly boarding a plane like this, but back home the police call the photos doctored, and the websites with them are blocked? Is this just a contradiction, paranoia by the image protectors? Or a way of informing the priviliged Thais who can access such pictures what the future king looks like and feels like?
Or as I asked before, is this a declaration of independence from stifling traditional Thai culture, a message to expect some kind of modernizing effort when he is king?
Or, as someone has suggested, there is a message that he is happy to stay in Germany and do his own thing?
I don’t know, but maybe we will get more photos and stories to better understand the enigma of Prince Vajiralongkorn.
Um, 1873?
And the difference between a written order, royal practice, and his command to courtiers to rise at his second coronation In November 1873 in front of amazed farang, diplomats, missionaries and the like? http://www.newmandala.org/chulalongkorn-abolished-prostration/
The question is why Bhumibol’s children, nearly 150 years later, insist on a prostration or some version therein in public, including in Germany while shopping. Like Prayuth at Bike4Mom.
The Royal Gazette piece is indeed worth a read.
Why you think this would be trivial in light of current political questions is a puzzlement.
Christine Gray, amidst all her gender related observations, makes a common and, to me anyway, irritating grammatical error. I am a British national, long resident in Thailand, and am thus an expatriate. I am proud to be British, and am thus definitely NOT an ex-patriot.
Christine Gray certainly knows how to wring agonisingly lengthy and supposedly learned observations out of a relatively trivial incident, but she needs to do her research in a more thorough and scholarly way. King Chulalongkorn’s decision to abolish prostration was in fact published in the Royal Gazette in 1875, seven years after he became King. It was addressed to his subjects, not foreigners, and is well worth a read.
A quickie as I have to read yet another gibberish report on stakeholder engagement strategies for yet another BS project. I don’t seem to recall suggesting you are a “bad” scholar but rather you should provide more evidence than the sweeping generalizations you make about “old farts’ in Thailand. Of course I understand the asymmetrical nature of gender relations and to suggest I lack empathy for women who are forced to accept such asymmetries is putting words into my mouth or rather onto paper. Indeed on occasion I have explicitly stated that without real economic empowerment gender relations will always work against many/most women (I mentioned this in relation to Vietnam but perhaps being a student of the monarchy you don’t read anything relating to Vietnam) and I also seemed to think I (along with others) “railed” against the grotesque attacks on deposed PM Yingluck (including ones that made reference to her anatomy but perhaps you did not read these either)
I would be more convinced by the cogency of your arguments if you provided a reasoned analysis: while I like having a drink at bars on occasion the bars you refer to leave me stone cold. If your analysis is based on such bars than probably you are correct but I challenge you to demonstrate your argument in a way that it can be accepted. I seem to recall there was or is a Thai academic at Thammasat University who did a study of non-Thai men “married” to Thai (or rather Isarn women) that was not just based on bar encounters.
Anyway not all NM readers just focus on Thailand. My interests and experience (and perhaps anecdotal knowledge and even perhaps “insights”) span all the countries NM covers and I have worked in all of them. Perhaps you should compare the Cambodian monarchy with that of the Thai monarchy rather than the rambunctious Donald Trump, who I assume is not a supported of monarchy, with the Thai monarchy and then see what you can come up with. Enjoy your studies on the monarchy. I have to get back to working out how we can convince the owners and managers of forests in Vietnam (not many women involved) to agree to the users of the forests, largely poor ethnic minority women (I refer to them as indigenous but Vietnam insists upon them being referred to as ethnic minorities) in the forest-dependent communities of upland Vietnam can benefit from the amorphous Carbon Fund.
Sorry Tom but that is just wishful thinking on your part. The number of non-religious folk is increasing but as a global percentage they are steadily decreasing because they aren’t having as many kids as religious folk.
See page 81.
Alternately, it could simply be the Crown Prince’s insistence of parity with British royals, who insist that anything outside of official duties is “private,” along with indifference to the effect of such pictures on national identity or, indeed, his subjects.
Given that they appear to change in the pictures supplied by Bild and Andrew, what’s up with those tattoos?
Do transparent tattoo shirts, indeed, exist?
What I found shocking in older photos of the CP and Suthida shopping together in Munich was the unabashed use of kneeling servants in European public space — prostration and the like being something that King Chulalongkorn supposedly abolished at his coronation, specifically for the farang audience.
Differences over the “kowtow” having played a pivotal role in the British Opium Wars in China.
These items have very specific cultural meanings. Given the above, it would appear that the new royal dress is but expression of a continuing, acute middle-aged crisis to show off the CP’s hot bod.
Since the dress and tattoos are overt sexual symbols, they would seem to bespeak the ongoing partaking of traditional privileges of Siamese kings, expressed in public, rather than private: Or rather the CP insisting that all space for him is private unless he specifies otherwise.
British royals insist likewise, for the most part.
The photos are expressive as well of a keen interest in consumerism rather than, say, national development or the poverty of many Thai people. And, the switch-up of gender conventions addressed in the fashion link — men baring their middles rather than women — would seem to be both encouraged and echoed by the current wife, which is some of what makes the picture so disturbing.
Don’t wives try and set the brakes on their husbands’ middle-aged crises?
Scratch that. Not the trophy wives of powerful men.
Better that he kept to the speeding tickets, engaging with a private harem of airline hostesses, and ignoring restaurant reservations as signs of privilege and sexual prowess.
Oliver Wolters is turning in his grave — and laughing.
Except for diplomat Prince Charoon’s 1920s adventures with the speeding ticket in Switzerland, which he attempted to elevate to the level of international crisis through the League of Nations — oh, and adultery with the wife of a Frenchman — Thai princes in the past tended to behave with more circumspection in European capitals (see Stefan Hell’s “Siam and the League of Nations” 2010: River Books Press).
Chulalongkorn, for one, insisted upon it, because a lot was riding on this with regard to national identity. R V attempted to suppress western reporting on royal polygamy — “the Anna Leonownes problem” — for the same reasons.
Professor Thak’s July article in Sojourn (31/2), “Through Racing Goggles: Modernity, the West, Ambiguous Siamese Alterities and the Construction of Thai Nationalism,” offers an interesting point of comparison.
Could Prince Vajiralongkorn’s behavior be latest, albeit cringeworthy, expression of identity of the Western Oriental Gentleman (WOG)?
These pictures do have enormous political and cultural significance. One young Thai woman living abroad, previously very pro-royal, was so shocked it turned her against… so it’s not just me or others of a certain, formerly more hip generation who are shocked. The idea, of course, would be to have free discussion among Thai about the significance of this.
Oh, right, that’s why we post here.
Since this picture was significant enough for Thai police to take a western journalist’s Thai wife into custody for suspected LM, pushing the limits of the latter to near breaking point, one has to wonder about the impetus behind the comment suggesting that the post somehow endangers Paul’s credibility as a “serious journalist.”
By definition, the study of royals entails analysis of popular culture and tabloid reporting. Of fashion, even. (Think Kate Middleton and Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn of Thailand.)
Since Andrew has more recently taken the heat for discussion of Thai royalty, it’s interesting to see the point at which the thread turns against Paul personally for inviting cultural analysis of a picture that is, indeed, shocking to many farang and Thai.
At the same time, on another, related thread, one commentator suggests that research and writing on Thai royals does not require ahem cojones.
What does not require cojones is supporting the status quo: royalty, the prostitution industry, and the junta within Thailand.
These topics are taboo, for a reason.
And cojones, unfortunately, is what this is about.
If Donald Trump, the man with a fluorescent rodent adorning his head, wins the US Presidential election, the article’s author Mr. Tobias Stone (who has a background in background is archaeology, history and anthropology) warns about a possible world disaster that could possibly and feasibly occur. NewMandala, I believe, should take note.
HISTORY TELLS US WHAT WILL HAPPEN WITH TRUMP AND BREXIT
“Humans have a habit of going into phases of mass destruction, generally self imposed to some extent.”
Foucault: Sex is a particularly dense transfer point in relations of power ….
In Gray somewhere or another she forgot
paraphrased
You must admit there are those shades of sexism, derision, and shock in comments from NM scholars, although not particularly the group here, and Thai studies is an acutely narrow group given LM laws. Analysis of monarchy is a pretty lonely field. You can make your points without denigrating me or the danger that is involved in researching the subject. So let’s see your better analyses. Move the discussion along.
Oh, btw, there ARE no women on this or any current Thai threads hmmm What year is this? As interesting as they are, your comments do nothing to open up space for women, only to assert that “Dr. Gray” is … a bad scholar. Ouch! Bad scholar!
I know it’s a touchy point, and we all know cross-cultural marriages, but it’s a valid one that should have been stated long ago, particularly for this website. Where is this officious tone and sense of entitlement of ex-patriots coming from? I remember when I used to walk into Bangkok bars … Comments of many of the farang male commentators here resonate exactly.
Methinks they have been flattered too long, under the wrong kind of circumstance.
Interesting that you should ignore the more obvious points re: authoritarian family structures, comments regarding the types of insults flung at Yingluck, ambivalence about women in power (not real estate, political power) as well as the prostitution industry for which Thailand is noted, with which the monarchy is deeply intertwined. Which has to a large degree soured and shamed village life. You also seem to lack empathy for women who experience this type of behavior.
Like the crown prince’s tatts, these are and remain largely taboo subjects. There’s a reason for that.
Signed,
Dead Messengers Club
Christine Gray writes some good stuff but I am not too sure that all of what she writes is quite as insightful or a reflection of the “brave’ scholarship she implies. I think for a start to compare politics in the Realm with those in the US while interesting is actually a very difficult undertaking. Donald Trump and Thailand’s own Crown Prince are seriously not the same type of person despite Dr Gray’s assertion from a gendered perspective that they share a lot in common. Donald Trumps foibles are in the public domain so much easier to comment on than the Crown Prince’s: but we know that. However, I look at the endeavors by interesting scholars such as Dr Gray in much the same way that Max Weber’s generalizations about West and East (Protestant Ethnic juxtaposed against the “religious” beliefs supposedly underpinning China and India). These generalizations made for interesting reading but they demonstrated the difficulties involved with such comparative approaches.
But what I would take Dr Gray to task for is the sweeping generalization she makes comparing the responses (presumably of younger gender-responsive males) who she states have married Thai women as partners versus older men (yes I am one of such a species) who have “accustomed” themselves to the sex trade or may have married across wide discrepancies of power, age and money and like the two persons Dr Gray is comparing are desperately trying to naturalize their differences. This is a cheap shot and I would be interested to know what empirical evidence from her possible anthropological investigations would validate such a sweeping assertion. Yes, she is probably correct as such asymmetrical relations do exist – and not of course just in Thailand or other “non-Western” societies – but Dr Gray takes her argument just a little bit too far.
People like myself despise Donald Trump but I recognize he speaks to angry old men and people who don’t like to be talked down by experts and I assume Dr Gray would consider herself to be an expert even if NM has not been as gracious as it could or should be. And yes, Hilary Clinton as a woman should be honored and she does have a coherent set of social and economic policies that Donald Trump lacks but it is a real pity the Democrats could not have identified someone other than Hilary to run for President. My “beef” with Hilary Clinton is her preposterous remarks she made in praise of Henry Kissinger, who some old farts like myself consider a war criminal for what he did using Cambodia as a “sideshow” and contributing not insignificantly to the rise of Pol Pot. I assume if I were an American I would vote for her because Donald Trump is toxic but Dr Gray could offer a more nuanced analysis than she has. I can recall students of that despised disciplinary area – comparative politics – offering a better analysis than Dr Gray has offered.
On one small and minor issue: Dr Gray complains about “scholars” that have ignored her good work – and as I said some of it is pretty good – but surely Dr Gray has learned by now that academics, irrespective of their gender/s can be quite toxic.
My surname is Turkish and unique to my family. I worked for a famous politician many years ago so I am obliged to use a pseudonym. I have no connection to Thailand’s royal family or government, nor have I ever endorsed or supported them in my commentary.
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Royal ink
Ha ha. Usually you can rely in your kids to tell you when you look ridiculous. That ain’t gonna happen here.
Ironically, the scholars and journalists who revealed the extent of the Crown Properties helped enable this type of behavior. Unlike the older generation of Mahidols, this prince has no need to insist that he is a modest and frugal person.
Like Kate Middleton, however, he appears to be recycling some of his favorite clothes.
A crown prince and German affairs
I realize that cultural analysis, gender analysis and feminism are new to this site, along with female commentators and apparently a sense of humor, but that’s kind of the point.
I did not denigrate you or your work. On this and related threads, I commented on connections between family structure, prostitution, politics and discourse; symbolic meanings of dress and tattoo; erasure of my work from mainstream Thai studies or its inclusion, sudden or otherwise; the timing of scholarly commentary on the subject of Thai royalty ; and journalism and attitude.
One line of attack is simply to focus on the truly trivial, like a grammatical or spellcheck error, rather than the bigger picture. I would guess NM has heard from many, many expatriates, and sexpatriates as well. If the shoe doesn’t fit, why worry about it?
Royal ink
So a lot of interesting and fun comments and ideas. What though this all really generated was the new photo Andrew obtained which provided evidence that the prince is regularly using giant tattoo stickers, and also habitually wearing that undersized tank top (or singlet). That raises another set of questions, but needs the psychoanalysts out there to answer. Yes it’s kind of weird, but I can sympathise a little…I’m close to his age, and sometimes think I should have a tattoo… and maybe a slim woman half my age on my arm. But I’m also around people, including by dear wife, who would let me know what is excessive, what looks ridiculous and embarrassing, at least in my family and my social circles. Even if it is temporary.
So what’s going on with this guy? Is someone telling him this is ok? Or is it just going native, assuming no one back home will see it? Or he just doesn’t care?
And what does it say when he is photographed strolling around Bavaria looking like this, and very openly boarding a plane like this, but back home the police call the photos doctored, and the websites with them are blocked? Is this just a contradiction, paranoia by the image protectors? Or a way of informing the priviliged Thais who can access such pictures what the future king looks like and feels like?
Or as I asked before, is this a declaration of independence from stifling traditional Thai culture, a message to expect some kind of modernizing effort when he is king?
Or, as someone has suggested, there is a message that he is happy to stay in Germany and do his own thing?
I don’t know, but maybe we will get more photos and stories to better understand the enigma of Prince Vajiralongkorn.
Royal ink
Um, 1873?
And the difference between a written order, royal practice, and his command to courtiers to rise at his second coronation In November 1873 in front of amazed farang, diplomats, missionaries and the like? http://www.newmandala.org/chulalongkorn-abolished-prostration/
The question is why Bhumibol’s children, nearly 150 years later, insist on a prostration or some version therein in public, including in Germany while shopping. Like Prayuth at Bike4Mom.
The Royal Gazette piece is indeed worth a read.
Why you think this would be trivial in light of current political questions is a puzzlement.
A crown prince and German affairs
correct, and thank you 🙂
A crown prince and German affairs
Christine Gray, amidst all her gender related observations, makes a common and, to me anyway, irritating grammatical error. I am a British national, long resident in Thailand, and am thus an expatriate. I am proud to be British, and am thus definitely NOT an ex-patriot.
Royal ink
Christine Gray certainly knows how to wring agonisingly lengthy and supposedly learned observations out of a relatively trivial incident, but she needs to do her research in a more thorough and scholarly way. King Chulalongkorn’s decision to abolish prostration was in fact published in the Royal Gazette in 1875, seven years after he became King. It was addressed to his subjects, not foreigners, and is well worth a read.
3R: race, religion and royalty in Malaysia
The scandal involving PM Najib is widely reported in the foreign financial media. Such reporting ruins the image of Malaysia.
To rule over the waves
The PLA is a paper tiger. It dare not fight. China will come back to negotiate with the Philippines. USA is the country China fears.
A crown prince and German affairs
Dr Gray
A quickie as I have to read yet another gibberish report on stakeholder engagement strategies for yet another BS project. I don’t seem to recall suggesting you are a “bad” scholar but rather you should provide more evidence than the sweeping generalizations you make about “old farts’ in Thailand. Of course I understand the asymmetrical nature of gender relations and to suggest I lack empathy for women who are forced to accept such asymmetries is putting words into my mouth or rather onto paper. Indeed on occasion I have explicitly stated that without real economic empowerment gender relations will always work against many/most women (I mentioned this in relation to Vietnam but perhaps being a student of the monarchy you don’t read anything relating to Vietnam) and I also seemed to think I (along with others) “railed” against the grotesque attacks on deposed PM Yingluck (including ones that made reference to her anatomy but perhaps you did not read these either)
I would be more convinced by the cogency of your arguments if you provided a reasoned analysis: while I like having a drink at bars on occasion the bars you refer to leave me stone cold. If your analysis is based on such bars than probably you are correct but I challenge you to demonstrate your argument in a way that it can be accepted. I seem to recall there was or is a Thai academic at Thammasat University who did a study of non-Thai men “married” to Thai (or rather Isarn women) that was not just based on bar encounters.
Anyway not all NM readers just focus on Thailand. My interests and experience (and perhaps anecdotal knowledge and even perhaps “insights”) span all the countries NM covers and I have worked in all of them. Perhaps you should compare the Cambodian monarchy with that of the Thai monarchy rather than the rambunctious Donald Trump, who I assume is not a supported of monarchy, with the Thai monarchy and then see what you can come up with. Enjoy your studies on the monarchy. I have to get back to working out how we can convince the owners and managers of forests in Vietnam (not many women involved) to agree to the users of the forests, largely poor ethnic minority women (I refer to them as indigenous but Vietnam insists upon them being referred to as ethnic minorities) in the forest-dependent communities of upland Vietnam can benefit from the amorphous Carbon Fund.
A crown prince and German affairs
Sorry Tom but that is just wishful thinking on your part. The number of non-religious folk is increasing but as a global percentage they are steadily decreasing because they aren’t having as many kids as religious folk.
See page 81.
http://www.pewforum.org/files/2015/03/PF_15.04.02_ProjectionsFullReport.pdf
A crown prince and German affairs
0/20 Atheism is growing rapidly.
Royal ink
Alternately, it could simply be the Crown Prince’s insistence of parity with British royals, who insist that anything outside of official duties is “private,” along with indifference to the effect of such pictures on national identity or, indeed, his subjects.
A crown prince and German affairs
Prostitution is not legal in Thailand. And i think that is good.
Royal ink
Hey! Tattoos and odd dress are red meat to the anthropologist!
Bernd Weber wins the prize, so far. http://oystercoloredvelvet.com/fashion/crop-tops-for-boys-show-up-during-london-mens-fashion-week#.V5O2RfxkjIU
Given that they appear to change in the pictures supplied by Bild and Andrew, what’s up with those tattoos?
Do transparent tattoo shirts, indeed, exist?
What I found shocking in older photos of the CP and Suthida shopping together in Munich was the unabashed use of kneeling servants in European public space — prostration and the like being something that King Chulalongkorn supposedly abolished at his coronation, specifically for the farang audience.
Differences over the “kowtow” having played a pivotal role in the British Opium Wars in China.
These items have very specific cultural meanings. Given the above, it would appear that the new royal dress is but expression of a continuing, acute middle-aged crisis to show off the CP’s hot bod.
Since the dress and tattoos are overt sexual symbols, they would seem to bespeak the ongoing partaking of traditional privileges of Siamese kings, expressed in public, rather than private: Or rather the CP insisting that all space for him is private unless he specifies otherwise.
British royals insist likewise, for the most part.
The photos are expressive as well of a keen interest in consumerism rather than, say, national development or the poverty of many Thai people. And, the switch-up of gender conventions addressed in the fashion link — men baring their middles rather than women — would seem to be both encouraged and echoed by the current wife, which is some of what makes the picture so disturbing.
Don’t wives try and set the brakes on their husbands’ middle-aged crises?
Scratch that. Not the trophy wives of powerful men.
Better that he kept to the speeding tickets, engaging with a private harem of airline hostesses, and ignoring restaurant reservations as signs of privilege and sexual prowess.
Oliver Wolters is turning in his grave — and laughing.
Except for diplomat Prince Charoon’s 1920s adventures with the speeding ticket in Switzerland, which he attempted to elevate to the level of international crisis through the League of Nations — oh, and adultery with the wife of a Frenchman — Thai princes in the past tended to behave with more circumspection in European capitals (see Stefan Hell’s “Siam and the League of Nations” 2010: River Books Press).
Chulalongkorn, for one, insisted upon it, because a lot was riding on this with regard to national identity. R V attempted to suppress western reporting on royal polygamy — “the Anna Leonownes problem” — for the same reasons.
Professor Thak’s July article in Sojourn (31/2), “Through Racing Goggles: Modernity, the West, Ambiguous Siamese Alterities and the Construction of Thai Nationalism,” offers an interesting point of comparison.
Could Prince Vajiralongkorn’s behavior be latest, albeit cringeworthy, expression of identity of the Western Oriental Gentleman (WOG)?
These pictures do have enormous political and cultural significance. One young Thai woman living abroad, previously very pro-royal, was so shocked it turned her against… so it’s not just me or others of a certain, formerly more hip generation who are shocked. The idea, of course, would be to have free discussion among Thai about the significance of this.
Oh, right, that’s why we post here.
Since this picture was significant enough for Thai police to take a western journalist’s Thai wife into custody for suspected LM, pushing the limits of the latter to near breaking point, one has to wonder about the impetus behind the comment suggesting that the post somehow endangers Paul’s credibility as a “serious journalist.”
By definition, the study of royals entails analysis of popular culture and tabloid reporting. Of fashion, even. (Think Kate Middleton and Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn of Thailand.)
Since Andrew has more recently taken the heat for discussion of Thai royalty, it’s interesting to see the point at which the thread turns against Paul personally for inviting cultural analysis of a picture that is, indeed, shocking to many farang and Thai.
At the same time, on another, related thread, one commentator suggests that research and writing on Thai royals does not require ahem cojones.
What does not require cojones is supporting the status quo: royalty, the prostitution industry, and the junta within Thailand.
These topics are taboo, for a reason.
And cojones, unfortunately, is what this is about.
Magic families
If Donald Trump, the man with a fluorescent rodent adorning his head, wins the US Presidential election, the article’s author Mr. Tobias Stone (who has a background in background is archaeology, history and anthropology) warns about a possible world disaster that could possibly and feasibly occur. NewMandala, I believe, should take note.
HISTORY TELLS US WHAT WILL HAPPEN WITH TRUMP AND BREXIT
“Humans have a habit of going into phases of mass destruction, generally self imposed to some extent.”
http://www.newsweek.com/history-tells-us-what-will-happen-brext-trump-483671
A crown prince and German affairs
Hi Shane Tarr:
Foucault: Sex is a particularly dense transfer point in relations of power ….
In Gray somewhere or another she forgot
paraphrased
You must admit there are those shades of sexism, derision, and shock in comments from NM scholars, although not particularly the group here, and Thai studies is an acutely narrow group given LM laws. Analysis of monarchy is a pretty lonely field. You can make your points without denigrating me or the danger that is involved in researching the subject. So let’s see your better analyses. Move the discussion along.
Oh, btw, there ARE no women on this or any current Thai threads hmmm What year is this? As interesting as they are, your comments do nothing to open up space for women, only to assert that “Dr. Gray” is … a bad scholar. Ouch! Bad scholar!
I know it’s a touchy point, and we all know cross-cultural marriages, but it’s a valid one that should have been stated long ago, particularly for this website. Where is this officious tone and sense of entitlement of ex-patriots coming from? I remember when I used to walk into Bangkok bars … Comments of many of the farang male commentators here resonate exactly.
Methinks they have been flattered too long, under the wrong kind of circumstance.
Interesting that you should ignore the more obvious points re: authoritarian family structures, comments regarding the types of insults flung at Yingluck, ambivalence about women in power (not real estate, political power) as well as the prostitution industry for which Thailand is noted, with which the monarchy is deeply intertwined. Which has to a large degree soured and shamed village life. You also seem to lack empathy for women who experience this type of behavior.
Like the crown prince’s tatts, these are and remain largely taboo subjects. There’s a reason for that.
Signed,
Dead Messengers Club
A crown prince and German affairs
Christine Gray writes some good stuff but I am not too sure that all of what she writes is quite as insightful or a reflection of the “brave’ scholarship she implies. I think for a start to compare politics in the Realm with those in the US while interesting is actually a very difficult undertaking. Donald Trump and Thailand’s own Crown Prince are seriously not the same type of person despite Dr Gray’s assertion from a gendered perspective that they share a lot in common. Donald Trumps foibles are in the public domain so much easier to comment on than the Crown Prince’s: but we know that. However, I look at the endeavors by interesting scholars such as Dr Gray in much the same way that Max Weber’s generalizations about West and East (Protestant Ethnic juxtaposed against the “religious” beliefs supposedly underpinning China and India). These generalizations made for interesting reading but they demonstrated the difficulties involved with such comparative approaches.
But what I would take Dr Gray to task for is the sweeping generalization she makes comparing the responses (presumably of younger gender-responsive males) who she states have married Thai women as partners versus older men (yes I am one of such a species) who have “accustomed” themselves to the sex trade or may have married across wide discrepancies of power, age and money and like the two persons Dr Gray is comparing are desperately trying to naturalize their differences. This is a cheap shot and I would be interested to know what empirical evidence from her possible anthropological investigations would validate such a sweeping assertion. Yes, she is probably correct as such asymmetrical relations do exist – and not of course just in Thailand or other “non-Western” societies – but Dr Gray takes her argument just a little bit too far.
People like myself despise Donald Trump but I recognize he speaks to angry old men and people who don’t like to be talked down by experts and I assume Dr Gray would consider herself to be an expert even if NM has not been as gracious as it could or should be. And yes, Hilary Clinton as a woman should be honored and she does have a coherent set of social and economic policies that Donald Trump lacks but it is a real pity the Democrats could not have identified someone other than Hilary to run for President. My “beef” with Hilary Clinton is her preposterous remarks she made in praise of Henry Kissinger, who some old farts like myself consider a war criminal for what he did using Cambodia as a “sideshow” and contributing not insignificantly to the rise of Pol Pot. I assume if I were an American I would vote for her because Donald Trump is toxic but Dr Gray could offer a more nuanced analysis than she has. I can recall students of that despised disciplinary area – comparative politics – offering a better analysis than Dr Gray has offered.
On one small and minor issue: Dr Gray complains about “scholars” that have ignored her good work – and as I said some of it is pretty good – but surely Dr Gray has learned by now that academics, irrespective of their gender/s can be quite toxic.
A crown prince and German affairs
My surname is Turkish and unique to my family. I worked for a famous politician many years ago so I am obliged to use a pseudonym. I have no connection to Thailand’s royal family or government, nor have I ever endorsed or supported them in my commentary.
Royal ink
just to point out, its not a small shirt, its a singlet that hes pulled up. Thais do it all the time to keep cool, altho not usually in polite circles