John Smith, again, please give us your real thai name as it is obvious you are an ultra thai royalist or one of these few disgusting paid civil servants trying to save the reputation of what is undefendable….
To borrow phrase from Peter Berger “Ways of Seeing,” the gaze is male. This is true of tabloids whose cameras leer at naked women, of movies and television cameras that sweep bottom to top when they are walking away, of traditions like construction workers harassing women on the streets of New York, of the CP’s notion of pornography in which an adoring, naked female or females worship him. In this case, the prince himself is feminized by the camera gaze due to the his chosen mode of undress or dress as much as by the tatts. The tattoos and dress make him more like than unlike his companion, which makes you wonder what’s going on in their relationship. Her posture here and on shopping trips in Germany is more confident and open, otherwise she seems stiff and afraid in photos of her performing ritual duties at his side.
Given his unfettered privilege, he’s inadvertently feminized himself for the camera, which appears to be shocking the bejesus out of even the most cynical observers. Given his propensities, one thinks this may be his definition of a hyper-masculine male borrowed as borrowed from pornography or some red light district.
One commentator ventured that he knows perfectly well what he’s doing vis a vis the press. Getting speeding tickets, keeping restaurants open and empty while the owner awaits the arrival of the royal entourage – those are prestige markers, clear signs of male prerogative. They aren’t going to start a revolution in Thailand. As another commented, he’s perfectly disciplined when he’s performing his civic duties.
Given this new German habitat, is he the new Kim Kardashian, like, you know, pioneering a hip new mode of dress, building his brand? Or is he simply drunk, stoned on drugs and/or getting off an airplane after the usually transportation orgy with a stewardess, or stewardesses?
Given the other video he and Suthida shopping together in similar dress and tattoos, the Occam’s razor explanation of them getting off the plane does not quit. He has certainly transposed traditional prerogatives of Thai kings onto a modern, capitalist landscape.
I’m quite surprised by some of the sweeping statements in New Mandala’s commentary; ‘all witchcraft is nonsense’, ‘all Buddhism is despotic’ and now ‘all sacred kings are fairy tales’. I’m sure it feels good to let rip with a broad brush in this way but it is at the cost of accuracy, and credibility.
Religious beliefs are precious to those who hold them, so even if your viewpoint is very different it is not correct to trample on cherished beliefs in this way.
Furthermore, irreligious views are very new, in terms of history, and are held by only a small minority of people. Eighty-four percent of humanity is religious.
An item only interesting for tabloids. Do these pictures make hem more or less popular? Very unlikely. Do these pictures influence his chances to the Thai throne? Very unlikely. Then what is this about and why does a man who calls himself a ‘serious’ royalty journalist share these pictures on his Facebook? In the past, we already read so many stories about (crown) princes all over the world who had love affairs and bastard children. A serious journalist laughs about it and goes on with his work
Mahathir has challenges to his legacy, The material here is seek ways forward in malaysia using available tools . All tools (people included) are flawed . However this cannot be reason to hold back and seek new avenues.
So i do not see this researcher or any other seeking “what would be best way” , And yes even using Mahathir which has its own challenges and opportunities.
the purchase of the mansion at the lake and his public appearances in Germany show that he not wants to change his lifestyle.
– it show us quite the contrary
but this will necessarily if he becomes King of Thailand.
However, the point in time now speaks absolutely against
So it seems a different arrangement have been found
TomV seems to know a lot more about Donald Trump and his family. But my impression is that Donald Trump’s father is a racists, Donald himself is a racist. Could the whole Trump family be all racists TomV?
Why Germany, one wonders? The medical care or something else? As Pavin points out, Thai royals also land in England, Switzerland and the United States.
‘Fairytale/illusion…no basis in fact or reality’. A rather careless remark about the sacred beliefs of others.
Of course it is just your personal opinion about religion, one that is shared by a mere 16% of the global population (and decreasing rapidly).
I am enjoying these mostly cool-headed discussions from people who mostly give their full names. Information and thinking have been suppressed for so long on this topic, when that lid pops, as I believe it has, there will be a torrent of information — not outrage, hurt, etc. , but genuine information. There is genuine historical context for Thai royals living abroad, just as there is genuine context for those tattoos, or fake tattoos, we just aren’t sure what it is.
New Mandala is a good format for that.
I do believe last week’s events comprise a turning point of sorts, including for many loyal royal subjects and probably some police, who may have also been shocked by those photos.
Interesting that pornographic or semi-pornographic photos of the prince, which have long been circulating with his approval (or to his indifference), raised little or no moral outrage, whereas the tattoos…. and that rent boy (?) outfit.
Previous pictorial representations were standard visual tropes. Women, half or fully undressed, are demeaned, the crown prince, presented as an object of adoration in their and his eyes.
As for reactions to my work, I do believe there is a clear dividing line in comfort level, or at least I am seeing this in my own private interactions, when the script is flipped on ordinary/extraordinary patterns of discourse generated from the outrageous sex trade in Thailand and its contribution to ex-patriot (or sex-patriot, as a friend refers to them with disgust) identity and discourse. In Thailand, perhaps more than any other country, prostitution has both been foregrounded and naturalized. What’s the big deal?
Yuck!
Some consumers of prostitution and pornography are so used to fantasies and flatteries that constitute the “bubble” that the CP has created around himself and the essence of the Thai sex trade, they are outraged and discomfited when that bubble bursts.
You see this, I would venture, in degree of outrage at my work — not just criticism, or interest, or disagreement, but hostility and outrage that a woman would even dare post here. You also see it in constant implication or assumption that I somehow derive from my ideas from Andrew MacGregor Marshall (who deliberately provoked that kind of outrage in his past life — PAST life, people lol) rather than the reverse. Or, I and my work simply do not exist.
One dividing line is viewing the Crown Prince’s sexual and personal proclivities from the prospective of the male consumer versus from the perspective of the woman so used or demeaned, which is one perspective from which I write. Responses differ widely from younger male friends who’ve married Thai women as partners versus older men who’ve accustomed themselves to clearly to the sex trade or may have married across wide discrepancies of power, age and money and try desperately, like Trump and Vajiralongkorn, to naturalize those differences.
That’s never happened to them.
For instance, there was strong response to my using the term “crawl” with Srirasmi and Melania, from my own daughter, even, and the editor, and I agree to some extent (just like describing the female dog Foo Foo as a bitch made some cringe, but I used it as a technical term as in FEMALE DOG; it’s been misused for so long…). Yet that, unfortunately, is what Melania and Srirasmi did to earn their suppers — okay, that element of satire crept in; what, really, do you think these women are doing, and why? — and that’s the kind of pressure felt by other women as well. Crawl, don’t talk back, don’t comment incisively, and certainly never resort to satire, or repurpose those demeaning words.
I notice even co-founder Nicholas Farrelly, in his May piece, “The King Still Never Smiles,” whom I am assured is an excellent journalist and nice guy, managed to leave my name off of his list of pioneers who have written on the monarchy. Read the prefaces of their work, please. It’s called “erasure” in gender theory. Older scholars are adamant about erasure, younger generation, not so. Yes, my work may be somewhat theoretical given my training, but it ain’t that arcane.
This said, I do feel contempt for scholars and others who, once the topic is made safe by myself, Paul, Andrew –who’ve paid dearly for speaking up — have now jumped on the bandwagon. These would be some of the same scholars, “Thai specialists,” who’ve spent decades scrupulously not citing my work, or cleverly lifting or mis-citing it when to do otherwise would …, INSISTING that commentary on monarchy be de-centered, or that any commentary on the monarchy means one is pro-royal (another version of the attack) yada yada, because it is irrelevant in comparison to … yada yada… As the tide turns, some of these very same scholars are now attempting to bill themselves as experts.
As the tattoo kerfuffle indicates, political and cultural analysis of royalty requires work, research and risk. Historical research is particularly intense and time consuming since much of official Thai history is royal; what is portrayed is actually the opposite. Look at what happened to Pridi, and the monk Phra Phimonlatham in official narrative. Who brought democracy to Thailand?
There’s also a certain element of amnesia in praising Paul to the detriment of Andrew. Not only did they write very different books, under different circumstances, but I still cringe remembering the flack that Paul took in constructing that book.
Real commentary on Thai politics generates real payback and genuine sacrifice, as Pavin and other exiled writers know for sure.
Commentary on the unconscious gender norms that seem to rule this website, and that are the foundation of the Thai political system and notions of riap roi or “propriety” therein, generates something more subtle than death threats.
Rather than going berserk, check out John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing.”
As commentary regarding Magic Families developed — I’m simultaneously watching American political coverage on television and tracking developments in the Thai succession drama — I realized one commonality is that these contorted family configurations involving the necessary and occasionally hilarious erasure of wives are outcomes of conservative values, capitalist-consumerist values, and highly authoritarian family systems.
Trump does not know how to run a democratic meeting. His judgement and whims are absolute: You’re fired! No dialogue. The divorce case from first wife Ivana centered around Ivana’s claims that she was heavily involved in the business, which he dismissed out of hand. That still enrages her.
Marla Maples, showgirl-wife number two, veers perilously close to insolvency.
In the case of Thai royals, this would be an EXTREMELY authoritarian political and family system, grounded in traditions of polygamy, where the punishment for acting up or merely getting old would be death, exile or imprisonment. Except if one is a Kitiyakara.
What, one must ask, does the opposite look like? What is its expression?
To what types of attack has Yingluck been subjected? Has she been called a whore or a slut? Incompetent? Is she a woman who did not crawl? What are the consequences for writers who support her? How might Prime Minister Prayuth, who clearly crawls in the presence of royalty (see Bike4Mom) and whose own sexual behavior has gotten rather creepy, feel about a woman who does not crawl?
It’s a new era for the crown prince, and hopefully for New Mandala as well.
“What she did not realise was that the content of the reports from the Swiss police on the family’s daily activities inside the villa revealed many dark secrets she would rather conceal from the public.”
This is very interesting…wonder if Ajan Pravin or Andrew will be able to share this piece of info (the dark secrets).
I still think eventually Thai society at large will accept his(the prince’s) bizarre behavior. Thai society is considered a kind of conservative society with complications – accepting by one eye closed…like many things that are practicing in society….I guess there will be no conflicts after his succession inside the Royals and the surrounding guards if they let’s him be what he wants…but the question is …how long the junta will maintain their power for themselves…really it should separate issues between the succession and the political system – election or Thailand will not sink in that deep . The political conflict started one thing in 2005 and now things seem changed to be a different thing….all is about maintaining the power of the militar and supported by Democratic Party (this party really thought they would get a bone to lick but it seems is just a day dreaming).
Thai royalism is built on an illusion of a Sacred Buddhist/Hindu King, the reincarnated Hindu God Vishnu coming back to Earth to serve (and save) the Thais. It is an meticulopusly constructed fairytale with no actual basis in fact or reality.
The present King came to power after accidently shooting and killing his older brother.
He pontificates to the largely submissive Thai population that they need to live “Sufficiency Economy”-Style, while he himself owns many houses and palaces, hundreds of luxury cars, is surrounded by thousands of fawning servants and controls a fifty billion dollar fortune with ownership over one third of Central Bangkok’s real estate, majority shares in banks, industrial conglomerates, international luxury hotel chains etc. Plus, so it is said, billions of dollars worth of gold and gems.
His wife, the mother of his four children, (none of whom are particularly well-educated, talented, attractive or accomplished), has been involved in adulterous love affairs, supplying weapons to Buddhist militias in Thailand’s Deep South, endless political intrigue and scheming, as well as being famous for her love of fine gems including at least one that was stolen/expropriated from its rightful owner.
The son, who is about to replace the present King as the new King of Thailand, is as far from being a Sacred Buddhist/Hindu King as one could imagine. A badly educated serial womanizer (including wives, girlfriends and even prostitutes) with a hardy appetite for “partying hard”, endlessly consuming luxury goods, flying around the world at great expense in his two private 737 custom outfitted aircraft (one is a back-up in case of a problem with the first one) and never having done an honest day’s work in his entire life.
Small wonder that the Royalist Network in Thailand is so obsessed with imposing a Gag Order/Non-Disclosure Agreement, (aka Lese Majeste/Article 112) on the entire Thai population (as well as foreigners) forbidding, under penalty of lengthy prison terms, any discussion and debate regardng the King, the Queen and the Crown Prince son.
If the Fairytale/Illusion were ever opened up to examination, documentation and discussion, it wouldn’t last for even a day.
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Royal ink
I don’t think the Crown Prince is at a fancy dress party is he?
Royal ink
Whatever – the anti-Prayut uprising has now begun, led by eight year olds and macaque monkeys !! : http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/1043613/macaques-sow-poll-strife
A crown prince and German affairs
Poor thai guy trying to defend a grotesque family under an English fake name…
A crown prince and German affairs
John Smith, again, please give us your real thai name as it is obvious you are an ultra thai royalist or one of these few disgusting paid civil servants trying to save the reputation of what is undefendable….
Royal ink
Abdication tattoos or Twitter tattoos?
To borrow phrase from Peter Berger “Ways of Seeing,” the gaze is male. This is true of tabloids whose cameras leer at naked women, of movies and television cameras that sweep bottom to top when they are walking away, of traditions like construction workers harassing women on the streets of New York, of the CP’s notion of pornography in which an adoring, naked female or females worship him. In this case, the prince himself is feminized by the camera gaze due to the his chosen mode of undress or dress as much as by the tatts. The tattoos and dress make him more like than unlike his companion, which makes you wonder what’s going on in their relationship. Her posture here and on shopping trips in Germany is more confident and open, otherwise she seems stiff and afraid in photos of her performing ritual duties at his side.
Given his unfettered privilege, he’s inadvertently feminized himself for the camera, which appears to be shocking the bejesus out of even the most cynical observers. Given his propensities, one thinks this may be his definition of a hyper-masculine male borrowed as borrowed from pornography or some red light district.
One commentator ventured that he knows perfectly well what he’s doing vis a vis the press. Getting speeding tickets, keeping restaurants open and empty while the owner awaits the arrival of the royal entourage – those are prestige markers, clear signs of male prerogative. They aren’t going to start a revolution in Thailand. As another commented, he’s perfectly disciplined when he’s performing his civic duties.
Given this new German habitat, is he the new Kim Kardashian, like, you know, pioneering a hip new mode of dress, building his brand? Or is he simply drunk, stoned on drugs and/or getting off an airplane after the usually transportation orgy with a stewardess, or stewardesses?
Given the other video he and Suthida shopping together in similar dress and tattoos, the Occam’s razor explanation of them getting off the plane does not quit. He has certainly transposed traditional prerogatives of Thai kings onto a modern, capitalist landscape.
A crown prince and German affairs
I’m quite surprised by some of the sweeping statements in New Mandala’s commentary; ‘all witchcraft is nonsense’, ‘all Buddhism is despotic’ and now ‘all sacred kings are fairy tales’. I’m sure it feels good to let rip with a broad brush in this way but it is at the cost of accuracy, and credibility.
Religious beliefs are precious to those who hold them, so even if your viewpoint is very different it is not correct to trample on cherished beliefs in this way.
Furthermore, irreligious views are very new, in terms of history, and are held by only a small minority of people. Eighty-four percent of humanity is religious.
Royal ink
An item only interesting for tabloids. Do these pictures make hem more or less popular? Very unlikely. Do these pictures influence his chances to the Thai throne? Very unlikely. Then what is this about and why does a man who calls himself a ‘serious’ royalty journalist share these pictures on his Facebook? In the past, we already read so many stories about (crown) princes all over the world who had love affairs and bastard children. A serious journalist laughs about it and goes on with his work
A crown prince and German affairs
Hinduism accounts for 15% of world population.
Buddhism accounts for 6% of world population.
in Thailand are around 90% of the population = Buddhists.
However, the rites of the royal family are Brahmanism
which is a major problem in Thailand because
– Theravada Buddhism = Anatta (no soul)
– Brahmanism = Atman (soul) and Brahman (universal soul)
Social cohesion and scandal cycles in Malaysia
Mahathir has challenges to his legacy, The material here is seek ways forward in malaysia using available tools . All tools (people included) are flawed . However this cannot be reason to hold back and seek new avenues.
So i do not see this researcher or any other seeking “what would be best way” , And yes even using Mahathir which has its own challenges and opportunities.
A crown prince and German affairs
the purchase of the mansion at the lake and his public appearances in Germany show that he not wants to change his lifestyle.
– it show us quite the contrary
but this will necessarily if he becomes King of Thailand.
However, the point in time now speaks absolutely against
So it seems a different arrangement have been found
A crown prince and German affairs
[…] 3: In another post at New Mandala, academic Pavin Chachavalpongpun has an interesting post seeking to unravel some of the questions […]
Living in a gangster’s paradise
Good piece, and very interesting.
Magic families
TomV seems to know a lot more about Donald Trump and his family. But my impression is that Donald Trump’s father is a racists, Donald himself is a racist. Could the whole Trump family be all racists TomV?
Magic families
These particular family values are also authoritarian values.
This is from a conservative female commentator: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/07/herr_trumpf_kathleen_parker.html
Why Germany, one wonders? The medical care or something else? As Pavin points out, Thai royals also land in England, Switzerland and the United States.
A crown prince and German affairs
‘Fairytale/illusion…no basis in fact or reality’. A rather careless remark about the sacred beliefs of others.
Of course it is just your personal opinion about religion, one that is shared by a mere 16% of the global population (and decreasing rapidly).
Thai youth activism rekindling hope
Nice work 🙂 Whenever I feel despair about the situation, I think of what the NextGen is doing.
A crown prince and German affairs
Thanks, Acan Pavin, for adding some context here.
I am enjoying these mostly cool-headed discussions from people who mostly give their full names. Information and thinking have been suppressed for so long on this topic, when that lid pops, as I believe it has, there will be a torrent of information — not outrage, hurt, etc. , but genuine information. There is genuine historical context for Thai royals living abroad, just as there is genuine context for those tattoos, or fake tattoos, we just aren’t sure what it is.
New Mandala is a good format for that.
I do believe last week’s events comprise a turning point of sorts, including for many loyal royal subjects and probably some police, who may have also been shocked by those photos.
Interesting that pornographic or semi-pornographic photos of the prince, which have long been circulating with his approval (or to his indifference), raised little or no moral outrage, whereas the tattoos…. and that rent boy (?) outfit.
Previous pictorial representations were standard visual tropes. Women, half or fully undressed, are demeaned, the crown prince, presented as an object of adoration in their and his eyes.
As for reactions to my work, I do believe there is a clear dividing line in comfort level, or at least I am seeing this in my own private interactions, when the script is flipped on ordinary/extraordinary patterns of discourse generated from the outrageous sex trade in Thailand and its contribution to ex-patriot (or sex-patriot, as a friend refers to them with disgust) identity and discourse. In Thailand, perhaps more than any other country, prostitution has both been foregrounded and naturalized. What’s the big deal?
Yuck!
Some consumers of prostitution and pornography are so used to fantasies and flatteries that constitute the “bubble” that the CP has created around himself and the essence of the Thai sex trade, they are outraged and discomfited when that bubble bursts.
You see this, I would venture, in degree of outrage at my work — not just criticism, or interest, or disagreement, but hostility and outrage that a woman would even dare post here. You also see it in constant implication or assumption that I somehow derive from my ideas from Andrew MacGregor Marshall (who deliberately provoked that kind of outrage in his past life — PAST life, people lol) rather than the reverse. Or, I and my work simply do not exist.
One dividing line is viewing the Crown Prince’s sexual and personal proclivities from the prospective of the male consumer versus from the perspective of the woman so used or demeaned, which is one perspective from which I write. Responses differ widely from younger male friends who’ve married Thai women as partners versus older men who’ve accustomed themselves to clearly to the sex trade or may have married across wide discrepancies of power, age and money and try desperately, like Trump and Vajiralongkorn, to naturalize those differences.
That’s never happened to them.
For instance, there was strong response to my using the term “crawl” with Srirasmi and Melania, from my own daughter, even, and the editor, and I agree to some extent (just like describing the female dog Foo Foo as a bitch made some cringe, but I used it as a technical term as in FEMALE DOG; it’s been misused for so long…). Yet that, unfortunately, is what Melania and Srirasmi did to earn their suppers — okay, that element of satire crept in; what, really, do you think these women are doing, and why? — and that’s the kind of pressure felt by other women as well. Crawl, don’t talk back, don’t comment incisively, and certainly never resort to satire, or repurpose those demeaning words.
I notice even co-founder Nicholas Farrelly, in his May piece, “The King Still Never Smiles,” whom I am assured is an excellent journalist and nice guy, managed to leave my name off of his list of pioneers who have written on the monarchy. Read the prefaces of their work, please. It’s called “erasure” in gender theory. Older scholars are adamant about erasure, younger generation, not so. Yes, my work may be somewhat theoretical given my training, but it ain’t that arcane.
This said, I do feel contempt for scholars and others who, once the topic is made safe by myself, Paul, Andrew –who’ve paid dearly for speaking up — have now jumped on the bandwagon. These would be some of the same scholars, “Thai specialists,” who’ve spent decades scrupulously not citing my work, or cleverly lifting or mis-citing it when to do otherwise would …, INSISTING that commentary on monarchy be de-centered, or that any commentary on the monarchy means one is pro-royal (another version of the attack) yada yada, because it is irrelevant in comparison to … yada yada… As the tide turns, some of these very same scholars are now attempting to bill themselves as experts.
As the tattoo kerfuffle indicates, political and cultural analysis of royalty requires work, research and risk. Historical research is particularly intense and time consuming since much of official Thai history is royal; what is portrayed is actually the opposite. Look at what happened to Pridi, and the monk Phra Phimonlatham in official narrative. Who brought democracy to Thailand?
There’s also a certain element of amnesia in praising Paul to the detriment of Andrew. Not only did they write very different books, under different circumstances, but I still cringe remembering the flack that Paul took in constructing that book.
Real commentary on Thai politics generates real payback and genuine sacrifice, as Pavin and other exiled writers know for sure.
Commentary on the unconscious gender norms that seem to rule this website, and that are the foundation of the Thai political system and notions of riap roi or “propriety” therein, generates something more subtle than death threats.
Rather than going berserk, check out John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing.”
As commentary regarding Magic Families developed — I’m simultaneously watching American political coverage on television and tracking developments in the Thai succession drama — I realized one commonality is that these contorted family configurations involving the necessary and occasionally hilarious erasure of wives are outcomes of conservative values, capitalist-consumerist values, and highly authoritarian family systems.
Trump does not know how to run a democratic meeting. His judgement and whims are absolute: You’re fired! No dialogue. The divorce case from first wife Ivana centered around Ivana’s claims that she was heavily involved in the business, which he dismissed out of hand. That still enrages her.
Marla Maples, showgirl-wife number two, veers perilously close to insolvency.
In the case of Thai royals, this would be an EXTREMELY authoritarian political and family system, grounded in traditions of polygamy, where the punishment for acting up or merely getting old would be death, exile or imprisonment. Except if one is a Kitiyakara.
What, one must ask, does the opposite look like? What is its expression?
To what types of attack has Yingluck been subjected? Has she been called a whore or a slut? Incompetent? Is she a woman who did not crawl? What are the consequences for writers who support her? How might Prime Minister Prayuth, who clearly crawls in the presence of royalty (see Bike4Mom) and whose own sexual behavior has gotten rather creepy, feel about a woman who does not crawl?
It’s a new era for the crown prince, and hopefully for New Mandala as well.
A crown prince and German affairs
“What she did not realise was that the content of the reports from the Swiss police on the family’s daily activities inside the villa revealed many dark secrets she would rather conceal from the public.”
This is very interesting…wonder if Ajan Pravin or Andrew will be able to share this piece of info (the dark secrets).
I still think eventually Thai society at large will accept his(the prince’s) bizarre behavior. Thai society is considered a kind of conservative society with complications – accepting by one eye closed…like many things that are practicing in society….I guess there will be no conflicts after his succession inside the Royals and the surrounding guards if they let’s him be what he wants…but the question is …how long the junta will maintain their power for themselves…really it should separate issues between the succession and the political system – election or Thailand will not sink in that deep . The political conflict started one thing in 2005 and now things seem changed to be a different thing….all is about maintaining the power of the militar and supported by Democratic Party (this party really thought they would get a bone to lick but it seems is just a day dreaming).
Royal ink
To sum up:
Can’t really see the tattoos.
Can’t tell what they mean.
Don’t know if the tattoos are real or fake.
Real insight!
A crown prince and German affairs
Thai royalism is built on an illusion of a Sacred Buddhist/Hindu King, the reincarnated Hindu God Vishnu coming back to Earth to serve (and save) the Thais. It is an meticulopusly constructed fairytale with no actual basis in fact or reality.
The present King came to power after accidently shooting and killing his older brother.
He pontificates to the largely submissive Thai population that they need to live “Sufficiency Economy”-Style, while he himself owns many houses and palaces, hundreds of luxury cars, is surrounded by thousands of fawning servants and controls a fifty billion dollar fortune with ownership over one third of Central Bangkok’s real estate, majority shares in banks, industrial conglomerates, international luxury hotel chains etc. Plus, so it is said, billions of dollars worth of gold and gems.
His wife, the mother of his four children, (none of whom are particularly well-educated, talented, attractive or accomplished), has been involved in adulterous love affairs, supplying weapons to Buddhist militias in Thailand’s Deep South, endless political intrigue and scheming, as well as being famous for her love of fine gems including at least one that was stolen/expropriated from its rightful owner.
The son, who is about to replace the present King as the new King of Thailand, is as far from being a Sacred Buddhist/Hindu King as one could imagine. A badly educated serial womanizer (including wives, girlfriends and even prostitutes) with a hardy appetite for “partying hard”, endlessly consuming luxury goods, flying around the world at great expense in his two private 737 custom outfitted aircraft (one is a back-up in case of a problem with the first one) and never having done an honest day’s work in his entire life.
Small wonder that the Royalist Network in Thailand is so obsessed with imposing a Gag Order/Non-Disclosure Agreement, (aka Lese Majeste/Article 112) on the entire Thai population (as well as foreigners) forbidding, under penalty of lengthy prison terms, any discussion and debate regardng the King, the Queen and the Crown Prince son.
If the Fairytale/Illusion were ever opened up to examination, documentation and discussion, it wouldn’t last for even a day.