The King and I

The King of Thailand is literally everywhere in Bangkok. The King and Queen are pictured on billboards, shop signs, and in most every cab you take in the city. Thais wear yellow on Mondays to honor the King, who was born on a Monday. The Queen was born on a Friday, so Thais wear blue on Fridays. These shirts have the royal insignia on the front and are emblazoned with “I love the King” or “I love the Queen” on the back or the sleeve. The sidewalks are a sea of yellow on Mondays, it is amazing to see. Every day at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. all radio and television stations will play the national anthem and show the pictures of the King and royal family. Everyone (including drivers of cars) stops what they are doing and stands still until the anthem is over.

I first experienced this when I was running just a taaad late for school due to oversleeping and found myself speed-walking through the Bangkok Transit System (BTS) station at 8am. I was running down the stairway steps and saw everyone stop in their tracks. I had heard about the anthem before and sure enough it was playing over intercom. Even though I was extremely late, I had to awkwardly stand on the steps and wait for the anthem to finish. Another odd place where Thais pay tribute to the King is in movie theatres before every film. The anthem is played, everyone puts their popcorn down and stands up to watch a slide show or a film of dramatic pictures of the King’s childhood and adult life (the King as a Buddhist monk, the King sailing, the King helping the poor).

The last thing you want to do in Thailand is insult the royal family in any way. Doing so can get you time in prison for treason, so I try to avoid the subject altogether so I don’t offend anyone. I went to Tesco Lotus (a huge Wal-Mart style big box store) after I moved into my place to get sheets for my queen-sized bed and realized I had no idea how to ask the employees for a “queen” bed set without potentially insulting them. I didn’t know if calling a set of sheets a “queen” set would be an insult to Her Majesty, so I asked for “2nd biggest sheets” and “bigger than a twin”. Needless to say, this totally confused everyone so I went home empty handed and slept on a towel for the next week. It turns out a queen bed is called a queen bed, even in Thailand.