Step off the boat at the Tha Thien pier along the mighty Chao Praya River that flows through the mightier Bangkok city scape and you'll find him. Scraping rusty notes from what sounds before you bother to throw a glance, like an all too battered violin bereft of antiquity. Look twice and you'll see the notes are not borrowed of wood but a broken oil can. Redeemed of it's toxicity it's contents long chugged to aid an engine sputter, it's now bound by strings, coaxed by a salvaged battery and loving worn hands; to spill out notes high and low but never shrill. We stop to wonder and without invitation are told why he stands where he is. "Because I love the king", he declares with flourish. "And because you also love the world", we reply filled with adoration for the little man fashioning music from broken oil cans. "Yes! I love the world and I love my king...", he replied "and here's a song to save the world..." as he spun another mournful piece from the yellow plastic can.
10 comments:
was there ANY hint of sarcasm to redeem "because i love the king" statement?
no no not at all....it's just a reflection of how much Thais love their king or rather their whole devotion to the myth of the king. I guess I should have talked of the subject before. He gave us "I love the King" stickers which now grace one bit of my bicycle.
bah...... with lese-majeste laws like what the thai have, the only people who can speak up are the ones who adore the king.
i have no doubt that there is genuine veneration.... but without a healthy debate, without forums for discussion there is no way you can have any respect for that expression of feeling.
it is totally one-sided.
er um sure enough restless, but it was the innocence and quaintness of the whole thing thing that caught me. but one thing for sure the king looks a rather nice man.
exactly the thing to be suspicious about :)
rather tend to agree with restless. i find it hard to believe that ANY authority system, quaint or not, can truly be benevolent. and when people start "loving" the authority systems, it sends me crazy warning signals.
will wait for more reports on the thai interior!
Perhaps restless you are being too cynical and not sufficiently respectful for the role of a venerated King in Thai culture, its such a pity that Western Falang roam the world learning little from it and only wanting to impose their own value systems on others. Three are many good reasons why this Thai King deserves to be venerated by the Thai people amd the Thai would be foolish if they forget their own traditions to suit Western cultural and political mores.
western culture my ass.....
i am from india and i know what it means to engage in demagogy
Aah! I guess I need to mediate here. Alas! Anon the "falang" gibe's a little misplaced here with the Indians around and yes Restless here somethings has a pretty good clue of what he's talking about. Perhaps you two could square it out with me as refree...
**...sometimes
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