5 ms·
His daughter dated my roommate in college. I always thought he was just making it up. She was a very attractive, nice, intelligent woman (they met in Physics cl
by todd8 10y ago
His daughter dated my roommate in college. I always thought he was just making it up. She was a very attractive, nice, intelligent woman (they met in Physics class at MIT), but I never believed that she was from the ruling family of Thailand. She never mentioned that her father was a king and never acted any different than the rest of us commoners.
One summer, I read about their wedding in the paper. He wasn't BSing me after all!
- johansch 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubolratana_Rajakanya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubolratana_Rajakanya ? "While at MIT she first met Peter Ladd Jensen, whom she later married."
- bebop 10y agoMy wife is friends with her daughter Mia. Really nice people, down to earth for being the direct descendants of a royal family.
- superfluid 10y agoIt's relatively easy to be considered nice when there are strict laws forbidding anyone from saying anything to the contrary. Given media control in Thailand, there's no doubt plenty of incentive leading those in the media to go out of their way to praise the royal family (deserved or not).
- superfluid 10y agoSure, just like the rest of the commoners - except for vast wealth (King's wealth est. at $30 billion in 2011, by Forbes) - and except for some hilarious and ridiculous lese majeste laws that they love to enforce: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se_majest%C3%A9_in_Thailand#Notable_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se_majest%C3%A9_in_Thai... (also mentioned by ddeck here)
- dhimes 10y agoIndeed. I did some sailboat cruising there this past February and it is a fabulous place (at least the coast is). As I met and talked to the locals I was surprised at how much people loved their king. When I would ask if their king was fair or their government responsive, not only would they answer positively but their faces would light up. They seemed to be genuinely happy with their government. Then I found out about these laws. I'm no terrific judge of phoniness, but it seems to me that they are either well practiced at these responses or they are pretty happy with things.
- malnourish 10y agoMy SO spent a decent amount of time studying in Chiang Mai (she was in Bangkok at the start of the most recent coup), but take this with a a healthy amount of skepticism. She said many of the Thai people she met wouldn't say negative things about the government (and especially the king) out of fear, likely due to lèse majesté laws. She said she also noticed strong peer pressure to maintain that status quo. You don't want your neighbor thinking you don't love the king do you?
- superfluid 10y agoI have no doubt that many or most do actually love their former king. The problem is that it's probably not well-founded, given the laws you mentioned ensure virtually all media coverage of the king & royals is never less than glowing. (Analogy coming to mind is North Koreans shedding true tears for their former leader.)