“Development is here the sacred object, led by ‘experts’ from outside who could (perhaps unwittingly) usher in a quasi-authoritarian neoliberalism where key social and political decisions over the future of the economy and its development would be quarantined in the hands of a narrow elite. The ritual activities of free voting and assembly would be given as so many crumbs to the masses kept outside of real politics.”
The later part sounds like a description of the way the country operates now but that is not a product of “experts from the outside”. The current failed system has its roots in 49 years of isolation, lack of inflow from the outside of ideas, knowledge, technologies, goods, etc.
From the minute the country shut itself off from the world in 1962, it slowly and literally turned into a time capsule running on memories (2nd hand books of Pansodan book peddlers) and decaying capital stock (supplemented by second hand cars, buses, taxis, rolling stock, video players and just about everything else imaginable, castoffs from Japan, Korea and China).
“He then flags some alternative strategies for the country to consider, including Bhutan’s oft-invoked, but little studied, Gross National Happiness model..”
“Alternative strategies” ? The utter failure 49 years later of what was known as the “Burmese Way to Socialism” was an “alternative strategy”. Probably better stick to the well-beaten track this time around.
Hypothesis: Burma’s failed political system stemmed largely from a failed set of ideas called the “Burmese Way to Socialism” and constitutes clear evidence of the danger of allowing intellectuals to dream up a system too far divorced from the way things actually work. Hayek, not Marx, would be the one to look to for guidance this time around.
The stripping of Princess Uboratana’s royal title for marrying out of the family power system raises an interesting subject with a history going back thousands of years. When power trumps all, important family members are expected to sacrifice their sexual taste to the family’s interests, and submit to marriage as a power alliance. When Vajiralongkorn opted out of his marriage alliance with a member of his mother’s family (which seemed to be doing so well), it caused a hell of a stink.
Given the army’s ambivalent attitude to the Chakris in 1945, the Swiss girl that King Ananda loved would have been regarded as a poor choice compared with a nice Thai girl from a powerful army family.
Princesses aside, the Jamadevi legend has all kinds of really interesting parts in it. For instance, she defeats the chieftan of the Lwa by tricking him into wearing a turban made from her undergarments worn while she’s menstruating. He then throws a spear towards Lamphun from the slopes of Doi Kham, a spear that, because of Jama’s trick, turns around and skewers him.
I wonder how this is going to make it into the movie…
As for being forced to stand before a film starts, I saw something a couple weeks ago that I’ve never noticed before during 11 years of living here…the Thai fellow sitting two seats away from me stood up at the appointed time, took his mobile out of his trousers pocket, and began checking his text messages and apparently sending a few. As soon as we were ‘allowed’ to sit down again, the man put his mobile back in his pocket an continued watching trailers.
It seemed an oblique way to thrust two fingers up at something he considered distasteful, no? What a brave chap.
The World Bank estimates that forcible “development-induced displacement and resettlement” now affects 10 million people per year. According to the World Bank an estimated 33 million people have been displaced by development projects such as dams, urban development and irrigation canals in India alone.
India is well ahead in this respect. A country with as many as over 3600 large dams within its belt can never be the exceptional case regarding displacement. The number of development induced displacement is higher than the conflict induced displacement in India. According to Bogumil Terminski an estimated more than 10 million people have been displaced by development each year.
Athough the exact number of development-induced displaced people (DIDPs) is difficult to know, estimates are that in the last decade 90–100 million people have been displaced by urban, irrigation and power projects alone, with the number of people displaced by urban development becoming greater than those displaced by large infrastructure projects (such as dams). DIDPs outnumber refugees, with the added problem that their plight is often more concealed.
This is what experts have termed “development-induced displacement.” According to Michael Cernea, a World Bank analyst, the causes of development-induced displacement include water supply (dams, reservoirs, irrigation); urban infrastructure; transportation (roads, highways, canals); energy (mining, power plants, oil exploration and extraction, pipelines); agricultural expansion; parks and forest reserves; and population redistribution schemes.
I suspect it’s not so much that she married a commoner, but more about her marrying a…gasp….farang that stripped her of her title. After all, the king’s dad married a commoner and it didn’t do the resulting sons’ title aspirations any harm.
Princess Ubol Ratana was born with the titles of Her Royal Highness and Princess Chao Fa, but gave these up on her marriage to an American citizen, Peter Ladd Jensen. Her title, Chao Fa was lost because she married a commoner. She had previously held the royal title Chao Fa Ubolratana Rajakunya. She still retains the style of Tunkramom Ying, which means that “Daughter to the Queen Regent”. Since her return to Thailand, she has increasingly taken part in royal ceremonies, though not to the extent of her royal siblings.
The between the lines stuff in all of this is fascinating. As I understand it, she was stripped of her title. The prince married a commoner twice and didn’t lose his title and wasn’t stripped of it. I guess male blood trumps female blood and royal blood trumps anything else.
As to her acting ability, despite the fractured English, this is pretty clear:
We can all agree that the royal princess is no A-lister in the acting realm but kudos for her to step into an action genre to show her action chopping skills. There is always room for improvement but for now, word of advice, don’t deliver your lines like an announcement to the people. It may seem like a total disillusion of a self vanity project to fulfil ones inspiration, for which is very commendable in deed, one should look up to in this film as an inspiration, not for the value of the production but how no matter what the odds are, there’s always a way to reach for it and succeed. Also helps of you’re a royalty and has access to anything at snap of the finger.
Yes, I was aware that you had been making some useful criticisms of the Nitirat proposals.
My view, as much as it is worth, is that the LM prisoners’ views needed to play a bigger part in what the campaign should be.
I’ve met both Amphon and his wife, as well as many of the other prisoners, and all struck me as articulate, able to understand the complexity of the issues and also to relate them to the wider political context. I don’t think they have been deliberately sidelined but it does seem like a tactical error to do so.
If the campaign isn’t about freeing the prisoners whom it is willing to use a “symbols” then its purpose seems abstract and diluted.
I also think that until the Thai human rights community manages to address its own failings – such as with politicised coup-supporting HRW staff members and pro-LM AI researchers = it will struggle to mount any meaningful campaign against anything.
The assessment that Thein Sein faces a daunting task in reforming everything under the sun has to be based on the assumption that the entire outfit of Ali Baba has really undergone a Damascene conversion, quite suddenly developed a conscience, collective or otherwise. All those squandered decades, eh? What an epiphany! Can’t be the vision of more shed loads of the greenback, can it? Their wives must have irresistible pester power for Harrods and Tiffany’s. Orchard Road just won’t do.
The real test is on ASSK’s real mettle in entering the lion’s den and not coming out smelling of carrion herself. Thank heavens Min Ko Naing et al decided not to join in the ‘free for all’ where ASSK’s chance of amending the Nargis Constitution in any meaningful way in the ‘debating’ chambers is a snowball’s one in hell. Good luck to the Lady who’s going to ‘join battle’ on a wing and a prayer. She’ll need Bo Bo Aung and all the 37 Nats of the Pantheon, not just Lady Luck or whatever from the West.
Andrew Seth has again, unlike other that claimed to be yet undeserving of ” Burma Watcher ” status, prove himself to be a true “Myanmar Observer” that is prescient.
A good summary of a future to come:
“The reform program has considerable momentum, and even if it falters it will be difficult to turn the clock back to 2010. But the President needs to balance competing political pressures while taking account of Burma’s limited ability to implement and absorb rapid change. His aim – in the short term, at least – seems to be something along Chinese lines, namely a prosperous and independent country with a measure of individual freedom, exercised within the framework of a restrictive constitution.”
This present period is akin to the Chinese historical long march.
Expect the military government through Thein Sein, their own selected, to BUY support for prolongation to the Military Dictatorship through:
B) Shore up internal support for perpetuity just as Mao did through PLA:
1) Blatant cronyism unseen before.
2) Carrots and stick approach to Ethnic minorities issues.
3) Massive build up USDA related projects.
4) It own CBO to benefit it own project.
5) DASSK and NLD as well as all so called oppositions co-opted to go along with juicy rewards.
These may definitely be better for a segment of, a Citizenry that has been deprived so long.
However for the majority of Citizenry especially the most vulnerable segments their prospect remain grim.
Furthermore, why aren’t some of the deficiencies in Nitirat’s LM amendments discussed? Should their be a prison sentence at all for LM?
I had been making criticism of their proposals for about a month before they ‘launched’ their campaign on Jan 15, along the line not dissimilar from what you say here. (But it’s in Thai, on my FB, now temporary closed).
As you say, their proposals wouldn’t help free those in prison now; most of them committed what Nitirat’s proposal still regard as punishable (one example, a guy phoned Sirirat Hospital and said a few ‘rude/nasty’ things about certain members of the royal family).
It should be pointed out that the overwhelming majority of ordinary people (not academics or well-known writers ,etc who joined Nitirat in this campain), most of them red shirts, actually want the law to be abolish completely, rather than amending it.
………….
Ajarn Worachet had generously written a letter to me a few days before the campaign launch, explaining why Nitirat wouldn’t do as I suggested (propose a complete abolishion of the law). I’m in the process of drafting a reply.
>“Thai hyper-royalists have lately tried to substantiate their claim that Thailand has remained an independent nation thanks to the sacrifice and bravery of past kings and queens.”
And what do the successes of those past kings and queens have anything to do with the present king? Queen Jamadevi, Queen Suriyothai, and King Naresuan….none of them are members of the Chakri Dynasty. Thus, their sacrifice and bravery have nothing to do with the Chakri Dynasty. Their sacrifice and bravery should remain the honours and achievements of their dynasties. The Chakri Dynasty has no right to take such achievements to claim as if those honours belong to the Chakri Dynasty.
Or the Chakri Dynasty has no honours and achievements of its own that they are so desperate they must steal such achievements and claim that having a King is good for the country?
I think the biggest issue is not whether we have a dialogue or not , but the issue of acceptance and rejection . Like the peace talks between nations at war , if both the parties accept each other to co-exist , there will be true peace. But if this dialogue is just only a hope and play for political expedience by political parties or religious groups, its going to come to knot.
Who ever is responsible for this dialogue to begin with must be a shrewd and master politician indeed ,as mere dialogue alone , cannot solve the problem of ‘aggressive’ competition , if they cannot accept each other to exist and expand freely.
By this , acceptance means to accept one’s faith as a personal obligation and rights of each individual to believe what is most truthful to him.
In Bangkok to buy the books in this series go to Chulalongkorn University Book Center (Chamsuri at San Yang station, on campus, Siam Square) or Orchid Press Books located in mall off the Silom MRT station. I believe both sell over internet too. Previous volumes in this series are available at Amazon, probably just a matter of time for these too. If I was in San Francisco, I would go to UC Berkeley’s library. Can’t you get access to University of Washington? (BTW there are a lot of great books published that hardly seem to make it out of Chula bookstore). Long time no see
Re the title, it’s “Tunkramom” which is “Daughter to the Queen Regent”. She was stripped of the “Somdet Phra … Chao Fa” (HRH) because she married a commoner. (Her sister married a commoner too but she retained her title.)
I meant that this is just a film, the subject matter mainly legend, just about any time is going to be the right time to coincide with a LM debate, why not thank a (past) king if your country still exists … but trying to extrapolate to say that feelings toward the present king are going to be manipulated well … they can try all they like …they might succeed among their own constituency but I think this speculation is just petty. Yes I know the fascists/royalists/yellows are easily inflamed but I think it’s clutching at straws to suggest they’ll get over-excited about/because of this film.
I also think the comments about her acting ability, coming after all that over-blown speculation … are just petty. How many films has she done anyway?
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Burma and the debates to come
“Development is here the sacred object, led by ‘experts’ from outside who could (perhaps unwittingly) usher in a quasi-authoritarian neoliberalism where key social and political decisions over the future of the economy and its development would be quarantined in the hands of a narrow elite. The ritual activities of free voting and assembly would be given as so many crumbs to the masses kept outside of real politics.”
The later part sounds like a description of the way the country operates now but that is not a product of “experts from the outside”. The current failed system has its roots in 49 years of isolation, lack of inflow from the outside of ideas, knowledge, technologies, goods, etc.
From the minute the country shut itself off from the world in 1962, it slowly and literally turned into a time capsule running on memories (2nd hand books of Pansodan book peddlers) and decaying capital stock (supplemented by second hand cars, buses, taxis, rolling stock, video players and just about everything else imaginable, castoffs from Japan, Korea and China).
“He then flags some alternative strategies for the country to consider, including Bhutan’s oft-invoked, but little studied, Gross National Happiness model..”
“Alternative strategies” ? The utter failure 49 years later of what was known as the “Burmese Way to Socialism” was an “alternative strategy”. Probably better stick to the well-beaten track this time around.
Hypothesis: Burma’s failed political system stemmed largely from a failed set of ideas called the “Burmese Way to Socialism” and constitutes clear evidence of the danger of allowing intellectuals to dream up a system too far divorced from the way things actually work. Hayek, not Marx, would be the one to look to for guidance this time around.
Princess Ubolratana in Queen Jamadevi
The stripping of Princess Uboratana’s royal title for marrying out of the family power system raises an interesting subject with a history going back thousands of years. When power trumps all, important family members are expected to sacrifice their sexual taste to the family’s interests, and submit to marriage as a power alliance. When Vajiralongkorn opted out of his marriage alliance with a member of his mother’s family (which seemed to be doing so well), it caused a hell of a stink.
Given the army’s ambivalent attitude to the Chakris in 1945, the Swiss girl that King Ananda loved would have been regarded as a poor choice compared with a nice Thai girl from a powerful army family.
Princess Ubolratana in Queen Jamadevi
Princesses aside, the Jamadevi legend has all kinds of really interesting parts in it. For instance, she defeats the chieftan of the Lwa by tricking him into wearing a turban made from her undergarments worn while she’s menstruating. He then throws a spear towards Lamphun from the slopes of Doi Kham, a spear that, because of Jama’s trick, turns around and skewers him.
I wonder how this is going to make it into the movie…
Princess Ubolratana in Queen Jamadevi
As for being forced to stand before a film starts, I saw something a couple weeks ago that I’ve never noticed before during 11 years of living here…the Thai fellow sitting two seats away from me stood up at the appointed time, took his mobile out of his trousers pocket, and began checking his text messages and apparently sending a few. As soon as we were ‘allowed’ to sit down again, the man put his mobile back in his pocket an continued watching trailers.
It seemed an oblique way to thrust two fingers up at something he considered distasteful, no? What a brave chap.
Forced relocation and impoverishment of ethnic communities: Myanmar’s Tamanthi Dam
The World Bank estimates that forcible “development-induced displacement and resettlement” now affects 10 million people per year. According to the World Bank an estimated 33 million people have been displaced by development projects such as dams, urban development and irrigation canals in India alone.
India is well ahead in this respect. A country with as many as over 3600 large dams within its belt can never be the exceptional case regarding displacement. The number of development induced displacement is higher than the conflict induced displacement in India. According to Bogumil Terminski an estimated more than 10 million people have been displaced by development each year.
Athough the exact number of development-induced displaced people (DIDPs) is difficult to know, estimates are that in the last decade 90–100 million people have been displaced by urban, irrigation and power projects alone, with the number of people displaced by urban development becoming greater than those displaced by large infrastructure projects (such as dams). DIDPs outnumber refugees, with the added problem that their plight is often more concealed.
This is what experts have termed “development-induced displacement.” According to Michael Cernea, a World Bank analyst, the causes of development-induced displacement include water supply (dams, reservoirs, irrigation); urban infrastructure; transportation (roads, highways, canals); energy (mining, power plants, oil exploration and extraction, pipelines); agricultural expansion; parks and forest reserves; and population redistribution schemes.
Princess Ubolratana in Queen Jamadevi
I suspect it’s not so much that she married a commoner, but more about her marrying a…gasp….farang that stripped her of her title. After all, the king’s dad married a commoner and it didn’t do the resulting sons’ title aspirations any harm.
Princess Ubolratana in Queen Jamadevi
Ah, got you Jon, despite your non-refusal to explain. You mean that you think Pavin is making a mountain out of a molehill.
The new big book says (p. 13): “Thunkramom is an informal way of referring to prince or princess.”
I note that Wikipedia has her as “Princess” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubolratana_Rajakanya). It says:
Princess Ubol Ratana was born with the titles of Her Royal Highness and Princess Chao Fa, but gave these up on her marriage to an American citizen, Peter Ladd Jensen. Her title, Chao Fa was lost because she married a commoner. She had previously held the royal title Chao Fa Ubolratana Rajakunya. She still retains the style of Tunkramom Ying, which means that “Daughter to the Queen Regent”. Since her return to Thailand, she has increasingly taken part in royal ceremonies, though not to the extent of her royal siblings.
Her Royal Highness Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya (1951 – 1972)
Mrs. Ubolratana Rajakanya Jensen / Mrs. Julie Jensen[1][2] (1972 – 1998)
Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya (1998 – Present)
The between the lines stuff in all of this is fascinating. As I understand it, she was stripped of her title. The prince married a commoner twice and didn’t lose his title and wasn’t stripped of it. I guess male blood trumps female blood and royal blood trumps anything else.
For those interested in the before 1998 period, see http://articles.latimes.com/2004/dec/29/world/fg-jensen29
As to her acting ability, despite the fractured English, this is pretty clear:
We can all agree that the royal princess is no A-lister in the acting realm but kudos for her to step into an action genre to show her action chopping skills. There is always room for improvement but for now, word of advice, don’t deliver your lines like an announcement to the people. It may seem like a total disillusion of a self vanity project to fulfil ones inspiration, for which is very commendable in deed, one should look up to in this film as an inspiration, not for the value of the production but how no matter what the odds are, there’s always a way to reach for it and succeed. Also helps of you’re a royalty and has access to anything at snap of the finger.
For another take, try this: http://notthenation.com/2010/12/prachatai-film-reviewer-arrested-for-giving-my-best-bodyguard-2-stars/
Pheua Thai but for lese majeste
Somsak
Yes, I was aware that you had been making some useful criticisms of the Nitirat proposals.
My view, as much as it is worth, is that the LM prisoners’ views needed to play a bigger part in what the campaign should be.
I’ve met both Amphon and his wife, as well as many of the other prisoners, and all struck me as articulate, able to understand the complexity of the issues and also to relate them to the wider political context. I don’t think they have been deliberately sidelined but it does seem like a tactical error to do so.
If the campaign isn’t about freeing the prisoners whom it is willing to use a “symbols” then its purpose seems abstract and diluted.
I also think that until the Thai human rights community manages to address its own failings – such as with politicised coup-supporting HRW staff members and pro-LM AI researchers = it will struggle to mount any meaningful campaign against anything.
Selth on Burma today
The assessment that Thein Sein faces a daunting task in reforming everything under the sun has to be based on the assumption that the entire outfit of Ali Baba has really undergone a Damascene conversion, quite suddenly developed a conscience, collective or otherwise. All those squandered decades, eh? What an epiphany! Can’t be the vision of more shed loads of the greenback, can it? Their wives must have irresistible pester power for Harrods and Tiffany’s. Orchard Road just won’t do.
The real test is on ASSK’s real mettle in entering the lion’s den and not coming out smelling of carrion herself. Thank heavens Min Ko Naing et al decided not to join in the ‘free for all’ where ASSK’s chance of amending the Nargis Constitution in any meaningful way in the ‘debating’ chambers is a snowball’s one in hell. Good luck to the Lady who’s going to ‘join battle’ on a wing and a prayer. She’ll need Bo Bo Aung and all the 37 Nats of the Pantheon, not just Lady Luck or whatever from the West.
Selth on Burma today
Andrew Seth has again, unlike other that claimed to be yet undeserving of ” Burma Watcher ” status, prove himself to be a true “Myanmar Observer” that is prescient.
A good summary of a future to come:
“The reform program has considerable momentum, and even if it falters it will be difficult to turn the clock back to 2010. But the President needs to balance competing political pressures while taking account of Burma’s limited ability to implement and absorb rapid change. His aim – in the short term, at least – seems to be something along Chinese lines, namely a prosperous and independent country with a measure of individual freedom, exercised within the framework of a restrictive constitution.”
This present period is akin to the Chinese historical long march.
Expect the military government through Thein Sein, their own selected, to BUY support for prolongation to the Military Dictatorship through:
A) Acts that pleases everyone around such as:
1) Canceling unpopular projects
2) Releasing Prisoner
3) Ending none regime threatening conflicts.
B) Shore up internal support for perpetuity just as Mao did through PLA:
1) Blatant cronyism unseen before.
2) Carrots and stick approach to Ethnic minorities issues.
3) Massive build up USDA related projects.
4) It own CBO to benefit it own project.
5) DASSK and NLD as well as all so called oppositions co-opted to go along with juicy rewards.
These may definitely be better for a segment of, a Citizenry that has been deprived so long.
However for the majority of Citizenry especially the most vulnerable segments their prospect remain grim.
Pheua Thai but for lese majeste
Andrew Spooner #14
Furthermore, why aren’t some of the deficiencies in Nitirat’s LM amendments discussed? Should their be a prison sentence at all for LM?
I had been making criticism of their proposals for about a month before they ‘launched’ their campaign on Jan 15, along the line not dissimilar from what you say here. (But it’s in Thai, on my FB, now temporary closed).
As you say, their proposals wouldn’t help free those in prison now; most of them committed what Nitirat’s proposal still regard as punishable (one example, a guy phoned Sirirat Hospital and said a few ‘rude/nasty’ things about certain members of the royal family).
It should be pointed out that the overwhelming majority of ordinary people (not academics or well-known writers ,etc who joined Nitirat in this campain), most of them red shirts, actually want the law to be abolish completely, rather than amending it.
………….
Ajarn Worachet had generously written a letter to me a few days before the campaign launch, explaining why Nitirat wouldn’t do as I suggested (propose a complete abolishion of the law). I’m in the process of drafting a reply.
Princess Ubolratana in Queen Jamadevi
>“Thai hyper-royalists have lately tried to substantiate their claim that Thailand has remained an independent nation thanks to the sacrifice and bravery of past kings and queens.”
And what do the successes of those past kings and queens have anything to do with the present king? Queen Jamadevi, Queen Suriyothai, and King Naresuan….none of them are members of the Chakri Dynasty. Thus, their sacrifice and bravery have nothing to do with the Chakri Dynasty. Their sacrifice and bravery should remain the honours and achievements of their dynasties. The Chakri Dynasty has no right to take such achievements to claim as if those honours belong to the Chakri Dynasty.
Or the Chakri Dynasty has no honours and achievements of its own that they are so desperate they must steal such achievements and claim that having a King is good for the country?
Christian-Muslim dialogue and Mahathir
I think the biggest issue is not whether we have a dialogue or not , but the issue of acceptance and rejection . Like the peace talks between nations at war , if both the parties accept each other to co-exist , there will be true peace. But if this dialogue is just only a hope and play for political expedience by political parties or religious groups, its going to come to knot.
Who ever is responsible for this dialogue to begin with must be a shrewd and master politician indeed ,as mere dialogue alone , cannot solve the problem of ‘aggressive’ competition , if they cannot accept each other to exist and expand freely.
By this , acceptance means to accept one’s faith as a personal obligation and rights of each individual to believe what is most truthful to him.
Review of A Life’s Work
> “I am surprised that no-one here has mentioned yet this article in Forbes …”
I did, #97.
Princess Ubolratana in Queen Jamadevi
Pavin: Is “Tunkramom” also the archaic form of “Chao Fa”?
Pheua Thai but for lese majeste
c11
Reality bites.
c24
Me Vichai? Who listens to me?
As neat a conjunction as one could wish.
Review of Cicuzza and Shimizu
Dear Cliff;
In Bangkok to buy the books in this series go to Chulalongkorn University Book Center (Chamsuri at San Yang station, on campus, Siam Square) or Orchid Press Books located in mall off the Silom MRT station. I believe both sell over internet too. Previous volumes in this series are available at Amazon, probably just a matter of time for these too. If I was in San Francisco, I would go to UC Berkeley’s library. Can’t you get access to University of Washington? (BTW there are a lot of great books published that hardly seem to make it out of Chula bookstore). Long time no see
🙂
Princess Ubolratana in Queen Jamadevi
Re the title, it’s “Tunkramom” which is “Daughter to the Queen Regent”. She was stripped of the “Somdet Phra … Chao Fa” (HRH) because she married a commoner. (Her sister married a commoner too but she retained her title.)
When writing in English it’s just “Princess”.
Princess Ubolratana in Queen Jamadevi
Ralph:
“Can you write it in long hand?”
No
Richard:
I meant that this is just a film, the subject matter mainly legend, just about any time is going to be the right time to coincide with a LM debate, why not thank a (past) king if your country still exists … but trying to extrapolate to say that feelings toward the present king are going to be manipulated well … they can try all they like …they might succeed among their own constituency but I think this speculation is just petty. Yes I know the fascists/royalists/yellows are easily inflamed but I think it’s clutching at straws to suggest they’ll get over-excited about/because of this film.
I also think the comments about her acting ability, coming after all that over-blown speculation … are just petty. How many films has she done anyway?
Princess Ubolratana in Queen Jamadevi
Richard: I am not reading it any way. It is too cryptic for this old codger.