Long Live the King - Updated

When you arrive at the Bangkok airport, the one of the first things you notice is the large signs on the side of the jetways that say "Long Live the King". Since these are in the place usually associated with advertisements, I assumed that they were referring to the "King of Beers" or something like that. In fact, when you look at the sign and see only the King's picture on it, you realize that it is actually put up by the government and does refer to the King of Thailand.

I had always understood Thailand to be a constitutional monarchy, which is true, more or less. However, the reverence and visibility of the King is something that I have never seen before. The King's picture is everywhere, almost all businesses have portraits of him behind the cash register and his picture is on all sorts of billboards and signs around the city. Evidently this is the year of his 80th birthday, so in commemoration the Thais wear these yellow polo shirts with the royal emblem on the pocket. These shirts are for sale everywhere and for some reason yesterday at least half of all the Thais on the street in Bangkok were wearing them.

There is nothing wrong with this, pre se, but it does strike a westerner as odd to have one person's picture so prominent everywhere. Also, after being in Japan and India, where flags and patriotic symbols are less pronounced then in the US, it is strange to see the number of Thai and Royal (yellow with royal emblem) flags flying everywhere.

The interesting thing is how the King himself seems to be so revered despite the fact that he is a constitutional monarch. Perhaps this is why the bloodless coup here in 2006 caused so little disruption. It does not seem that any political figure is even 1/10th as respected or popular as the King himself.

Update (6/11/07) - As for the yellow shirts, there was some reason that more people then usual were wearing them on that Monday. However, they are very popular at all times, with at least 20% of Thais wearing them on any given day.