Thailand Celebrates the King’s 85th Birthday

Bangkok, Thailand. December 5, 2012. The revered king of Thailand celebrated his 85^th birthday by making a rare public appearance (the king has been hospitalized for over two years), which brought hundreds of thousands of Thais wearing yellow shirts, out to pay respect to the king. I watched the touching event on TV. The distances were way too great for anyone to actually see the king, who appeared far in the distance on the balcony of an ornate building, but people were content to show their devotion by simply showing up. The vastness of the crowd and the pageantry were unique. For my own part, I wore a yellow shirt for the day, and signed a birthday book wishing the king a long life. The king's birthday is also celebrated as Thailand's father's day.

Add Photos of the king and birthday books were located throughout Bangkok for several days prior to the king's birthday. I never passed one that didn't have someone signing the book and, in many cases, there was a line waiting. This one was located across from my condo.caption

I signed the book and wrote my wishes to the king for a continued long life.

The vast crowds in front of the throne room, wearing the royal color yellow, was an impressive and touching sight. I watch the two hours of the "grand public audience" on TV in the comfort of my condo.

After the king read a short speech sitting down (he's confined to a wheelchair), his family joined him on the balcony. The queen was not there because she is ailing and confined to the same hospital with the king.

 

Mekong

Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand. Bangkok. November 27, 2012. The Mekong River is one of the world's great waterways and by far the most important river in Asia. It begins in Tibet, and flows through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. More than 60 million people depend on the Mekong for food and income. The Lower Mekong Basin provides more fish to more people than any other river in the world. But, alas, the Mekong and its people are under threat from the more than 140 dams that are planned along the Mekong and its tributaries. The purpose of these dams is to generate electric power that will be sold to hungry Bangkok and other large cities.

The new film "Mekong" is neither pro- or anti-dam. What it does is to realistically picture the lives of the people living along the river and how the hydroelectric power projects will impact them. It seems quite clear to me that the thirst for power and for the money it will generate will go far to destroy the Mekong, if for no other reason than the fact that no one knows what will happen to the fish after their natural habitat is altered. None of this can be any good, but it appears that development will have its way, while the people whose lives will be destroyed will be moved from their homes and may or may receive some monetary compensation.

The Hirsch-Pinkas Piano Duo Recital

Siam Ratchada Music Auditorium. Bangkok, Thailand. November 25, 2012. Husband and wife team, Evan Hirsch and Sally Pinkas, are based at Dartmouth and Brandeis Colleges in New England, but roam the world presenting delightful duo-piano and piano four hands recitals. Two pianos are not always available at some of the smaller venues they play at, so they have the advantage of switching to piano four hands only. For tonight's recital, they were fortunate to have a Steinway and a Bechstein grand available. All four works on the easy-to-take program were beautifully played by pianists who are perfectly tuned to each other: Mozart's Andante and Variations, Copland's Billy the Kid Suite, Schubert's Fantasia in F Minor, and Milhaud's Saramouche. The fact that there were only 15 in the audience did not deter Hirsch and Pinkas from playing an encore following the hearty (but necessarily low-decibel) applause from the sparse audience. During the intermission, I told Hirsch and Pinkas not to take the low turnout personally, that there just wasn't much of an audience for classical piano in Bangkok, and that's a fact.

Pines of Rome

Pianist Gustavo Romero has reason to smile following his exciting performance of Concerto No. 2 by Brahms

Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra. Mahidol Salaya Campus. Nakompathom, Thailand. November 24, 2012. It didn't take long for principal conductor Claude Villaret to get the TPO into shape for the second concert pair of its 2012-13 season. The final work performed at this concert, Ottorino Respighi's "Pines of Rome," showed this fine orchestra at its exciting best. Debussy's "La Mer" is a dreary piece of impressionist orchestration and it's relationship to the sea is only in the listener's imagination, if at all. I suppose the TPO did as well with this work as can be expected, but its classification as a "masterpiece" did little to hold my attention. Not so, though, with America pianist Gustavo Romero's thoroughly convincing performance of Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2. Romero had the requisite technique to give this towering work a full-bodied, passionate reading. Gone was any pretense of classicism; in Romero's hands, this great concerto was as romantic as Rachmaninoff, an interpretive approach that I like, as did the cheering audience.

An Evening With Amitav Ghosh-

I briefly spoke with Amitav Ghosh prior to his addressing the FCCT in Bangkok on November 22, 2012

Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand. Bangkok. November 22, 2012. Indian author Amitav Ghosh is a major literary figure of our time, and I eagerly awaited his appearance at the FCCT. I had just finished reading his historical novel "Sea of Poppies," and was well into its sequel "River of Smoke," both books being about the mid-19^th century Opium Wars and an age of globalization predating our own. My admiration for his writing is unbounded. Ghosh says that he writes Bengali novels in English, but the worlds and characters he creates are of universal appreciation. Ghosh spoke mainly about his concerns for human life resulting from the inexorable march of global warming. His message is a scary one and he believes that global warming should become a major theme for writers of imaginative fiction.