A Brief History of Thailand

Krating Daeng, was a militant group, set up to terrorise protesting students and hunt down suspected communists in the early 70's. It translates as Red Guar / Red Bull. A Sino Thai pharmacist called Chaleo Toovidhya created a pick me up fizzy drink and successfully advertised this drink throughout Thailand during that time and called the drink Krating Daeng after that military group. An Austrian on vacation in Thailand in the 80s took the worldwide rights out for the name, and the rest is history. The author of this very good brief history writes rather pointedly that most consumers of this energy drink would be “unaware of the connection between the beverage and the brutal organisation...” from where the name sprang.

The thing that struck me about this brief history was that when the absolute monarch fell in 1936 and Thailand became a constitutional monarchy, there came a strange failure in the ideals of how democracy works. For a nation that has promoted itself as a peaceful destination for tourists, cheap and smiley with great places of both historical and religious significance to visit, to read of the violence of the political class is disturbing to say the least. Untold coups and corruption seems the order of the day between and with both populists and royalists. The red shirts v the yellow shirts was the recent attire for those nailing their political colours to the cross. Cross? Being a Buddhist nation, perhaps I had better say Wat. And did those colour coded fights become violent at times.

A few other things struck me as very interesting.

The influence of Chinese immigration into Thailand over the many centuries, with the Thai people not particularly homogenous, with most having some Sino blood in them. Other groups to live in Thailand are the Laotians and the Malay, with various subgroups. Occasionally anti-Chinese sentiment was used as propaganda.

Thailand's role in WW2 being on the side of Japan. Based on this book, there was a bit of a balancing act as to keeping the country out of the bloodshed, with only the British really holding it against the Thais.

The US influence during the Vietnam War was huge. Thailand sent volunteer troops to fight alongside the US, though after initial admiration by the US this dissipated as regulars failed to be as committed. The poverty-stricken regulars were there for the incentives, be that the pay or the western consumer goods. In some cases, the Thai troops held onto their TV rather than fight.

There are no end notes in this Brief History. The author makes it clear in the introduction that he was only going to include a Further Reading section and Bibliography, as the book is aimed the general public. In this reader's opinion, he has done a good job and I recommend this to anyone that requires a brief history of this fascinating county.

P.S. I spent 2 days in Bangkok in an attempt to reduce jet lag after a flight from the UK to my home in Brisbane. It worked. I wandered the streets in those 2 days along with seeing some of the sights such as the Grand Palace and taking the trip around the canals. The street food was wonderful. As to the organised chaos that is Bangkok's traffic, all I can say is that Brisbane is a village in comparison.