Thailand is one of the few places in the world that still enforces Lèse-majesté laws and if you don't know what that is I can assure you that this country is not one that you want to accidentally find out about them. The Royal Family is meant to be loved by all Thai people and whether or not they actually feel that way doesn't really matter. It is government and police enforced that all people will pay respect to members of the Royal Family. Whether or not this sentiment is genuine or not, you can go to jail for a very long time for ever doing anything to disrespect them.
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I know that the feeling of genuine love towards the family was a lot real back when before the previous King passed away. The people of this country really admired him, and at the time of his death he was the longest-running monarch in the world. It might have been the longest ever recorded but I am not sure about that. When his son became the heir to the throne the feelings towards him were a little more forced. He had a reputation of being a playboy and a bully and he flaunted his family's wealth all around the world without really appearing to care too much about Thailand just in a general sense.
There were people I knew that in secret really didn't care for him and wanted the throne to be given to one of the women of the family instead but that isn't the way a patriarchal society works. If you are going to have a system of genetic entitlement you kind of just need to take what you end up with.
The first time I was witness to this enforced respect that must be paid to the Royals was when I was at a movie theater and the song of the King comes on and everyone is expected to stand at attention. Unless you are handicapped it is expected of everyone in the theater to stand and I have seen some people be told to either stand or leave when apparently they didn't see the instructions that come on the screen before the song plays.
In a more extreme situation there was a story about a drunk foreigner vandalizing images of the King in a public square. He was arrested and sentenced to something crazy like 10 years in prison. I don't know if his country tried to help him out but you know what they say about "When in Rome" right? In a fun twist it was the Royal family themselves that ended up pardoning the man, who was promptly deported and blacklisted from ever returning again.
One thing I find kind of scary is that you don't even have to have intent to insult the Royals in order to do so. In a recent case a woman activist who was wearing a Thai traditional outfit at a protest against the Thai government using public funds for the launching of a clothing line owned by the Royal family was accused of mocking a member of the Royal Family.
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She was sued by someone very loyal to the Royals and after being investigated by police, she was given a 2-year prison sentence even though she claimed and had evidence that she attends many different events wearing traditional Thai dress. This didn't seem to matter because of the way that the crowd handled her presence. They were chanting "Long live the Queen" when the activist was walking the runway and therefore it was deemed that she was indeed mocking the Queen.
I will admit that I don't know a great deal about the King or any of the other members of the Royal Family and to be honest with you, I am a little afraid to ask anyone. I don't know how much longer I will be in this country but whenever someone tells me to stand at attention for respect towards them, I will do so. I don't see the harm in respect, but I also don't really like the idea of going to a shitty Thai prison for something I didn't even mean to do.