The colour of Monday

Those of you returning to the Land of Smile for the New Year holiday may be surprised by the sea of yellow each Monday. Most (but definitely not all) Thais wear yellow on Mondays to wish long life to the King. I suggest you don't do what I did today unless you know the Thai person very, very well indeed and can carry off the naive foreigner act as well. I asked my long-serving/-suffering chief of staff whether the crown prince wears yellow on Mondays. I was surprised at the openness of the answer but didn't press my luck with a supplementary. If you have seen photographs of the crown prince any time in the last two years you may have noticed he has lost a lot of weight, particularly in the face. It has given rise to rumours about his health and what wasting disease he may be suffering (if any). The answer I got was "We hope the King will live after the crown prince dies". I wanted to ask whether the "we" was a widespread attitude

[Smiles]

" .... Those of you returning to the Land of Smile for the New Year holiday may be surprised by the sea of yellow each Monday. Most (but definitely not all) Thais wear yellow on Mondays to wish long life to the King .... "
Farangs ~ (whitish pasty skin, general flabbiness, compulsively overweight, lack of gentle grace in the step, unknowledgeable in every sense about colour cordination) ~ should NEVER wear the colour yellow under any circumstances ... King's long life or whatever.

Yellow is a colour which loves the darker skins of Asian or African (Americans)** only. It is a hue which attempts to hide in shame when tossed over the head of a pale rider. It especially is inimical to being teamed with strands of black body hair sneaking out and up over the neck line of a 'jaune' polo shirt. A farang choosing yellow to go strolling along the boardwalk at Dongtan is committing a faux pas right up there with sandals-cum-black-socks.

A notorious lesbian once mentioned (in a comedy routine) that yellow (and aqua) " ... should never be matched against (white) human skin ... ". I'd go along with that.

Cheers ...

** Along the same line, African Americans should be very careful about wearing the colour purple. Oprah be damned!

... I will have many memories of Thailand, songs, food, people, places. If remembering Thailand in terms of a colour (any day not just Monday), it will of course be for the yellow t-shirts so many wear, the blue sky full of sun, the neon reds that light up so many bar areas at night, the deep brown of my Isan friends skin, the pearly white toothsome smiles and the green envy I am bound to feel when back home listening to all you guys visiting LOS.

Yes, the yellow shirts on Mondays are most impressive.

Each day has its own colour based on the planet/body its named after:

Sun - sun - red
Mon - moon - yellow
Tue - mars - pink
Wed - mercury - green
Thurs - jupiter - orange
Fri- venus - blue
Sat - saturn - purple

I was told the King was born on a Monday, which explains the colour

Long before the hanky code...my old mother (Gay 'mother') told me there was a gay color code:
Green on Thursdays.
Purple...Anytime.
Red socks. (Accredited to Van Johnson.)
Grey knees. (That one's...aquired.)
And one immorialized (sic) in song: "...And because we are the reason for the 90's being gay...We'll all wear a pink carnation!" That's 1890's.
I think it was sung by Etienne Lafarge (He appeared in more than 180 movies & no one has ever heard of him.) who appeared with Mae West on Broad...(They named that street after her.)...way. (Was she referring to Etienne when she said, "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork!"?)
My old flame always called me Etienne: "You' my little Etienne!" But, alas, in Thainglish Etienne sounds like ATM....
In Canada, a May West is a chocolate-covered twinkie--I wish I could leave that one alone but, as you know, I always yield to the temptation--a chocolate-covered twinkie?... sounds like Oogleman's boy friend!
Whoops, my dear!

[Hmmm]

I asked my long-serving/-suffering chief of staff whether the crown prince wears yellow on Mondays. I was surprised at the openness of the answer but didn't press my luck with a supplementary. If you have seen photographs of the crown prince any time in the last two years you may have noticed he has lost a lot of weight, particularly in the face. It has given rise to rumours about his health and what wasting disease he may be suffering (if any). The answer I got was "We hope the King will live after the crown prince dies". I wanted to ask whether the "we" was a widespread attitude

I think it is a very widespread attitude. Many Thais know the CP by his derogatory nickname, but couldn't tell you his real name.

Handley's book makes it pretty clear that Thailand is ill-prepared for succession. And the finger of blame for that points in only one direction. Unfortunately Thais will never know any of this.

Handley has posited a new interpretation of the coup, published in just the last week:
http://www.asiasentinel.com/phpAdsNew/a ... temid%3D31 (http://www.asiasentinel.com/phpAdsNew/adclick.php?bannerid=3&zoneid=0&source=&dest=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.asiasentinel.com%2Findex.php %3Foption%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D249%2 6Itemid%3D31)

If I understand it, he's saying that the coup was needed to break Thaksin's too-cosy relationship with the Prince, and restore Prem and the Privy Council's role in determining the terms of succession. If true, the palace's apparent support of the coup is even more telling.

Long live the Princess ?

And if I can be permitted a supplementary ... we do feel for your "long-suffering" COS.