Chair of the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, Amara Pongsapich, lectured this morning. She was great! To hear about the unfolding of the political situation between the red-shirts and yellow-shirts (in the last few months of this year – sort of behind the scenes) was pretty amazing! Similar to Italy, Thailand has a very unstable government, the only difference is Thailand has a monarchy. Since 1932, they’ve had 18 coups. Who does that? In 200+ years, the U.S. has had one constitution … Thailand, I repeat has had 18!!! Each time there’s a coup (which goes against the constitution), the constitution is abolished and they start from scratch! I would just “tweak it,” or the right way would be to amend it . Not so!!!! That’s not the way it goes!! Ahhh …. The complexities of government! Nonetheless, it was an informative and interesting day (yes, I just used the word interesting in reference to politics :o). After lecture, Inday and I had lunch with Ajan Amara.
Here is "Ajan" (which, by the way, means professor) Pitch Pongsawat who lectured this afternoon; he's a well-recognized Political Science professor at Chulalongkorn University who's been very dynamic and passionate in explaining the history of Thailand and has served as an excellent resource on our field visit to Chiang Mai! Ajan Pitch will also be joining us on our field visit to Phenom Phen, Cambodia in a couple of weeks.Despite the intense lectures and long days, I’m still smiling)! The opportunity to learn has been “fan-tabulous” (word coined by my friend, Lisa Sylvia – fantastic and fabulous together)!
THANK YOU, ROTARY!!
