THE KING AND WHO?
SIR,—According to my recollection as a regular reader the last item you published on Thailand was my own article on July 20, 1956. Now you have on August 14, 1959, given a full-length review by D. J. Enright of a book on Thailand, The Mask of Siam by David Barnett, with his own comments on Thai- land. May I, as a Thai, be allowed to Make some comments from the Thai point of view?
First of the book itself. It/should be realised that David Barnett said that before going there, he knew 'nothing of Siam's language,' and when he returned 'still hadn't learnt any Siamese.' Yet he told in- numerable stories which would surprise any Thais, and which were mostly derogatory of Thailand. There is one concerning a Queen (sic) of Chiengmai, recently dead, who crucified her maids!
The reviewer rightly said the book was inaccurate in details. The long Rajadamnoen Avenue, laid down by King Chulalongkorn some sixty years ago, connecting the old Palace with a vast square where there is a big marble building, David Barnett found recently built and ending it the squalid China town which is really five miles away. But it suits the theme that the poor Thais begin things which they cannot finish properly. This is only one among many such denigrating stories. The object of that kind of writing is to try to prove the superiority of the white race, which, in certain respects, has always been well known and accepted in Thailand.
What I note with interest is that he does not appear to have met any eminent Thais, or even any of the hundreds of those educated in England, many, like himself, at Oxford. If he met no educated Thai, yet could not speak Thai, where did he get his stories? Did he have his leg mercilessly pulled, or is he pulling ours?
Then of the review. I do not know when D. J. Enright left Bangkok. There are many Buddhists who think that the pyc-dogs should be destroyed to prevent suffering. I am one of them myself, and said so in a lecture to the Buddhist Society in Bangkok, and there were no protests. They are now being painlessly and systematically destroyed by the Ministry of Health.
Far from Field-Marshal Sarit reaching for his gun whenever he might hear the words 'British culture,' the following words appeared in an official statement issued in Bangkok on August 1 after I had visited the British Prime Minister on his behalf, accompanied by H.E. the Thai Ambassador in England: 'Thailand is a firm friend of its allies and holds high regard for English culture and education. Entrance to a British University is most difficult and it is feared that Thai students may have to study in other countries, although England is preferred,' As D. J. Enright was for some time a professor in Bangkok, does he not know that King Chulalong- korn was taught by the wives of several American missionaries and by an Englishman, Francis George Patterson, not to mention many Thai teachers, as well as by Mrs. Anna Leonowens?
It is very to get the Thai point of view stated in print, and I am most grateful for the hos- pitality of your cOIumn3.—Yours faithfully,
Tredethy, Bodmin, Cornwall CHULA OF THAILAND
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