Naruedee Jodsanthia, 17, seen before and after she suffered nerve damage caused by a teacher at her school. Original images: Zaii Naruedee / Facebook
NAKHON RATCHASIMA — A teacher who admitted to throwing angrily a coffee mug which disfigured a student’s face will receive no higher penalty than a reduced salary, an education official said Monday.
Preliminary findings of an inquiry into the August incident found Paithoon Klaengkrathok, 58, did not warrant severe punishment such as termination because eyewitnesses said he didn’t intend for the mug hit his victim, 17-year-old Naruedee Jodsanthia. The left side of her face was left partially paralyzed by the assault.
“The investigation found that there was a basis for his offense,” said Somsong Kuen-nguleuam, an education official in Nakhon Ratchasima province, said. “The [board] will now convene a disciplinary investigation of him for nonsevere offenses.”
The results were made public Friday. What lays ahead before Paithoon’s light punishment – if it ever comes – is a long trail of bureaucratic paperwork.
In Thai bureaucracy, infractions are classified as either minor or severe. Punishment for minor offenses range from a one-time pay reduction to permanently lowering monthly salary, Somsong said.
Officials did not recommend a charge of severe misconduct because when Paithoon threw the mug at his students for being rowdy at Chokechaisamakkhee School on Aug. 8, eyewitnesses questioned by the panel said it only hit Naruedee after bouncing off a window frame.
Students on Wednesday re-enact the Aug. 8 confrontation at at Chokechaisamakkhee School in Korat for reporters. According to the students, the mug hit the window frame before bouncing to strike Naruedee Jodsanthia’s face.
Naruedee disputed that account in her previous interviews with the media, including one Thursday in which she said Paithoon deliberately threw the mug at her. As a result, she said, she can’t move move the left side of her face because of a damaged nerve.
Paithoon was to plead guilty or not guilty before a disciplinary panel later Monday afternoon as part of an ongoing and Byzantine review process.
Victim Disappointed
Shortly after Naruedee shared her story last week, Chokechaisamakkhee School suspended Paithoon and then transferred him to another school. Media reports indicate Paithoon is on leave from Boonwattana School.
Paithoon told reporters Sunday that he would not comment on the ongoing investigation, but maintained he meant well for all of his students, including Naruedee. Paithoon couldn’t be reached for comment on Monday.
Naruedee, who had been writing about her case on social media, appeared to have deactivated her Facebook account by Monday. She could not be reached for comment by telephone. Her aunt, Matchima Supaeng, told reporters Friday she was disappointed at the “minor offense” recommended by the inquiry panel.
Matchima said the decision had upset her family and depressed Naruedee.
“Did the student have to die for it to be considered a severe offense?” Matchima told reporters from various news agencies..
Silpakorn University students in Bangkok dress in September 2016 as Mao Zedong’s Red Guards from the bloody Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Photo: Washirawit Santipiboon / Facebook
BANGKOK — Thailand’s university students again showed their zeal for genocidal chic in leaked photos showing seniors from a top art school dressed up as Adolf Hitler and Chinese Red Guards, reportedly for a hazing ritual.
In photos that went viral after being made public by student activist Parit Chiwarak on Sunday, students said to be from the Faculty of Decorative Arts at Silpakorn University mug in uniforms of the Red Guards, the fanatical students organized by Mao Zedong in the mid-1960s who went on a campaign of torture and murder. At least one student cosplayed as Nazi Party leader and German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler.
Whether dressed as German fascists or Chinese communists, the students all raised Nazi salutes in the photos.
Someone answering the phone at Silpakorn’s faculty said Monday that no one was present to speak on the matter. The university has made no statement.
The photos went viral after they were posted by Silpakorn student Washirawit Santipiboon, who has since made them unavailable.
Parit, a prominent student with a group called Education for the Liberation of Siam, said he was told the costumes were put on for seniors to issue orders to freshmen as part of university hazing rituals known as rub nong.
Humiliation and obedience are common themes to such hazing, a practice which has been criticized for the occasional injuries and deaths which result.
Parit said his the photos were from a day the uniformed seniors were supposed to apply the most pressure on the freshmen before embracing them as part of their group and school.
“If they just dressed for fun, then they are just simply ignorant,” Parit, 18, said Monday. “But it seems they brought dictatorial symbols to use with dictatorial activities.”
Parit said the photos provided another illustration of Thai students’ poor education on global history.
Chulalongkorn University apologized in 2013 after its graduating seniors posed for photos doing the Nazi salute in front of a mural of “superheroes” which included Adolf Hitler. Some parents were aghast in Chiang Mai in 2011 when students at a school there dressed in elaborate SS costumes for an entire Nazi-themed school parade.
Soon after the junta seized power in 2014, it produced a video promoting good values among children in whichHitler made an appearance.
Nazi imagery, while reflexively objectionable to many in Western culture, isn’t as reviled in Thailand, where many are not intimately familiar with the genocide carried out in Europe during World War II.
Instead it is often found on cheeky T-shirts and stickers as a counterculture symbol along the lines of Darth Vader, Che Guevara and Mao.
RATCHABURI— Four lucky cats were counting their remaining lives Monday in a new home after 30 others died in a house fire over the weekend.
A 58-year-old school teacher’s large collection of cats and old books proved a combustible mix in a home with old wiring. Thirty of Somporn Feungfoo’s 40 kitties died Saturday when her home went up in flames.
“By the time we got there, the fire was already raging, and it burned really fast,” said one of the rescue volunteers from the Ruamjai Ratchaburi Volunteer Group. “After the fire was out, part of our team helped to gather the corpses.”
The schoolteacher’s house was packed with cats and flammable materials.
Some of the cats were kept in cages and could not escape. Most suffocated or burned to death. Ten cats managed to escape into the neighboring forest. Of those, only four were found in the aftermath and returned to Somporn.
Somporn lived in another residence and mostly used the old home to house her 40 cats and large collection of old books and papers. Investigators said its decades-old electrical system most likely sparked the fire. The resulting blaze took two hours to bring under control.
Reached for comment Monday, Somporn said she was not home at the time and did not want to discuss what happened.
“You shouldn’t ask how I’m feeling after something like this happened,” she said before terminating the call.
She did say the four cats returned to her had joined the 12 living with her in the newer home. Somporn now has 16 cats living with her.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, walks on Sunday from the scene of an explosion in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York. Photo: Craig Ruttle / Associated Press
NEW YORK — Agents with the FBI pulled over a car on a highway in Brooklyn on Sunday night and were questioning the vehicle’s occupants in connection with the investigation into the New York City bombing that injured 29 people, authorities said.
Agents stopped “a vehicle of interest in the investigation” at 8:45 p.m. Sunday, according to FBI spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser
She wouldn’t provide further details, but a government official and a law enforcement official who were briefed on the investigation said five people in the car were being questioned at an FBI building in lower Manhattan.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the ongoing investigation.
No one has been charged with any crime and the investigation is continuing, Langmesser said.
The bomb that rocked a bustling Manhattan neighborhood contained residue of an explosive often used for target practice that can be picked up in many sporting goods stores, a federal law enforcement official said Sunday, as authorities tried to unravel who planted the device and why.
The discovery of Tannerite in materials recovered from the Saturday night explosion may be important as authorities probe whether the blast was connected to an unexploded pressure-cooker device found by state troopers just blocks away, as well as a pipe bomb blast in a New Jersey shore town earlier in the day.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, touring the site of the blast in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, known for its vibrant arts scene and large gay community, said there didn’t appear to be any link to international terrorism. He said the second device appeared “similar in design” to the first, but did not provide details.
“We’re going to be very careful and patient to get to the full truth here,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday. “We have more work to do to be able to say what kind of motivation was behind this. Was it a political motivation? A personal motivation? What was it? We do not know that yet.”
Cell phones were discovered at the site of both bombings, but no Tannerite residue was identified in the New Jersey bombremnants, in which a black powder was detected, said the official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to comment on an ongoing investigation.
Authorities said the Manhattan bombing and the blast 11 hours earlier at the site of a 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors in Seaside Park, New Jersey, didn’t appear to be connected, though they weren’t ruling anything out. The New Jersey race was cancelled and no one was injured.
Officials haven’t revealed any details about the makeup of the pressure-cooker device, except to say it had wires and a cellphone attached to it.
Technicians in Quantico, Virginia, were examining evidence from the Manhattan bombing, described by witnesses as a deafening blast that shattered storefront windows and injured bystanders with shrapnel in the mostly residential neighborhood on the city’s west side. All 29 of the injured people were released from the hospital by Sunday afternoon.
On Sunday night, investigators examined a suspicious device found in a trash can near a train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey, that forced the suspension of service on the busy Northeast Corridor line.
Elizabeth Mayor Christian Bollwage said two men called police and reported seeing wires and a pipe coming out of the package after finding it at about 9:30 p.m. Sunday.
Earlier Sunday, a team of five FBI agents searched an Uber driver’s vehicle that had been damaged in the Manhattan blast, ripping off the door panels inside as they examined it for evidence.
The driver, MD Alam, of Brooklyn, had just picked up three passengers and was driving along 23rd Street when the explosion occurred, shattering the car’s windows and leaving gaping holes in the rear passenger-side door.
“It was so loud,” the 32-year-old Alam said. “I was so scared. There was a loud boom and then smoke and I just drove away.”
Alam said he hit the gas and tried to take his passengers to their destination in Queens, but pulled over along Madison Avenue and 39th Street. He went to a local police precinct to file a report for his insurance company and police contacted the FBI.
The explosion left many rattled in a city that had marked the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks only a week earlier and where a United Nations meeting to address the refugee crisis in Syria was scheduled on Monday.
“People didn’t know what was going on, and that’s what was scary,” said Anthony Zayas, an actor who was in the Chelsea neighborhood Saturday night when the bomb went off. “You didn’t know if was coming from the subway beneath you, you didn’t know if there were other bombs, you didn’t know where to go.”
Tannerite, which is often used in target practice to mark a shot with a cloud of smoke and small explosion, is legal to purchase and can be found in many sporting goods stores. Experts said a large amount would be required to create a blast like the one Saturday night, as well as an accelerant or other ignitor.
Police and federal spokespeople wouldn’t comment on the presence of explosive material recovered at the scene.
The bomb in Manhattan appeared to have been placed near a large dumpster in front of a building undergoing construction, another law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation, told the AP. The second device, described by the same official as a pressure cooker with wires and a cellphone attached to it, was removed early Sunday by a bomb squad robot and New York City police blew it up in a controlled explosion Sunday evening, authorities said.
Homemade pressure cooker bombs were used in the Boston Marathon attacks in 2013 that killed three people and injured more than 260.
Officials solicited tips from the public, telling reporters at a news conference in the New York Police Department’s headquarters that they didn’t know who set off the bomb or why.
An additional 1,000 state troopers and members of the National Guard were placed at transit hubs and other points throughout New York City and extra police officials were patrolling Manhattan, officials said. Members of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force were investigating the blast along with New York Police Department detectives, fire marshals and other federal investigators.
Meanwhile, a law enforcement official said federal investigators had discounted a claim of responsibility on the social blogging service Tumblr. Investigators looked into it and didn’t consider it relevant to the case, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
AYUTTHAYA — Rescue workers pulled three more bodies from the Chao Phraya River on Monday morning as they continued searching for missing passengers from yesterday’s boat accident.
As of Monday morning, 18 people were confirmed dead, 45 injured and nine still missing after a two-level vessel carrying more than 100 passengers crashed into a concrete berm at Wat Sanamchai and then sank late Sunday afternoon.
Most were Muslims returning from a mosque, according to city official Krit Teinmittrapap.
Boat operator Wirat Chaisirikul told police that he rented the boat in Nonthaburi province and was heading to a mosque in Ayutthaya. Wirat said he wasn’t familiar with the route, so the boat crashed into the berm under strong wind conditions.
Wirat was charged with fatal recklessness, according to the Col. Surapong Thampitak of Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Police Station.
Lena Headey appears in a scene from "Game of Thrones." Photo: HBO
LOS ANGELES — HBO’s “Game of Thrones” is the winner of the best television drama series Emmy Award at Sunday’s 68th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Microsoft Theater.
The HBO fantasy series follows characters as they vie for power in a fictional world rife with brutality, magic and dragons.
AYUTTHAYA — Rescue workers were still searching for missing people after a boat sank late Sunday afternoon in the Chao Phraya River in Ayutthaya city, killing at least 13 and injuring 39.
At around 4pm on Sunday, a two-level vessel carrying more than 100 passengers from Nonthaburi en route to Ayutthaya foundered after crashing into a concrete berm at Wat Sanamchai and then sank, according to Krit Tienmittrapap, a city official.
Several people were still missing. Krit said the boat was carrying too many passengers.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified what the vessel struck. It was a concrete berm and not a barge.
Former army chief and 2006 coup leader Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin, retired, during a Thursday interview on an army base in Bangkok.
BANGKOK — As Thailand’s first coup d’etat in over a decade was set in motion 10 years ago tomorrow, the man who ordered it was playing tennis at an army base near his home.
Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin said he later went home at about 8pm and listened to the news. Sure enough, tanks and troops under his command soon occupied all major government buildings. The elected government under then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra didn’t put up a fight. Sonthi, who was army chief at the time, was now in control of Thailand.
“It’s like fighting a war. In military principles, it’s about finding out and evaluating the forces of the other side,” Sonthi, now retired from the military, said in an exclusive interview Thursday at the same base he played on Sept. 19, 2006. “We already evaluated that there would be no resistance. No confrontation. Our information was clear.”
Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, second from right, and army chief Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin, second from left, on Aug. 24, 2006, two weeks before Sonthi deposed Thaksin in a coup.
It was a coup that toppled the most popular elected government in Thailand’s recent history. Although Thailand had never been short of coups, the one in 2006 came as a major turning point in the conflict that pitted the grassroots-backed regime against urbanites and their allies in the establishment. It would later become a theme that defined the political crisis to span the following decade.
In an hour-long interview, Sonthi talked about how he views his legacy, and what he finds different between the 2006 coup and the latest one two years ago. As a ground rule, he said that he would not discuss the monarchy in any capacity.
Most of all, the general rejected the popular notion it was an “unfinished coup” which left conditions ripe for its follow-up in 2014 and said he has no regrets.
In his opinion, Thailand was on the verge of collapse. Anti-Thaksin protests, known as Yellowshirts, were taking to the streets at the same time as pro-Thaksin counter-protesters, and Sonthi said he learned that Thaksin planned to crack down on his opponents the next day on Sept. 20. He decided to step in to avert the crisis, he said.
“There would have been use of force on Sept. 20 against the anti-government crowds. There would be violence, and my job was to take care of the internal security of the nation,” Sonthi said. At the time the army had different plans for different scenarios, and he ordered the contingency plan that he said would prevent the bloodbath: a coup.
“I did what I had to do as a soldier,” he said, in summary of his actions.
‘COUP!’ reads the front page of a Khaosod newspaper read by soldiers atop a tank on Sept. 20, 2006, one day after the military staged a coup against then-PM Thaksin Shinawatra.
Wasted Opportunity?
The coup came as a shock to many Thais because it had been 15 years since the last in 1991, which was widely thought to be “the last coup.” And the coup makers of 2006 followed the pattern of their predecessors: Sonthi assumed role as interim government leader for only two weeks before handing power – in name, at least – to a new prime minister, Surayud Chulanont.
Afterward, Sonthi receded into the background, remaining head of the junta, known officially as the Council of National Security, or CNS. Under the interim constitution, it had no formal power over the government.
He said the main objective of the coup, preventing the potential bloodshed, was already accomplished by the time he stepped down. Other aims that would later arise, like eradicating corruption, protecting the monarchy from slanders, and national reconciliation were works of the successive governments.
“It was the duty of other governments. I have already accomplished my mission. The coup d’etat achieved its objective,” Sonthi said.
In a photo released by state media, the coup makers have an audience with His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen at the Chitralada Palace on the night of Sept. 19, 2006.
But not everyone shared his opinion. While progressives and opponents of the military regime naturally denounced the coup, conservatives and hardline anti-Thaksin activists also criticized Sonthi’s regime for not going far enough to root out Thaksin’s influence in Thai politics. The main accusation is that the coup was a sia kong, or “wasted opportunity.”
“It was a sia kong coup, because it couldn’t stop ideological divisions of both sides,” an anonymous blogger wrote in 2009. “If anyone will stages a coup again, they have to think beyond merely stopping the bleeding, but to also bring peace to the country. If they cannot do that, don’t think of another sia kong coup.”
Thaksin, who was attending a U.N. meeting in New York City when the putsch came, assumed a life in exile. Yet his allies and family members continued to wield political influence on his behalf, including his sister Yingluck Shinawatra, elected prime minister in 2011 by a political base that welcomed her as a proxy for her brother.
After then-PM Thaksin learned of the unfolding coup, he announced a state of emergency and fired Sonthi as army chief. But it was too late; coup forces had already taken control of the capital
Sonthi rejects the allegation that he left the job undone as empty rhetoric to discredit his regime. He said he did what he could with what little time he had.
“It’s just rhetoric that is used again and again,” said Sonthi, who briefly dabbled in politics as an opposition MP in 2011. “I only had 14 days [as interim prime minister]. I already did the big job. That is all I could do. And it was an honorable job, too.”
But whereas Sonthi took a backseat in the aftermath of the 2006 coup, the army chief to follow suit eight years later, Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, broke with tradition. Retaining both positions as junta chairman and prime minister, Prayuth directly ran the post-coup administration and aggressively dismantled pro-Thaksin organizations. On Monday, the 10th anniversary of Sonthi’s coup and more than two years after his own, Prayuth will be in New York City at the head of the Thai delegation for a U.N. meeting focused on migrants and refugees.
Prayuth’s suppression of expression and political speech, which makes Sonthi’s regime look relatively enlightened, probably worked, too. Last month’s charter referendum, which turned out a sweeping junta victory for the junta, was even a greater blow to Thaksin’s political dynasty than 2007, when the post-coup regime’s preferred constitution won approval by a much narrower margin.
An anti-coup protest on Sept. 22, 2006, at Siam Paragon in Bangkok.
Old and New
Sonthi acknowledged that Prayuth is sterner stuff, and although he said he would never run a government by himself, he sympathized with Prayuth for choosing to do so.
“He had to come down and do it himself because, if not him, who would?” Sonthi said. “And if he appointed someone to the job, but that person refused his orders, what would he do? If anything goes wrong or turns against him, it will be his head on the block.”
He said Prayuth’s harsh measures are justified because the situation is more severe than in 2006. Ten years ago, Sonthi said, there was no centralized opposition movement – the group that would later become the Redshirt umbrella organization wasn’t formed until late 2007 – and political divisions were not yet so apparent.
The general also justified the coup as yet another necessary measure to save Thailand.
A man hangs garlands on a tank Sept. 22, 2006, in Bangkok.
“It was a situation that doesn’t leave any other solution,” Sonthi said. “The conflict was peaking. Parts of the city were occupied by protesters. Corruption was more severe than ever. So the army was forced to do something.”
But that goes back to the question: If such crisis returned to force the army’s hand again, doesn’t that make the 2006 coup a failure? As it has been argued, didn’t it leave a mess that had to be cleaned up by the 2014 coup makers?
Sonthi doesn’t think so. He maintained the faults laid with the governments that came after his regime, who should have behaved fairly and fixed Thailand’s problems. Instead, he said, they ended up perpetuating the conflict by looking after their own.
“When the state rulers were Pheu Thai, they sided with Pheu Thai. When the state rulers were Democrats, they sided with Democrats. So it just led to new conflict again.” Sonthi said.
Gen. Sonthi sits at center in the first televised speech by the junta after it staged the 2006 coup.
So does he consider his job done well?
“Of course,” Sonthi said. “If on that day, I didn’t do it, can you imagine what would have happened? The consequences of that day made the country better.”
What about the current junta that’s embarking on yet another quixotic quest to root out all problems in Thailand?
“They’re doing it. But it’s not easy … so they have not accomplished the goals yet. But I see their effort,” he said.
Sonthi said he hopes the next government taking charge after a new election in 2017 will be impartial and transparent. Otherwise, he warned , the military will have to step in again.
“If the government doesn’t do those things, people would come out on the streets again, and it would end up like in the past,” Sonthi said.
Soldiers deploy on Phahonyothin Road in Bangkok to set up roadblocks on the night of Sept. 19, 2006.Soldiers arrive to seize control of Channel 5 on the night of Sept. 19, 2006.
BANGKOK — People rise lifelessly behind orange road barriers. They take on different identities and personalities through movements alternating between zombies shuffling, mobs lynching, gunmen shooting, spectators cruelly laughing and shirtless students crawling.
“Fundamental,” an hourlong performance by the B-Floor theatre company, opened Wednesday to commemorate the Oct. 6 massacre, which happened 40 years ago, in a physical performance of movement. All minimally portrayed by 13 people, two mops, portable plastic barriers and a Roomba.
“Wherever the materials are, that’s where we are,” director Teerawat “Ka-ge” Mulvilai said at a recent rehearsal of his latest play.
It was back in 1999, when Ka-ge, then a recent arts grad and part of another Bangkok theatre troupe, wondered what a play would be like without spoken dialogue. That led to the founding of B-Floor, and 10 members who would meet every day at the Pridi Banomyong Institute to experiment with things they’d never done.
“Anything we have seen before, we wouldn’t do it,” Ka-ge said, adding that each of their very first productions consumed nearly six month, dealing with human body and visual elements.
Today B-Floor is still going strong. They’ve staged two performances this year: “Red Tanks” in February and “Fundamental” which runs a couple more weeks. Its members have performed abroad from Singapore to Germany.
Among dozens of productions over 17 years, B-Floor has reflected the issues around them from performances addressing violence in Southern Thailand and Buddhist monastic taboos to the daily injustices of society.
Its approach has put B-Floor at odds with the prevailing values – and in an increasingly fraught climate for expression since the military coup – in the sights of those intolerant of dissent.
All productions share one principal: Act more, talk less.
‘Iceberg,’ a 2015 solo performance by Ka-ge.
“As actors, we train our bodies to find their ‘quality,’” said Sasapin “Pupe” Siriwanij, who has performed with B-Floor since 2008. “With props, lighting and sound; we’re another element to make the director’s vision happen.”
Of course, when it comes to criticizing or questioning something without discourses, B-Floor’s works are often perceived as ‘too abstract.’ Some theatre amateurs would walk out of the studio with frowns, regret buying the tickets.
“Thai audiences in general just like being told,” actor-director Pupe said. “So when we don’t tell them directly, the audiences would think our work is too hard to understand … They think not understanding what’s going on is a failure.”
Any tips for enjoying B-Floor’s shows? Ka-ge says just trust yourself. Believe in what you see and feel. Time will help.
“If you’re gonna obsess over a certain scene – ‘What does it mean?’ – it’s impossible,” he said. “You need to sit and watch what happens, think and feel it. Let it sink in.”
B-Floor considers all members equal, but most performances are directed by either Ka-ge, Pupe or Dujdao Vadhanapakorn.
Ka-ge’s known for ensemble casts with themes that question society’s structure, while Pupe does something else.
Dujdao approaches things in a wholly different way.
“My works focus on individuality,” said Dujdao, known as the country’s only dance movement psychotherapist. “I look at the social issues, dig deeper into each individual and make them feel most connected to the issue.”
Last year at Dujdao’s “Secret Keeper,” the audience sat around a shallow, water-filled pool in which they would whisper their secrets to the performers beneath a steady drip of melting ice. Their secrets told, some looked relieved; others broke down into tears.
A promo for Dujdao Vadhanapakorn’s ‘Secret Keeper’
Unlike Dujdao, B-Floor co-founder Jarunan Phantachat has a different approach. She said her recent interest has been the interaction between audience and performer. She wants to have a conversation with her audience. She wants to know how they feel living in the same room.
Jarunan credits the 2014 coup for giving birth to last year’s “The Test of Endurance.” To attend, people first had to pass a test, including exchanging emails with the production crew. Some failed. At the play, “qualified” audience members were asked to wear sarongs before entering a room to watch traditional Thai dance.
Dead fish hung around the room provided a rank odor. Audience members could walk out at any time. The show ended when the last person did so.
“Each performance is unique. They can’t be the same,” Jarunan said.
Sasapin ‘Pupe’ Siriwanij, at left, and Jarunan Phantachat in ‘The Test of Endurance.’ Photo: B-Floor / Facebook
Stage Under Junta’s Spotlight, Meets Controversy
Soon after the military came to power and began to stamp out dissent, it paid close attention to the arts. It even took up a case of royal defamation against two student activist performers for 2013’s “The Wolf Bride.” It would send them to prison for two years.
At a B-Floor production in 2015 at Thong Lor Art Space, two military officers were among dozens attending the production. They recorded the whole play. Every day before skipping the final two performances.
In fact B-Floor needed to get permission from the military for the first time Ornanong “Golf” Thaisriwong performed “Bang La Merd” there that January.
Two military officers at Thong Lor Art Space in January 2015 for ‘Bang La Merd.’ Photo: B-Floor / Facebook
Golf’s solo performance wasn’t new. Inspired by the conviction of Ampon Tangnoppakul for insulting the monarchy, it had first been staged without incident in 2012 at Pridi Banomyong Institute, the theatre troupe’s home. In 2015, she was invited by the curator of Thong Lor Art Space to restage it there.
“I wholeheartedly said yes,” Golf said. “I felt that at the time the play could still speak out to the audience. It was a short while after the coup and the [Thai Criminal Code] section 112 remained occur almost every day.”
For 2015, she decided to update the performance by basing it on the cases of make it current. She created a literally dangerous space by hanging razor blades and changed its real-world basis to the that of Pornthip Munkong and Patiwat Saraiyaem, the two actors jailed for “The Wolf Bride.”
“We grew up with these issues. We had been taught to not talk about some specific topics in public,” the 35-year-old said. “If I talked about these issues in England or France, it would be very trivial for them. But in Thailand, it’s critically serious.”
Ornanong ‘Golf’ Thaisriwong performs “Bang La Merd” at Thong Lor Art Space in 2015. Photo: Thong Lor Art Space / Facebook
Apart from the two officers sent there to observe the play, did the audience enjoy the it? Not everyone.
An unexpected, emotional outburst broke out when a woman stood up in the first 15 minutes of the play while Golf mimics a teacher instructing the audience in “the Siamese smile.”
“Your show sucks, your show sucks, your show sucks!” the woman yelled in English. While everyone was stunned and shocked, Golf said she approached the woman, who told her she felt insulted and wanted to walk out immediately.
Although Golf thinks it’s not fair for her work to be judged at the middle of the play, she was glad her audience spoke up.
“I was thankful she expressed herself. It’s her right not to watch the play,” Ornanong said. “I wanted someone like this, someone who dares to speak out what they feel or think without using violence.”
So Who Cares?
By throwing out conventions to do experimental theater on challenging topics, B-Floor is definitely not theater for the masses. In fact, it may just be for other like-minded people, judging from the same faces which appear in their audiences. And no matter how artistically compelling their productions may be that they create and perform around the world, the group agrees their support in Thailand is small.
Without any hope of commercial success, their natural ally would be government support for fine arts. But that may be unlikely for a group that wouldn’t hesitate to bite the hand that feeds them.
“At no time, has any government given full support. Plus, people in general think our work is not entertaining,” Jarunan said, but said she’s not so surprised. “In every country, there are more movie-goers than theatre-goers, and more cinemas than theatres.”
Golf agreed the imbalance is about people’s personal preferences, as with any mainstream versus marginal culture. But what matters most, she said, is having a diverse space for expression.
“There’s no way the audiences [for movies and plays] can be even,” Golf said. “But I don’t believe that they would stick to seeing the same thing all the time … I think diversity should be encouraged so the people can choose what they want to watch.”
After 14 years with B-Floor, she said it’s a topic that has been put to rest.
“We shouldn’t hope for the government’s support,” she said. “If we did, we would have packed it in a long time ago.”
What’s important to Ka-ge is mostly support from other artists. To him, expression through the arts must be free, regardless of how different or opposed the opinions.
“No matter how they may think differently from us, when self-expression through art is forbidden – that’s dictatorship.”
Check out B-Floor through their Website, Facebook and Twitter. Their performance of “Fundamental” continues daily except Mondays and Tuesdays through Oct. 2 on the fourth-floor of the Bangkok Art and Cultural Centre. Tickets are 550 baht at the door and can be purchased in advance for 450 baht.
Police and firefighters work near the scene of an apparent explosion on Saturday in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York. Photo: Andres Kudacki / Associated Press
NEW YORK — An explosion in a crowded Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan on Saturday night left 29 people injured, and authorities called the blast an “intentional act,” but said there was no terrorist connection.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio also said a second site was being investigated.
“Tonight, New York City experienced a very bad incident,” de Blasio said at a news conference near the scene. “We have no credible and specific threat at this moment. ”
De Blasio said the blast was “an intentional act” and tried to calm any fears among nervous New Yorkers, saying the explosion had no terrorist connection and wasn’t related to a pipe bomb explosion earlier Saturday in New Jersey at a charity run.
A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the explosion appears to have come from a construction toolbox in front of a building. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to speak about an ongoing investigation.
New York officials said the incident was not due to a gas leak.
The blast happened on West 23rd street, front of a residence for the blind, near a major thoroughfare with many restaurants. Witnesses say the explosion at about 8:30 p.m. blew out the windows of businesses and scattered debris in the area. Officials said no evacuations were necessary.
Police spokesman J. Peter Donald said several people were taken to hospitals with injuries. One of the injured suffered a puncture wound and was considered serious. Officials said the other injuries were minor, described as scrapes and bruises.
Donald tweeted a warning to residents near the second site that officials are investigating, saying: “As a precautionary measure, we are asking residents who live on West 27th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan to stay away from windows facing 27th Street until we clear the suspicious.”
A number of New York City subway routes have been affected by the earlier explosion.
Chris Gonzalez, visiting from Dallas, was having dinner with friends at a restaurant in the area.
“We felt it, we heard it, the restaurant went real quiet, the 26-year-old Gonzalez said. “It wasn’t like jolting or anything, everyone just went quiet.”
Rudy Alcide, a bouncer at Vanity Nightclub at 21st Street and 6th Avenue, said he, at first, thought something large had fallen.
“It was an extremely loud noise, everything was shaking, the windows were shaking, it was crazy,” he said. “It was extremely loud, almost like thunder, but louder.”
The FBI and Homeland Security officials, along with the ATF arson and explosive task force are also at the scene.
The White House said President Barack Obama has been apprised of the explosion in New York City and will be updated as additional information becomes available.
In St. Cloud, Minnesota, police said multiple people were injured at a shopping mall Saturday evening in an attack that possibly involved both a shooting and stabbing. The suspect was believed to be dead.
Hillary Clinton says she has been briefed “about the bombings in New York and New Jersey and the attack in Minnesota.”
She says the nation needs to support its first responders and “pray for the victims.”
“We have to let this investigation unfold,” she said.
The reports of a possible blast come hours after a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, shortly before thousands of runners participated in a charity 5K race to benefit Marines and sailors. No injuries were reported.
