Free

Today I asked my host brother what he does for fun in his spare time. He said that he plays the guitar and reads comics. I attempted to continue the conversation and asked if he read any books recently. He said that he didn't like to read.
So we watched tv until dinner.
BBC?
MTV?
Nope.
Russian Today.
Russian Today or RT is surprisingly informative and the only ENGLISH speaking tv channel in Thailand. RT covers a variety of subjects including weather and stock exchange news. Although they mostly cover political situations and geopolitics. This makes me very happy. If I cannot watch Doctor Who or SNL in my spare time( Netflix and Hulu do not work in Thailand), global politics will just have to do. Today RT had a segment about "file sharing" websites and free speech rights in America. I asked Pon (my host brother) if they have free speech in Thailand (to this I already knew the answer but asked anyway). Pon said yes. This temporarily rattled my mind as I knew the opposite. I continued and asked if you can talk about the government and the king freely. Pon replied no.
My curiosity rose.
"Why can't you talk about the king or the government?"
"It's bad."
"Why is it bad?"
"It is the culture, folk way." (yup he said folk way)
"Is it against the law?"
"I don't know, maybe."

There is a law that prevents free speech. It is called "Lese-Majesty" and has been established in Thailand since 1932. It prevents Thai people from speaking ill or even critiquing the Royal Family. The Thai constitution (all 17 versions) states "the King shall be enthroned in a position of revered worship and shall not be violated. No person shall expose the King to any sort of accusation or action."  It later states "whoever defames, insults or threatens the King, Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent, shall be punished with imprisonment of three to fifteen years." Wikipedia likes to point out that "Missing from the Code, however, is a definition of what actions constitute 'defamation' or 'insult'."At a first glance, one can see that Thai people love their King and Queen. One can see it in the hundreds of Royal flags flying and the extravegant shrines found around each corner.But do Thai people actually love the Royal family or is praise for them just a social norm? What does the King do for the country and Thai people? What if the king makes a bad decision for the people, can people tell him that it was a bad decision? But most importantly, why is Lese-Majesty a law in Thailand?

I probably will never know the answers to these questions. But I do know that I need to keep my mouth shut.