Showing 1 - 10 of 26
When students rise
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 28/10/2025
» Back in the mid-19th century, female education increased literacy and access to jobs and they began to fight for participation in public life. The public sphere promised them a new horizon. From the 1890s onwards, print media began to allow women to express their voice and authors vaunted personal talent and equality, including gender relations. Following the Siamese Revolution in 1932, women were enfranchised for the first time.
Written in blood
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 21/07/2025
» In 2015, Joe Freeman and Aung Naing Soe noticed the prominent status of poetry in Myanmar politics. At the time, both journalists heard that Maung Saungkha, a 23-year-old poet, posted a poem about having a tattoo of an unnamed president on his penis on Facebook. Saungkha, however, was charged for defaming former president Thein Sein under telecommunication law, serving a six-month jail term.
The price of progress
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 23/06/2025
» Ongoing construction at the former site of Scala is opposite a major predecessor. Opening in 1985 at the corner of Pathumwan Intersection, MBK Center is located on a plot of land leased to Mah Boon Krong Drying and Silo Co Ltd. It features a 20-storey office building and an eight-storey shopping mall.
Creative destruction
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 16/06/2025
» Salinee Hanvareevongsilp's family moved home for a job opportunity when she was five and the land was subsequently developed into Siam Square in 1965. Still, it remained her favourite haunt. She frequented three movie theatres in the area -- Siam, Scala and Lido. In Matthayom 3, she protested against Japanese goods on Rama I Road.
Rising rents threaten the vibrant street food scene of the once-booming Banthat Thong Road
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 09/06/2025
» As night fell, neon signs gradually lit up Instagrammable restaurants and cafes. Despite pouring rain, tourists were taking photos of a dessert shop's logo of a boy holding a bun at an iconic intersection. Some eateries were teeming with customers, with a long queue of them spilling onto the sidewalk. Some, less popular, saw staff sitting idle. Others put up advertisement for lease.
A bitter farewell
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 15/05/2023
» The Robot Building on Sathon Road is a childhood superhero that comes to life. Standing on staggered floors, the chunky android is studded with nuts and bolts. Its head boasts metallic-lidded eyes and two communication antennae and its frontal body is outfitted with black glass and blue stripes like armour. It is ready to fight a monster in the urban jungle.
Giving evidence
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 20/03/2023
» Under authoritarian rule, truths are silenced, censored and mutilated. Yet, many people find ways to tell their stories. It is an irony, though, that a repressive regime is a precondition of creative resistance.
A creative accounting
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 13/02/2023
» Sophie, a young pianist, dreams of performing at a concert hall. When she gets an invitation letter, she feels overjoyed and begins to prepare for a debut, though with a sense of foreboding. On concert day, the sound of music comes from nowhere. She finds that it is created by the ghosts of past performers, yet continues to play her instrument. Her performance brings the ghosts peace, and they gradually disappear. As time goes by, Sophie becomes a successful pianist, but she never forgets the event.
From nature to your wrist
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 16/12/2022
» In the rural Japanese town of Shizukuishi in Iwate Prefecture, a new wooden studio for Grand Seiko blends with its natural surroundings. A swooping roof and clear glass window offer a sublime view of Mount Iwate, over 2,000m in height, where rocks unfold their true colours when snow melts. Set in lush landscape, the studio bears witness to wild creatures, including antelopes and foxes. In the midst of nature, craftspeople, known as takumi, are breathing life into mechanical watches. It is a place that embodies the brand's philosophy of the nature of time, in an environmental and technological sense.
Time is on our side
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 15/08/2022
» Win or lose, a protest is a process of trial and error. To put it simply, it is disruption, innovation, or something in between, just the way the now-defunct but shape-shifting Future Forward Party was in 2019 because it is born out of a spirit, not a person or a party. If the student-led demonstration goes down in history for demanding the boldest political reform, including the role of the monarchy, its resurrection last week proves that the pro-democracy movement is coming of age.