Showing 1 - 10 of 52
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.
The human lens
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 24/09/2025
» An encounter with a girl beaten by a teacher moved Gauri Gill to write a story for a political weekly. However, her idea was set aside for lacking an angle that would engage urban readers and Gill decided to take a month-long sabbatical from work.
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.
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.
Fractured bonds
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 28/04/2025
» Neo Sora's debut feature film Happyend envisions a dystopian near-future Tokyo under threat of an earthquake, which forms the backdrop of youth rebellion against authoritarianism. As it is followed by aftershocks that fracture personal relationships, Happyend is an ode to friends drifting apart at the mercy of larger forces, but still in the same universe.
Voices of change
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 31/03/2025
» What if a media crew goes to great lengths to construct rather than record an event? With this question at heart, Asst Prof Viroj Suttisima, a lecturer at Bangkok University's Faculty of Communication Arts, illuminates the dark side of media ethics in his short story The Last Night Of A Documentary Filmmaker -- winner of the Phan Waen Fah Award in 2024.
Memes of dissent
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 14/08/2023
» It is not as whimsical as it seems. After the onset of the largest pro-democracy movement since the military coup in 2014, university and high school students cuddled hamster dolls and ran around in circles. "Delicious tax!", hundreds of them sang, from a cartoon jingle at Democracy Monument in late July 2020. Crowdsourced from a social media platform, Hamtaro, a shorthand for caged mice demanding freedom, spawned many internet memes, including a greedy caricature of junta leader Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha.
Student filmmakers focus on Thai society for 'Voices Of The New Gen'
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 11/05/2023
» After screenings in August last year, "Voices Of The New Gen", four short films by university students, are once again revisiting the gamut of social and political issues of 2022 on Netflix.
Temperatures soar, headaches rise
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 01/05/2023
» Like other early birds, Dao Dul, 35, goes on duty at first light. For her, time is literally money. Her office is not a well-built weather-proof skyscraper. It is a makeshift cart that provides affordable dishes to hundreds of community residents from dawn to dusk.
Songs for life as it's no longer lived
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 17/04/2023
» Ad Carabao's new song Prachathipatung revives the myth of vote-buying and ignorance in rural society. The title is a coinage blending prachathipatai (democracy) and tung (money). On the track, parents ask children to return to their home village to vote for local politicians who give them money. It puts into song from the political discourse of an urban middle class that expresses disdain for villagers along with antipathy for one type of money politics as well as full-fledged democracy.