Showing 1 - 10 of 29
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.
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.
Protecting urban memory
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 29/04/2025
» Penprapa Ployseesuay did not know her husband's family had been the guardians of the Chao Mae Thapthim Shrine until they married in 1997. She quit her factory job in Nakhon Pathom and relocated to Bangkok to start a family. Despite the departure of her husband, she has been unwavering in her caretaking duties.
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.
Helping kids in need
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 08/05/2023
» Growing up in a business family, Janphen Phiromlapha set her sights on making money until she took a young girl, who is not related by blood, into her family.
A meeting of past and present
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 24/01/2023
» As time goes by, the past fades into oblivion. Like other artists, Tawatchai Somkong combs through piles of dusty history and finds something invaluable. He often visits antique shops when travelling abroad. Century-old sepia paintings are used for lavish adornment, and some are high-quality for museum display. In 2014, he began to create a collection of works that personally resonated with him.
Italians in Siam
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 03/01/2023
» When Mariannina Zuccaro arrived in Bangkok for her marriage with Mario Tamagno, an Italian architect who worked in Siam from 1900-1925, she encountered a stark contrast between her fiance's self-effacing character and monumental creations. According to Italians At The Court Of Siam, she referred to a photograph of the inauguration of a railway, on the back of which Tamagno listed everybody around King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), except himself.
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.
Nationalism is not the answer to land woes
Oped, Thana Boonlert, Published on 04/11/2022
» Resistance to the controversial foreign land ownership bill is giving rise to the term khai chat -- used to denounce traitors who sell the motherland -- being used in political discourse. Whether a person is a government critic or supporter, he or she believes their ancestors fought very hard to protect our land and it should not be given away to foreigners.