Siamese Girls Parade

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 253, 26 October 1938, Page 6

Siamese Girls Parade

Bangkok is hnildinp schools, tennis courts iind |ihiyin<; liclds. Kducation has become the absorbing passion of all classes. Tlie shock-Inured children of bark-|>eelcrs and rattanare <omin<r out of tlie jungle to Icarn their A li ( s in Saiwkrit and in l.nu'lish. coinpulsory schooling, the Ministry of Kducat ion has sjiecilied that Kiifilish is the universal and. therefore, a commercial and cultural necessity of all Siame-se. Hospitals are turning out nurses each term to spread the of Laboratories are studying tropical diseases, and the Pasteur Institute in Bangkok especially concerns itself with preparing antitoxinfi for cobra bites. Mom than 7<l<» co-operative credit ■societies for farmers now function eflicicntly. Fiunls for loann have been ad- , vanccd by (Jovernnient banks to regenerate agriculture. Tt in SiamV asset, for lice exports now brinpr far more revenue than tin. rubber or teak. Moreover, re|«iyinent of farmer loans to <!overnnient bankn ket']Vv the money in the country; heretofore money 1 repaid to Chinese money lenders has I flowed steadily to China. A Beneficial Fusion. : Sinni's strategic position on the air 1 routes from Kurope to China. French . In<lo-('iiina. the Xotherlaixl East Indies. . the Philippine Islands, and to Australia ruakes every one air-minded. Radio hoacons and meteorological stations now stretvh across the country. Ten first- ; class airports for civil aviation are ill operation ami three more are under 1 construction. A curious contributing factor to Siam's rapid progress are (lie children of Siamese and Chinese marriages. The ' racial admixture is apparently a pood one. producing the be«t traits of both peoples. These half-4-astes are looked up to. regarded as alert, reliable, ambitious, clever and 100 per cent Siamese in loyalty. Steady Chinese immigration—trebled since the bejrinnin<r of the Sino-.Tapane-se war —is expected to produce more of this new breed of Siamese.

Siam's women vote, just as men do; and they are training as laboratory technicians. as doctors, and as aviation pilots. On one athletic Held in midtown Bangkok I recently watched nuns teaching the finer points of baseball to half a hundred girls in middy blouses and bloomers. The nuns were American, 1 found, from Brooklyn. Enthusiasm for the game didn't have to be taught. It was there already. The Siamese girls -were as exuberant and noisy as any school girls in America. The "Bloodless Revolution." Old Bangkok, the capital, was a contrast of irridescent temple spires and carefree poverty. Jt was laced together by hundred* of muddy canals, wbaded by frangipani trees ami clogged with garbage. Commerce wan carried 011 by boat. At leaist lialf the population lived on crowded river junks, and from floating rafts bought tlieir fruits, their vegetables and pottery. Children laughed and swam in the fetid water and played 011 slimy banks, while long processions of vellow-robed prieste rowed by in a temple procession. The royal palaces, and a hundred detached ones all about the city, were gaudy Christmas-tree ornaments n life-sized proportons.

To-day tho country is entirely changed. Tt k a land no longer geared to elephants. Instead it is geared to the jiace of tractors, taxicabs and airplanes. Streamlined locomotives -whirl modern coaches and restaurant cars the length and breadth of the country. A dozen English, French and Netherland transport planes traverse the Siamese skies each week, using Bangkok's new airdrome as the hub of their Far Eastern air routes. Government irrigation projects are relieving drought and curbing floods, while a constitutional Government, with an assembly of the people's representatives, sits in a onceroyal palace in Bangkok.

The upheaval that brought about this complete reversal of Siamese life was the "bloodless revolution" of 1932. While the city of Bangkok slept, an obscure army colonel and a young law student, who had recently returned from Paris, quietly placed their bands of young patriots in strategic Governmental posts and then politely petitioned King Prajadhipok to grant a constitutional Government. By the time Bangkok woke up and traffic had started on its steaming canals, the floating vegetable sellers and the river coolies had a Constitution which made them the equal of royal relatives who had been deposed. It was not a revolution foisted upon the people by a small band of hotheaded moderns. Tt was a general passionate urge for improvement-—to trade medieval habits and customs for twentieth century modernism. It carried no hint of disloyalty to the King himself, but it refused to bear any longer the burden of parasitical princes. Incidentally, some of the royal family are now civil servants, earning their own keep.