The political state of Thailand is in chaos, violent clashes between red shirt protesters and the Thai military continues. Understandably, everyone is on edge–feeling distress when it comes to the discussion of Thai politics. When “Aof” Pongpat Wachirabunjong, respected director and actor, went up on stage last night to accept his award in the best supporting actor category in a series at the first annual Nataraja Awards (Performing Arts Awards), Aof stirred up controversy when he proclaimed his love for the King. His acceptance speech has generated hundreds of comments, probably more than a thousand now from Thai netizens who are debating (fighting) among each other as to whether Aof’s acceptance speech was a political one or one to unite the people without taking a political stance.
For his acceptance speech, he started off with a joke: “since I was born, I have never gotten this award before”. Everyone laughed because it’s the first annual Nataraja awards. He thanked the Confederation of the Thai Radio and Television Associations, the sponsor, the host, and the presenter of the Nataraja awards. Then he began to talk about Thailand and the King:
“This is an award I received for playing a father role. I would like your permission now to talk about our father (the King of Thailand) briefly na ha. A father is a pillar to a house (Thailand) na ha. My house is very big. We have many people living together. Since I was born, this house was very beautiful–beautiful and homely. For it to be like this, the ancestors of our father, lost sweat, lost blood, traded their lives to be able to build this house. Up to this point, this father, he is still fatigued in keeping up with this house and in caring for the happiness of each life under this house. If someone is angry at another, whoever, and then passed that anger down to our father, hate our father, insult our father, and have thoughts about chasing our father out of this house. I would have to walk up to that person and say, if you hate our father, and do not love our father anymore, you should leave, because this is our father’s house. Because this is our father’s kingdom. I love our King. I believe that everyone here loves our King too. We are the same color. This crown on my head I bestow for the King. Thank you!”
At this point, everyone started clapping loudly and cheering, “Nok” Chatchai Plengpanich even cried. More pictures here.
THE SPEECH:
By the way, he won the best supporting actor award for his father role in Prajun See Roong (Rainbow Moon) on Ch3.
@ish, you are right about the medias. The government would put any medias on the blacklist and shut down their channels if they refuse to cooperate. Who would dare to jeopardize their business and confront the dictatorship? The government shut down the People Channel and several radio stations in the North. So much for freedom of the press. This is a satellite television. I do not see any difference with ASTV and the channel is still up and running. If you want real truth, you have to put all sources (ASTV, People Channel, Ch5, Ch7, Ch3, Modern Nine, Bangkok Post, the Nation) together and weed out the facts. It’s sad, but true.
i m european &chinese&thai , in my opinion i think Thai military must shoot all the RED TShirt! that all !!Abhisit Fighting !!!!
YEAH Ann you are the Best !!! Ken too !!!
It’s true that many of them have no clue why they are there, many were paid to protest but so were the yellows. I don’t doubt one bit that there have been some switching colours from yellow to red and vice versa, it’s hard to distinguish who is who anymore. How do we know that some of these people weren’t paid or put instill by the military gov’t just to make the group look bad? I don’t consider myself either colours but I detest the hypocrisy that one side is spitting out and the continuos bias reporting you see on news channels.
@ish
i agree with you partially when you stated that everyone loves our king. i love my king, i love our land, but if everyone did love the king, would you see pictures of red shirts ripping and vandalizing pictures of our king? and would you see them step on it and burning it while wishing he was dead?
and fairytale, your bedtime story is definitely on point! hahha.
I’d have to agree with what kookai says because yes, it’s hard to believe that not everybody loves the King, but unfortunately, it is the sad truth that there are people who want to get rid of Him and the royal family. This was a hard fact for me to accept when I first learned of it, but I was shocked to hear Thai people say such things from their mouth.
I’m sure a majority of people in Thailand do love the King, including people from the Red shirts, but unfortunately, many of them don’t know the true meaning of what they are fighting for, and have been given false hopes (and money) to follow someone who is one of the world’s top fugitives. Yes, Taksin doesn’t like the King and wants to overthrow him, and yes, the royal family is fearing for their lives. Why do you think the King is maintaining permanent residence at Siriraj hospital? I mean, he is the King, he can’t get top quality 24/7 hospital-level care at his nice comfy palace? Of course he can, but unfortunately that’s not a safe place for him to be right now.
Being equated as a Red shirt is being equated to having Taksin as your leader because Taksin does “phone in’s” to the Red shirts all the time to tell them what to do next. So if you don’t necessarily support him, them you probably shouldn’t consider yourself a Red shirt (not saying you have to be a Yellow shirt, but just not Red). There are not only 2 sides, but right now, it is the Red vs. everybody else who do not want Taksin to come into power (including yellow, etc.) that’s why they call them “lak see” or “Many colors” shirts.
Not trying to start arguments, but telling those who many not fully understand the situation at hand at hard facts.
peonies, no this isn’t a channel 3 award. I don’t know what show you were watching but ch 3 did not win it all. The winners were voted by their peers. It’s not their fault of no one find ch 7 lakorns and actors/actresses to be impressive enough to vote for.
I know that they don’t see eye to eye but my point is who made it that way? When it began it wasn’t Thaksin vs the King was it? It was all between two individuals but somehow the royal family was dragged into this.
Not all Reds support Thaksin either, many of them just want change and didn’t like the way the current gov’t came into power, but regardless they DO love the King despite how the media portrays it.
@ish
I think you still don’t understand the situation that well. I would tell you again that the king and the royal family HATE Thaksin. Only some people do not realise this fact but it is a FACT not my opinion. the king & Thaksin are on the opposite side. Ask all of those who are working in the palace now you’d be sure that I’m telling you the truth. Or maybe you should find out by yourself on the internet. The King don’t like Thaksin and viceversa.
I don’t care about the royal fam that much. The king is a good guy but the prince is not. And it would be horrible if he’ll be the next king. Anyway, Thaksin is not a good guy either. So this fight will be invain no matter who will win.
is this channel 3 award show? it seems almost all awards go to channel 3′s actors and lakorns. i like channel 3 but in my honest opinion, 2009 lakorns/actors were nothing impressive. no challenging and boring. that applies to lakorns and award show.
I want to stress that all Thais love the King regardless of what colour they are from. You have to read into how all of this mess started before taking a side because it’s too easy to just look at the current situation and blame it all on one side. The current gov’t has stated that the royal family and his royal highness shouldn’t be brought into this chaos at all but if look at it from the beginning you’d know who actually brought Nai Luang into this. This all started from one man and no I am not talking about Thaksin.
Does anybody know where I can watch the full show? I was searching on YouTube and only found parts of the show.
So what are you trying to say fairytale? That his majesty condone the killings of the reds?
Here is where your bedtime story fails. Did Yellow do it on purpose or was it an accident? If it is an accident of course any mom would comfort a crying child who was scared of getting punishment. Red on the other hand saw that it was wrong doing but decided to do it cus Yellow did not get punish.
It’s not about who is the favorite child, it’s about the intention of the deed. Now I’m not picking side but your bedtime story has unfair flaws. Especially if it started out with you indicating that our beloved father his majesty loves one child more then the other.
You guys should watch the whole show. It’s not just Aof making a stand and call for unity. Finally the group known as “The quiet” (that’s what Woody calls them) are making noises. They finally admit that this does affect them as well and that they too do not like this unrest happening in the country.
I would not doubt a bit that Thai people (regardless of colors) would not love his Majesty.
I recall an incident when there was 1 death of a yellow shirt protester. Abhisit, an opposition party leader at that time, was making a big commotion and blamed former prime minister Somchai for mishandling the situation. The queen even sent a wreath to the funeral. Today, there were so many deaths and injuries under Abhisit’s management and more to come after the crackdown.
Below is a bedtime story.
Once upon a time, there were two big babies named Yellow and Red. Yellow threw his toy and broke the window. His mom comforted him and said, ‘it’s okay babe’. Red saw the incident and thought to himself. I could do this without trouble too. Little did Red know that he was not a favorite child. He was punished. THE END!