Make that 100 days

In my last post, I mentioned that music has been banned throughout Thailand since the death of the King’s sister on Jan. 1.

I mentioned this because I truly could not imagine something like this happening in the States or in any other Western nation. If our president was assassinated, you could play any song you like at the bar the next night. And if his sister died of cancer, many Americans would not even hear about it.

Can you imagine what would have to happen before every bar in a major American city agreed to stop playing music for more than two weeks?

How about three months?

Here in Chaiyaphum, the city appears to have decided that 15 days was not sufficient to pay its respect to the late Princess. The city has extended its period of mourning to the full 100 days that will be observed by the royal family. The initial mourning period ended on the 16th, but the full mourning period will last more than three months.

That means us teachers are expected to wear black to work for the full 100 days (teachers are considered government employees, since we work for public schools). It also means there may be no music played at the city’s annual festival, which was already pushed back to the 17th so it would not take place during the initial period of mourning.

At the time of the Princess’s death, the government declared a national mourning period would be in effect for 15 days, during which time all government officials and state employees will wear black clothing and flags will fly at half-mast.

Apparently, the interior ministry also asked businesses to “refrain from entertainment activities” during the national mourning period. I’m not sure what else falls under the mourning ban, but live music was among the “entertainment activities” that businesses have dutifully refrained from for the past two-plus weeks, at least here in Chaiyaphum.

There is an annual festival here that was scheduled to begin shortly after the mourning period began. It was pushed back to the 17th, the day after the 15-day mourning period ended. The festival has been on for four days now, and it will continue until the 25th. But it now appears it will do so without music.

Traditionally, music is played each night at the nine-day festival, often with a big-name act playing on the final day (I’ve heard Body Slam, one of the top pop bands in Thailand, was supposed to play this year). But so far, the live music has been called off out of respect for the late Princess.

I’m not sure whether the ban will be lifted for the final night of the festival (I’ve heard from some people that it will be, and from others that it won’t), but I’ll keep you posted.

The music ban is not being enforced in tourist areas (I was in Ayuthaya this weekend and one of the bars there had a guy singing terrible American oldies songs and playing an acoustic guitar; I’d imagine the same sort of thing is happening in Bangkok and some of the islands in the South), but at least in the northeastern provinces it’s being taken quite seriously.

Incidentally, this is not the first time the government has banned “entertainment activities” nationwide since I’ve been here. There was an alcohol ban in effect for the weekend before the national elections, presumably to ensure the nation would be sober when votes were cast.

Here in Chaiyaphum, that was extended to include the weekend two weeks prior to the election as well. Bars and restaurants strictly observed the ban, refusing to serve drinks during both weekends. As foreigners, we were able to convince someone to sell us alcohol at a convenience store, but only after we agreed to conceal the bottle in a handbag before leaving the store.