Until recently (before all the rioting, violence and assassination plotting) Thailand would not have appeared to be a deeply troubled society. Generally speaking, Thais were, as endlessly advertised, scintillatingly smiley, and the country as a whole — vast rolling expanses of poverty notwithstanding — nothing less than a lush landscape of warmth and love — and fabulous food.
But on the evidence of the recent political traumas, you now have to believe there's something seriously wrong in the paradise kingdom that was once called Siam.
It has been said lately that the aging monarchy is at fault: It is the horse-and-buggy authority relic in an age of modernization and globalization that's holding everyone back.