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					Also this issue: Real Barbecue -Bruce Schimmel Back on the Streets Again -David Warner Letters to the Editor

June 27-July 3, 2002

pretzel logic

Big Trouble from Little Thailand

by Howard Altman

Though the object of advertising is to garner attention, Sherry Levin, manager of Saint Jack's restaurant in Old City, has apparently garnered far more attention than she ever imagined. An ad she ran in this newspaper -- featuring a stylized embellishment of Thai king Bhumibol Adulyadej -- has thrust the 35-year-old suburban mother into a festering international incident.

The ad -- which depicts Adulyadej as a bling-bling hipster with bleached highlights, lines shaved into his hair, stone-encrusted glasses and a shirt that sports an Adidas logo -- has so angered the Thai government that its consulate is threatening to cut off relations with the U.S.

"All the Thai people, we love our king very, very much. He is like God to us," says Boonsom Watanapanee, deputy counsul general of the Royal Thai Consulate in New York. "This could threaten U.S.-Thai relations, of course. I guarantee it. I have worked for the Ministry for 25 years and no one can bear this. It's never happened before in this country. I know you can make jokes with the president, with Queen Elizabeth, but not with my king."

In a series of telephone conversations, Watanapanee has threatened not only to cut off relations with the U.S., but also stop issuing visas for U.S. citizens to visit Thailand. She has also said that if City Paper does not refuse to run the ad and if I don't formally apologize, in writing, to the Thai government, "there will be bad trouble. We will stop work and go straight to your office. We will stop business with America."

Underscoring the Thai concerns over the Saint Jack's ad, Thai consul general Voravee Wirasamban wrote letters last week to Levin and City Paper, saying that "At a time when America has all the interests to strengthen its cooperation with allies throughout the world in the fight against terrorism, a mockery of one of your best friends will do no service to your own country."

Wirasamban has also written letters to Gov. Mark Schweiker and Mayor John Street protesting the ad, according to Watanapanee, who added that she will contact the U.S. State Department as well.

David LaTorre, Schweiker's spokesman, confirmed on Tuesday that the governor had received a personal letter from the Thai government.

“We received the letter yesterday and are going to review it,” says LaTorre, adding that he could not comment on the letter’s contents “because the letter was written personally to the governor. No decision has been made on what to do about this, but it is definitely a unique case.”

Frank Keel, spokesman for Mayor John Street, says that as of Tuesday afternoon, the mayor had not received his letter.

Sherry Levin, who named her Thai-influenced restaubar after the Paul Theroux novel of the same name, featuring an expat living in Bangkok, says she is stunned by the Thai reaction to her ad.

"I have been getting a lot of phone calls from very angry people," she says. "I had no idea that this ad was offensive."

The list of the offended, says Levin, includes Kulkumut Singhara, Thailand's deputy representative to the U.N.

"He called three times," says Levin.

"He was very, very passionate," says Cinnamon Bowman, who works the bar during lunches and spoke with Singhara when he called last week. "He had a lot of questions. He wanted to know why we did this. Why we made his hair like we did. Why we used an Adidas logo."

Watanapanee was even more passionate.

"She said that if we continued to run the ad, there would be big trouble. That there would be Thais coming from all over to protest."

And it's not just government officials.

On Monday, Levin received a letter from Dao Surapatana, "Special New York Reporter" for Daily News Bangkok.

"Although many [Thais] have allegiance to the United States and are citizens of this great country, we all still hold the King of Thailand as royalty, an institution that is always [to] be respected and protected," Surapatana wrote. The king "is not someone to be put on a party flier with an Adidas logo, in an attempt to promote a party."

Despite the controversy, Levin says she is going to run the same ad, only with a disclaimer.

"We are going to say that this ad is a parody and that we don't mean to offend anyone," she says.

That response, however, is not acceptable to Watanapanee, who on Monday again demands that I give her an answer about whether the ad will run again.

"I need to file a report," she says, adding that she will have to consult "the big boss," Thai consul general Wirasamban.

One reason that the Thai consulate is unhappy about the situation is that on Sunday, Thailand's biggest daily newspaper carried a story about the Saint Jack's ad.

"It is a good thing it was not on the front page," says Watanapanee. "If it was on the front page, I would have been in trouble."

But even a story inside the paper is problematic, she says.

"It is big trouble now," she says. "It is not a small matter. If you think it is a small matter, then put the ad in again and you will see what happens."

Whoa.

Does the king have a sense of humor? I ask the deputy consul general.

"He is our god," she says. "He can laugh. He might laugh, but we cannot."