Thai Flags -- interesting thoughts A certain Thai gentleman often sends me great notes about niches of Thailand and history. This is his latest. It is a good one: A well known fishing district community in Samut Sakorn Province called Ta Chalorm holds a local celebration every year, using as the symbol of the fair the old Flag of Siam , a red flag with a white elephant in the middle. The northern Red Shirts in their usual display of militant ignorance have adopted the flag as that of their would be independent state of Lanna. This has caused confusion to people visiting the Ta Chalorm annual fair and distress and concern to the organizers who have long used this flag as the symbolic flag of their celebrations. Old Siam in the days of Ayudhaya used a plain red flag, mostly on ships trading with neighboring countries. Flags in this country in the old days did not have the same significance as in the West, probably because there was no concept of the nation state. People belonged to city based kingdoms and fought for the King. Wars were fought not so much for resources as for dominance and glory of individual kings, although people were regarded as valuable spoils of war, to be used as forced labour or to populate the still plentiful land. In fact even today, various districts with noticeable local features among the inhabitants can usually trace back their origins, but that is another story. In the early Ratanakosin (Bangkok) era, a white elephant was added to the plain red flag to make it more identifiable. This lasted until the early 1900s when Siam began to modernize along Western lines. The present flag, call Thong (flag) Trairong (tricolor) came about in the reign of King Rama VI, or King Vachiravudh, whose statue stands in front of Lumpini Park. Its first official use was in the Allied victory parade in Paris at the end of the First World War in which Siam sent a small contingent to participate on the winning side. The white elephant remains on the national flag today as the Royal Thai Navy Ensign (the flag flown at the stern of the ship). A different flag is flown at the bow (the Jack) being the national flag with the Navys symbol in the middle. Legend has it that the present flag had its inspiration from an incident when the King came across a flag flown upside down, with the elephants legs pointing skyward. He ordered that a new national flag was needed with a design to ensure that which ever way it was flown it was still correct. The colours, red, white and blue were of course those of the great western powers of those days, Britain, France and the U.S. On the present Thai flag they are intended to denote the people (red), the religion(white), and the monarchy (blue). Today, in some of their gatherings, the Red Shirts display flags without the blue strip in the middle.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 11:25:12 +0000
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