Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Is Royal sweat holy?


As some of you may know, Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great is king of Thailand and is almost universally adored. He is regarded as semi-divine by some and flat-out divine by others. In fact, making disparaging comments about him or his relatives is not only frowned upon, it's actually illegal (he's also one of the richest men in the world with 7 billion or there-abouts in his bank account).
Anyway, there are images of him everywhere. Photos in every guest house and tuk-tuk, huge billboards, shrines at the side of the road etc. Here is a photo I noticed around a few times. You cant see it that clearly but he is sweating his head off and you can see the magnificently backlit bead of sweat hanging off his nose. I cant believe anyone actually said to themselves, "Oh yeah, that's a flattering picture of our beloved Monarch. Let's use that one." Maybe someone used it as a joke and no-one wanted to say anything because he's regarded as so great and beneficent that everything about him is divine whatever it is.
That kind of got me to thinking, does that extend to stuff he excretes? Are his bodily fluids or sweat holier than that of mere mortals? I guess it must be if it comes from him but it can't remain so once it's left his body otherwise all his...shall we say...leavings would have to be gathered up and disposed of in a manner befitting his status. Is it a time thing or a distance thing or both? How long would it have to be outside the royal personage or how far from him would it have to be before it stopped being sacred and reverted to just regular...you know....faecal matter and spit?
Something to think about.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Man, that's gross. You have too much time on your hands thinking about such things...

4:05 AM  
Blogger Ben said...

Yes....yes I do....but I already have some good Geoff stuff so look on the bright side.

6:10 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I do not expect he does number one or twos, like the Queen. I expect that bead of sweat is like some kind of 'weeping statute' syndrome.

7:06 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Looking forward to Geoff's Asian sheenanigans!

2:56 PM  

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