{"id":938,"date":"2012-08-03T12:57:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-03T17:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/legacyinstitute.org\/wordpress\/2012\/08\/queen-sirikit-of-thailand-turns-80\/"},"modified":"2012-08-03T13:12:45","modified_gmt":"2012-08-03T18:12:45","slug":"queen-sirikit-of-thailand-turns-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/legacyinstitute.org\/wordpress\/2012\/08\/queen-sirikit-of-thailand-turns-80\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen Sirikit of Thailand Turns 80"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Queen Sirikit on a visit to Russia in 2007<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

On August 12, 2012, Queen Sirikit of Thailand will turn 80 years old. \u00a0Thailand will celebrate her birthday with the usual fireworks and government sponsored celebrations. \u00a0Queen Sirikit and her husband King Bhumibol Adulyadej will perform religious rites according to the Buddhist and Brahmin traditions. \u00a0The majority of the nation will celebrate, not because it is customary, but because most of the people of Thailand genuinely wish to honor their king and queen for what they have done for the people and the nation for over 60 years. \u00a0King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit have earned the honor and love of the people through hard work and dedication to the welfare of the Thai people from all walks of life and in every corner of the nation, even the remote border areas.<\/p>\n

Queen Sirikit, just 17 years old, married young king Bhumibol when she was known as just Princess Sirikit Kitiyakara, the daughter of the Thai Ambassador to France.<\/p>\n

Most westerners have the idea that kings and queens spend their time on thrones surrounded by adoring sycophants who immediately fulfill their every wish; or they have the impression that royals \u00a0jet-set here and there to Monte Carlo or other exotic and exclusive resorts. \u00a0 For the king and queen of Thailand, nothing could be further from the truth. \u00a0From the time the new 17 year old bride of the king returned with him to Thailand, Queen Sirikit has lived a life of dedication to the social and cultural development of her people. \u00a0Both have spent many days in remote mountain and border provinces where the poorest of the poor scratch out a living from the forests and upland rice and garden plots.<\/p>\n

I personally have been with both the king and queen while they were visiting their development projects in mountain villages. \u00a0I have sat on a bamboo floor and watched Queen Sirikit, also seated on the bamboo floor, spend hours without a break, speaking to women about their problems and hopes and dreams, while inspecting their needlework or hand-made and hand-dyed traditional silks produced under her sponsorship. \u00a0I have walked with the king, visibly worn out from visiting a remote village high in the mountains in order to talk to village elders.<\/p>\n

One time King Bhumibol encouraged my wife Gloria and me to learn to pace ourselves. \u00a0He said, \u201cRemember, the mountain will always be there.\u201d \u00a0For the king and queen, the mountain of their responsibilities has always been there \u2013 and continues to be there. \u00a0They have only been successful in continuing to combat poverty and ignorance because they have learned to pace themselves. \u00a0Recently the king and queen took a boat trip up the Chao Praya River to inspect flood damage to villagers\u2019 homes. \u00a0This is only the second time that the king, now 86, has left the hospital to continue what he does best; inspect the problems of the people at the grassroots level and find solutions. \u00a0Queen Sirikit is always at his side and uses these visits to discover more about the problems facing the wives, mothers and children of the disaster struck areas. \u00a0It is teamwork at its best. \u00a0And they have been doing this together for over 60 years.<\/p>\n

It is abundantly clear that they care for their people more than they care for themselves. \u00a0When other monarchs may have retired to rest themselves in old age, King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit continue to serve the people as long as they have the strength to do so.<\/p>\n

So, now Queen Sirikit turns 80 and I don\u2019t think she is considering retirement. \u00a0How can she when the mountain is still there? \u00a0She is a wonderful \u00a0example of servant leadership. \u00a0She may be slowing down \u2013 but she never stops chipping away at the mountain. \u00a0We can all learn from her example.<\/p>\n

Leon Sexton
\nChiang Mai, Thailand.<\/p>\n

Photo Courtesy:\u00a0www.kremlin.ru<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
View on Blogger: Queen Sirikit of Thailand Turns 80<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Queen Sirikit on a visit to Russia in 2007 On August 12, 2012, Queen Sirikit of Thailand will turn 80 years old. \u00a0Thailand will celebrate her birthday with the usual fireworks and government sponsored celebrations. \u00a0Queen Sirikit and her husband King Bhumibol Adulyadej will perform religious rites according to the Buddhist and Brahmin traditions. \u00a0The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-generalnews","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyinstitute.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyinstitute.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyinstitute.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyinstitute.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyinstitute.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/legacyinstitute.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":939,"href":"http:\/\/legacyinstitute.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions\/939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyinstitute.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyinstitute.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyinstitute.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}