ABSTRACT
In January 1922, tram car drivers went on strike in Bangkok. One of the supervisors of the Tram Car Company, Mr. Hui, was overheard saying before a crowd, “Damn Thai nation! Why should I go reconcile myself humbly before them? Set a pot with [left-over] rice water in the middle of the road and tap on it. In just a second, here they’d come!” Two titled aristocrats who heard this filed a complaint, saying Mr. Hui had likened the Thai to “depraved animals” who are only on the look out for “rice water”—“the food of canines.” Such words defamed the two plaintiffs as well as insulted “the common folk who have nationality as Thai,” causing the Thai nation to “lose their good name and honour” and bringing “foreigners” to hold the Thai nation “in contempt.”1
