Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Mongkut's son, King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) was to take much greater steps in repla-
cing the old political order with the model of the nation-state. He abolished slavery and
the corvée system (state labour), which had lingered on ineffectively since the Ayuthaya
period. Chulalongkorn's reign oversaw the creation of a salaried bureaucracy, a police
force and a standing army. His reforms brought uniformity to the legal code, law courts
and revenue offices. Siam's agricultural output was improved by advances in irrigation
techniques and increasing peasant populations. Schools were established along European
lines. Universal conscription and poll taxes made all men the king's men.
In 'civilising' his country, Chulalongkorn relied greatly on foreign advisers, mostly
British. Within the royal court, much of the centuries-old protocol was abandoned and re-
placed by Western forms. The architecture and visual art of state, like the new throne
halls, were designed by Italian artists.
Like his father, Chulalongkorn was regarded as a skilful diplomat and is credited for
successfully playing European powers off one another to avoid colonisation. In exchange
for independence, Thailand ceded territory to French Indochina (Laos in 1893, Cambodia
in 1907) and British Burma (three Malayan states in 1909). In 1902, the former Patani
kingdom was ceded to the British, who were then in control of Malaysia, but control re-
verted back to Thailand five years later. (The Deep South region continues to consider it-
self occupied by the Thai central government.)
Defying old traditions, Chulalongkorn allowed himself to be seen in public and photo-
graphed in peasant garb; he also allowed his image to be reproduced on coins, stamps and
postcards. (Though his father, King Mongkut, was the first Siamese monarch to allow
himself to be photographed and seen by commoners in public.) He was also well travelled
and visited Europe, Singapore, Java, Malaya, Burma and India. He collected art and in-
spiration from these travels and built fanciful palaces as architectural scrapbooks.
Siam was becoming a geographically defined country in a modern sense. By 1902, the
country no longer called itself Siam but Prathet Thai (the country of the Thai) or Ratcha-
anachak Thai (the kingdom of the Thai). By 1913, all those living within its borders were
defined as 'Thai'.
