30 Days 30 Images: His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej Is In All Thais’ Hearts Forever

This project has initiated after King Bhumibol’s death on 13 October, 2016. When hearing about the tragic news, I hardly took any funny pictures as I usually do. His Majesty the King’s face was everywhere, on the coins or the bills. Since then, I started to take whatever reminds me to the King. I remember the His Majesty once said “Don’t bother remembering me, but what I have done”. Such quote inspired me to learn deeply about his wide-ranging royal projects and quotes before creating some images reflecting his work and ideas. I aimed to spend 30 days doing this task prior to displaying to the public. What I would like all Thais and foreigners to learn about His Majesty includes the followings.

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His music talent: King Bhumibol Adulyadej is considered the world’s well-known composer as well as musician who was truly gifted with music composition and arrangement skills. His Majesty often coached his courtiers how to play music and sometimes even repaired some instruments himself. With his various artistic talent, the Kings was conferred by the Thai subjects with the title “Supreme Artist.”

The name of his royal initiative project “Chang Hua Mun” originated when His Majesty visited Klai Kangwon Palace and a local civilian brought him a sweet potato head cultivated in his farm. When he had to return to Bangkok, he asked his official to leave it on the scale. After coming back to the palace again, he found there was some sprouts coming out of the potato. Then, he had it planted in the bowl at the palace and initiated to find a piece of land to experiment the sweet potato planting. This was because sweet potato is considered an easy-to-grow kind of plant, even on the dirt free area like the top of the scale. “If a sweet potato on the scale can sprout, it can do on the super dry area.”

“Royal Chitralada Milk Candy”… From the crisis of milk oversupply to the top-pick souvenir. During the Royal Trip to the Kingdom of Denmark in 1960, a visit to a dairy cattle farm and a milk processing plant was put in His Majesty's itinerary. The purpose was to study the possibility of establishing a milk farm and milk industry in Thailand. In 1962, His Majesty presided over the Opening Ceremony of Suan Chitralada Dairy Farm with aims to raise milk cows for the study, experiment, research and breeding improvement purposes, all of which was to achieve the variety of quality dairy products in the future, broaden milk farming career for Thai farmers and ensure that his subjects would obtain good health in accordance with his sufficiency economy principle. In 1969 there was one problem encountered by Thai farmers is failure to sell all their dairy products. To help solve the problem, His Majesty initiated to carry out further research to study the feasibility to turn fresh milk into milk powder in order to extend its shelf life. A small scaled powdered milk factory named Suan Dusit Milk Powder Plant was built. Following that, Suan Chitralada Milk Collection Centre was also built, with aims to purchase milk from the farmers and have it sterilized by the heating process before selling it in reasonable prices. To make drinking milk more enjoyable for people, in 1984 Suan Dusit Milk Tablet Plant was established. This is not only another way to add more value to the powder milk, but also another healthy food choice with affordable prices.

“The Royal Rain Project” The Royal Rain Project was initiated by His Majesty when making his visit to his subjects in 15 remote provinces in Northeastern part of Thailand. Once hearing about people’s suffering on water shortage both for consumption and farming, His Majesty initiated a major project to solve such problem. When returning back to Bangkok, His Majesty shared his idea about artificial rainmaking with Mom Rachawong Thepparit Devakul, a reputable engineer and inventor of six-wheeled tractor. The first experiment on the sky was conducted above Khao Yai National Park area through the use of dry ice or solid carbondioxide. The dry ice with the size of smaller than a cubic inch was dropped inside the scattered clouds at the height of less than 10,000 feet. Shortly after, the clouds developed an obvious physical change by accumulating themselves in the area until they rapidly turned into a huge rainy cloud. But unfortunately, due to the strong wind, the cloud moved away from the sight and result couldn’t be noticed. However, there was a follow-up by the ground survey as well as direct interview with local people, the officials were confirmed that the artificial rainmaking project was workable in the targeted area. This is a proof that “it’s possible to make the cloud rain.”

“His Majesty and the Royal Grandmother: Opium Comes to Tempting Macadamia Nuts. “The Doi Tung Development Project (DTDP) was established by Princess Srinagarindra née Sangwan Talapat or the Princess Mother, inspired by one of His Majesty’s royal projects aiming to eradicate the opium-growing and drug addiction problems in Thailand. The problems had been in the country for 40 years and His Majesty and the Princess Mother realized how badly people in the area were suffering from drugs and human trafficking which were considered one of the top social problems. The Princess Mother was aware of the problem’s root causes which were poverty, ignorance, and lack of life quality due to the living in remote area. To stop that, the development project on human’s living, economy, custom and environment was put in place with aims to promote consistent self-reliance. The Doi Tung Development Project was established in 1988 covering approximately 93,615 Rai in Mae Chan sub-district, Mae Fa Luang and Mae Sai district in Chiang Rai. In the area, there were approximately 11,000 people from 29 villages of Akha, Lahu, achinese Kok Min Tang, Tai Lue and Tai Lua.”

“Biodiesel Comes to Fuel Users’ Rescue” “With his vision to help his subjects, His Majesty has pioneered to establish the development of alternative energy through his personal projects since 1979, including biogas, ethanol, gasohol as well as biodiesel production from palm oil. The royally-initiated project for palm oil production for diesel-fueled engines use was in place under the project name “Refined Palm Oil for Diesel-Fueled Engine” which was patented by the Ministry of Commerce on 9 April, 2001. In 2003, His Majesty received the award called “Refined Biodiesel Extracted from Palm Oil” in “Brussel Eureka”, an event exhibiting new innovative inventions in Brussel, Belgium. Palm is considered a plant that provides high oil volume per planting area while allowing Thailand to depend on domestic fuel production rather than imported fuel.

“Tilapia” The story of Tilapia began on 25th March, 1965 when His Majesty the Emperor of Japan, then Crown Prince Akihito, presented 50 Tilapia fish (scientific name:Tilapia Nilotica Linn) to His Majesty King Bhumibol who bestowed the name Nil fish in Thai on them. “Nil” fish means black color and the pronunciation of its first syllable which is “Nil” comes from “Nilotica.” This given name is short, meaningful and easy to remember. His Majesty provided guidance to conserve Nil fish’s breed. To try raising by himself, His Majesty placed them in a pond at The Royal Chitralada Villa while having the Department of Fisheries carry out widespread breeding. Around 5 months later, there were a great number of baby Nil fish. Since a pond seemed to be too small for overcrowded fish, he decided to create another 6 ponds to accommodate those fish from the previous pond. The fish were moved to new ponds by His Majesty himself. Over a year later, the number of Nil fish raised in the ponds was great enough to be given away. On 17 March 1966, His Majesty gave 10,000 baby Nil fish sized 3-5 CM to the Commissioner of Fisheries for further breeding at the experiment unit and raise in the Central Agriculture Bangkhen as well as other 15 fishery stations throughout the nation.

“Carry On What Father Has Done” This is a very last image featuring 89 small human (kontuajew). As an ordinary Thai, I would like to do whatever I can for His Majesty. One thing to do is definitely to carry on what he has done so that the following generations will be able to learn and continue his work. Apart from these 30 images, I promise to create more and more as long as my capability allows me to do so. It’s certainly my goal to depict what the King has done for the country. I hope that all I have done will remind you to the King while messages from some of these images will be advantageous to the succeeding generations.