Popular Culture Review 30.1
And then there ’ s the outstanding quality of the research itself , as confirmed in two recent books . First , Professor Mark Padoongpatt tells , for the very first time , the fascinating story of how Thai food gradually spiced up the limited culinary options in the suburbs with Flavors of Empire : Food and the Making of Thai America ( University of California Press , 2017 ). Beginning with an examination of the U . S . empire in Cold War Thailand , Padoongpatt relates how “ foodways emerged as the key site for constructing Thais as an exotic neocolonial subject .” It all began , naturally , with the efforts of federally funded social scientists , assigned the task of calculating the country ’ s potential in benefiting Western interests . Indeed , no stone is left unturned , Padoongpatt noting the Stateside impact of the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I , arguably the most serious postwar representation of Thailand , which arrived in the form of a Twentieth Century Fox movie starring Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr . Moreover , there ’ s no shying away from transactions involving Thai sex workers and U . S . servicemen in Bangkok , conducted under the guise of “ R & R trips ,” or from patriarchal exploitation of women ’ s bodies , which were deemed “ beautiful ” and “ exotic ”:
Journalist Lloyd Shearer expressed these views in the 1968 Parade Magazine article , “ Thailand is a Man ’ s World�and the G . I .’ s Like It .” Shearer described Thai women to readers as “ in the main , lovely creatures of delicate beauty .” He also said Thailand ’ s Queen Sirikit and her physical beauty was a prime “ reflection of the country ’ s enchanting young women ” because she was “ petite , demure , shapely , reserved .”
248