To answer your second question. It’s not likely at all that a tourist would get in any real trouble for behaving inappropriately in public. Either the Thai people around them would ask them to please show respect or the Tourist police would pull them aside and tell them the same thing. Generally the Thai people know tourism is a huge part of the countries economy and are very tolerant … (within reason, there is some boundaries you do not want to over step as a foreigner, but thats for another time).
Correction, because this is not true: They do not play the national anthem before a movie. They play the king’s anthem, which is completely different.
The national anthem is what they play over TV and radio at 8am and 6pm every day.
Again, why haven’t we, in the US, had coverage of this? If it was QEII it would be non-stop. This is the death of an important head of state, however one wants to spin whatever actual power he had. It should be news, but I haven’t seen squat on television.
Where do you live that there hasn’t been coverage of this? From what I’ve seen, it’s been covered in the US. Not to the extent that it’s going to be covered in Thailand, but it’s certainly not been ignored.
That’s because Americans know who she is.
It isn’t racism, though - I doubt the deaths of the kings of Sweden or or the Netherlands would get any more press. The British royal family, for some reason, has a special status even among other royals.