A few days ago, there was a story in the “in other news” section of Thai newspapers. It is the kind of stuff that they use on slow news days as fillers. Apparently, an assistant village headman had his birthdate entered incorrectly on his ID card. Nothing exciting about that apart from the fact that it was written down as 30th February 1960. The media made a joke out of it saying that he hasn’t been able to celebrate any birthdays. Well, his boss at the Interior Ministry didn’t find the funny side of this story. He was reportedly angry that this man went to the media instead of having the ID card corrected quietly. From the minister’s point of view, the lowly government official made him lose face. The consequence? We have now gone from a small, mildly amusing story buried deep in the papers, to this screaming headline on the front page of Thai Rath about the assistant village headman quitting. Now who has egg on his face?
I thought I saw the original story on the front page of one of the papers? In any case, if it was that easy to have it corrected quietly he might have done so. In reality, they make it a nightmare. My boyfriend’s name was incorrectly entered onto his new ID card recently (they were only copying it from his passport, how hard can it be!) and when he took it back to change it they told him they couldn’t do it. The following day the same office told him he needed to bring a whole set of documents that he didn’t need the first time round. In the end he went to a different office and they did it first time. Gahh!