Every year, on the first day of school, thousands of first-year students file onto a field on the campus of Chulalongkorn, Thailand’s oldest and among its most prestigious universities, in the heart of the sweltering capital Bangkok. In crisp, white uniforms with slim black belts, they kneel in neat rows in front of a bronze effigy of King Rama VI, the school’s founder, and his father, its namesake. With their foreheads touching the ground, inductees pledge to honor the institution and obey the world’s richest royal family, which shares prestige and power in this Southeast Asian kingdom with its chief protector, the army.
Last year, two freshmen didn’t take the oath.
