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Published on January 4, 2008

The government has asked officials and state enterprise workers to wear black and to fly flags on all public buildings at half-mast for 15 days.

The Interior Ministry has also requested entertainment businesses to refrain from operating for 15 days.

When the Princess Mother passed away on July 18, 1995, His Majesty the King also had royal family members and royal court officials observe a 100-day mourning period.

In Thailand, mourning periods vary between different beliefs but generally end after a cremation.

In the past, Buddhists in southern Thailand preferred to hold a funeral ceremony on the seventh day after someone's death, so the mourning period only lasted a week. But today the tradition has changed. The body of the deceased might be kept for a month, 50 days, 100 days or a year, depending on ties between the deceased and the living.

To most Thais, the proper mourning period for dead parents should be at 100 days or a year.

In 1913, King Rama VI announced a royal decree on the mourning period for royal family members and royal court officials. It said the mourning period for princes born to the king and the queen was four months; for princes born to the king but not the queen it was two months; while for those with the rank of elder prince or younger prince born to the king and queen it was two months. For princes and princesses of middle rank the mourning period was one month - and 15 days for princes and princesses of lesser rank.

Nonetheless, members of the royal family and royal court officials were allowed to take longer mourning periods if they desired.

In the early Rattanakosin era when colourful clothes were allowed to be worn during mourning, ordinary people were forced to shave their heads when the king passed away. It is believed that the death of an elder would lead to Sukati (Buddhist heaven), so people were allowed to wear colourful outfits as well as holding traditional performances like khon (mask dance) and lakorn (musical dance). That tradition was cancelled by King Rama VI.

The custom of wearing black for mourning in Thailand dates back to 1863 to the reign of King Rama IV at the funeral ceremony of the King's daughter Princess Chandramandala - who passed away at nine - when King Rama IV ordered royal family members and royal court officials to wear black sarongs.

A tradition that elders put black fabric 10 centimetres in width around the left arm to show grief over a younger person's death also began at that time.

But the wearing of black is believed to have been influenced by Western culture.

In the reign of King Rama V, besides black clothes, Thais, of both sexes, also wore white, grey and dark blue when mourning. Until the reign of King Rama VII most Thais still wore black, white or black and just white, but after the end of World War II in 1945, dark colours such as dark blue, dark grey and especially black became more popular as the colour of deepest mourning.

The Nation