One of the most memorable moments of my time at the embassy came during Thailand Culture Day in St. Petersburg.
To my surprise, the Thai diplomats chose me, a Russian member of the local staff, to host the concert and conduct the cultural quiz on stage.
I was not simply going to introduce the performers.
I was going to represent Thailand in front of the audience.
And there was one small problem.
I was Russian.
The solution was spectacular.
For the occasion, I was dressed in traditional Thai clothing: deep royal-blue silk, a golden sabai embroidered with delicate floral patterns, pearls and sequins, and a traditional golden hairpin holding my hair in a sleek bun.
The transformation was astonishing.
But the clothes were only part of it.
I had also learned how to move.
When I greeted people, my hands naturally followed the gestures I had absorbed from watching Thai colleagues. I used the wai when appropriate and paid attention to the way the hands, posture and movement changed according to the situation.
I was not trying to imitate a Thai woman.
I was trying to show respect for something that mattered enormously to the people I was representing.
And somehow, it worked.
The audience watched a Russian woman speaking English, wearing Thai dress and moving with what they perceived as genuine Thai grace.
After the performance, one of the guests came up to me.
She looked at me carefully and asked:
“Are you Thai?”
I smiled.
“No. I’m 100 percent Russian.”
“You should have said you were half-Thai!”
The next morning, something happened that I remember to this day.
Ambassador Chademron Tanchitt and his wife, Madame Sutida, invited me to join them for breakfast.
It was a surprisingly personal gesture in an environment where protocol and hierarchy mattered enormously.
Naturally, I told them about the question I had been asked after the performance.
The Ambassador laughed.
Then, with a mischievous smile, he told me:
“You should have said you were half-Thai!”
I laughed too.
But there was something behind the joke.
In Thailand, people of mixed Thai and foreign heritage — often referred to as luk khrueng — have long had a particular place in popular culture and public life. They can be admired for combining different cultural worlds.
And perhaps that was what the Ambassador was really telling me.
Although I am Russian (however, a half-breed one, Russian/Belarussian 50/50), but for a few hours on that stage, I had managed to put on a different identity, similar to Jason Borne.
I had not become Thai.
I had simply learned how to “Keep up apperances’ 😉
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