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The Thais are a patriotic bunch. The king, the longest-ruling monarch on the planet, inspires more adoration and awe than any celebrity or leader I've ever seen. On Mondays, the weekday of his birth, a striking proportion of the population wears a polo with his crest, in yellow, his personal favorite color. His birthday is the biggest holiday of the year. His face graces (by law, I've heard) every business, every public building, and most houses in the whole of Thailand. There's a law in place that makes it illegal to do anything to an image of him that could be considered "defamation." People have been arrested for drunkenly painting on posters of him, placing pictures of other people above a picture of him on websites, and sending unfortunately intercepted text messages expressing distaste for him. I can't figure out if it's actually illegal, but the Buddhist taboo about feet, combined with the image of the king's face on the currency, means that it is completely unacceptable to step on a coin to keep it from rolling away from you. You may think this wouldn't be that big of a deal, but I'd bet you do it way more than you realize, and it's a tough habit to break. It also tends to happen when you're fumbling for change in crowded places with lots of witnesses. Awkward moments had by all.

Probably the most obvious manifestation of this legally-enforced lovefest is the national anthem. It's not actually called that, but referred to as "the King's song." It plays at eight am and six pm in every public place, every TV and radio station--everywhere. And it stops everything. Everyone drops what they're doing, however important, to stand at attention. No one walks or moves. Cars driving by the schools in the morning, upon hearing it on the loudspeaker, hit the brakes. A friend once joked, probably inappropriately, that if you ever want to wreak some unopposed havoc in Thailand, do it at eight or six.

Our neighbors have two little white puffball dogs, poodle mutts or something. They're generally pretty quiet and relaxed (very Thai), only getting yappy when we drive our motorbikes too close to their house or when a cat goes by. But through some weird training regimen that I can't fathom, their masters have gotten them into a habit of howling like maniacs ("singing," they insist) when the King's Song plays. They start when the music starts, and stop immediately after the last note. I thought at first that it must be a fluke, that they just barked when music played on the TV, but that TV runs all days, and those dogs are quiet as can be, except for 8 and 6. Like clockwork.

When I was reading about the king for this post, I found out that people have actually been arrested for remaining seated while the song is played before a movie at the theater. They don't bother with this for us foreigners at the English-language movies, but at Thai movies, they run it before every film, regardless of the time. My boss told me that he recently went to a movie with his Thai wife where they played not only the song, but a long and highly emotional slideshow of photos of the king, from his birth, to his coronation, to his present advanced age. My boss watched, bemused, as his wife and everyone else in the theater broke down in tears.

But my favorite King's Song anecdote came from a fellow teacher at Thida, the Catholic elementary school where I spend my mornings. The building is a gorgeous modern construction, a giant, domed circle lined with four floors of classrooms overlooking a tiled central courtyard. Every morning, the children line up in front of their classrooms, facing the center, to say morning prayers, do some calisthenics, and sing the song.

Like many Thai buildings, Thida has a wide open entryway to encourage much-needed airflow. This allows stray dogs to occasionally wander in, and since strays here are treated well and are therefore generally docile, no one bothers to shoo them. So one morning, while the children were lined up, two dogs entered the building and made their way to the center of the courtyard. After hanging about unmolested for a few minutes, they decided to make some puppies. Normally, someone would break this up quickly to avoid the awkward questions of the over 2,000 watching three-to-eight-year-olds. Unfortunately, this went down at 8:00 on the nose. No one could move. No one could do anything. The dozens of nuns, teachers, parents, janitors, administrators and lunch ladies were all frozen in place by a lifetime of twice-daily renditions. So for the sixty-second duration of the song, 2,000 pairs of little eyes watched as two muddy street dogs banged in the middle of their school, during the King's Song, right in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary.

My friend could barely tell me this story with a straight face. Thai teachers--less amused.