Who’s given U.S. President Barack Obama the most love?
It turns out that under baffling American law, which seems could easily lead to “misunderstanding” figures of authority, it’s possible to review every gift given to the world’s most powerful politician. What a strange people.
The Washington Post earlier this week posted each of the 274 gifts received by the U.S. president and ranked them by how subjectively awesome they were. So how generous was Thailand?
We appear four times in the list, between Mexico’s amazing “five-inch Aztec calendar in silver” and, at the utter lamest*, Singapore’s MP3 player and “pulse massager.”
Thailand’s first entry is from 2012, about halfway down at No. 147.
“Stationery set of varying paper sizes, envelopes, and letter opener, held within painted black wooden box,” it soberly reads.
Not a lot of “wow” there. Not like four bottles of tequila (also Mexico), but we’ll assume the stationary was lavishly festooned with northern Lanna designs and the letter opener was handled in freshly cut ivory.
Everyone can agree that dragon-shaped anything sounds pretty sweet, so we’d say things get a lot better at No. 176, a foot-long silver tray “with dragon-shaped handle, presented in a blue presentation box” given in 2010 during the Abhisit Vejjajiva regime. (And thanks for clarifying what type of box the present was presented to the president in.)
It all sounds rather dull after that. No. 193 is a box given in 2009 with a national insignia, which somehow gets rated one higher than Saudi Arabia’s “large desert scene on a green veined marble base featuring miniature figurines of gold palm trees and camels; large gold medallion with the royal seal in a green leather display box; large brass and glass clock by Jaeger-LeCoultre in a green leather display case.”
They thought THAT gift from our erstwhile friends was less nifty than a box? Strange people indeed.
At No. 255 even the last Thai entry sounds a little more exciting:
“Royal Bone Chinaware tea set,” reads the description of the 2012 gift. “Framed photograph of President Obama and the Prime Minister.”
Unfortunately there are no images available of that or any of Thailand’s gifts, so we’re left to our imaginations.
*The Washington Post actually ranked Poland’s gift of “The Witcher 2” video game as the worst gift, which defies logic as Witcher 2 was a perfect blend of RPG narrative and heart-stopping action.
Related:
Singapore on average gave the worst gifts to US President Obama
