It’s not every day that a foreign diplomat visits “Mayberry,” and such a day will come in May when Tanee Sangrat from the Royal Thai Embassy in Washington is scheduled to be here.
The upcoming trip by Sangrat, Thailand’s ambassador to the U.S., is not related to “The Andy Griffith Show,” but the opening ceremony for a planned Siamese twins museum in a new Arts Center near the Mount Airy Public Library.
Work on the multi-purpose facility on Rockford Street began in September 2021 and now is winding down.
City officials got a preview earlier this month of the new Surry Arts Council building that will include programming, classroom, exhibit and other space in addition to the twins museum. A statue of the legendary pair also is to be featured.
The opening ceremony appropriately is set for May 11, the birth date in 1811 of Eng and Bunker in what then was known as Siam, before becoming the modern-day Thailand.
The twins left their homeland and made public appearances in the U.S. and elsewhere as their conjoined physical deformity became a major attraction. Known as the “original” Siamese twins, they eventually settled near Mount Airy to farm.
In recent years, Thai officials have established a bond with Mount Airy due to the common link between the two places symbolic of that shared by the brothers themselves.
This has included appearances by embassy officials at local Eng and Chang reunions and forging a sister city relationship with the Samut Songkhram province that produced the twins.
Ambassador seeks broad ties
Ambassador Sangrat’s scheduled appearance here in May took root with a WebEx meeting he had with Surry Arts Council Executive Director Tanya Jones on Feb. 6. Jones has spearhead the Arts Center/museum development and is a great-great-granddaughter of Eng Bunker.
As an announcement by Sangrat’s office details:
“Mrs. Jones invited the ambassador to join the opening ceremony of the new museum on the twins’ birthday (on May 11), with city and state executives, especially those involved with the sister cities partnership between Samut Songkhram province and Mount Airy and an existing network of local Thai communities.”
In accepting the invitation, Sangrat mentioned that it is particularly timely due to 2023 coinciding with the 190th anniversary of Thailand-U.S. diplomatic relations.
As a fourth-generation Bunker descendant, Jones is excited about the ambassador’s upcoming trip to Mount Airy.
“I am discussing the visit with the ambassador’s assistant and I am discussing details of an itinerary so we can work with city officials to make the most of this exciting opportunity,” she advised Thursday.
The announcement from the Thai ambassador indicates that it will be broader in scope than just the Siamese twins aspect.
“In this regard, he would like to extend this opportunity by making an official visit to North Carolina and call on both city and state executives, state representatives, senators, Thai firms in the area, agencies that could be beneficial to Thailand, including local Thai communities to discuss ways and means to strengthen Thais and Thai-Americans in North Carolina,” it states.
“We’re hoping that he will stay several days and meet with state and local officials,” Jones said Thursday, which she wants to not only include the government realm but those involved with educational and cultural aspects of the area.
Chapter in history
At any rate, the ambassador’s visit represents another key event in Mount Airy’s history, which has experienced only a handful of such occasions.
The first time this occurred was in 1959, when Turkey’s ambassador to the U.S., A Suat Hayri Urguplu, visited the city in conjunction with an event at Mount Airy Country Club called the Four-State Tobacco Luncheon. That same weekend, Mount Airy hosted a National Tobacco Queen pageant at Reeves Community Center.
A Sept. 1, 1959 article in The Mount Airy News stated that A Suat Hayri Urguplu’s appearance here was part of a gala affair reflecting tobacco’s prominence at the time. Local officials expressed pride in being selected for the National Tobacco Queen event and related festivities, which included the agriculture commissioners of both North Carolina and Georgia being present.
After that, the next visit to Mount Airy by a foreign ambassador to the U.S. is believed to have been in July 2013 when then-Thai Ambassador Dr. Chaiyong Satjipanon came to town for the Siamese twins reunion.
Other such appearances included those of Thai Ambassador Pisan Manawapat in 2017 and Ambassador Manasvi Srisodapol in 2021.
Sangrat, the person now holding that position, took office in November. His previous diplomatic involvements have included serving as Thailand’s ambassador to Vietnam.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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