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Here's a small lesson we can learn from our guest writer on how East-meets-West and vice versa media tend to interpret stories.

One of the more difficult things an observer of the scene has to do is make a judgment call on whether what he or she has seen is a “What you see is what you get!” situation.

Take the case of the recent military coup in . To the bulk of outside – read, Western – media, the immediate reaction has been to skewer the coup and consider it an affront against democratic principles.  And yet, in much of and the rest of Asia, there was a genuine appreciation for some things not immediately obvious, but simmering underneath the surface. First, the coup leaders invoked the name of the King and vowed loyalty to him. Aha! Second, the trappings of democracy had taken a beating in recent months by an increasingly autocratic PM. Aha again!

Now, it is becoming obvious that the coup leadership is working closely with certain forces who simply would like to put the country back on the democratic road, once certain constitutional infirmities are corrected. The King has lent his considerable prestige to the coup, crippling any effort by the downed PM to make a retaliatory move.

The story is still unfolding, but if the right moves are made over the coming year, we should see a stronger Thai democracy in place, no matter what the Western media may think.