Postwar60: Bangkok's Japanese army WWII command center becomes a cooking school

Asian Political News, March 21, 2005

BANGKOK, March 15 Kyodo

(EDS: FOUR PHOTOS ARE AVAILABLE VIA E-MAIL. THE PHOTO ADVISORY IS TO FOLLOW THIS STORY)

Along a busy Bangkok business street packed with modern office buildings, a unique, old Victorian-style mansion stands out.

Sixty two years ago, the mansion was taken over by the Imperial Japanese Army for its command center in Bangkok during World War II.

Today, it is a famous world-class restaurant and Thai cooking school.

The mansion, in Bangkok's prime South Sathorn Road area, was built in 1903 and originally opened as a department store before a group of Chinese businessmen bought it for their new Thai-Chinese Chamber of Commerce in 1930.

Having been the most important place for business and social activities for Chinese communities in Thailand, the Chamber then was also a significant diplomatic channel between Chinese businessmen and the Thai government before it became the command center of the Japanese army.

During the war, when Japan was expanding its military might in Indochina, the Thai government on Dec. 8, 1941 allowed Japan to use Thailand as a passage to invade Myanmar and Malaysia.

A month later, Thailand joined Japan in a military alliance and declared the war on the United States and Britain.

''On Feb. 1, 1943, I have called all of my subordinates to our new command center in Sathorn Road, which was granted by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Siam. I spoke about the success of this establishment and vowed for a unity of us (the Japanese army) to be as strong as rock,'' Gen. Aketo Nakamura, the commander of Japanese troops in Thailand from 1943 to 1946 said in a book translated into Thai called ''The Memory of General Nakamura about Thailand during the Greater East Asia War.''

Nakamura added there were 21 other officers and men based at the center to oversee Japanese troops in Thailand.

''The war was severely disruptive in the capital, with schools closed and many students moved en masse to provinces as far away as Chiang Mai. The essentials of daily living were in short supply, and almost everything in the house had to be recycled. Ashes from fires were turned into soap, mosquito nets into shirts. Needless to say, there was no light after 6 p.m.,'' The Nation said on its website on a ''Web Special 100 Firsts That Shaped Bangkok.''

But the war, with its ashes, bombs and fires, has been over for more than 60 years and Sathorn Road is now packed with sky-scraping buildings in one of Bangkok's most important business districts.

And in this 102-year-mansion, which lives on in renovated glory, Japanese soldiers are now replaced by restaurant customers and cooking school students.

The command center during the wartime is now to one of the finest restaurants in Bangkok, the Blue Elephant.

''It took us some time to set up this restaurant as we kept searching for a perfect location and a unique colonial style mansion until we found this one...it has a certain character that attracts the customers,'' said Vice President of Blue Elephant International Thaviseuth Phouthavong.

Today, the three-floor mansion, still owned by the Thai-Chinese Chamber of Commerce who moved their own offices to a modern building behind the mansion, is registered by the Thai Fine Arts Department as an ancient remain embodying ''an exceptional example'' of colonial era architecture.

''The mansion is very old and there was a lot to do when we first came in. We spent about 20 million baht (about $526,315) renovating this building,'' Thaviseuth said.

Blue Elephant was first established in 1980 in Brussels as a small Thai restaurant by a Thai woman and her Belgian husband.

Now, there are 13 Blue Elephants throughout Europe and the Middle East, including the one in Bangkok, serving authentic Thai food.

''We focus on authentic food, hospitality and atmosphere. We want the guests who come to Blue Elephant (outside Bangkok) to feel like they are making a short trip to Thailand without getting on the plane. We want to export 'Thai-ness,''' Thaviseuth added.