The Culture Ministry has shown the red flag to a viral music video that promotes Thai tourism through Khon characters.

Scenes showing the Ramakien epic character Thotsakan (Ravana) on horseback, a jet ski, a go-kart, and a tuk-tuk in the music video will be banned. Also facing the axe are scenes showing the imaginary king of giants cooking Thai sweetmeat.

“The Culture Ministry says such scenes are inappropriate. It says Thotsakan should be riding an elephant,” Bandit Thongdee, president of the Thai Film Director Association, said in his capacity as the director of the music video.

Bandit said the Culture Ministry seemed to want about 40 per cent of the music video content removed.

“I will try to oblige. But such editing would also mean that some tourist places that were promoted may not have a presence,” he said.

He lamented the ministry’s action, saying it was not his intention to hurt the grandeur of Khon culture – traditional Thai mask dance – but he just wanted to add a contemporary touch.

Bandit said he would submit the re-edited music video to the Culture Surveillance Bureau for scrutiny next Tuesday.

“If they are still unhappy, we will scrap this music video,” Bandit said. “I won’t be able re-edit again and again because we have limited footage,” he added. Bandit said V Bangkok had hired him to produce this music video to promote domestic tourism.

The Culture Ministry’s move has caused an uproar in social media, with many netizens seeing nothing wrong in using Khon to promote tourism.

Yesterday, social media like Facebook was swamped with a drawing showing the back of a sad-looking Thotsakan with a message reading, “I can’t do this. I can’t do that. I can’t even cook sweetmeat … Oh, I am not a minor anymore.”

The music video was first unveiled on September 12.

Culture Ministry permanent secretary Apinan Poshyananda tried to play down the uproar, suggesting that the re-edited version could be even better.

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Apinan said he was among those who had enjoyed the original version of the video but experts later pointed out to him that some scenes were inappropriate.

“Thotsakan is the king of giants. He is a grand, formidable character. So, he is not supposed to engage in things like sweetmeat cooking,” he said, backing the experts’ opinion. “We have resolved that all parties concerned should meet half-way.”

Apinan said experts had also explained that Khon was a form of high art and people should have respect for it and not treat it frivolously. He was speaking after a meeting with the Bunditpatanasilpa Institute and other relevant agencies.

Apinan said his ministry would consider releasing a manual to guide people on how to apply Thai arts and culture to their work.

“In future, advertising agencies or any other agencies may consult our experts so that we can promote Thai culture together in a proper way,” he said.

Apinan dismissed criticism that the Culture Ministry’s conservative stance on Khon could make it impossible for the common man to relate to cultural art.

“We will work with the new generation and creative minds. We hope to keep Khon alive. We hope it won’t die,” he said.

Assistant president of Bunditpatanasilpa Institute, Teeraphat Thongnim, said he was concerned that the use of Khon costumes for things beyond Khon traditions would finally kill this art. “If we allow this to happen, people will conclude that Khon characters can do anything and Khon traditions will fade away,” he said.

DHAKA – A Bangladeshi charity on Thursday (Sep 22) buried the five extremists behind July’s devastating attack on a Dhaka cafe after their families refused to take the bodies, police said.

The five shot and hacked to death 20 foreign hostages at the Holey Artisan Bakery on Jul 1 in Dhaka’s Gulshan neighbourhood – an attack claimed by Islamic State.

Military commandos brought the hostage crisis to a bloody end the next morning after they stormed the compound and gunned down the extremists.

The military handed over the bodies of the five attackers and their alleged associate to the police on Thursday after no relatives came to claim the bodies for nearly three months.

“We gave the six bodies to Dhaka Metropolitan Police. Since their death no one came to us to take the bodies,” military spokesman Colonel Rashidul Hasan told AFP.

Dhaka police spokesman Masudur Rahman said they handed over the bodies to the Anjuman-e-Mufidul Islam, a Muslim charity which collects and buries unidentified bodies according to their religious rites.

Gunmen take hostages in Dhaka cafe

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“They buried the bodies in a Dhaka graveyard,” he told AFP. “How long can we keep the bodies in the mortuary?”

The father of one of the attackers told AFP he had disowned his son after he learnt about the attack. He said he was too “ashamed” to be the father of an extremist.

Local media reported that other families were reluctant to take the bodies as they did not want to be seen as sympathic towards their children.

Since the attack Bangladeshi security forces have shot dead at least 28 suspected extremists in a massive crackdown.

Police have said a local extremist outfit, led by a Canadian citizen of Bangladesh origin, was responsible for the cafe carnage, rejecting IS’ claim that its fighters carried out the attack.

HAVANA – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived in Cuba on Thursday for the first-ever visit to the country by a Japanese premier, saying he wants to “open a new page” in relations.

Abe is due to meet Cuban President Raul Castro on Friday morning, in a visit that comes after Tokyo’s close ally Washington restored ties with the communist island last year.

“I sincerely hope my stay here becomes an opportunity to open a new page in the relationship of friendship between both nations,” Abe said in an interview published in the Cuban communist party’s official newspaper, Granma.

He called for “open dialogue” to stimulate trade and investment, development co-operation and tourism.

Trade between the two countries has been on a long decline since 1985. It totalled about $35 million (S$47 billion) in 2014.

Abe said he also wanted to discuss nuclear disarmament.

Cuba is one of the few countries that maintains relationships with North Korea, whose nuclear weapons are considered one of Japan’s biggest security threats.

BEIJING – China has removed an almost 13-year-old ban on some US beef products, its quality inspection regulator said Thursday.

A ban on imports of “American bone-in beef and boneless beef for cattle under 30 months” has been lifted effective immediately, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said, according to a document posted on its official website.

The Asian giant stopped most beef imports from the US over a decade ago after mad cow disease was found in Washington state in December 2003.

In a statement from Washington, the office of US Trade Representative Michael Froman called the move a “critical first step” to restoring US access to Chinese beef markets but said more remained to be done.

The announcement comes after years of delays in which US producers and trade officials expected restrictions to be lifted, and years after China said in 2006 that imports of some beef products would resume, though this never occurred.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said the decision signalled Beijing’s desire to improve commercial ties with the US, the Wall Street Journal reported, and it coincided with the announcement that a Chinese bank had been approved to clear transactions in the yuan currency in New York.

Speaking with US business groups in New York on Tuesday, Li had implied that the ban would soon be lifted, the Wall Street Journal reported, saying: “We also recognise that the United States has very good beef, so why should we deny Chinese customers this choice?”

China is already the world’s largest consumer of pork, and demand for beef is surging as its burgeoning middle class adds more meat to its diet.

Before the ban was lifted many Chinese shoppers bought smuggled US beef on online portals, state media reported last year, with a US official saying a “huge amount” evaded import restrictions.

US producers had long complained of the restrictions, which were in place while China’s cattle herds grew over the last decade.

Beijing has also kept in place bans on imports from the European Union due to mad cow disease concerns 16 years ago, but is reportedly in talks with Ireland to lift restrictions sometime this year.

The US Trade Representative said it and the US Department of Agriculture looked forward to talks on restarting the beef trade following a Chinese audit report.

“True access to China’s beef market – consistent with science-based, international standards for trade – remains a top priority for the United States,” the statement said.

Annual beef consumption in China has risen to 3.8kg per capita in 2015, according to OECD data, up from less than 3kg in 2005.

By 2025, an additional 2.2 million tonnes will be needed to satisfy booming Chinese domestic demand, according to research by Netherlands-based Rabobank, with importers supplying 20 per cent of the meat.

“Beef prices in China have been increasing and are now more than four times higher than in 2000,” it said, noting that Chinese consumers have a “higher tolerance” for soaring beef prices.

China was the second-largest importer of American agricultural products in the world in 2015, according to the US Department of Agriculture, having grown more than 200 per cent in the past decade to total more than $20 billion (S$27 billion).