The Royal Thai Ambassador to Kenya Morakot Janemathukorn gifts Tribe Hotel's head of sales and marketing Eva Mwangi, a framed photo of the Muay Thai Master./DOUGLAS OKIDDY
The Royal Thai Embassy in Nairobi staged a knowledge exchange programme with Kenyans in a bid to boost livelihood and enhance people-to-people interaction.
The event brought together various stakeholders among them Muay Thai Masters, Thai culinary experts, and Thai professional performers.
They teamed up with local partners including the Kingsway/Village Market Group, Green Africa Foundation, and Kenya Utalii College to make the event a success.
The event held at Trademark Suites Hotel (Enaki), Nairobi, allowed the guests to experience Muay Thai as demonstrated by masters from Lanna Fighting Muay Thai Gym in Thailand.
Muay Thai or Thai Boxing is the national sport and cultural martial art of Thailand. The word muay means “boxing”, leading to a direct translation of muaythai (also sometimes written as two words, Muay Thai) as “Thai boxing”.
The performance was led by Master Din ( Wittawat Kasom), a professional boxer who has collaborated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand to promote Muay Thai – especially Muay Boran – across all continents for many years.
He came along with his 16-year-old daughter Patchayaporn Kasom who has followed her father’s footsteps throughout her life.
She won Thailand’s Muay Thai championship (talent category) at 14, and various championships under the International Federation of Muay Thai Associations (IFMA) from 2020 to 2023, and Master Anusorn Injai also won the tournament under IFMA back in 2016.
During the event, The Royal Thai Ambassador Morakot Janemathukorn said:
Patchayaporn Kasom and Anusorn Injai demonstrated the Muay Thai fight./DOUGLAS OKIDDY"It is a great opportunity that we are bringing this to Kenyans because Thailand is not only a land of smiles but also a land of sharing. That is why we would like to share what we are good at, and the consent of promoting tourism is food, fighting, film, fashion, and festivals.”
The Green Rhythms youth group supported by the Green Africa Foundation had opportunities for young talents who have also created Muay Thai as a performance where they have been coached by their masters.
The Thai cultural showcase has been ongoing since November.
Also, there was a Thai cooking demonstration by culinary expert Assistant Prof Chayanit Prampate and Assistant Prof. Rungthiwa Wongpaisanrit from the Faculty of Home Economics, Rajamangala University of Technology Krung Thep (RMUTK), Thailand.
Both are Thai culinary experts with extensive experience in collaborating with Thai diplomatic missions around the world for more than two decades and have been cooperating with the foreign ministry in showcasing all Thai foods.
"The restaurants don't belong to the Thai. They belong to Kenyan and so they have high demands to cook in the Thai way and so we introduce them foods here by teaching how they are cooked," Janemathukorn said.
Janemathukorn said among the menus that the culinary experts demonstrated was Tom Yum Goong (Thai spicy and sour soup). This national Thai food has been inscribed as Thailand’s Intangible Cultural Heritage for Humanity under UNESCO since December 4, 2024.
This is the first time the Thai masters visited Kenya since Ambassador Morakot Janemathukorn started her role in Kenya as she wants to connect people to people.
Diplomats who attended the event were the Ambassador of Oman to Kenya Nasra Hashimi, High Commissioner of Malaysia to Kenya Ruzimi Mohamad, Spouse of the Ambassador of Jordan Majd Kwar, Spouse of the Ambassador of Indonesia Zulfah Saripudin and Spouse of the Ambassador of Iran Somia Gholampour among others.
