That evening was one of several times I glimpsed some of the contrasting sides of a complex personality, one that may never be fully plumbed given the almost godlike aura with which he was invested and a strict law forbidding criticism of the monarch and royal family.
There was the king's rigid adherence to tradition and his modern informality, the severe demeanor and ready humor, his simple lifestyle and his reported status as the world's richest royal with a net worth of $30 billion. And he fused a Thai Buddhist self with a Western persona, perhaps natural since Bhumibol was born in Massachusetts and spent his formative years in Switzerland with his much-loved mother, a commoner who may have imparted some of her down-to-earth ways.