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If you were in Chiang Mai, trust that the last thing you may want would be Burger King...which they do actually have in the city of Chiang Mai !!! They have the best Northern Style Thai food in the country.
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OK, the whole Burger King vs, McDonald's commercial thing in Chiang Mai was unfair from the start. Thailand is still a Kingdom, as the "Constitutional Monarchy" and Democracy concept is still having fits there, as demonstrated by the recent protests. The Thai all "Love the King." (As they are constantly exhorted to.)

The people really do have a deeply ingrained respect for their benevolent King Bhumibol and he is the world's longest reigning monarch. So, "Burger King" as a brand is already much more likely to garner the favor of the average Thai, especially the Hill Tribe types. The Thai King has taken special interest in them and their welfare.

All this to say, there are also Lese Majeste laws in Thailand and maybe the Hmong and Karen tribals were afraid to offend the "King." (Hey even the Burger King can be rather intimidating, perhaps you have seen him with his big plastic head lately, running around the NYC streets "reverse mugging" people, and also playing in the NFL!)

And, as far as our self-righteous fears of "contaminating" the poor Chiang Mai hill tribe folk and Whopper Virgins: They are not so naive as you might be led to believe. They have a long history of sojourning en masse to the Chiang Mai and Bangkok night markets, where they sell (rather insistently) silver jewelry, hats, and wooden frog noisemakers. At least it seems that they have given up the opium trade, for now.

There has been a McDonald's and Burger King in Chiang Mai for more than a decade, and no harm to the economy has resulted. Most of us real foodies will opt for the independent noodle stall any day. But here's a news flash: The pizza places in Thailand now offer a pizza with a crust that's STUFFED with hot dogs! Now that is Western culinary decadence at its finest.

You world hunger cry baby, politically correct bleeding heart liberals need to find something else to whine about. Stick with the "Save the Whales" or "Live Aid" concerts. The testers should be happy to have free burgers. You people will literally complain about anything. How about we focus on what's wrong here before we go boycotting BK for giving out free burgers to hungry people. I don't see you sending dinner overseas and I'm sure you don't always get the clean plater award. Get a life. I boycott your politically correct, dumbing down and sensitivization of America. People are hungry in the world, people die, people have diseases and children have flies on their faces. Get over it. Boycotting BK doesn't and never will even put a dent in world hunger, you people just want to bitch. Good commercials BK. I wasn't going to eat there tonight and now I am, probably for the rest of the week. How bout that for a boycott.

I find the second clip offensive. Those are my kin and there is genocide going on over there. The issue has been raised, but no one cares it's just a small ethnic minority. They have no land or oil for the West, so no one gives a crap. It's terrible that for promotional purposes they finally show Hmong people in their traditional costumes, but ignore the thousands still hiding in jungles as they are being hunted down by the neighboring communist countries.

I have no opinion on the commercials, however, for all the whinging about world hunger, where are these so called "activists" demanding that the food crops, that are being diverted to biofuels be used as food instead? Why are they silent about the fact that rainforest land is being plowed under in Brazil, so farmers can plant palm to make a quick buck, when the traditional sugar cane biofuel doesn't require the destruction of rainforest? Why are they so silent about the real hunger that exists in the US, or that Americans, black, brown and white are living in tent cities all across the US, with winter here early?

Why are they silent about the fact that the CEO's of the UN NGO's that are supposed to be using our aid money to deal with world hunger are making over 1 million per year, and at times sitting on billions of dollars they've squirreled away? There was a huge scandal in Britain over this, this past week. Or the fact that the aid money taken from our taxes is being used in Africa to buy the weapons that are used to perpetuate the genocide in the Sudan?

No, these so called, "activists" are b*tching and moaning about a Burger King commercial, so they can feign concern about poverty and hunger.

This thread is pretty amusing.

I have lived in Chiang Mai, Thailand for many years. Not only has there been both a Mac Donalds and a Burger King here for years - but the recent popularity of American fast food in Thailand has sent obesity levels through the roof!
Additionally, because it is relatively expensive (the same price as the U.S. - you can by enough food to feed an entire family for the price of 1 whopper) Burger King and Mac Donalds have become a luxury that only the wealthy can afford, and the poor can only strive to afford.
Disgusting!

Wait...those ads are for real? I thought it was a "mock"umentary. I'm still not convinced that this isn't a put-on.

I think many of you are taking this waaaaaay too seriously. It's a marketing campaign, not a public service announcement or an out-reach program. Lighten up, people.

I'm sorry, but isn't a bit patronizing to think that just because these people came from a more rural setting that we need to infantilize them and assume that they had no clue what they were doing? Yes, I find these commercials more than a bit ridiculous and, outside of using them for a very odd foreign-food-ketchup-crave in the mid eighties, have never been the biggest fan of the fast food restaurant that they're shilling. But really? "Raping them by distorting cultures to sell a product"? I don't think these people were kidnapped and forced to be in these commercials. They seemed willing, and I'd imagine that they were paid. Just because they're rural doesn't mean they're idiots. I know that in the case of the village in Chiang Mai province, they live in a province that is a center of tourism within easy reach of the largest metropolis in the north. Having family still choosing to live in the more agriculturally-focused bits of the area, I have to say that there's something distasteful and condescending about this rhetoric of ignorance that purports to defend their purity as if they were children.

Respect their culture if you will. See the absurdity in how they're being portrayed. But to wag a finger at the corporations for treating their cultural heritage while purporting to defend them by falling for these ridiculous stereotypes of the easily-fooled country mouse is just as painful to read and look at. I say counter-program, find out about the people and regions as they actually are, learn about their food, and realize that tv fakery is...well, fakery. How often have you seen the tv or movie portrayal of a city that you've been to or lived in and thought "it's nothing like that"? Well, it happens everywhere.

I'm just cringing with embarrassment, here.