Under-Told Verbatim: The Condom King, Mechai Viravaidya

In the Bangkok restaurant Cabbages and Condoms, rubbers are everywhere: on sculptures, lanterns, even a condom Santa Claus at Christmastime. The place has become an icon for what’s widely regarded as one of the world’s most successful family planning programs. Bringing a little humor to a taboo-laden topic is the trademark of Mechai Viravaidya—or as he’s known in his native Thailand: the Condom King. No surprise, then, that in Thailand condoms are commonly called Mechais. He started out working to stabilize a growing population and reduce poverty through family planning—a key factor in Thailand's growth into a middle income nation. When HIV/AIDS hit, a similar condom-based campaign became useful once more—one that’s widely credited with a dramatic drop in the number of HIV infections, from about 140,000 a year in 1990, to about 30,000 cases a year a decade later. Our correspondent, Fred de Sam Lazaro, has interviewed Mechai many times—most recently in April 2020 by video call to see how the school Mechai founded is faring during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode of Under-Told: Verbatim, we’ve collected some of our favorite chats with Mechai over the years so you can hear how he’s worked with bureaucrats, religious leaders, the media and directly with communities as an activist, while founding schools and businesses to sustain his mission.