Leena Jang is surrounded by soap. Every box — and there are thousands of them — bears her face and name. They cover almost every surface in her small TV studio, stacked precariously on equipment and packed into cardboard boxes beneath overflowing shelves.
Jang, a fiery 56-year-old with heavy makeup and purple-streaked hair, is a trained lawyer, beauty product entrepreneur and well-known media pundit, like a Thai cross between Rush Limbaugh and YouTube cosmetics star Michelle Phan.
Between infomercials, she delivers antigovernment screeds vitriolic enough to make the hardiest dissidents blanch — or laugh uncomfortably. On air, she has called Thailand’s constitution “backwards,” its government “crap,” and a former prime minister “dumb as a buffalo.