SIRIN Phathanothai didn't know her life was special. She was raised in luxury among the founders of modern China, her presence a goodwill gift from Thailand's political elite. But it wasn't until friends suggested writing a book that she realised perhaps her life had been unusual.
Even then, the first friend to suggest it was asked: ''Didn't everybody live the way I lived?'' Looking at Ms Phathanothai now, an elegant, charming, cosmopolitan woman who has devoted her life to promoting good relations between Thailand and China, that response seems almost unbelievably naive. But it was genuine.
She simply did not realise how privileged she had been. In fact when she was sent at the age of eight in 1956, with her brother Warnwai, then 12, to live as the surrogate daughter of Liao Chengzhi, one of Zhou Enlai's closest advisers, and ''niece'' to the premier himself, she spent much of her time in China scheming to be sent home.
''I thought the idea of writing a book was bizarre. I thought there was nothing to write about,'' she says.
It wasn't until Zhou Enlai died that she realised just how important the man she had called ''Bobo'' had been: ''At the age of eight I could not tell the difference between a great man and a normal man,'' she says.
''I was as close to him - he was like my father. I did not think of him being very special as others would see him. I took everything for granted to such as extent I only came to realise he was a great man after his death. I saw on the BBC the reports of people mourning him. It was the first time it occurred to me I had lived with a very great man.