If a commoner in Thailand is fortunate enough to meet a member of the royal family, protocol demands women dip in a low curtsy all the way to the ground. Men bow deeply.

As the East-West Center prepares for a rare visit from a member of the Thai royal family, whether or not to curtsy or bow — and exactly how — is still a question.

Some of the official guidance on protocol is still to come from the Thai Embassy in Washington, D.C., as preparations go forward for this week's arrival of Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, third daughter of the king and queen of Thailand and third in line for the throne.

"She is so well-traveled that the expectations are for us to be ourselves with her, realizing that she is royalty," said Carleen Gumapac, corporate secretary of the East-West Center board, and point woman for protocol details.

"For instance, with lei-giving. It's a cultural thing for Hawai'i, and people should go ahead and put the lei on her — and that would be OK. She tries very hard to respect the culture of the countries she visits."

The princess will be in Hawai'i Friday and Saturday to accept the center's honorary Asia Pacific Community Building Award on behalf of her father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, and to rededicate the new ornate teak pavilion, called a sala, which was a gift to the center from her parents. She will be the honored guest at the annual East-West Center dinner.

The sala, a traditional Thai resting pavilion for weary travelers, commemorates the ties of friendship between Hawai'i and Thailand, and replaces the original pavilion given to the center in 1967 by Princess Maha's parents. Weathering over the years damaged that structure, and a top Thai architect determined it couldn't be saved.

The princess, in her early 50s, is often dispatched as her father's representative. The king travels little nowadays, depending instead on this daughter, who speaks several languages, is a proficient "techie," a university professor and draws on her travels as inspiration for authoring children's books.

Fourteen years ago, a trip to Boston to represent her father also brought her to Hawai'i for the first time, and gave her a chance to see a volcanic eruption.

"She was very impressed," remembered former honorary Thai Consul General Sunao Miyabara, who hired two helicopters to fly the Thai party over the Big Island's Kilauea eruption, and also escorted the princess along the Chain of Craters Road for an up-close look at the lava flow.

"We took a road right to a point where we could actually see where the lava was flowing to the ocean," Miyabara said.

This time, the princess asked to visit the summit of Mauna Kea, where international telescopes sit, but it was impossible to fit that into her schedule, said Gumapac. However, the princess will join Gov. Linda Lingle for lunch at Washington Place, and will also meet about 300 Thai students studying in Hawai'i.

For those young people, guidance in royal etiquette will come from Rose Sutrabutra, a Thai doctoral student in education at the East-West Center. Sutrabutra is also overseeing a commemorative book written by the students about their Hawai'i experiences.

"She's going to have meetings with all the students who are going to meet with the princess," said fellow Thai doctoral student Napat "Rung" Settachai, , whose studies focus on urban and regional planning.

Since the founding of the East-West Center in 1960, more than 3,000 Thai students, researchers and scholars have come to the center to study, many of them on EWC scholarships. More than 10 of the Thai EWC students have contributed to the commemorative book, said Settachai, and about 1,000 copies will be printed for distribution both in Hawai'i and Thailand.

"We want them to know we have opportunities, and what we have gained or learned here," Settachai said. "It might be some inspiration for other Thai students back home."

Hawai'i has had a long and friendly relationship with Thailand's royal family, going back to 1881 when King David Kalakaua was welcomed warmly by King Chulalongkorn during the Hawai'i monarch's round-the-world trip to encourage immigration.

The monarchs had much in common, and were said to have shared anecdotes of their many travels, speaking about education, language, labor, religion and foreign affairs.

Thailand's current monarch, King Bhumibol, has continued that warm relationship, visiting the Islands twice, once in 1960 and again in 1967 when he dedicated the first sala at the East-West Center.

In that first dedication ceremony 41 years ago, the young king told Gov. John A. Burns that the structure — now one of only three with the royal seal outside Thailand — was a symbol "of man's love and sympathy toward man."

The king explained that such pavilions were first built along wild jungle paths before there were modern means of travel, and served, in a way, as "free motels" in the days when travel was by elephant and bullock cart.

"It is my wish," said the king in his speech at the ceremony, "that this pavilion may serve as the same symbol of universal hospitality and brotherhood at this center."

Beverly Creamer, a former Advertiser reporter, is a freelance writer.