God has given you the face of a lucky man - Epilogue Added

Epilogue Below - Tawn had an interesting experience on Monday as the same man approached him.  Read below the original entry for the rest of this funny story.

Original entry Sunday February 7:

"God has given you the face of a man blessed with good luck and happiness," the Indian man said to me as I sat in Starbucks.  "It is this face that called me to you.  I am a yoga holy man and God wanted me to speak with you."

I swear, the strangest things happen to me.

Friday afternoon, after meeting briefly with my accountant to hand off some documents, I was sipping a coffee in the Ploenchit Center Starbucks.  There were no other customers in the glass-walled store, unusual given that it was the lunch hour and the store is located in the midst of the business district.

An Indian man, dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and jeans and looking as much like a computer programmer as anything else, came up to me.  This was not the first time I had been approached by foreigners while drinking my coffee.  Fifteen minutes earlier, a British couple, retired and wearing their safari shorts and hats, asked me if I knew where they could find free wi-fi.  My aura must radiate the words "ask me".

So when the Indian man approached me, I figured he, too must have a question needing answering.

"God has given you the face of a man blessed with good luck and happiness," the Indian man said to me.  Instinctively, I thought about where my wallet and passport were and made sure I had a clear line-of-sight to my messenger bag. 

"It is this face that called me to you,"  he explained. " I am a yoga holy man traveling on a journey and God wanted me to speak with you."

Skeptical, I listed to him, curious how this scam would unfold.  He explained that he was a yoga practitioner from India, showed me a picture of his guru, and told me that my face radiated happiness and good fortune.  He proceeded to explain that despite this good fortune and happiness, that I thought too much and became needlessly engrossed in my thoughts.  Oh, and I am sometimes too direct and honest with my friends.

He asked my name.  "David," I lied.  Where are you from?  "Canada," I lied again.

"I will prove to you that God has sent me to you," he said, pulling out several small sheets of paper and a pen.  I noticed that instead of selecting just a single sheet upon which to write, he kept them stacked.

"I am going to write something on this piece of paper and then I will give it to you to hold."  He scribbled on the paper then folded it into a ball.  Handing it to me, he instructed me to hold it in my clenched fist.

"What God has told me to write on that paper is known only to me.  You do not know it, right?"  Penn and Teller would have loved this set-up, I thought.  Sure, I agreed.

Putting another sheet of paper on top of the stack he asked me my father's name.  "George," I lied.  And your father's father's name?  "George," I repeated.  They have the same name?  "Yes, my father is named after his father."  Lying is a sin but I wasn't about to tell him any personal information.  Plus, this was getting fun.

He wrote "George" and "George" on the paper then asked to see my palm, the one which had the ball of paper clenched inside it.  He traced one line and explained that that was my life line and I would have a long life.  I placed the ball of paper on the table.  "Please, hold the paper tight."

"Think of a number, a single digit number," he continued.  "One," I responded as he wrote the answer on the paper.  "Are you married?  Do you have a wife?" he asked.  "Yes, I am married but I don't have a wife."  A look of confusion before he asked what I meant.

"I am married.  I have a husband."

"Why did you do that?" he asked, trying to processes this information.  "You mean, a boyfriend?"

"No, I mean a husband.  Where I'm from, it is legal for two men to marry."

Regathering his senses, he asked me to think of the type of flower that my... he stumbled for a word... the person you love likes the most.  "Orchid," I said.  "He likes orchids."  Orchids was added to the list.

"Let me see your palm again."  He traced another line while clumsily holding my hand in his.  "This is your love line.  You will have a long and happy marriage."  He instructed me to close my fist again.

"David," he said, "God has sent me to you.  We are building a yoga school in India and I am traveling and he has blessed you with the face of a lucky man which is why I was able to find you.  What are the odds of us finding each other in this crowded place?"

I responded skeptically.  "The odds are pretty good considering you were looking for an easy mark and I was sitting by myself in an empty coffee shop."

He looked hurt.  "You do not believe me?  I will show you that God has sent me to you.  Open the piece of paper in your hand and look at it."

I opened the piece of paper and, of course, written upon it were "George", "George", "1", and "Orchid". 

"See?!" he exclaimed, "It is a miracle!"

"Let me see the paper you just wrote on."  He handed it to me.  Of course, they were a perfect match.  That's what happens when you use pressure-sensitive paper.  He had performed an elementary sleight-of-hand and swapped the piece of paper that was already in my hand for the one that had been below the list he was writing while he "read" my palm.

Tiring of the charade, I called his bluff.  Explaining his technique and telling him he must think I'm quite stupid to fall for a cheap parlor trick, I wished him well as I stood up and gathered my stuff.  As I walked away, I patted my pocket and looked in my bag, just to make sure his sleight-of-hand didn't include pick-pocketing.  My wallet and passport were still there.

Another blog-worthy event in my life.

Epilgoue - Februrary 8

Monday after lunch Tawn stopped by the same Starbucks for coffee.  While sitting there, he was approached by the same Indian man who started in with the same line.

"Oh, it is good to see you again!"  Tawn cut him off.  When the man looked confused, Tawn continued, "Don't you remember me?  You came and spoke with me last week and told me about my good luck.  How are things going with your yoga ashram?"

This continued for a few moments with the man caught off-guard.  Tawn explained the whole thing - "You even did a magic trick to prove that God had sent you to me.  Don't you remember?" - as if he had actually been there. 

Finally, the man said, "Oh, yes - I had forgotten you because you didn't make a donation to our ashram."  When the man asked Tawn if he would donate to the ashram, Tawn declined.  The Indian man countered by offering to tell him more good luck.

"Oh, you told me everything last time!"  Tawn exclaimed.  "You told me about all the bad luck I had had and all the good luck, too!"

The man asked if he could sit down.  Tawn responded that the man was welcome to sit down but that he had an appointment to go to.  With that, Tawn stood up, said goodbye and walked away, leaving the Indian man standing there speechless.

Materialism, Violence and Monks

Materialism is widely decried as a negative trait, something that stains us as people and harms our society.  Buddhism is not alone in teaching that materialism is undesirable; all major religions and philosophies arrive at the same conclusion.  The Buddhist take is that materialism fosters a sense of attachment to something in the material realm.  Since the underlying principle of Buddhism is that of impermanence - all things are transitory - that sense of attachment can only create suffering in the long run.

Of course, it is one thing to look at materialism from a philosophical perspective and quite another to avoid being materialistic!  I greatly admire the saffron-robed monks whom you see on the streets and around the temples here in Thailand.  They take a vow of poverty and generally live very simple lives.

As with any religion, of course, there are those who do not seem to follow the teachings as closely as they might.  At a recent trip to MBK, a bazaar-like mall with hundreds of little stalls, I was surprised to see a few monks shopping.  At a bookstore, one monk was handing money from his wallet to the female cashier - a double no-no in Buddhist teachings!

Of course, there is some question whether these "monks" are actual monks.  I know that when traveling in Singapore and KL I have seen saffron-robed monks who are collecting cash alms on the streets.  Again, a no-no.  It seems that there is not a mechanism in place to authenticate those who claim to be monks.

Negative Depictions of Monks

In a related issue, there is a movie finally coming out here in Thailand called Nak Prok ("Shadow of the Naga") that will serve as a test case for Thailand's new film rating system.  You see, one thing Thailand's censors (officially known as the Ministry of Culture) particularly don't like, it is the negative depiction of Buddhism.  (Thanks to Wise Kwai for writing about this.)

Consider the case of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Syndromes and a Century, which was heavily censored because of scenes showing, among other things, a monk playing a guitar.  (Yet another no-no in the rules that monks must follow.)  The full-length, uncensored version of the movie has never shown in Thailand nor is it available on DVD.

Nak Prok takes things to an even higher level.  The film made its premier at the Toronto Int'l Film Festival in 2008 but has been sitting on a shelf here in Thailand ever since.  The story is about a gang of thieves who bury their loot on the grounds of a monastery.  When they return to dig it up a few years later, they discover that a temple has been build on top of it.  They ordain as monks - forcing the head monk at gunpoint to ordain them - in order to recover the loot.

The film depicts monks holding guns, a gun being held to the head of the senior monk, and the thieves behave in unseemly ways while in monks' robes, including raping a woman.  If this film doesn't push the censors' buttons, what will?

(Sorry, no English subtitles but I think you'll get the gist of it anyhow!)

Actually, it looks like an interesting and emotionally-charged movie.  We'll see if it gets the highest restriction - restricting audiences below the age of 20 - or if it gets banned outright.  We take our depiction of religion very seriously here, as you can tell.

In fact, it occurs to me as writing this that the Ministry of Culture may very well choose to censor this entry!  Let's hope not...

Market on Wheels

Continuing with the topic of food in Thailand, let's consider how people buy their produce.  Certainly, there are western-style supermarkets in Krungthep (Bangkok) and other major cities.  Each neighborhood also has its traditional fresh market where vendors line the sidewalks or stalls in a designated area.  But perhaps the most interesting way is to have the produce market come to you.

A common site are the independent vendors who drive produce trucks.  These modified pickups are packed with vegetables and fruit - many vendors specialize in just fruit - and drive around the small sois (alleys), selling their wares.  Usually the husband drives and the wife sits in the truck bed, conducting business just as if she were in a small shop - albeit a shop with very little room to move!

The trucks sometimes park at convenient locations near groups of shops or restaurants.  Other times, they just cruise slowly up and down the sois.  Quite often they are equipped with a loudspeaker and either the husband or the wife will make their pitch in the nonstop patter of a sideshow busker along the boardwalk.  "We have apples, fresh apples from China.  Get them for only five baht a piece - buy ten, get two free.  Fresh corn from Samut Phrakan, get it today..."

Even in our neighborhood, which is filled with the house compounds of old-money families and medium-rise condos, these truck-back vendors still seem to make a living.  Every morning, I hear the garbled pitch broadcast from the loudspeaker, at first in the distance and eventually nearing, passing, and then fading away.  One wonders how many more years those sounds will still be able to be heard here in the city.  Seeing that they've lasted this long, I would suspect they will be here for many years to come.

Questioning Hour for the President

Two days after the State of the Union address, President Obama went to speak in front of the Republican Caucus at their meeting in Baltimore.  In what I gather is an unusual event, he not only spoke to them but took questions for more than an hour, something I've never seen.  Part debate, part "Question Time" from the UK Parliament, this was one of the more helpful things I've seen politically.

Here's the entire one hour, seven minutes of the Q&A from C-SPAN.  Well worth a view for my American readers.  Others may be less interested.

I liked it because, for one of the first times, I've seen an environment where the merits of the President's positions and the truth of the claims of those positions and the opposition's views relative to them can be discussed and debated openly and in more depth than on a cable talk show.  It went beyond the usual talking heads and punditry to something more articulate and more substantial.

Truly, I like this format and would encourage the President to engage in more of these meetings both with Democrats and Republicans members of congress.

Additionally, I'd like to see political debates held in this style where the rules and questions are not so tightly scripted, allowing the sides to discuss back and forth, to call each other out on false choices and untrue assertions.  It gets us beyond the soundbytes.

Street Vendors

Krungthep is a city that eats on its feet.  Thais have this snacking habit, unintentionally following the "five small meals a day" advice that so many weight-watchers hear.  Whether a mid-morning snack of khanom krok, little salty-sweet rice flour and coconut milk pancakes, an afternoon snack of freshly sliced tropical fruit, or a quick bowl of guaytiaw - rice noodles - to stave off hunger, there is always plenty to choose from along a Thai sidewalk.

This picture accurately captures a dilemma that is increasingly common here in Thailand.  Alongside the plethora of street vendors is an equally-abundant number of convenience stores.  The difference between the two is not price - neither the 7-11 snacks nor the ones from street vendors will bust your budget - but quality.

"Fast food" when it comes from street vendors is made from fresh ingredients, is very rarely more than a few minutes (or at most a few hours) old, has no preservatives, and generally is more nutrient-dense than calorie-dense.  "Fast food" when it comes from the convenience stores and Western fast food chains that are increasingly common is quite the opposite, offering few redeeming values other than a quick way to expand your waistline.

And, sadly, that expanding waistline is just what we're seeing.  Childhood obesity is growing rapidly in Thailand and especially here in Krungthep you see more and more children who are wearing X-Large size school uniforms.

In the months to come, I'd like to write more about Thai street vendors and snacks.  They are often a bit self conscious when it comes to taking pictures, but I'll look for some opportunities to share with you more about the foods we eat here.