Talking with Greg in the pub the other night. He’s a couple years younger than me but has lived in Thailand for the last four years, has a Thai fiancee and also speaks the language pretty fluently. Hence his understanding of Thai culture is a lot more than mine simply because he’s a lot more involved with it. We were having a spirited, booze-fuelled conversation about Thai monks Becoming a Buddhist monk is an institution which all Thai men are expected to do even if only for a few weeks – it’s a symbolic ritual of entering into adulthood and it also makes your parents very proud.
Inevitably, as Greg pointed out, some monks fall far below what’s expected of them. I took umbrage with this, defending their place in Thai society and their importance – not necessarily what Greg was arguing against, but I bent it to my needs all the same. We went back and forth over this for quite a while – the argument culminated with me wailing, “But I just want monks to be nice!”
Not, perhaps, my finest oratory moment.
If you want to read something more considered about this, there’s my review of Phra Farang, a great book about how a British businessman became a Buddhist monk in Thailand.
More on Thai monks:
Spike | Google | Amazon UK | Amazon US | Wikipedia
Open Directory | Technorati: Thai monks
