Wat to do...wat to do...

After the frigid close of the semester, I traveled to sunny Thailand with some of the other teachers. That's not entirely true; while our stays did overlap for about a week, we came and went on our own. I have never been that great at coordinating these kinds of trips, so this was perfect for me, since we could plan on the fly and people good go and do their own thing if they wanted.

I spent my first night getting to know Bangkok. When I say "getting to know Bangkok," I mean going to the IMAX theatre and watching Avatar (reeeaaaally big in China btw--might warrant its own blog post). I count that as a "cultural experience" since everybody had to stand up and sing the national anthem to the Thai King.

The next day I went up to the ancient city of Ayutthaya, which happened to be the capital of one of the empires that ruled Thailand at some point. I could reference Wikipedia now, but I am too lazy. Look it up yourself. Anyway, Ayutthaya has a plethora of these things called "Wats." "Wat" is basically Thai for "temple," but the actual temples never seemed to survive being sacked by the Burmese (the cause of all Thai problems). All that remains are these great stone pillars and towers that are called stupas, prangs, or chedis--take your pick, I couldn't tell the difference. You can't go into to most stupas, though some have steep stairs leading to small shrines with little Buddha-images where locals pray and, given all the trash, apparently where Thai delinquents break their curfew.

There were some newer, active "Wats" in Ayutthaya where I encountered something I had not encountered very often in China--observant religion. I think the first thing that clued me in was the fact that everyone had to take their shoes off before going in. I soon found out that this was a general Thai custom that applied most everywhere (with some leniency), so it actually wasn't the great leap of piety that I thought it was. However soon I encountered other "rules" that proved I was right, such as being required to wear pants in temples, frequent monk-sightings, and actual rituals (more on that later). The most telling difference was that Wats weren't just treated like tourist attractions (though the price of admission was steep for foreigners), but real houses of worship.

Going from "godless" China to Thailand, where Theravada Buddhism is the state religion, was a shock. I didn't know what to do with so many temples to choose from. It seemed like home, except instead of Baptist churches on every corner there were Wats. The difference between Thailand and China is that while the various invaders in Thailand destroyed temples, they built new ones (which is why so much of the architecture isn't actually Thai). Even though religion frequently changed based on the ruler, it was still permitted. When the Red Guards destroyed a temple, they put a factory in its place.

Leb Wohl