Good Luck the Thai way
Nowhere in the world have I met more people who believe so intensely that they can influence happiness as in Thailand.
Many Thai go through life adorned with an amulet. Wherever you go, amulets are for sale everywhere in many types and designs. Buddhism, Animism and Hinduism have created in the minds of the Thai people a kind of spiritism for happiness and misfortune. The ghost house that you find in many homes is perhaps the most well-known phenomenon.
Amulets
It seems that amulets create an indispensable feeling especially for men. A wooden phallus or old amulets in various designs are something indefinable for the Westerner, especially when you see Thai men analyzing the images with a magnifying glass. Frankly, I don't understand it at all and I don't feel the need to delve into it further. Don't see me go through life with an amulet around my neck, nor a tattoo on my body. By the way, tattoos, like amulets, also say something about immortality.
“He who believes is saved” once said my long deceased good mother. We weren't that religious, so I fear the worst for her.
(folkrutood / Shutterstock.com)
Ghosts
Will never forget that after a happy evening in Chiangdao I drove one of the ladies, whom I have known for many years, to her house on the back of my moped. Slightly intoxicated, I stopped at the cremation site to test her reaction a little viciously. As is known, the Thai is very afraid of ghosts.
The good child panicked and held me tight. You should have quickly relieved her of the spontaneously arose fear of death and quickly took the road home.
Bird trade
Of course I don't have the slightest problem with other ways of thinking and can even enjoy it intensely. Something completely different in my opinion is the commercially tinted stuff about 'Good Luck'.
In many places you come across the 'bird trade'. Caught birds in cages can be set free - of course for a fee. Personally, I am not very fond of this kind of trade and can hardly imagine that it has anything to do with Buddhism. The Thai still believe that if you give freedom to birds and even fish and turtles, it benefits your karma and considers it the well-known 'merit making'. Temples and other well-known Thai sacred places are often the point of sale.
After all, in such a sacred environment you should get the feeling that you have to do a good deed. The bird sellers market their business in small cages, with two, four or six so-called Asian Weaver birds. In Bangkok, things are even bigger in China Town. You can find cages with hundreds of birds that hardly have room to move. Apparently they fulfill a kind of wholesaler function for the smaller traders. For the Westerner it all seems strange and animal-unfriendly.
The wise of the country – the honor of the country, shall we think.
Invariably every year on my birthday, at my wife's insistence, I go to the market with her to buy fish. They frolic in large plastic tubs with a net over them by the fishmonger, who already smiles broadly when she sees us coming with a bucket. We are looking for a basin with not too big and not too small fish. First, the chosen fish are placed in a plastic bag and weighed. Then water is added and the bag goes into the bucket. We drive by car to the Mae Naam Nan or the Nan River, which flows through our hometown of Phitsanulok. Along the steps at the river we descend with the bucket of fish to the flowing water. Before I release the fish from a shaky platform into the water, I say on the instructions of my wife: 'I will give you a life, so that you will bring me happiness in my life'. The fish soon disappeared into the choppy water. And not in the pan.
Nothing wrong with that. I think my wife and the fish also enjoy it anyway.
Hello Arend,
Fine those fish back in freedom, but that hassle with those poor birds, mashed together on a square cm.
And all this for Buddha?
LOUISE
Louise,
Pity for those packed birds.
But what do you think of those pathetic fish that are caught by "sport" fishermen. You will only be dragged out of the water with a hook through your cheek, tongue or, even worse, through your esophagus. How those fish would scream in agony, but luckily for the "sport" fisherman, fish have no vocal cords.
I did that once myself. The freedom only lasted a short time (a few seconds) because larger fish were already waiting for them.
Hello Louise,
Totally agree. That thing with those birds is totally out of order. Has nothing to do with Buddha either. It's just a bad way to make money. I shouldn't have written 'nothing wrong with it'. Then you will be misled. Stupid of me. I keep releasing those fishes on my birthday. Has nothing to do with Buddha either. But it's just fun.
EAGLE
The fish don't like it.
You keep the system intact by buying those fish.
The fish are also in trouble at the market.
They are allowed to splash around in a minimal amount of water and care is taken to prevent them from breaking.
Then they stay nice and fresh!
Yes yes, we Buddhists take good care of the animals!
Can I have a piece?
Have seen how it works in China Town Bangkok. The turtles are released into a kind of pond. After sunset the plug is pulled out and the turtles go back in the tank for the next day. No freedom. The birds have clipped wings and can only fly a short distance. To the branches of the nearest tree. When it gets dark they close their eyes and then someone comes with a ladder and picks them from the tree. Get into a cage for the next day. No freedom, but they do get food, because trade must continue. Everyone knows how it works and yet they continue to perform this play. After all, it's about the intention you have. It doesn't matter that you fool yourself
A few years ago my wife and her family came up with the idea to visit a temple the next day with a few eels in a bucket and 3 birds in a carton.
At the temple, the animals would then get their freedom back as a good deed.
The morning in question was very hot, and the temple was only reached after a ride of about 50 km, so that every normal thinking farang can imagine what good deed these animals could expect. It therefore took at most 10 km before the first bird already convulsed and left his happiness, only to be followed by another fellow sufferer.
The only ones who survived the seepage were the eels and us, so of course I asked the question, what really remained of the good deed?
Unfortunately they failed to answer me, so that I still do not fully understand what this nonsense actually means.
Oh yes, those fish and birds that you can freely buy. I sometimes ask why they were caught in the first place in the first place. But it is better not to ask superstitious and religious questions rationally.
Enforcing luck or karma is such an important thing in Thai society that it will always be.
That animal suffering may be involved in some cases is of course not good, but just think how many families have to eat from this karma industry, that is something more important in a country with so much unemployment.
Dear Geert P. I understand what you're saying, but that's a poor excuse. The government should just ban these things. The 'very resourceful families' will find another way to get their food.
Many in the Western world often have no understanding at all of this constant search for happiness.
At almost every temple you see a fortune teller, lottery seller, or someone who tries to mediate some form of luck with rattling sticks with a number, at least for a short time.
We from the Western world have, unlike many Thais, already laid our happiness in the cradle, and further supplemented by consuming breast milk.
A usually much better education, good social services, higher wages, and compared to a lot of Thai, much better old age provision, etc, have helped to ensure that with a little diligence we had / have every opportunity to become the blacksmith of our own happiness .
Many Thai people who don't have this, and there are quite a few, grab for powers that give them this feeling at least for the shortest time.
My wife sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night and writes down all the numbers she's been dreaming about. Those are the winning lottery numbers, she says. Now I must admit that the odds in a Thai lottery are significantly higher than in European lotteries, but we have never won more than 5000 baht. All in all we are about 10.000 bath in the minus or something, but for my partner the lottery is like water. That just has to happen, period.
So I take it that the catcher of the birds is in for hell and damnation?