It's the end of the month and that
means pay day. That also means it's the perfect time to ask people
for money. The accountant at work who takes care of everyone's pay
personally distributed pay stubs yesterday. This is highly unusual.
Attached to the pay stubs were envelopes that asked for a donation
for a temple. The way that a Thai Buddhist asks for a donation is by
saying, “Do you want to make merit?” Merit is the focus of nearly
all Thai holidays and in fact is the focus of many Thais' decision to
become monks. These merit based monkhoods are not lifetime
commitments. The usual monkhood for a person not dedicating their
life to the institution is three months although longer and shorter
terms do exist. If you're at all confused simply think of it as
giving your karma a boost. Give 100 baht to the temple, get good
karma. That temples ask for money is not unusual. Every religious
institution needs money. However I would like to relate to you the
following events of last night so that you can judge for yourself
what kind of influence this sort of institution or practice has on
peoples actual corporeal selves and the “karma” they garner in
the world.
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| This German dance troupe who came to Bangkok was actually an Israeli and a German who met in Amsterdam and an Australian they recruited. It was an interesting show. |
We saw a dance performance and then
went and got dinner and after that we flagged down a taxi to get our
buts home and in bed. Not the most exciting Friday night but it was a
long week of hard work. (Nana started at Binumi on Wednesday.) The
taxi driver was older and it took him only a few blocks to ask Nana if
she would like to make merit. I will translate that which has already
been translated, “Do you want to donate to my temple?” Nana
politely declined, after all she had already donated to Binumi's
accountant's temple that very day. In order to accurately represent her
donation I believe that you should all be informed she did this only
to curry favor as Nana's role at the company requires close
connections with everyone and this donation greatly increased her
chances of establishing that connection with the accountant. Shortly
after Nana's polite abstinence a phone began to ring. It was not mine
nor Nana's and the taxi driver didn't flinch. The phone was sitting
in the backseat floorboard, an iphone complete with bunny ear case
and all. I picked it up and Nana asked the taxi drive what to do and
he said not to answer it. Nana decided that was a bad idea and
answered the phone. It was of course the previous occupant of the
taxi. She was at a club right next to where we caught the taxi. We
were by this point halfway home and so going back was not something
we were interested in. The taxi driver suggested that the owner of
the phone could pay him the metered fare to take the phone back to
her. This fare sounded quite fair, if not even a nice gesture. What a
kind old man. Nana handed him the phone and he said he could go back
to Ekkamai but not all the way to where the woman who owned the phone
was. Ekkamai is about 80-90% of the way to where she was. If she
wanted him to go the extra little bit to where she was it would cost
her 200 baht. Our entire fare to go from where this woman was to our
apartment was 71 baht. How in the hell did he figure that extra 10%
was worth 129 baht? I know how he thought it was worth it. He had her
iphone, literally almost a months full pay not to mention the
contacts, pictures, videos and all the other personal information one
can pry out of these mini diaries we carry around with us. This
kindly old man who was collecting donations for his temple, himself
proposing only the opportunity for you to make good on your karma was
in fact completely unconcerned with karma or as I prefer to call it,
“Being a decent fucking human being.” He wanted MONEY. We paid
our fare at the apartment and he pulled out bills and said he had no
change, he would squable with me over 9 baht and so I overpaid him a
little just to get out of the cab.
Where religious institutions and
wealth intersect there is a problem. They extort and blackmail people
into giving them money and then turn this confidence scam over to
their victims who then perpetuate the scam onto others around them
and very quickly we have the greatest pyramid sceme ever conceived of
in human history.
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| Flyer from a Butoh dance show I saw |
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| Flyer from a Butoh dance show I saw |
On a much brighter note Nana's
performance in “The Giordano Bruno Project” was absolutely
splendid, and a Catholic organization (the same organization that
burned Mr. Bruno at the stake) donated boxes upon boxes of proseco to
the show in an effort to help the Camillian home, which provides a
place for disabled and HIV positive children to grow up in a
community where they are neither stigmatized nor shamed for things
they have no control over.
So what do we have? Is it Buddhism vs.
Catholicism, West vs. East, Prohibition vs. Boozers...no. We have
organization and the power that comes with that organization.
Institutions that can flex their muscle in the millions and who's
budgets measure in the billions and who's actual worth is in the
trillions which need only become populated by people who actually want to
make good on their promises to help humanity. Or we can start small.
We can make each other feel confident that we're not here to ply with
confidence tricks. We can accept a decent fair to bring a girl her
phone who (I hope) paid her fair fare to get where she was going.
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| The Pridi Banomyong Institute's Envlace on a night where two performances will be viewed. I went to the Butoh performance on this night. |
