Learning Thai

Last week I used one of my free mornings to visit Bangkok's Chinatown. We'd been in that area before but had not gotten far enough off the main street to see very much. The Chinese have been in Bangkok for a long time. In fact, they were relocated from their original location to make room for the construction of the Grand Palace when Bangkok became the capital of Thailand in the 1780's. They moved a little to the south and since then that neighborhood has retained it's distinctive Chinese character.

A vendor making Chinese fried "donuts." We can also buy these in our area - they've become our Saturday morning tradition.

I enjoyed walking through the crowded markets. One of the main differences between Chinatown's markets and the typical Thai market is the amount of dried stuff - lots of herbs, sea creatures, and crunchy animal skin.

The most interesting part of the trip was the Chinese Buddhist temple - Wat Mangkon Kamalawat. It was very crowded and the worship there differed significantly from at the Thai Buddhist temples that I've visited. There were clouds of incense smoke, people offering plates of food, and a lot of bustling around. People were buying envelopes and stacks of special paper, then writing down their names and birth dates on them before offering them. I'm not sure if this was a typical morning or if I happened to be there on a special day, but I was amazed by the amount of activity. Unfortunately I was not allowed to take pictures inside the wat.

A fortune-teller/palm-reader's shop front.

Chinese customs related to death and burial/cremation also differ significantly from Thai practices. I walked past a row of shops that provide all of the necessary paraphernalia. At the risk of exposing my great ignorance I'm going to guess that these boxes (which contain a fake suit coat, shirt, tie, watch, and credit card) are used to increase the comfort or status of the deceased.

-Tom