Stop monk!

Thailand is an overwhelmingly Buddhist country, as you no doubt know. Part of Buddhism here, which is quite different from Japan, is that the majority of young men spend some time in the monastery. I puzzled over the picture of a rather skinny, rather austere looking monk in the foyer downstairs for a week or so when I first moved in... I guessed that he might have been a monk of particular note - a Thai equivalent to the Dalai Lama perhaps. I asked Noc one day and she looked at me somewhat disbelievingly and answered 'the king...' oops... it was a photo of the king as a young man when he was serving as a monk... Most of my Thai male students will probably spend 6 weeks, 3 months or as long as a year in a monastery when they are 20 or so.

Anyway in addition to the 20 year olds who join temporarily, the monasteries take in a lot of poor boys who would otherwise find it difficult to get an education. I read a interest book of interviews of novice monks when I was here in April. Little Angels . (Thank-you Itai) The boys stay in the monasteries for their education (so long as they keep the rules and want to stay there) and in a minority of cases they stay on after they become adults. Each morning monks go out with a begging bowl and collect food (and money but mostly food) for their daily life. They actually don't have to actively beg, they just walk along the street with a bowl and people give them food. For Buddhists giving food / money to monks / the monasteries is 'making merit', which is a bit like buying indulgences in some ways, but the monks actually depend on the food.

Although I am less culturally relativistic than I used to be, I pass a little monk- perhaps 9 years old - each morning on my way to school. It twigs my conscience especially since he is so skinny. I asked Noc about the protocol of giving food to monks....

To begin with there are acceptable and not acceptable food stuffs.
Not meat (monks tend to be vegetarian - though with Thai characteristics - I suspect fish sauce is OK though I am not sure about fish).
Also it should be healthy - not a bag of chips.
Fruit is good.
Milk is no problem.


There is a convenient phrase in Thai - Ni Mon Kha (Ni Mon Krah for men) which translates roughly as 'Stop Monk! I am going to give you food'. At which point he will stop and take the lid off his bowl and you put your food it - think great big salad bowl not cereal bowl.

When you give the food you should bow with a wai ( think Thai airline ads where people join their hands and bow - thai courtesy - it's how polite students say hello to their teachers in the morning! )

And the other thing to be mindful of is that it's taboo for women to touch monks.

I bought some rambutan while out with Noc that afternoon and next morning put some into a plastic bag to give to the monk on my way to school. Everything went fine. He understood my Ni mon kha etc etc.

With quite a sense of achievement I related my small success to Noc. She was evidently perplexed and I knew I'd seriously faux pased....


Monks do not get left overs, monks don't share your food, they certainly don't get rambutan from a bag that you have eaten from..... Food is bought for the monk with the monk in one's mind.....

From my side it doesn't make any difference - but on the other hand from the Thai point of view it's disrespectful and there doesn't seem to be much point doing something if the way it's done is disrespectful... hmmm... what was it that Confucius said about the importance of ritual ... I don't remember but I am sure Confucius would side with the monk. It might be a clash of Christian v Buddhist perspective..... Sharing food v food as an offering... I can just imagine Fr. Smythe walking past with a bowl to take away rather than having centre stage at the dining room table... not...

There is a 7-11 in my building and have decided it's no skin off my nose to get a tub of yogurt or bottle of milk there on the way to school.

Asia most definitely is as the Thai t-shirt slogan says 'same same but different'.