Review of Trip to Thailand and Cambodia, Part 1 of 3

At the beginning of the year one of my professors, Dr. Kettner, took my class of five young men to Thailand and Cambodia as part of the Parish Immersion course. As part of this course we get placed in a ministry setting setting outside of anything that we might experience here in Edmonton during our studies. Not much further outside of our experience in Edmonton than going to South East Asia. This was the furthest away from home that I've travelled and the first time that I have left the continent. After arriving in Thailand at midnight after an approximate 24 hour flight, we then took a half hour ride to our hotel. The next morning, Saturday January 2, we stopped by the Luther Institute of South East Asia (LISA) and met our host, Dr. Leonard Harms who gave a quick introduction to Thai culture.

The first thing you would notice upon entering Thailand is the reverence that they hold for their king. King Rama IX is the longest reigning king in history, now hitting 60 years, and as king he is the most revered person in Thai society. There is no one in Thai culture that is allowed to be above the King. His pictures are placed high up on the walls, forcing you to look up at them and ensuring that no picture can be hung above it. When the king is travelling on the road and goes under a bridge, all traffic on the bridge is cleared and stopped since no one can be above the king. If a coin should be dropped and roll across the floor you do not stomp on it to stop it from rolling for two reasons: 1. You are placing the dirtiest piece of your body onto the printed image of the king's head 2. This is tantamount to stomping on the king's head. It is also a felony to deface any image of the king or to say anything bad about the king and you will be charged even if you are just a tourist.

The religion in Thailand and Cambodia is based on Buddhism and Hinduism with a very heavy emphasis on animism and spirits. The people will set up shrines of varying sizes in every building and site, shrines can be found in shops, hotels, houses, and cars, anywhere where the spirits might be able to get at the people. These shrines will never torn down and often you will find a site where the building has been completely torn down and the earth all chewed up but you will find a shrine still standing on one corner of the land that is not even touched. These shrines commemorate the spirits of the ancestors and will be prayed to and will be given sacrifices of food and drink for the spirits to eat and to keep them in good disposition toward you for your care of them. Since the spirits are naturally opposed to them if the people do not take care of them by offering these sacrifices, the people live terrified of the spirits and their power over them. This opens a window for Christian proclamation  and rather than tell the people that these spirits don't exist, to tell them that Christ has defeated all these spirits and we no longer need to fear them.

The city of Bangkok was not what I was expecting. I was expecting a more run down place without many of the luxuries that we see around our streets here in Canada. What I found was a thriving city with well maintained streets and street lights, with a Seven-Eleven on every corner. Western fast  food restaurants were as abundant as the native Thai and Asian restaurants, though the Thai restaurants sell their food for a tenth of the price. For 30 Baht, about one dollar, you could get a full plate of food that left you feeling satisfied and full without the heavy greasy feeling that you often feel eating North American restaurant food. And it is good food too! But I digress. Anyway, you do see a lot of developed areas in Bangkok, but you also see slum areas throughout the city too. Some are big, some are not. There was one not too far away from our hotel, near the river. The shacks are built next to a small waste water river that was built to keep the dirty water (which was black) away from the fresh water in the river across the street. The people who built the shacks are able to draw off the city electricity supply and then are able to work and try to earn enough to move a better home. Labour in Thailand, as well as in Cambodia, is often the lowest cost of running a business, for some perspective, labour is often the highest cost in North America, so it usually cheaper to hire a person to cut the grass with gardening sheers than buy the lawn mower and have someone maintain and run it.

The Thai culture is one that is very status based, with the king at the top, again no one can be above the king, with administrators for the government below him and the educated below them and so on until you reach the servants at the bottom. This comes into play very much with the Thai traditional greeting, called the Wai, bringing your hands together, palm-to-palm, and bowing. The spot where you put your hands shows your status, the lower your hands, the more status you have. Some people will even Wai from their forehead, especially if they are serving the king. The challenge comes in when you have Pastors, who are considered to be among the educated class bring that status mentality into the church. We visited one Lutheran day care that used to be run out of a church. The pastors who served the congregation had this status mentality that said that they should go up to their office and stay there and let the people come to them. Now due to the status mentality Goi, who is pictured here and ran the day care, could not suggest in any way that the pastor should come down to visit parents as they dropped off their children. It was not allowed because of Goi's status, being lower than the pastor, and because she is a female. In the end, this congregation ended up dying and merging with the Concordia Lutheran Church located across from the LISA office. The challenge that they have is how to introduce pastors who feel that they are educated and near the top of the status order, to the more Scriptural understanding of being a servant to God's people. It is a challenge that they are still struggling with today.

There is much more that I could tell you about my experience in Thailand, but I have tried to stick with the culture and the opportunities and challenges that the Gospel has within this culture. We spent a lot of time meeting wonderful people and seeing some of the best things that Bangkok has to offer, like a seven story Western style mall with Lamborghini, Porsche, and Bugati stores at the top floor. There was one night visiting a roof top bar, 64 stories above the city of Bangkok, with fifteen dollar martinis. The next article will focus on my experience in Cambodia with a concluding article focusing on a summary of my experience and what I learned during the trip, both about Thai and Cambodian culture and also Canadian culture.