Thais love comic relief. In the land of smiles, people just don’t seem to want to be too serious for too long. Even in conversation about a dark topic, it doesn’t take long until someone is cracking a joke. I once was invited to the last day of a funeral, which ends with the cremation of the body, by being asked if I wanted to come to the “human barbecue.”
Or take their drama or horror movie genres. The films will have their scenes of intense emotion and gruesome violence (but these, really, are too over-the-top to elicit much of an authentic response). But then they’ll cut from bloody decapitated guy to goofy extra getting his pants pulled down or something. Or from poor, misunderstood Cinderella figure to other characters pulling each other’s hair until they both fall into the pool fully clothed. It can feel kind of jarring to watch, like you’re not sure how you’re supposed to be feeling, except to not take any of it very seriously. Maybe that’s the point– life is best lived a little lightheartedly.
The first three words I learned in Thai are three of their most important values: saduak, sabai, and sanuk, or convenient, comfortable, and of course, FUN.
I’ve been discovering that even some of the Thai Buddhist temples are this way. Even in these most somber and contemplative places there are often elements of fun or quirkiness. Two that I visited within a month of each other are perfect examples– one inhabited by a colony of monkeys, and the other populated by grinning clay Thai children and monks, each wearing their own pair of real glasses.
The first (with the monkeys) was at a look-out point we visited with our church leaders after a training.
This next one was in Ayuthaya, which is most known to tourists as containing ancient ruins of Thailand’s former capital. We did go see those, but because our Thai friends were playing tour guides, we mostly saw the Thai tourist traps. Which are a little different from the Lonely Planet highlights. We didn’t see a foreigner in sight at most of the places we stopped. You can see more photos from that day on my Flickr page; here are a few from the highlight of that day.
I forgot to mention that this temple is actually most famous for… its bathrooms. The first air-conditioned bathrooms in a Thai temple, they say. Carpeting, individual AC units in each stall, flowers… it’s quite the facility. I guess they didn’t want to leave out the last two ideals of saduak and sabai.
