Country Article / Postcards
Temple Etiquette, Thai-style
Date: 04/05/2005Dear International Living Reader,
Three minutes, three gaffes. I'm at Bangkok's Erawan Shrine with my 20 baht's ($0.52) worth of offerings. And making a complete nonsense of the good luck ritual.
Here's what I've learned:
1) Don't light your bunch of 20 incense sticks and tiny yellow candle with a cigarette lighter. Light them from one of the eternal flames circling the shrine.
2) Hold on tightly to the glowing sticks as you're planting them in the ground. Spilling the lit ends over the back of your hand (ouch!) and then dropping them all over the ground isn't how it's done.
3) Don't try frisbeeing your marigold or jasmine garland onto a tusked elephant. Place it in the mound of other garlands. It's probably something to do with physics, but marigold chains don't react in quite the same way as a ring-toss. Mine ends up with the incense sticks--on the ground.
Although the Erawan Shrine isn't Bangkok's oldest or largest shrine, it's one of its busiest. Near the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel (on the corner of Ratchadamri and Ploenchit Road), people come here day and night to ask for good luck in exams, good luck in business, help in solving problems. Stifling the traffic pollution, the air round is completely laden with incense.
The shrine is dedicated to a Brahma god called Than Tao Mahaprom. His four gilded faces represent kindness, mercy, sympathy, and impartiality. The name Erawan comes from the three-headed Erawan elephant he rides on. When wishes are granted, people return to make offerings of wooden elephants, big and small. Stuck with squares of gold leaf, a number of the shrine's larger elephants have been donated by Buddhists from Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. When the herd gets too large, they're given away to places such as hospitals.
Along with donating wooden elephants, people also hire dancers to perform on-site. This is to give requests more oomph or to give thanks for blessings granted. To hire two dancers for a short personal performance costs 260 baht ($6.75). Eight dancers cost 710 baht ($18.50).
Steenie Harvey
Roving Euro-editor, International Living
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