Please Don’t Feed The Monks

Tonight* my husband, Mike, and I took the little dog and walked down to one of our favorite restaurants in Luang Prabang from which to watch the sun set over the Mekong. While we were eating and watching the long-boats glide downriver in golden light, two tourists at the next table struck up a conversation with us.

“Is that your dog?” they asked. “Do you live here? What do you do?…”

In return they told us about their trip. They were backpacking around Asia together, and they loved Luang Prabang with it’s stately temples and unexpected, French-influenced, other-wordly charm. Just that morning the guy we were chatting to had gotten up early and gone out to feed the monks who come out in silent lines to receive alms at dawn. He’d bought rice to give away from one of the girls selling it nearby, lined up with the local women, and started dishing out food as the monks trailed past.

MONKS BREAKFAST IN EARLY MORNING IN LUANG PRABANG, LAOS

“There were so many monks!” the guy raved. “I had no idea there would be that many. I gave all my food away to the first twenty – I was piling it into their buckets, two biscuits and a handful of rice at a time – and then I went and bought some more and kept giving.”

Now doesn’t that sound charitable? Noble? At the very least, harmless?

Not so fast.

As this total stranger relayed this to me while Mike was inside paying the bill, I felt torn. On the one hand I didn’t want to be that know-it-all who jumps on an unsuspecting tourist, shoots him down, and tells him that what he’d done was culturally inappropriate.

On the other hand, what he’d done was culturally inappropriate.

Locals here (usually women seeking to earn merit for their families) get up before dawn to prepare the fresh rice they give to the monks. They line up alongside the road, kneeling, with head and feet bare as a sign of humility. As the monks walk past, the women quickly and silently place a small offering in each bowl without making direct eye contact. Giving alms is a cultural and religious ritual that carries great meaning for the locals – they practice it with commitment, care, and deep thoughtfulness.

The unique picturesque symbolism of the monks making their dawn rounds has made it one of Luang Prabang’s premier tourist attractions. Some locals have capitalized upon this by staking out places where alms-giving occurs and selling unsuspecting tourists rice that they can offer to the monks. These rice and cakes sold by the hawkers are often not fresh, and tourists who do not fully understand the meaning of the ceremony or how to perform it respectfully then offer this left-over food to the monks. This is disruptive to nearby locals and to the monks (who, from what I understand, do not want these offerings that are not prepared or given in the proper spirit of humility and thoughtfulness by their community or by genuine seekers who approach the ritual with reverence).

So, what to do with my new and garrulous buddy at the pizza place?

Initially I let it slide. He’d already gone and done it, I reasoned. He was leaving tomorrow. Why risk embarrassing him in front of his girlfriend now?

But then the conversation continued. After he told me of that morning’s activities, I mentioned that many here were wondering how long there would enough locals living in the Old Town district to sustain the ritual and feed all of the monks in the area. As more and more guesthouses are built in the Old Town, it seems inevitable that more of the local families currently living there will leave. With them will go their early-morning-rice-preparing wives and mothers. Who will feed the monks then?

“Oh, no problem,” the stranger proclaimed. “There are plenty of tourists around, they can just sell more rice to tourists and get the tourists to do it and make money out of the whole thing to boot!”

After this I couldn’t let him leave without at least trying for a course correction.

“You know,” I said, “tourists feeding the monks is a bit of a controversial practice…”

I explained why as gently as I could, and then Mike and I wished them well, collected our leftovers and our little dog, and left.

“Do you think he got it?” Mike asked as we walked home

“I don’t know,” I said. “I hope so. Do you think I was too indirect? What would you have said?”

“How about just, don’t feed the monks!” Mike said.

So for all of you readers who may come visit us in Luang Prabang at some stage I’m telling you now so I don’t have to tell you then. Unless you earnestly desire to give dawn alms in ways that are fully respectful of local traditions here, please don’t feed the monks!

When did you last have one of those awkward moments with a visiting stranger?
What did you do?

*This post first appeared on lisamckaywriting in 2012.

Participating in the religious ceremonies of other faith traditions: To do, not to do, or how to do?

When I first moved to Laos with my husband Mike, I tagged along on one of his work trips out to a rural village where Mike’s organization had recently helped set up a gravity-fed water system. During this trip, Mike and the staff (and, by extension, me) were the guests of honor in the village we were visiting. This meant enduring some long speeches and eating a lot of food I didn’t particularly want to eat. It also meant that we had the privilege of peering briefly into lives very different from our own, and that the humbling mantle of the village’s blessing was bestowed upon us. For in between breakfast and lunch, the village held a bai si.

The bai si (or su kwan) is a blessing ceremony indigenous to Southeast Asia, and it is performed on many special occasions – marriages, births, housewarmings, when someone becomes a monk, recovers from illness, or at the beginning or end of big journeys. As far as rituals go, it’s pretty versatile.

Su kwan means “calling of the soul”, and the purpose of the ceremony is to bind the personal spirits, the kwan, to the person. Many people in Laos believe that the human being is a union of 32 organs, and that each organ has their own kwan to watch over and protect them. Collectively, these spirits are believed to constitute a person’s spiritual essence or “vital breath”.

The problem with the kwan? Well they tend to wander, you see. Sometimes they stray quite a way from your body, and this is not at all what you want. It throws things out of balance. It makes you sick. You don’t want your kwan out roaming the world, you want as many of them as possible at home where they belong, watching over you.

So, periodically, it’s a good idea to call your kwan back. This is what the bai si ceremony does – it calls your spirits to return home, secures them in place, and re-establishes equilibrium. The ceremony, a communal event, is a way of expressing goodwill, good luck, and good health to those being honored. This was how the village was choosing to commemorate the official handover of this new water system.

Bai si tableWe sat on the floor in a circle around a low table that was decorated with flowers and candles and laden with plates of meat and offal, packets of chips, and the Chinese version of Twinkies. Long, white, cotton strings were draped over the stalks of flowers.

After everyone was gathered, the Mor Pone (the soul caller, the most senior elder in the community) began to chant, calling the lost souls of those gathered to come back to their bodies and asking them nicely to bring health and happiness with them while they were at it. As he finished chanting, we, the honored guests, were presented first with the plates of meat.

Under pressure I made a very, very bad choice and picked up a piece of offal. I’m pretty sure I heard some of my kwan snicker. Just between us, I’m not sure that all of my kwan always have my best interests at heart, no matter what Laotians would have me believe.

After we’d snacked on offal and Twinkies, the soul caller approached Mike and me. Kneeling in front of us, murmuring blessings, he tied strings to our wrists to bind our spirits to our bodies. Other community members followed suit. By the time the ceremony was finished I had so many strings around my wrists that my kwan had resigned themselves to not going anywhere for quite a while.

Bai si blessing 4

Now, a word about the ceremonies and rituals of different faith traditions.

I feel a little as if I’m in a minefield here. I’m well aware that some of my friends and acquaintances may be troubled that I participated in what they would call an animist ritual. Others will be troubled that anyone would be troubled.

More than a decade ago, during a trip to Thailand, a younger me was troubled by a similar ceremony that I participated in there. The world was more black and white to me then, and in that world a good Christian didn’t allow people to chant over them in a language they didn’t understand and tie strings to their wrists. After all, who knew what footholds that could give the devil in my life? And what on earth would Jesus say?

I’m not mocking my younger self (though it’s awfully tempting sometimes). She was sincere in her beliefs and her concerns, and she may have had some valid points. But I am not her anymore and the world looks different to me now.

Now I can come to the bai si with more peace, as a guest and as a learner. I am still not entirely comfortable with people chanting over me in a language I do not understand during a ceremony that is not of my own faith tradition. However, I am far less worried about the possibility that, simply by being present, I may be delivering myself irrevocably unto the dark side.

Bai si blessing 2For I looked into the eyes of those who approached me with strings in hand that day and I was profoundly humbled by the warmth and gentle goodwill I saw. I live a life more privileged than many of them could imagine, yet they were delighted at this chance to bless me. The elders of this community – those who have earned their years and their wisdom the hard way – knotted the strings with reverence and tenderness. Their sincerity in wishing us well was unmistakable.

I’m still not entirely sure what Jesus would say about this. The stories of the gospels suggest that he wasn’t too keen on things like commerce in the temple courts, meat sacrificed to idols, spirit-worship, superstition based in fear, and religious rituals undertaken for show. But they also suggest that he had a knack for discerning attitude and intention, and that these two things counted for an awful lot in his sight.

I suppose it’s possible that Jesus might tell me, “Lisa, it’s not super wise to make a habit of participating in ceremonies that you do not really understand. There are powerful spiritual forces for good and for bad out there, and you should not lightly trespass upon these realms.”

But I think it’s also possible that Jesus might smile a little and say something along the lines of, “I know and love your kwan, and they could do with a good calling now and again for they are a wilful and unruly lot. And, look, try your best to eat the offal that has been presented to you today in the spirit of happy gratitude, because that is the loving thing to do.”

Someday, I hope I have the chance to ask him.

How do you navigate invitations to participate in the religious ceremonies of other faith traditions?

Lisa McKayauthor, psychologist, sojourner in Laos

Blog: www.lisamckaywriting.com      Books: Love At The Speed Of Email and My Hands Came Away Red