Jubilee Church, Bangkok, Thailand PHOTO: Dindin Lagdameo
Living in a country where the predominant religion is different to the one you are used to is an excellent experience. It leads you to reflect on the nature of religion and faith in public and private life.
The lead up to Easter is a prime example. Here in Thailand, Christians make up a mere 1% of the population, Muslims around 5% and Buddhists 93%. The 1% other include Taoists and other traditional belief systems. (Source: Wikipedia)
Christian churches are so unusual that they stand out in the landscape, compared with the 44,000 watts or Buddhist temples in the country. (I still dream about creating WattsApp to locate each one, simply for the satisfying pun factor!)
With so few churches and followers of the Christian faith, it can be surprisingly easy to become disconnected with the Christian calendar that much of the West marches to, even in the most secular of its societies.
Chocolate Easter bunny Photo: Will Marlow
With the exception of the confectionization of Easter by that eponymous rabbit, Easter has not (yet) been commercialized the way that Halloween and Christmas have. Christmas here has a good run, making its decorative appearance in malls and shops at around the same time as Halloween and extending into January. There is no missing Christmas.
Easter is different and I now realize the extent to which social prompts act as cultural calendar signals — the woven crosses of Palm Sunday, the bindi-meets-burned-palm-leaf marks on foreheads on Ash Wednesday, not to mention the holidays . These cultural signals make little difference to the truly devout, but without the cues that prompt action among casual worshippers, does the connection to their religion become dormant? (Apparently the Urban Dictionary defines this group as “chreasters,” or “Those Christians who only show up to religious services on Christmas and Easter.”)
And what of the Easter Bunny? Hardly any of this sweet seller is visible either. Kinder chocolate eggs, available year round, have muscled out other sweets at the supermarket check outs/tills. A single, pathetic box of Lindt mini chocolate bunnies was in the seasonal shelves of another shop. (Confession, yes I bought them.) One enterprising new neighbourhood centre has activities this weekend which include a culturally appropriate twist: the egg and chopstick race! (I hope they are hard boiled! (Bankokians, that would be The Commons in Thong Lo.)
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