Anyway the cafe seems rather deserted on a Saturday lunch time. Only one more table was there when I walked in. Waitress’ service was okay; my main complain however is that she hasn’t learn the Thai pronunciation of any of the food that their restaurant serves.  Its not a big deal for most people, I am just anal about stuff like that. The other waiter looks grouchy throughout my time there, occasionally texting with his phone (the cafe is REALLY empty) and the cashier looked even more bored. But all of them did give a nice smile when I finished with my meal and walked out of the cafe.

Instead of the regular Tom Yum Goong  (Tom Yum prawn), Gaeng Kieow Wan Gai (green curry chicken) and Yum Ma Muang (mango salad) that I saw more of the food blogs have ordered, I decided to try something else. I ordered Som Tum (papaya salad), Tom Kha Gai (coconut galangal soup with chicken) and Pek Gai Yat Sai (stuff chicked wings).

Som Tum:

Its  a general notice that most Singaporeans order mango salad instead of papaya salad when gong Thai. However, the papaya salad is ubiquitous with Thai food and it the most defining dish of any Thai restaurant. Screw that up, you can forget about the rest of the food. The most important point about the papaya salad is that the raw papaya is rather tasteless by itself (unlike raw mango which is sour).

The dressing is coated around the papaya and hence its becomes very important to have well-balanced dressing. I am happy to say that the Som Tum is pretty good. The dressing has a good balance of sourness from the lime juice, just spicy enough (this is not an Isaan restaurant so its okay not to be so spicy), sweetness from the palm sugar and saltiness and fragrance from the fish sauce. My only complain is that the papaya was a bit soggy. This is because it was machine cut rather than hand cut with all the uneven size. The hand cut papaya tends to stay crunchy longer. Also I wished that they had added some dried shrimps to perk up the dish. Overall, its a dish that I will order again.

Tom Kha Gai:

Even in Bangkok, it is not very easy to get a good Tom Kha Gai, let alone in Singapore. This is the reason that I ordered this dish, instead of Tom Yum Goong. Unknown to most people the herbs used are actually similar, except there is coconut milk and more galangal in Tom Kha Gai. Few people do a good Tom Kha Gai and I am glad to say that this restaurant does a good one.

The coconut milk was rich and just thick enough and not too watery. The soup has a good blend of sweetness (absolutely important), spiciness, sourness (very important) and fragrance from the herbs. You can drink the soup by itself without filling too bloated and sick of the coconut milk. My only complain is that I wished they had used fresh straw mushrooms because I could taste the “can-ness” of the straw mushroom they used in the soup. Other than that, its a dish I recommend that you try in place of Tom Yum Goong.

Pek Gai Yat Sai:

I just love fried chicken wings, what’s more stuff fried chicken wings. I must say that the restaurant did a rather good rendition of this dish. Some restaurant will have too much vermicelli, but they stuff it with lots of meat. What’s more, they also stuff it with chestnut. However, I did find the chicken wings, plus the stuffing, a tad bit too bland and dry. However, with the saving grace of the thai sweet chilli on any dish, its something that you can eat a as snack while you wait for you food.

Overall:

I don’t mind going back again to try other stuff.

Okay, phonetically, Poj Spa Karn should be “Pot Sapaa Kaarn”. From what I read from the internet, this is an 82 year old restaurant, situated along Tanao Road in Bangkok. Interestingly, as we walk along Tanao Road, we find many stalls which review cuttings. This is an old part of town and I am not surprise if that it host such a variety of good food with food shop owners been around for some time.

Now just like an 82 year old restaurant, when San tried to call for reservation on a Sunday, we were informed that the Auntie (I think she is in charge) has gone to the hospital for some checkout and the restaurant will only open after she comes back, without giving any further timing. Well, we took a bet that she will be back in time for us and sure enough when we reached there, it was opened and we are the first customers.

As you can see, the deco is pretty dated and simply. I really don’t like restaurant the dolls up their restaurant trying to authentic, but have really mediocre food. There’s a dime and dozen in Bangkok.

The first dish that came was deep fried fish cat fish (its underneath) with fried kailan and mayo. I actually enjoyed the fried kailan and mayo part more. Well, because there is not a lot of fish below and they are cut into pretty small piece, so I don’t really get to taste the fish. But I love the fried kailan. lol

This dish, Nam Prik Goong, it a classic chilli paste appertizer dish. Only that the chilli paste has prawns. Its not very spicy and a bit sweet and has the right mix of taste and spices. A good light dish to start your meal with.

Mee Grob or crispy noodles is supposed to be one of their popular dishes. This noodles is fried just right and its tangy, sour and sweet just right. Only problem is that its a bit hard to eat it the beans sprout and chives, so at the end the mee grob was eaten but we left the vegetables in the plate.

I generally don’t like Gaeng Som or tamarind soup. I had tried a few of those before and was not used to have tamarind and fish sauce soup. However, this soup was surprisingly delicious. It still has its tamarind taste but also a good blend of spices. It was interesting that cha-om khai (acacia leaf fried in egg) was added to the soup making it even more inventing.

Another popular dish is the fried eggs with lemon grass. I could taste any lemon grass really, but the egg was light and fluffy. With or without lemon grass it good enough on its own

I never thought one could do a dried version of green curry chicken, but apparently they did. There are no coconut in this dish and as a result the flavor was really intense, it caught me by surprise the first time I took it, but I liked the intense taste of this dried version of green curry. Something you need to try.

More photos: http://public.fotki.com/kwongheng/reviews/pojsapakarn/

For address and location just search google for “Poj Spa Karn”.

Cafe Chilli is a north-eastern Thai food restaurant situated at the basement of Paragon in Bangkok, where most of the restaurants are. Although it says north-eastern, it really a fusion high class north-eastern food. In all honesty, most of us probably don’t really like authentic north-eastern or Issan food, because they can be really spicy and salty. However, despite this fusion stuff going on, its true to Thai tastes and flavors. The portions are pretty small, so for two of us, we actually ended order quite a number of dishes.

Som Tum (or raw papaya salad) is probably the most ubiquitous of all Thai meals. If a restaurant does a bad Som Tum, you can forgot about any other food being too good. Chilli doesn’t disappoint with this dish. A good Som Tum, to me, must have crunchy papaya shred, the dressing must have a fragrant sweet palm sugar taste, blended with a slightly pungent fish sauce and with a good measure of spiciness and sourness. You know that I like the Som Tum if you see me dipping my sticky rice into the sauce.

Now a bit about the role of the raw vegetables and sticky rice in Issan cuisine. Personally, I find that eating with sticky rice instead of cooked rice helps to reduce the spiciness of the dishes. The raw vegetable, especially, the cabbage seems also to play that role. Also its a good source of fibers. Now I just love my Thai dishes with sticky rice and raw vegetables.

For most people, Tom Yum is probably only Thai soup they know. There are a lot of others of course, but the more popular ones are Tum Kha Gai (chicken in coconut milk galangal soup), Gaeng Liang (a tamarind soup, which I don’t really fancy) and you have Tom Saab, a pork soup with similar flavour of Tom Yum but using pork instead of seafood or prawns. The soup here is a nice pork soup base with a well-infused herbal soup.

I love dish of fried chicken with lemon grass and those green bits are peppers. Eat all together and its a really unique and exciting taste. Definitely something I will order again.

The Kor Moo Yang (grilled pork neck) is simply soft and juicy. The marinade brings out the flavor in the grilling and its absolute mouth-watering and appetizing to even think about it.

Yum Ped Sarb (duck salad) is a bit spicy but the duck is was nice and chewy but easy to eat (not tough). The dressing is done just right with proper sour taste and fish sauce.

This is a weird fusion dish of salmon baked in dill. Didn’t really like it, but my friend Chris said he liked it. So its one against one.

Update: I have learned that the restarant has moved. Some say Rama III some say Rama IV, I still have no idea where. If you know, ping me. Thanks!

Now, Silom Road in Bangkok is not well known to have good Thai restaurants. Most of the Thai cafes and even restaurant have adjusted their food taste to cater to the mainly white tourists visiting there, which tastes like sweet crap. One of my criteria to even enter a restaurant is whether its full of foreigners or gay men or if its mostly locals. I am digressing…

Anyway, Suntawa restaurant is a rare gem fine along Silom road. Actually another good restaurant is Banana Leaf at the basement of Silom Complex. According to San, it is a pretty old restaurant, at least 20+ years.  you can even see that the restaurant’s decor is still the same since its open.

Now, its pretty hard to notice the restaurant, even if you walked pass it. Also the name is not in English, so you have to learn to recognize the sign board in the picture above!

To get to Suntawa: From the Sala Daeng BTS, follow the track towards Chong Nonsi Station, keeping on the left side of Silom Road. When you reach Soi Piphat, which is where the Bangkok Bank building is, turn left into the soi and look out for the restaurant on the right side after about 100 or 200 meters. Here is the location from google map (its around the center of the map)

Now the crazy thing about Suntawa is that they open and close as they please. Even though it does state that they are opened on Monday to Saturday, from 11 am to 8 pm (or so), if the night or day is quiet, they will close for the night. The other day we tried to make a reservation on a Saturday night and they told us that they will be closed because of lack of customers for that day! The other quirky think about the restaurant is that most of its customers are well-dressed elderly ladies with old hairdos. We were there for lunch one of those days and other than us and another table of office workers, all other tables are mostly elderly ladies.

All that aside, I must say that most of us agreed that the food was great. Okay, let’s be honest, there are hits and misses in this restaurant just like any other great restaurants out there, but the hits really makes you want go back again.

The menu looks really faded ancient. Its the only Thai restaurant I know so far the serves minestrone soup and steak!

The decor has probably not changed too much over the year.

Tom Kha Gai. This is one of those classic Thai dishes, which many restaurants and cafes failed to deliver. In Suntawa, this is simply lovely till the last drop! The soup was fully infused with herb and the fragrant coconut milk. The soup has also the right level of sweetness from palm sugar and sharply sour enough to give your appetite an uplift.

Stir fried Kailan with salted fish. I liked that they put a lot of salted fish into this dish. The salted fish was not over salty, so I could eat the pieces by themselves. The kailan was nicely stirred fry and infused with the salted fish taste and fragrance.

Dried sweet curry with pork (Panang Moo). The curry was sweet and spicy and has a rich flavor. Together with the tenderly stirred fried pork, this makes one of my favorite dishes.

Ped Suntawa or Crispy fried minced Duck. A speciality in Suntawa, you hardly can find this dish anywhere else. Its crisply fried on the outside and has a nice moist duck meat flavor on the inside. It comes with a compliment of the deep fried kailan leaves, added both texture and taste to this dish when eaten together.

Smoked Eggplant salad. Both me and San love this dish. However, I must warn that its can be quite spicy. The eggplant has a nice smoky flavor and is accompanied with a spicy yet full flavor salad dressing. A must have salad on my book.

Fried Prawn Pancake (Goong Phra Beung). This is probably the only dish that I didn’t really like. It was a bit too oily and because it so thin, I cannot really taste the prawn meat in-between. This probably makes a good snack for noisy children to keep them still.

Satisfied customers (not for sale and not on menu!)

Actually for one person, the place is pretty huge! So if you are one of those who afraid of big empty houses at night, I don’t recommend trying to stay there. Its a bit weird because they had to turn a normal 2 bedroom apartment into a one bedroom suite, so you will notice that another bathroom and bedroom is locked. For those with wilder imagination by oneself, you will start wonder what lies behind those doors!

Despite all these, I did get a good night sleep by myself.

Overall, the rooms are clean and really quiet, a good apartment getaway for a couple or 2. Just don’t expect to be pampered with pose carpets and luxurious furnitures.

More photos here:

http://public.fotki.com/kwongheng/hotel-reviews/fahrenheit-suites-kl/

The problem with PAP dominance is that barriers to entry are made very high for the opposition. Election boundaries are constantly redrawn to shift voting patterns in favor of the PAP. Community centers under the People’s Association are used to ferry uncles and aunties with free food to attend PAP rallies and I thought they are supposed to be non-partisan? Broadcast and print media are servants to the PAP, not to investigate what is facts, but to tell Singaporeans want PAP wants them to know. The police, security forces and judiciary, by virtue of the laws bulldozed by PAP in the parliament, are but loyalists of the PAP, used by them to spread fear and to control and maintain power. Civil servants, whether they like PAP or not, will probably have to vote for PAP, mostly really out of fear.

Then there are votes who vote out of fear and lack of empathy and indifference.

Fear because they fear voting in the opposition will make things more difficult for them in the estate. Their estate prices may drop subsequently and new amenities for their estate will take a back seat in favor of PAP wards. Some fear that if they voted for the opposition and if the PAP won, their names will be noted and getting any help from the PAP after that may prove to be difficult. This is the reasons why the PAP is playing the fear and regret card in the news media. They know a lot of citizens responds to these messages well and will not dare to make the wrong move. The same fear card was used by Vivian on the gay issue, in order to secure votes from the anti-gay voters in his constituency, probably right wing fundamentalist religious people.

For those who are indifferent or lacks empathy, its probably harder to convince them otherwise. These people have a good quality of life for themselves and their families. They want everything to remain the same after the elections so that they can continue to have their maids and occasional holidays. To them, as long as their life have no major upsets, there are no causes to fight for. They don’t care to know about civil rights or don’t have any idea or don’t care why people are jailed by ISA. They think that over time PAP will make those changes or accommodations and there is no need to fight against PAP for it.

The same mentality gets some gay people over the call to abolish the penal code 377a. Some, have their partners, build their little nest and go about their usual daily routines. Others are happy to have their parties, sex and drugs. They don’t want anyone upsetting their way of life by calling for the repeal and upsetting the government with a backlash. They believe that the government will abolish that in time to come. Upsetting them too early will compromise their current contented way of life. And so they prefer that nobody fights for gay equality and upsets the government and leave it to them to work on it as a when they pleases.

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Many people harp on the Mas Selamat incident, with the focus on the toilet escape. It makes sense, of course, but for me this is missed by a mile.  For me, the incident should be more about the accountability of the Internal Security Acts.  Whether Mas Selamat is a terrorist or not, I strongly believe that he should be given a fair trial in an unbiased hearing. Being in ISA custody, was he given a fair trial and hearing, was he tortured? Could he be a political dissenter rather than a would-be terrorist? We are all already aware of how ISA has been used by the government to subvert challenges to their power, even the average person on the street have an irrational fear that if they talk too loud against the government, they may need to have a kopi session the next day. Mind you this is not the PAP tea session. I constantly hear gay people talk about how they worry about their jobs being compromised or being monitored if they speak too loud for gay rights because of the fear of ISA. This is precisely why ISA needs to be abolished to be replaced by a structure more accountable to the people and not subject to the abuse of power by the PAP. The ISA just gives PAP too much leeway to abuse their power without proper checks and balances and it must go.

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Coming to the gay issue, its a good thing to know that in general most people don’t really care if an MP is gay or not. Does that mean a gay MP will take about nothing but a gay cause? Does that mean a Muslim or Buddhist MP will talk about just their own religious cause? Or a woman MP will focus only on women’s issues? This is truly really fear mongering at its peak. But this does show to us how strongly the PAP team regarded the SDP team. Every time we see smear campaign coming from PAP, we know that its because they fear those that they smear. Already, we hear talks and rumors about potential drastic steps PAP are prepared to conjure up in order to destroy the SDP chances or credibility in contesting for the GRC. I have no idea what that maybe or if they will indeed carry that out, we can only wait and see.  Given that PAP have full control of the police forces and security forces, i.e. spying on citizen, it is not hard to think of the kind of information they can gather to make this possible.

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I know we are all frustrated by the sight of so many foreigners in Singapore and about job security, however, please don’t use them as the bogeyman or make a joke out of them. They are flesh and blood people who works hard for their own livelihood and family and don’t deserves us screaming for them to get out or us joking about them. The focus should be on the issues of our policies and how it impacted Singaporeans and what we can do improve the situation.

Also, one thing we must remember is that these so called foreign talents are really a huge and diverse group. The frustration are not necessary the same and they are not all necessary taking away jobs from Singaporeans. I suspect the most visible groups and those that some of us are frustrated about are the lower skills foreigners. However, we sometimes need to ask ourselves, how many Singaporeans want to do those jobs that they are doing? I wonder even if with a minimal wage scheme and with policies to encourage employers to hire Singaporeans first for those jobs, how many really want to be a house maid, road sweeper, rubbish collector or construction worker? If anything, we should thank them for building the houses we live in, keep our estate clean and taking care of your children or old folks when you are too busy earning for a living.

As for jobs that so-called went the way of the foreigners, honestly I have no idea what people are talking about. Not that it is non-existence, but for people in different industry, this may be either a perceived or actual problem.  Taking my own experience in the IT industry interviewing people for some IT positions. I found that the general quality of Singaporean candidates to be not as good as compare to their foreign counterparts interviewing for the same jobs. Some could not articulate their thoughts properly or show enthusiasm or passion for the the industry that they are in and worst of all the one-question-one-answer interviewee. It can be quite frustrating having to face such candidates and so don’t blame me for not recommended any Singaporeans for those positions and giving them away to better foreign candidates.

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Whether or not, this is a watershed election, in the future, I want a Singapore where gay and transgender people are free from fear of being themselves,  where they get equal opportunities to work and social help without having to hide or be ashamed of themselves and where the media are allow to portrait positive images, movies and articles of gay and transgender folks.

I want a Singapore where citizens are free from fear of speaking out in public, where lawyers can comment on the law, where news media actually carry real news about Singapore, where ISA and 377a are abolished, where all detainees of the ISA and those exiled are given a fair hearing and fair compensation if they were wrongly accused, where the RCs and CCs are not beholden to the PAP but to its citizens and where those we really need our help or have fallen into the cracks are help by the government to bring their lives back in order, where population is not increase just to catch up with GDP growth and finally, a Singapore where I can truly be able to say it is my country and not one that PAP allowed me to be in.

One of the joke in the gay email list SiGNeL was that we should all sign off our postings with “LKY”. The purpose was so that every posting gets captured by the ISD and the poor intelligence people have to read through all of our postings to find out that it has nothing to do with “LKY” other than the signature. This will certain keep them very busy!

It was a few years later that confirmed what we suspect was true. You see, one of my friend at time was working for ISD on software to monitor, I believe, forums or email lists. One day, we went out for some drinks and he mentioned to me in a lowered voice that he saw my email address in their system. I was pretty happy when I heard that, because it confirmed what we knew all along.  The security dept have various software targeting online forums, blog postings, emails, websites and whole set of contents out there, even your text messages. Being a technical person, I know that all these are not difficult to construct, in fact most people don’t realize it, but their emails are still being sent in plain text to one another in the internet. This is not a bad thing per se because we do need these capabilities to keep Singapore and its citizens save from attacks from unpleasant people or organizations.

I was never angry nor fearful of such things, because I knew that I only had the interests of Singapore in my heart and we had operated so long without much intervention from the security department. What I was pissed at is the fact that being a gay activist, the government automatically label me as a security threat. I couldn’t fathom the reason for this for quite a long while, but now I seem to get it.

You see, the PAP government sees security threats in two ways; those that threaten the lives of Singaporeans and those who threaten the power of the PAP. Being a gay activists, we are involved in getting people see through the norms imposed by society and the fear to challenge the government on its status quo. Any civil movement activists in this sense will be a security threat to the PAP government, because they are asking people to think for themselves and be able to challenge the existing system for it. This is, of course, unthinkable for the PAP government.

And there lies the danger of having a single party so dominant for so long; there is no clear separation of power between the party and the government. Bills and laws are passed in favor of helping PAP keep in power while disadvantaging the opposition parties or dissenting voices. The government and police force cannot tell at difference between serving and protecting it citizen from serving and protecting PAP’s power. Even the election department and  the judiciary becomes a tool for the PAP to maintain their dominance.

I long to see a day when civil servants and the police are able to understand that their role is towards the citizens of Singapore, serving and protecting them from threats, fear and harm, even if its coming from the PAP.

I don’t really blame them for being ignorant, but what is worst is that some Buddhists themselves seems to take Dalai Lama’s words as fully authoritative for all Buddhists and that some of his views of Buddhism IS the only Buddhist view. That I am puzzled. What have they been learning?

So for the record, the Dalai Lama is not the Pope of Buddhism. Buddhism does not have a Pope. Neither are he views nor practices on Buddhism necessarily reflective or representative of all Buddhists views and practices. Basically, Buddhism, as of currently, can be divided into 4 main traditions (or practices).

All these traditions point to a different way of achieving the same thing: elightenment.

You have the Theravada, popular in Sri Lanka and most parts of Indo-China like Thailand and Laos. Next is a whole class of practice under Mahayana, which springs 2 more different practices: Zen and Tibetan Buddhism.

Each tradition have their own authorities and there are no sole authority for each tradition neither. Take for example Zen tradition in Korea, Japan, Vietname and other parts of the world have different authorities.

Now, the Dalai Lama belongs to the Tibetan Buddhism traditions. Within that tradition, there are currently four major sects, each with its own head and authority. The Dalai Lama is not the head of any of these sects. But he is considered a political head of Tibet. His spiritual authority, thus, is only derived from students who has taken him as a guru or those who see him as a teacher, and the rest of the “feel-good” junkies. I am not saying that the Dalai Lama is fake and that his teachings is not worth it. On the contrary, there are a lot of insight and wisdom in his teachings. I am talking about those “Michael Jackson/Madonna”-like fans who put the Dalai Lama up in a heavenly and untouchable pedestral.

So its really frustrating that whenever the DL says that gay sex is a sexual misconduct in Buddhism, (homophobic) Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike then claim that Buddism is, thus, homophobic and use it to no ends to condemn gay people with it. What he should be saying is that gay sex is a sexual misconduct only within the form and tradition of Buddhism that he knows and practices. What this means that if you are not a Tibetan Buddhist nor is he your guru or beloved teacher, you can safely ignore that part of his message. If you fall under his purview, then you might be a bit screwed if you believe what he said to be dogmatic truth without using your own brains. Sorry, but I really have no sympathy for such brainless devoution.

The other day, someone posted a reply by Ajahn Brahm to the Dalai Lama’s comments in heartland, which I thought would help of those out there confused by the DL’s message:

Ajahn Brahm today has written to the West Australian newspaper in response to an article published last week in which the Dalai Lama was quoted as saying that homosexuality was immoral. This article was first brought to the attention of Ajahn Brahm – the elected head of the Australian Sangha Association – by members of the BSWA’s Armadale Meditation Group who felt that the Dalai Lama’s comments were not in line with the Buddhist ethos. In his response Ajahn Brahm explains why, as follows….

*Dear Sir/Madam,

The Dalai Lama was out of line when he said (according to your article in the West, April 15, Page 7) “if you are a Buddhist, homosexuality is wrong. Full stop.” The Dalai Lama is not the ‘Pope’ of Buddhism and, charming as he often is, he sometimes gets it wrong. He is only the head of one of the four main sects of Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism) and he speaks only for his group.

The greater majority of Buddhists throughout the modern world are inspired to learn that the Buddha certainly did not discriminate against homosexuality. The core teachings of original Buddhism clearly show that it is not whether one is heterosexual, homosexual or celibate that is
good or bad, but it is how a person uses their sexual orientation that makes for good or bad karma. For example a gay man in a committed, loving and joyful relationship with a male partner is definitely morally superior to a straight married guy who is unfaithful to his wife. Homosexuality is not wrong per se. However, it is bad karma to condemn homosexuality out of hand!

The Dalai Lama’s error is to look for his guidance in dodgy scriptures composed many centuries after the time of the Buddha. So the fact is that the Buddha, and therefore Buddhism, embraces gays and lesbians and transsexuals with equity and respect. Too long has religious bigotry caused suffering to minority groups in our society. All religions should be more loving. Full stop!*

Ajahn Brahm

How did the “four-faced buddha”, so popular amongst some Singaporeans (and Thais, needless to say) who goes religiously to Erawan Shrine in Bangkok to “pay back wishes” and to worship, become confused with “a buddha”.

Firstly, when I say buddha (in small), I am talking about a being who is enlightened, full of wisdom, and had escaped the cycle of rebirth according to Buddhist teachings. Whereas the “Buddha” is the founding teacher of Buddhism. More importantly, a buddha:

• does not require your worshiping (he/she is not a god)
• does not grant you wishes, no matter how much you pray or offer
• does not require you to please him/her nor to return any promise for wishes you think you were granted
• he/she does not get angry, punish you, gets pissed off for offending him or not keeping your promise or not paying respect to him/her
• most important we don’t fear a buddha for one is loving, kind, compassion, joyful and generous.

If anyone describes a buddha with these characteristics, he/she is describing a petty deity, not a buddha or the Buddha.

Who is the four-faced buddha then?

The most probable explanation is that he (I used he for sake of convenience) is Brahma (the Hindu/Vedic  creator god) or one of the Brahmas as described in Buddhist texts occasionally. Why would he be confused as a buddha?

Thailand has long been practicing some form of Brahmanism (what we call Hinduism now) long before the arrival of Buddhism. Brahma, although usually worshiped, forms the trinity of creator, preserver and destroyer. Brahma is, of course, often depicted with four-faced and 4 pairs of hands. Over time in India and with the demise of Buddhism in India, the Buddha was somehow assimilated into Hinduism as they claimed that Buddha is just another avatar of Vishnu. Cross fertilization of teachings and worship introduced forms of Buddhism with Brahmic influence arose. So the practice of worshiping various deities also arose in later Buddhism. This mixed form of religion probably got into Thailand through the trade routes, together with the confusion of Brahma as a buddha. Over time, later Buddhism began to worship various Buddhas and deities and Brahma probably became one of the worshiped buddhas. This also explains why amulets and talisman and spells are so commonly associated with Buddhism in Thailand, mainly due to Hinduism and its local religion.

That said, it does not mind that Buddhist teaching have no mention of Brahma. In Buddhist teachings, Brahma is sometimes associated with wisdom or a sublime state of being. We must not forget also that during Buddha’s time, the Vedic tradition is very popular and sometimes teachings have to be explained using the language of the time.

In one text, the story goes that when The Buddha gained enlightenment, he could not decide whether to teach it to the rest of the people because its so difficult. Then Brahma appeared and convinced him to start teaching. Personally, I don’ t think that we can ever take these stories literally; rather, its probably explains the arising of the wisdom within the Buddha to see the benefit of teaching the Dharma to the masses. In the famous text called Brahma Vihara or the abode of Brahma, the Buddha teaches fellow Brahmans that they should develop the states of  loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity which will allow them to transcending into the abode of Brahma.

However, we must know that the idea of Brahma as the idea of a creator god concept, is rejected by Buddhist teachings as incomplete and incorrect.  In Buddhist view, a creator god is just a being who have lived for so long that they have witness the birth of this universe and thought that they had created it. Some of born together with the universe and its life span is tied to it and hence thought themselves as creator. These “creator gods” being still have a life span, albeit very long, and are subject to the same laws of rebirth and when their life span is up and they will too be reborn; and only a rebirth as a human (a bit chauvinistic, I must say) can one then be able to gain enlightenment, liberation and a way out of the rebirth cycle.

As such, I sometimes find it strange that some Hindu traditions can claim the Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu because a lot of Buddha’s teachings is directly against the teachings of the Hindu’s idea of a soul and rebirth.

Anyway, Buddhist teachings are considered only a guideline for a lay person. So whether or not you are Buddhist or not or whether you do follow the guidelines or not, it does not offend or anger anyone or any Buddhas. However, as a Buddhist it is important to know that the worship of the four-faced Buddha is not a Buddhist teaching and neither is the entity a “buddha” in anyway. No one, though, will or should stop you for worshiping it at Erawan or any of its shrine, neither should we show disrespect or disgust for Buddhism encourage respect towards other’s believe systems as long as it does not bring harm to oneself or others or does not cause a Buddhist to get the wrong idea of Buddhist teachings.

Want do we mean that society is not ready to have R-21 films close to home? If R-21 films are such bad influences shouldn’t they be simply banned in the first place? Who do the people think can watch R-21 films? 13/14 year old kids? Aren’t these films restricted to minors?

Also such a survey speaks nothing about misinformation or prejudice of the respondents. If you ask the same audience if they agree to allow foreign construction/migrant workers to rent their rooms or rent a flat next door to them, you may see the same or even more percentage not wanting this to happen. Does that mean that our ministry should prevent any of the workers from staying in HDB heartlands?

If 21 year old boys can be serve in the army to learn to kill an enemy, hold a gun, throw a grenade, fire a tank and command a company of men, what can R-21 films do that the army have not taught?

If having R-21 films at the heartland can be sure a bad influence,shouldn’t we banned cigarettes, alcohol and gambling at heartlands too? How many of us have seen 16/17 year old kids smoking, drinking and gambling around HDB towns? Aren’t these bad influences for kids? So why are these parents not asking for a ban of these from HDB heartlands also? What more, even though these have restricted  sales to minors, many can still get their hands on them through their older friends. Going to a cinema, on the other hand, is different because there is a gatekeeper at the door.

Furthermore if those kids want to get more sexually explicit or vulgar or violent contents, they can easily get those from the internet. Why need to pay $10 to watch some dumb censored films with nothing to see?