“Cool Monk” Photograph

This photograph reminds of when I first arrived in Thailand back in 1996 and had a two-week village homestay as part of cultural and language training. At the local temple there was a young monk who was very relaxed, wore sunglasses and always had a good-quality SLR camera slung over his shoulder. All us foreigners thought he was cool guy but our Thai teachers were less impressed.

For us perhaps the best lesson about Thailand from this was that although his style was not really appropriate for a monk, he could be like that and nobody was going to stop him. Disapproval would never be expressed directly in a confrontational manner and if it was shown it would come in more subtle ways that as newcomers we would probably fail to notice.

Photograph taken in Yaowarat, Bangkok, Thailand