Chanthaburi, Thailand: An Uncertain Religious Experience (cont.)

I know the elephant is the symbol of Thailand and the rabbit is that of Chanthaburi, but the rest are lost on me.  Beyond all the tables, along the back wall of the room, are several glass-covered cases containing gold statues of a familiar sitting Buddha.  Off to the left of the case is a plain shelf holding brown boxes with a sign above it that I can’t read. 

Beer stops to read it.  She digs through one of the boxes and walks away with a handful of long sticks coated with the same reddish-pink substance as matches.  A bird flies through the window and around the room in wide circles.  It is only the three of us here.

I follow Beer into the next room.  The walls are barren and the pillars are covered in gecko shit.  There are more tables with flowers, plants, statues and a small glass case containing a burning flame.  She opens the front of the case and puts the end of the sticks into the fire, igniting each tip with a percussive orange flare. 

“I put these,” she says while motioning a circle with her hand.     

I stay a short distance back from Beer as she walks across the room, placing three of the glowing sticks into three small pots that stand in front of the Buddha statues.

When she is done, she then walks across the room, around the far end of the hole in the floor, to where a larger pot is placed on a high table in front of the window overlooking the courtyard.  She moves a small, wooden step over to the table and places her last three sticks inside.  We walk back down the staircase together, put our shoes on and walk outside.

In the courtyard there are two lines of people stemming towards pair of tables covered with flowers, statues and two glass cases holding small, brown, withered, human bodies.  At the head of the line each person presses their palms together in front of the mummified bodies and bow.  They linger for a moment and then leave, letting the next person to step up and repeat the process.

“Usually I don’t like coming here,” Beer says softly as we move through the courtyard.

Toward the center of the courtyard, directly in line with the entrance gate, is a table with another glass-covered flame sitting at the end of it.  Beer takes a stick from this table and delicately places its tip in the fire.  She carries the flaming stick to a trashcan in the middle of the courtyard and takes out the piece of paper she filled out earlier.  Beer cautiously holds the paper over the trashcan but the fire goes out before she can light the paper.  She goes back to relight, but it happens again. 

Beer sighs loudly and gives me a frustrated look, and after speaking to a man who is standing between the different tables, returns to the flame and places the paper directly inside. She runs over to the trash before the fire can reach her hand and drops the burning paper into the bin.

As we leave she points over to the tables with the mummies on them. 

“Man, woman,” she says.  Between the flowers and one of the larger glass cases is a smaller case.  Inside, no more than five inches long, is a round, brown object curled slightly and wrapped in a white cloth. 

“Baby,” she says. “You see?” 

I nod. 

“We call them nangfa.  Angels.”

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