Bangkok (Lonely Planet) - Andrew Burke [36]
Bangkok women typically control the family finances, and are more likely than men to inherit real estate. Women constitute close to half of the city’s workforce, outranking many world capitals. In fields such as economics, academia and health services, women hold a majority of the professional positions – 80% of all Thai dentists, for example, are female.
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A CITY OF FAITHS
All of Bangkok’s diverse cultures pay respect to the Thai king. The monarchy is considered one of the most important stabilising influences in modern Thai political and cultural life, and on Coronation Day and the King’s Birthday the city is festooned with strings of lights and portraits of the king.
Theravada Buddhism
Another cultural constant is Theravada Buddhism, the world’s oldest and most traditional Buddhist sect. Around 90% of Bangkokians are Buddhists, who believe that individuals work out their own paths to nibbana (nirvana) through a combination of good works, meditation and study of the dhamma or Buddhist philosophy. The social and administrative centre for Thai Buddhism is the wát or monastery, a walled compound containing several buildings constructed in the traditional Thai style with steep, swooping roof lines and colourful interior murals; the most important structures contain solemn Buddha statues cast in bronze. The sheer number of wáts scattered around the city – more than 300 – serves as a constant reminder that Buddhism retains a certain dominance, even in increasingly secular Bangkok.
Walk the streets of Bangkok early in the morning and you’ll catch the flash of shaved heads bobbing above bright ochre robes, as monks all over the city engage in bin·tá·bàht, the daily house-to-house alms food-gathering. Thai men are expected to shave their heads and don monastic robes temporarily at least once in their lives. Some enter the monkhood twice, first as 10-vow novices in their preteen years and again as fully ordained, 227-vow monks sometime after the age of 20. Monks depend on the faithful for their daily meals, permitted only before noon and collected in large, black-lacquered bowls from lay devotees.
Guardian Spirits
Animism predates the arrival of all other religions in Bangkok, and it still plays an important role in the everyday life of most city residents. Believing that prá poom or guardian spirits inhabit rivers, canals, trees and other natural features, and that these spirits must be placated whenever humans trespass upon or make use of these features, the Thais build spirit shrines to house the displaced spirits. These dollhouse-like structures perch on wood or cement pillars next to their homes and receive daily offerings of rice, fruit, flowers and water. Peek inside the smaller, more modest spirit homes and you’ll typically see a collection of ceramic or plastic figurines representing the property’s guardian spirits.
Larger and more elaborate spirit shrines stand alongside hotels and office buildings, and may contain elaborate bronze images of Brahma or Shiva. Undoubtedly Bangkok’s most famous example of this is the shrine to Lord Brahma at the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel, which has become a tourist destination in its own right. At virtually all times of the day and night, you’ll see Thais kneeling before such shrines to offer stacks of flowers, incense and candles, and to pray for favours from these Indian ‘spirit kings’.
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THE CHINESE INFLUENCE
In many ways Bangkok is a Chinese, as much as a Thai, city. The presence of the Chinese in Bangkok dates back to before the founding of the city, when Thonburi Si Mahasamut was little more