To Attend Temple With/Without Your Mother
(Bangkok, Thailand)
To attend Temple with your mother feels odd.
Attending my local Buddhist Temple back home in Pennsylvania was not a standard family practice. I would guess - between a holiday here and a festival there - I attended maybe around 30 times between the ages of 10 and 22. I fail to even know the Temple's name off the top of my head. It's Wat… something. Nice, Charlie.
Whenever we went, I resembled an embarrassed, lost child. My face definitely showed it. I swear, it looked like a deer in headlights. I never quite knew the order of things. Despite the abundance of heads, there was never anybody (other than my mother) to ask for guidance.
Our Temple, perched in a sea of Pennsyltuckian purple, was a Thai cultural oasis. Truly, it was as if you copied and pasted a Temple directly from Thailand onto Pennsylvanian grass. Every person (except for the unlucky few) in attendance spoke Thai. Lovely for my mother, who craved her homeland culture. Not so much for my siblings and me, who never learned the language. Thus, whenever mom would walk away from us - be it to snag food or use the toilet - the Mangan siblings flew solo. What results is a whole-body cringe experience. God. Everybody is looking at me. EVERYBODY is looking at me. I genuinely wanted to melt into goop.
My sister and I - who both present as white - always felt so out of place. Even when mom's sleeve was in snatching distance, our green and grey eyes pierced through the sea of brown dots. My curls certainly did not help. Strangely enough, my dad was never so out of place. Seeing one or two middle-aged white guys was pretty standard. Not so much for the Indie white kids. Facially, we crisply fit the bill for a couple of Irish Catholics. At least when the embarrassed children stalked their mother, people could put two and two together that we were hers.
Despite the abundance of tile and carpet, there was nowhere to walk. I cringed at the idea of taking risks. Beyond sitting in front of the Buddha and Wai-ing, I knew nothing. Why would I try to speak the little Thai I knew? Why would I offer money? Why would I order food? All those actions ran the risk of taking up space I had no right to take up. You definitely didn't see any other curly-headed boys doing those things. That potential for embarrassment would far outweigh the small (but mighty) amount I felt in that corner, sitting, looking at my phone while waiting for mom to return from the bathroom. Of course, a small Charlie in my posterior brain screamed for me to grow a pair and do something. I never did. I remained a guilty fly on the wall. Over the years, I've come to terms with that comfortable guilt.


Thai Day at Wat Mongkoltepmunee in Bensalem, PA.
Anyways, skip forward a bit to my trip to Thailand.
To attend Temple without your mother also feels odd. But it's also quite different. I was less out of place and less examined (at least, within my own cognition). Rather than being too afraid, I wondered if I was too noisy, or too extensive.
Funny enough, the first Temple I visited in Thailand was The Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which (as the name suggests) houses the holiest Buddhist icon in the country: the Emerald Buddha. Ironically enough, despite it being my first Temple experience sans my mom, I felt far less out of place. I was certainly not the only white person there. I attended with a few of my lovely fellow Fulbrighters, and the grounds were crawling with Farang, or Foreigners. Colloquially, anybody not from Thailand is a Farang, especially those from Europe and America.
I feel a tad dirty saying attended, though. One attends church, or one attends Temple. Attendance at a place of spirituality, I think, suggests some relationship between the self, the physical space, and some grander and larger umph. That said, the Grand Palace (the name for the grounds) felt less like a typical Temple attendance, and much more like a tourist locale… because it was. Within Thailands's booming tourism economy, the Grand Palace is a vital artery.
The staff was beyond prepared for us English Speakers and supplied a loaded tour of the grounds entirely in English. Our guide shared stories from the Ramakien, educated us on Thailand’s relationship with different parts of the globe, and lectured us on which kings built which temples, among other things. All interesting, digestible information. Nonetheless, it was moreso a tour than Temple.


Giant at the Grand Palace
At the end of the tour, we made it to the actual place of worship and came into contact with the Emerald Buddha. That was when our visit seemed more like an attendance, at least for myself. And what a beautiful chamber I attended. The walls were lined with murals dating back hundreds of years, and in front of the sitting area was what seemed like a golden army of icons and statues, each stacked up upon one other. At the very top of the glimmering mountain sat the Emerald Buddha. While the rest of the Palace was foreign, the actions of this one room - paying respect to Buddha - was something I knew very well.
I suddenly felt a kind, new sense of authority. I was comfortable. Sitting down, I physically knew what to do. I knew the niceties and customs - none of that seemed unordinary. I had to smile. This was a new and thrilling beginning. This moment of comfort would be the first of many to come. I dreamed of frictionless assimilation into Thai culture. I was giddy. How could I not be?
Gazing out at my neighbors, I was transfixed. Of course, there were genuine attendees; I would guess some 20-something Thai people split among individuals, couples, and families. However, a dense stream of Farang entered and exited the damp chamber, all speaking different languages. I picked up bits of French, Italian, Chinese, and Hindi, among others. Some of the Farang were respectful. Some less so. Some were louder. A Mother scrolled through her Instagram. Two men in front of me pointed their feet toward the Buddha. A tall, young man spoke unknown Italian words into his phone. A child cried.
I was high on anger and judgment. For a moment, I forgot that I was a Farang. I was something else. More importantly, who did these loud Farangs think they were? Being loud, rude, boisterous, and inconsiderate in front of the most iconic Buddha in Thailand? To them, this room was no different than Times Square. My ego spiked higher than it had ever been in Pennsylvania.
After sitting with my own thoughts and allowing the air of the stunning room to cleanse my angry, hot breath, I asked my friends if they wanted to leave, and we did. On the way out, I took a quick photo of the Buddha. Immediately, I was directed by a worker to delete it. This moment lasted less than 2 seconds. A finger-point towards a small sign, and a “kaw toht khrup,” - I’m sorry.
My heart sank. How could I not have known that? I felt a hanging sensation in my throat. I was no different from the man speaking Italian into his iPhone, nor the mother checking her social media. Of course, I immediately deleted the photo and apologized, but the moment was anything but momentary. It hung in my throat for the rest of the day. Typing this out now, I can still feel it hang. It had been about 1 week since our arrival in Bangkok, and I had just begun to be proud of my bravery - I was speaking as much (of the little) Thai I knew with locals, I spent a few mornings walking about local markets and ordering food, I was traveling to many parts of Bangkok. At that moment, all that pride flushed away, reddening my cheeks. I was that same idiotic Farang.




Wat Phra Kaew
Image from Ramakien Mural
Was I being too loud? Am I still too loud? Before, I thought Thailand was my space to take up and use for my growth and learning… but maybe that is not true. True, I am half-Thai. But also, I am an American. I was raised in an American family. I spoke English, the dominating language of the world, fluently. I possess an American passport. No matter my heritage, I was still an American. A loud one, at that. My brief dream of frictionless cultural assimilation vanished. I could never forget where I came from. I left the Palace that day craving a quieter Charlie. So, for a little while, I was. I also wanted to melt into goop again. That hasn't happened yet.
A part of me wants to believe that my Farang identity is not black and white. Still, I sometimes compare myself to that loud Italian man at the service. In some respects, I am more similar to him than the Thai man that sat in front of me. And yet, in others, the opposite is true. Since my last blog post, my overthinking brain has chewed plenty on the idea of bravery. I have often thought: "Charlie, you must be brave to grow," thinking that my bravery could only stem from being confident and correct. Do all the work you can ahead of time to minimize your mistakes, such that you can be crisp and clear with what you say and do in the real world. Since the Palace, I'm learning that bravery can be birthed from the unsure. It certainly can be from mistakes. As I tell my students - mistakes are beautiful. Knowing you've made a mistake means you are learning.
That day provided fantastic practice in allowing embarrassment to flush through my body. Each day, it becomes less a practice and more an everyday habit. Or is it an occurrence? It is difficult to tell if I am doing the work or if the universe is imposing itself on me. Nonetheless, I think (I hope) I’ve become braver - through the unsure, through the incorrect, through the goop, through the feelings of oddity.


Me and some of my lovely fellow Fulbright ETAs :)
(Henny, Me, Clay, Veronica)
Phra Thinang Chakri Maha Prasat
Phra Ubosot