I was up early in the morning touring the ruins of Ayutthaya when I spotted a young Buddhist boy with a shaved head and a bright orange robe wandering the grounds. I tried to sneak a few photographs of him, but when he noticed me, he ran up to me with a big smile on his face. He asked whether he could practice his English on me. His English actually seemed pretty good, but I sat down with him to help him work out a few kinks in his communication skills. He had an English-Thai translation book handy.
I was quite surprised to learn that he was only seven years old (or possibly he mixed the number up with eleven). He had been a Buddhist for three years and was about to embark on a trip to Germany to study at an English-language monastery for five years—all by himself (without family)! He was actually on his way to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) to meet his girlfriend before flying off to Europe. She was also 7. He showed me a picture of her. She was Chinese and met him on a family vacation to his hometown in Thailand. He had written her a love letter and asked me to proofread it for him. I think he wanted help with pronouncing it because he had only known how to look up the written translation in his books.
He seemed quite keen on women for his age, asking me what I thought of Thai women and expressing a preference for lighter-skinned Chinese women. I asked him whether he liked German women (seeing as he was headed in that direction anyway) and he told me they were “too long”.
Talking with him confirmed what I had heard last year when I was here: that many Buddhist monks are practising only as a form of social support. In his case, he seemed to be practising to get support and a free education. He even told me he was planning to quit when he turned 19 (after high school). Buddhism seems to serve as the social safety net in these parts.
I spent a few hours talking with him. I felt kind of cool walking around with this guy most Thais seemed to have such high reverence for, bowing before him and expressing their personal thoughts to him in Thai. At one point, I think a security guard took advantage of him by telling him he wasn’t getting a lunch break and needed food. The 7-year-old monk promptly forked over all the food he had in his satchel. I felt kind of bad for him and took him out to lunch afterwards, even though he had already shown me his ATM card. Minutes later, a partially blind Thai woman would kneel before him, asking for a blessing or prayer. In exchange, she left him a Coke. He seemed kind of embarrassed about it in front of me, but I found it interesting to see how the exchange of food would probably work out between him and others in the end, after all.
Needless to say, he was very mature for his age. I couldn’t believe it when he told me he was only seven. I think he was lonely travelling on his own and thought we were going to spend the whole day together, but I had to shake him loose after lunch. Interesting experience, anyway…
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