Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Some Religions

Buddhism was an obvious one and there were a lot of pagodas on the agenda. This Buddha here is actually in Angkor Wat and the people of Siem Reap worshipped him, so they maintained his appearance by changing out his orange sashes and updating his flowers.


The Cao Dai religion is like a cheap knock-off of the Baha'i faith. Their main symbol was a cross made out of little versions of all the gods they worshipped (like Buddha, Confucius and Christ, to name a few) and they were really into colors. The hearse they had parked outside their temple looked like a clown car and I took a million pictures of it, wondering when the parade was going to start before some one told me its actual purpose. When we walked inside the temple, two people were in there receiving "treatments" for their "head aches" that consisted of some Cao Dai volunteers poking various spots on their faces with high-end chopsticks. A ceremony was about to start and the participants looked like rainbow KKK members. I was confused, but I could tell some of the other Westerners I was with were thinking they had finally found a suitable religion that might cure their arthritis.

I prayed to this Deity multiple times a day to stay cool in the face-burning heat. The first prayer of the day was usually before noon.

This guy was on the TV every night. I could never tell what he was saying, but it was definitely a call to action and he always came on when I was alone, so I was worried no one believed me. That's why I had to take this picture.

Despite the fact that Christianity was only cool in 8th grade because you could go on snow retreats with other people's youth groups, international Christianity is kind of bad ass.

No comments: