I was at the Phra Khanong intersection last week buying candy for a little Christmas party we were having at my school when I spotted them again.
HONK FOR JESUS, PLEASE!: The sign reads, ‘Believing in Jesus Christ will save you from going to hell.’
With just days to go before Christmas, 'tis the season to be generous and kind and all those other touchy-feely emotions.
Part of this requires a small party for my students, so I was out purchasing chips and chocolate, though not nuts, since two of my students have severe, if not histrionic, nut allergies.
Yes, such a fact does bother me a little, as now I have to glance at every chocolate bar wrapper to make sure it doesn't say "May contain traces of nuts". I myself can't imagine a life devoid of Skippy Peanut Butter and Lindt Christmas Hazelnuts, but in the spirit of goodwill we are going to have a party more nut-less than any Chinese imperial court ever was.
It was during this shopping spree that I witnessed the return of the Polish Christians on the busy Phra Khanong intersection this week.
Polish Christians? Do I have a thing against Poles? No, of course not.
"Polish Christians" is a name I coined when I spotted them for the first time about three years ago. It's a play on the word "pole" and I thought it was quite clever at the time; the stark passage of time makes me feel otherwise, but nevertheless the moniker has stuck.
I'd been at the Queen Sirikit Convention Centre during the National Book Fair, signing my latest tome for my adoring masses (numbering no more than three at any given time _ four if you include the paid help). As I left the centre on the back of a motorbike taxi and we turned onto Rama IV, I witnessed something I had never seen before.
It was a Western woman, standing on the corner of the busy Rama IV-Ratchadaphisek intersection. She had long straggly brown hair that was matted against her face, being a typical stinking hot April day.
She had a look somewhere between a scowl and resignation as she stared down at the sidewalk at nothing in particular.
And she clutched a pole.
It was probably about two to three metres in length, held vertically, with a speaker at the top blasting out something in Thai that was drowned out by the passing traffic.
And there, just below the speaker, was a big sign attached: JESUS IS THE WAY.
A little further down Rama IV and there was another pole-bearing farang, only this one was a man with a dishevelled beard, the obligatory fashion accessory for any lunatic fringe, and unkempt hair. Why is it orthodox Christians eschew combs?
He, too, had a look of unhappiness on his face, despite a sign trumpeting JESUS DIED FOR YOUR SINS in Thai on the end of his pole. Maybe the prawns in his lunchtime pad Thai were a little off, but it appeared his life had a lot to grimace about.
I wonder how many converts these Polish Christians got that day. Did any Buddhist Thai, manoeuvring the chaotic Rama IV traffic, stop to glance at their signs only to realise Jesus died for their sins?
I can just imagine the reaction: "Why on Earth would he do that? The karma's gonna come back and bite me in the bum at some later date no matter what he does, so what's the point of him dying for me?"
Similarly, I wonder if any motorcyclist, upon hearing the unintelligible gabble from the loud speaker, looked up to see that Jesus was the way? And there he was thinking it was Rama IV!
I once watched a very interesting documentary where a leading neurologist claimed he had pinpointed the exact part of the brain that lights up in orthodox religious people when they start going on about God. He alluded that deep belief was a kind of mental disease that, perhaps, needed to be treated.
Food for thought. I can't think of any other explanation for Western men and women to stand themselves on busy inner-city Bangkok intersections with loudspeakers and cryptic signs about death and stuff, looking forlorn and miserable.
My Polish Christians are just the latest in a centuries-old battle to get those pagan Buddhists to convert to Christianity, saving them from the eternal fires of hell.
(This is Christianity's dirty little secret: If you don't believe, you are doomed to an eternal life with Lucifer. The road to hell is paved with Buddhist monks? Come on, guys!)
It has been a battle that the Christians have sorely lost, but not for a lack of trying.
Visit a remote hill tribe village and you will see the remains of these attempts. I remember spending three hours in the back of a pickup truck weaving through northern Thai mountains that I am sure were picturesque; if only I could have taken the focus off my painful backside from all the bumps in the road for a few seconds to appreciate the view.
There in the middle of this village was a wooden church. It turns out that 100 years ago, Catholic missionaries did a sweep of northern Thailand, offering trinkets in exchange for a promise to follow Christianity.
The villagers agreed. Village after village fell to the Christians. The missionaries left feeling they'd secured their places in heaven.
Not so fast, fathers. Returning to the villages some time later, it was discovered the locals were indeed praying to Jesus as well as still praying to the Lord Buddha. It never occurred to them that praying to one deity automatically meant excluding the other! You can imagine how the missionaries felt about that.
In 2012, Christians make up 2% of the Thai population. Heaven is truly underrepresented by Thais, it seems, while the other place must be positively brimming with sanook.
I know that the woman and man I dubbed the Polish Christians are not representative of Christians, no more than Osama bin Laden is representative of Muslims. Let's face it; what person of sane mind would hold up such a sign in such a place for such a purpose?
I do worry, though, that this vocal lunatic fringe is sometimes mistaken for the religion. Look at the well-respected, though crazy, fundamentalist Christian leaders who came out last week and claimed those poor children at Sandy Hook Elementary School were killed because "God isn't allowed in our schools". Another said it was because of same-sex marriage and abortion laws.
These priests and proselytisers are enough to make me turn not to Jesus Christ for happiness at Christmas, but to Santa Claus, as the entire Kingdom of Thailand sensibly does. Which is why, while shopping for non-peanut food at the Phra Khanong intersection last Monday, I got the surprise of my life.
The Polish Christians are back!
Two of 'em, only this time a man and a woman of Thai nationality, not farang!
Could it be times are tough in the fundamentalist Christian world, and while beards remain untrimmed, budgets are not? Or maybe religious proselytising now requires a work permit?
Once again they were holding their signs with unintelligible words spewing out of speakers. And they were still there well into the night, because now they have installed lighting on their signs.
My hands were full of bags of candy so I was unable to snap a photo of them for you to see. But at least I now know the similarity between candy wrappers and religion: Both contain traces of nuts.
But enough of the lunatics. It's two days before Christmas. Let's stop and share the love, regardless of religion, and celebrate our humanity.
Merry Christmas, dear reader!
