Mafia of Fake Monks Prey on Thailand Tourist
Mafia of Fake Monks Prey on Thailand Tourist
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This is the best info you have published in a long time. MORE OF THIS Andy!
Thank You, I am planning some interesting post for the future. For a post like this I have to put on my Reporter Hat, investigate and think, I spent a lot more than my normal 15 minutes of Blog time.
Hi Mr, Andy,
Great tip farmboy! Of course you are well aware of our versions on TV and such. One big glowing difference is, the entire world screams and hollers about those "damn scamming Christians", rather than seeing the scam artists for what they are. As you have here. You are bigger man than most, Charlie Brown.
Take Care.
Cornbread
Add the Fake Monks to a long list of widespread scams aimed at first time tourists visiting Thailand.
The police are backing all these scammers.
Photos of TOURIST MAFIA here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21533131@N06/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29324583@N05/
What the heck is the flap all about?? If you don't want to be "scammed" by "fake" monks, then just don't give them money!! Its as simple as that. They're just like any other beggars and you can decide whether or not to give them money - no one's holding a gun to your head! I don't see how it can be a major threat to tourism and a reason to get all hot around the collar. There are many, many worse things happening in Thailand than a few con artists begging for money. Get a life.
Too funny, yes very simple if you have already read this post.
Boy, if you received a book on grammar from any of these Fake Monks, you really got gypped.
A quick look at the so called fake monks is that they are from a
different tradition. The ones collecting money are dressed in the robes
commonly worn by the monks and nuns from buddha light international, a
mahayana worldwide movement from Taiwan. The monks and nuns of this sect
are mainly chinese and i would suspect that they have a least one and
maybe more monasterys in Thailand. Because they arent under the traditional
theravada sangha (thai)then maybe the laws associated to the sangha wouldnt
apply? And the common people wouldnt know who they are and wouldn;t
understand the different interpretations of the rules that the mahayana tradition
use. They may not be fake just different...
The consensus here on the ground as I have listened to Thailand locals is they should not be here. There is zero money collected from Thailand people, only the Tourist who cannot tell the difference.
I have an un-confirmed report that the Thailand police captured about 20-40 of them living in one room and deported them to China a month ago.
If you study the route of the Monks, they do not ciculate in any area where normal Thailand Monks could be walking and avoid the time schedules when Thailand Buddhist Monks are walking.
Anyway you do it, the Thailand peoople do not consider this something Thailand.
Yeah, I talked for a while with a fake monk in Hong Kong on a ferry a couple of years back. He had on the whole monk get-up, gave me the whole monk jive, asked for a donation, and this and that. When we got off the boat and I saw him around a corner in street clothes. I went up to him and could only laugh. This is an old time tradition in China which has references all through Chinese literature.
This was a real good posts and shows the real value of travel blogging - you can share real information with lots of people fairly quickly.
Walk Slow,
Wade
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