Good Daughter, Bad Daughter

In Thai culture, the youngest child looks after the parents. In Tina's case (Tina's our guide) she is the youngest of 8 children, and also the only one who has a university education. It's up to her to look after her mother but, mother and her 7 siblings are considered equal and so, whatever she gives to her mother she must also give to each of her siblings. "If I have 1000 baht, I cannot give 500 to my mother. If I do, I am a bad daughter. I must give an equal amount to each brother and sister. I also cannot keep it all for myself. I cannot let my mother go alone to the market. If I do, all my friends will call me and tell me I am a bad daughter."

In Buddhism, which is not a religioon but a philosophy of life, you must respect your parents above all else. In addition, they believe strongly in the adage to forgive and forget. This they practice daily, beginning each day anew. The hurts of yesterday are forgiven and forgotten and each day is fresh and new.

"It's better to swallow angry words than to eat them."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Summer Palace

Image
Wow. Our days are full of strange sights and long hours. In the bus every morning at 7:00, and never home before 5:00. The summer palace was built by Rama V to commemorate the village where he met his wife. How romantic is that! Lo hiding between the antlers The gardens are gorgeous, with topiary herds of elephants, deer and rabbits. Sounds of peacocks echo through the gardens but they remained frustratingly elusive. Their cries were augmented by the screech of other unseen birds in faraway branches. But we did see an amazing variety of bougainvillea in all colours. Hans standing by the elephant's trunk. From the walls in the Reception Hall, yellowing faded faces of Ramas I to IX gazed out from acestral photos. Each Rama is believed to be an incarnation of Vishnu. Other rooms held lacquered furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl and stunning teak carvings. As with all Buddhist buildings, we have to remove our shoes and in some cases, we were asked the night before to dress respectfu...
Read more

At Sea

Image
Today we were scheduled to stop in Marseille but overnight the wind picked up and we apparently have heavy swells. Too heavy to allow a vessel of this size to dock safely, so the port was cancelled. Didn’t matter much to us since we hadn’t scheduled a tour and were just planning to take the shuttle into the old part of the city for a walkabout. Instead, we have a day at sea and that’s never a bad thing when you’re on a fabulous cruise liner. Already, I was part of a losing team at a game this morning and now I’m catching up on blogging. Later, who knows? There’s never a shortage of things to do on the ship. And there’s always the fitness room. I can only hope it will be full.
Read more