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Buddhists, just like other priests.
Posted: Sat Aug 24, 2013 12:29 am
by Gob
Phey Sihawong took an instant liking to fresh-faced monk Wirapol Sukphol, who, in 2000, moved into Nom Jan village in the Si Sa Ket district of Thailand's Isaan region.
The 70-year-old grandmother often cooked Wirapol's favourite wild-mushroom curry and carried it to his hut, even though her bones ached from working dawn to dusk in the rice paddies. "There was something special about the monk," she says. "He made people feel good to be around him. He was a holy man and people said he had special powers."
Phey didn't mind her granddaughter, Ying, going to the monk's hut to clean for him. She was barely 13 and widely considered to be the most beautiful girl in the village, but this monk had taken a vow to lead a life of celibacy and simplicity. "It gave Ying merit with Buddha," says Phey.
"I never thought anything bad would happen."
Wirapol began to frequently drop by the small wooden house where Phey, earning just 100 Thai baht ($3.50) a day in the fields, struggled to care for Ying, whose parents had died before she could crawl. "Hey, Ying. Come with me and I'll buy you a present," she remembers Wirapol saying to the teenager. He bought her a gold necklace and other gifts, suspiciously extravagant spending for a monk who carried a bowl to collect alms in the village each morning.
It came as a shock to Ying when, sometime later, while she was tidying his hut, he forced himself on her. "I tried to push him away, but I didn't know about the world," she says, cupping her face in her hands to hide her embarrassment.
When her granddaughter fell pregnant to the monk she'd trusted, Phey was angry and confronted him. "I said, 'What about the baby? How can Ying care for a baby?' But the monk said it will be okay, he will look after them."
It was the beginning of a fall from grace so spectacular that it has captured an entire nation's attention and thrust a 33-year-old monk into the centre of Thailand's biggest religious scandal, prompting unprecedented calls for regulation of its 200,000-strong monkhood.
Read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/in-the-n ... z2cqFoQlX0
Re: Buddhists, just like other priests.
Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 7:48 pm
by dgs49
This is the most interesting part..."it has captured an entire nation's attention."
A young man couldn't keep his pecker in his pants when confronted with a beautiful young lady - hardly an unexpected event. Apparently this is extremely rare, and that's what's remarkable.
Re: Buddhists, just like other priests.
Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 9:16 pm
by Lord Jim
Dave, this is the second time today that I've read a post yours that I find extremely disheartening...
A young man couldn't keep his pecker in his pants when confronted with a beautiful young lady - hardly an unexpected event. Apparently this is extremely rare, and that's what's remarkable.
So you're referring to the pairing of a
33 year old man and a "barely" 13 year old girl as a "young man"and a "young lady"...
As though you were discussing a pair of 17 year olds...
And then you apparently wonder at why
more 33 year old men aren't forcing themselves on 13 year old girls...
Tell me Dave, if this had happened to
your daughter when she was 13, would you have been so sanguine about it? Would you have seen a 33 year old as a "young man" just doing what comes naturally?
Please tell me your post was an attempt at humor...
Re: Buddhists, just like other priests.
Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 2:12 pm
by dgs49
Jimmy, I think your perspective is a little distorted by your domestic circumstances.
OF COURSE this is outrageous behavior! But a single incident captivating an entire nation for many days is an indication of how extremely rare it is. In the U.S., when a minister or teacher is caught in such an act it hits the LOCAL news for a day or two and then we move on. Here in my neighborhood a grade school principle was arrested yesterday for offering a blowjob to a 17-year-old boy. Did you see it in your local newspapers?
I rather doubt it.
As I said, the most remarkable thing about this story is not that it occurred, but that this single incident is such a big deal (so extremely rare and outrageous in Thailand).
Re: Buddhists, just like other priests.
Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 12:53 am
by Lord Jim
the most remarkable thing about this story is not that it occurred, but that this single incident is such a big deal (so extremely rare and outrageous in Thailand).
I'm not sure that this indicates the rareness of the incidence...
Perhaps only the rareness of the reporting...
I recall that almost 30 years ago, when the child molestation stories about Catholic Priests in the US were first hitting the news, (my father told me a rather tasteless joke about it: "How do you get a nun pregnant? Dress her like an Altar Boy..." ) that there were some within The Vatican who were claiming this was an, "American problem"...
I predicted at the time (correctly, as it has turned out; when you look at the record in Europe and Latin America) that the only reason that this problem had become more evident in the US sooner, was because other societies were burying it deeper...