Blessed be the Burger

Imagine you only had two meals a day, while there is plenty of tempting food all around you. Yes, you’d have to live with just breakfast and lunch, and nothing after noon. If that were me, going without dinner, you probably wouldn’t want to be anywhere around me in the evening. I might just as well bite your head off, literally and figuratively speaking.

Luckily, I’m not a monk so you’re safe as long as you keep me well fed J

However, as if the “two-meals-only” rule weren’t bad enough, the monks don’t have a choice of what they’ll eat.  Early morning, they walk the streets around their temples to collect food from good Buddhists, who want to “make merit” (collect good karma pointsJ) So, sometimes the monks get lots of good food and sometimes they get instant noodles or a little money and then, they can buy small meals themselves.

When asked about their favourite food, most of the monks tell me, they like everything. They don’t care what they eat. Sometimes they don’t even eat lunch, saying they’re not hungry. So it was quite a surprise to hear one of them say that he likes hamburgers. “I only ate it once” he said … “but it was soo good”.  “Hamburger beef, soo good” ... his eyes lit up when he remembered the one time he tried Western fast food.  “Can I get you one?”, I asked, not sure of the etiquette, would it be ok, if I gave him food, not during his morning round (as I doubt McDo is open before sunrise) but later, just before the noon deadline. “Yes, why not?” he replied and I promised that I’ll get him a “burger beef” the next day.

I can hardly imagine anything more embarrassing than going to a fast food joint in Thailand, a.k.a. the food paradise. You can get a good local meal for as little as 25 Baht (about 60 Eurocents) whereas you pay 135 Baht for a Big Mac Menu. But there I was. I marched into the empty restaurant and asked for a burger. And because I didn’t want to walk the 20 minutes to school, sporting a McDo bag, I took my own plastic bag from a bookshop to cover it up.

I was greeted with cheers. “Maria, you have a burger?” His eyes bright with expectation. “Yes, enjoy your meal!” I put the bag on the table in front of him and was expecting him, to dig in and savour the moment. However, it’s not as easy as that. First, he asked me to put my hands together. So I followed his example. He half-closed his eyes and began to chant in Thai, most probably thanking this generous stranger for his meal and wishing me well. I can only assume, as he said the last few words in English: “may you be happy, rich and loved”.  And then, slowly he took his first bite.

   Champa and his "burger beef"