Is the Kathu Temple involved in a zero dollar Chinese tour scam?

[webfact]

Is the Kathu Temple involved in a zero dollar Chinese tour scam?

By Tim Newton

 

 

Hundreds of Chinese tour buses are clogging the tiny streets around ‘old Kathu’ on the northern side of Phra Phuket Kaew Road every day to drop the tourists off at the Kathu Temple. The temple now has a full commercial operation offering religious amulets, some of them selling for 20,000 baht and more.

 

Tourists are guided around some of the temple’s displays and artefacts, and told stories about the displays, real or otherwise.

 

Spotlight Phuket, who went public with the story of police corruption in Patong last October, has described the commercial enterprise as a ‘scam’.

 

Full story: https://thethaiger.com/news/kathu-temple-involved-zero-dollar-chinese-tour-scam

 

-- © Copyright The Thaiger 2018-12-12

[Enoon]

 

They think that bits of junk are "lucky".

 

They brought that belief with them from China.

 

They're not being conned, it is considered to be "truth" in Thailand (the Thai PM has a different "lucky" bracelet for each day of the week).

 

It's not like a trade description regulation is being violated.

 

Or are these not "real" pieces of "lucky" junk?

 

Are the stories they are told about them not "real" fantastical myths from the past?

 

What's the problem?.....the volume of sales, the prices?.....or their idiotic belief?

 

 

 

Edited December 12, 2018 by Enoon

[Lupatria]

Pffffft how many "temples" are there not involved of any scams?

[quadperfect]

Scam the chinese till they never come back. This will help with the congestion.

Justlive and let live. Scaming monks or not

[mok199]

No surprise here...

[Phuketshrew]

Seems perfectly normal for the Thai version of Buddhism ...