Defacing The Country-side

[BlackArtemis]

I can not count how many times I have seen a heap of spirit houses dumped along the side of a highway and garbage along side. This tells me that people have no respect for their society, culture or religion.

They justify this by saying it is a special place to leave used spirit houses. My wife asked me to do the same to ours, leaving it on a heap near Hang Dong. But I gave it away instead to someone who really could use it!

Maybe you don't understand why the spirit houses are allegedly 'dumped'.

One of the main reasons why you might see a single spirit house by the road is because someone they loved was killed there by a car accident.

Another reason is too bless a certain area or maybe a tree.

Another reason is, because they moved, they have taken their spirit house to be left by the side of the road for security...

I'm NOT talking one I'm talking 6 to 20 with garbage along side of the road. That is total disrespect for a religion, culture and society. There is noway anybody can defend this or explain it away.

The ones that are leaning over and broken correct? That's what I immediately thought of when you mentioned it.

I heave seen both, but your post definitely brought the image of all those carelessly thrown, broken, smashed and mixed with garbage spirit houses.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

They're not dumped, they're placed at particular spots (usually under a Bodhi Tree) when a new spirit house is placed. The whole point is that spirit houses should NOT go into the trash.

[gotlost]

They're not dumped, they're placed at particular spots (usually under a Bodhi Tree) when a new spirit house is placed. The whole point is that spirit houses should NOT go into the trash.

No Buddha tree where I have seen them. Just thrown as trash with NO respect.

[getgoin]

I can not count how many times I have seen a heap of spirit houses dumped along the side of a highway and garbage along side. This tells me that people have no respect for their society, culture or religion.

They justify this by saying it is a special place to leave used spirit houses. My wife asked me to do the same to ours, leaving it on a heap near Hang Dong. But I gave it away instead to someone who really could use it!

Maybe you don't understand why the spirit houses are allegedly 'dumped'.

One of the main reasons why you might see a single spirit house by the road is because someone they loved was killed there by a car accident.

Another reason is too bless a certain area or maybe a tree.

Another reason is, because they moved, they have taken their spirit house to be left by the side of the road for security...

I'm NOT talking one I'm talking 6 to 20 with garbage along side of the road. That is total disrespect for a religion, culture and society. There is noway anybody can defend this or explain it away.

I hate to say this but a lot of the spirit houses are dumped there by the Christians. One of the big dumps is out near the 3rd ring road in Hung Dong. I am disappointed in the lack of respect for another religious culture. I would think that they would leave the spirit houses in their home compounds for another spirit that they believe in, the Holy Ghost. I'm would also wonder how they would feel if people just dumped crosses and ceramic Nativity scenes like it was so much garbage. At least have the decency to leave them erect and neat.

[mccw]

They're not dumped, they're placed at particular spots (usually under a Bodhi Tree) when a new spirit house is placed. The whole point is that spirit houses should NOT go into the trash.

They do throw them away on certain places, like the 20 + "spirit house gravegard" as my missus calls them, where they're a bit broke and over grown with weeds and things, very differrent to what your talking about. Apperrently these old spirit houses are thrown away after someone new moves in to the property and they'd like to replace the spirit house with a nice new one, so a cerromony is done and the spirits are all happy got a new place etc, and the old one is no longer needed but its still bad luck to just throw it away with the trash. Not all spirits are good you see, sometimes random wandering not so nice spirits can come and move in to the house, so when the ceromony to move the spirits happens your inviting the nice spirits over to the new place and getting rid of the others, but obviously you wouldn't want to upset a nasty spirit too much or risk it coming back by carelessly chucking it out with the trash, so these spirit house graveyards form around the place far enough away from peoples property and things not to risk the spirits returning. Normally theres not much trash on these places, maybe blown in from a bit down the road or from thrown out a car window, but people not want to physically put a bag of trash on that place coz scarry.

Its not didrespectful it all makes perfect sense.

I'm suprised any thai would take a second hand spirit house; but houses and other things can be clensed if done right, but most wouldn't take the risk.

About the trash throwing: this could change with somewhat with education, i remember when i was a kid people always throw their shit shit out the window car or judt drop it on the floor if no bin within a meter or 2, but then they had about 3 years of eco campains in school and so on, think sum adds on tv and things too and after about 5 years it became socially unacceptable, people would scold kids for drop litter and tell their mates not to do it or even pick it up themselves; like dog shit is starting to get the same treatment; combo of fines and enforcement coupled with education and awareness. It is possable to change.

Up in Fang round my missus familly village maybe the whole tambon they have regular trash collection and its all clean and nice allot more than in sankeampeng where rubbish all over the place. Local gov has allot to do with it i think.

Like i'm call up the fire reporting hotline a few times and they basically said to me don't bother coz this local gov basically couldn't give a monkeys and wont do anything about it. And they've just built themselves a massive new office building what looks like a posh hotel so plenty of money there obviously, just spending it on making themselves comfy instead of services for the people.

[mccw]

I hate to say this but a lot of the spirit houses are dumped there by the Christians. One of the big dumps is out near the 3rd ring road in Hung Dong. I am disappointed in the lack of respect for another religious culture. I would think that they would leave the spirit houses in their home compounds for another spirit that they believe in, the Holy Ghost. I'm would also wonder how they would feel if people just dumped crosses and ceramic Nativity scenes like it was so much garbage. At least have the decency to leave them erect and neat.

I did wonder about the broken ones, thought that must be well unlucky, but this explains it, must of been the christians, of course; not easy to break either being made of concrete, must of been really slinging it off the back thier truck

[gotlost]

I hate to say this but a lot of the spirit houses are dumped there by the Christians. One of the big dumps is out near the 3rd ring road in Hung Dong. I am disappointed in the lack of respect for another religious culture. I would think that they would leave the spirit houses in their home compounds for another spirit that they believe in, the Holy Ghost. I'm would also wonder how they would feel if people just dumped crosses and ceramic Nativity scenes like it was so much garbage. At least have the decency to leave them erect and neat.

I did wonder about the broken ones, thought that must be well unlucky, but this explains it, must of been the christians, of course; not easy to break either being made of concrete, must of been really slinging it off the back thier truck

Yea I agree. I have seen these piles from the north of Thailand to the southern most point. From the most isolated part of issan to Phuket. So it must be the Christians and Muslims. I don't think so.

[getgoin]

I hate to say this but a lot of the spirit houses are dumped there by the Christians. One of the big dumps is out near the 3rd ring road in Hung Dong. I am disappointed in the lack of respect for another religious culture. I would think that they would leave the spirit houses in their home compounds for another spirit that they believe in, the Holy Ghost. I'm would also wonder how they would feel if people just dumped crosses and ceramic Nativity scenes like it was so much garbage. At least have the decency to leave them erect and neat.

I did wonder about the broken ones, thought that must be well unlucky, but this explains it, must of been the christians, of course; not easy to break either being made of concrete, must of been really slinging it off the back thier truck

Yea I agree. I have seen these piles from the north of Thailand to the southern most point. From the most isolated part of issan to Phuket. So it must be the Christians and Muslims. I don't think so.

I thought we were discussing Chiang Mai?

[gotlost]

I hate to say this but a lot of the spirit houses are dumped there by the Christians. One of the big dumps is out near the 3rd ring road in Hung Dong. I am disappointed in the lack of respect for another religious culture. I would think that they would leave the spirit houses in their home compounds for another spirit that they believe in, the Holy Ghost. I'm would also wonder how they would feel if people just dumped crosses and ceramic Nativity scenes like it was so much garbage. At least have the decency to leave them erect and neat.

I did wonder about the broken ones, thought that must be well unlucky, but this explains it, must of been the christians, of course; not easy to break either being made of concrete, must of been really slinging it off the back thier truck

Yea I agree. I have seen these piles from the north of Thailand to the southern most point. From the most isolated part of issan to Phuket. So it must be the Christians and Muslims. I don't think so.

I thought we were discussing Chiang Mai?

We are.

[PeaceBlondie]

There aren't enough practicing Christians in my area to even account for the huge collection of discarded spirit houses at one corner of 1317.

I just asked my partner, who is a practicing Thai Buddhist who believes in good and bad ghosts. He said they carefully take the old houses to a collection point so the bad spirit has a place to stay.

[cmsally]

As I understand , it is like a spirit graveyard. I'm sure the trash is only left afterwards by people not particularly into spirit things or blown from elsewhere.

Quite frankly I can't believe the OP hasn't spotted those weird creations in OZ such as the giant pineapple and the giant canetoad (is there one of those?). I'm pretty sure there's a giant mackerel (or was it marlin ) somewhere.

For gods sake don't tell the Thais about them. I can see it now, a giant chilli, pork crackiling and sai ooa, on the super highway.

Welcome to CM folks....

[daoyai]

There aren't enough practicing Christians in my area to even account for the huge collection of discarded spirit houses at one corner of 1317.

I just asked my partner, who is a practicing Thai Buddhist who believes in good and bad ghosts. He said they carefully take the old houses to a collection point so the bad spirit has a place to stay.

Spirit slums.

[IanForbes]

There is a klong near my hotel in Chiang Mai and it is filled with plastic trash thrown in by residents along the stream, as well as those that toss stuff off the bridge. However, Thailand is not the only place where this happens. Mexico is terrible. Even well out in the countryside I always spent 20 minutes cleaning up plastic junk every time I wanted to take a photo. I should have just collected it and shown what the place was really like. Auzzies aren't any better. If you walk along any highway in Australia there is a 30 foot wide path on both sides of the road covered in broken glass... mostly beer bottles. I've spent an hour cleaning up the mess of popular campsites in Canada, only to return a week later to find the same thing again. The rich aren't much better. This was on a beach in a high end resort area. The yachters toss all their broken crap into the ocean. It's hard to find a place that DOESN'T have busted sandals floating around.

[mccw]

I hate to say this but a lot of the spirit houses are dumped there by the Christians. One of the big dumps is out near the 3rd ring road in Hung Dong. I am disappointed in the lack of respect for another religious culture. I would think that they would leave the spirit houses in their home compounds for another spirit that they believe in, the Holy Ghost. I'm would also wonder how they would feel if people just dumped crosses and ceramic Nativity scenes like it was so much garbage. At least have the decency to leave them erect and neat.

I did wonder about the broken ones, thought that must be well unlucky, but this explains it, must of been the christians, of course; not easy to break either being made of concrete, must of been really slinging it off the back thier truck

Yea I agree. I have seen these piles from the north of Thailand to the southern most point. From the most isolated part of issan to Phuket. So it must be the Christians and Muslims. I don't think so.

i was talking about the reason for the broken ones inparticular in regard to those of other religions but i wasnt 100% serious anyway of course they could topple over from another falling against it or knocking by animal or storm, falling branch etc etc.

[jaideeguy]

Back to the Op and his topic of all the many signs plastered every 100mtrs along the road to the jungle flight. I was up there last week and saw the same and commented to wife 'how do they get away with all that blatant advertisement?' and she says policy in the city is X amount of baht per sq mtr for advertisement on public places......maybe they are paying?? at any rate, it distracts from the natural beauty of the area and maybe some emails to them directly from us may have an impact.

I'm going to send one myself TO BOTH COMPANIES and hope others do as well......LET THEM KNOW!!!

[Toolz]

Back to the Op and his topic of all the many signs plastered every 100mtrs along the road to the jungle flight. I was up there last week

I was up there last week and *didn't* see. The have the plain, white-background signs about every 1000m (I didn't go all the way, I continued to the waterfall). They have a rather large unsightly banner at the turnoff. They also have the plastic advertising banners, hung higher up, but not quite as regularly as the former. The latter, although not that big (less than 1m tall by 50cm wide), are certainly excessive but they do not justify the vitriol in OP's post. He's obviously involved with FoG - who are certainly less abundant with their signs - only placing small ones at junctions.

FoG seem to be more secretive about their location, preferring to sign up the suckers ... erm I mean customers ... downtown and bus them in. Takes a bit of research to find that they're located in Mae Kampong. Jungle Flight are very open about their location - posting a map on their website - this is something I find positive. Then they're a bit over-helpful with the signs. Didn't find any painting of natural features either - that must be occurring closer to the place.

Generally I find Chiang Mai and the surroundings to be clean and pristine.

[getgoin]

Back to the Op and his topic of all the many signs plastered every 100mtrs along the road to the jungle flight. I was up there last week and saw the same and commented to wife 'how do they get away with all that blatant advertisement?' and she says policy in the city is X amount of baht per sq mtr for advertisement on public places......maybe they are paying?? at any rate, it distracts from the natural beauty of the area and maybe some emails to them directly from us may have an impact.

I'm going to send one myself TO BOTH COMPANIES and hope others do as well......LET THEM KNOW!!!

I wish you luck. After you are done with that you can send a polite letter to everyone along the Ping River that discards their sewage into it. After that you can send a letter to everyone that burns trash and, in particular, plastic. After that you can track down everyone who throws their trash on the side of the road.

Better have another beer.

[Toolz]

I recently went back to the waterfall at Mae Kampong and found that it's been defaced by a dozen Flight of the Gibbon signs. Bright yellow, more than a metre square, all containing really helpful messages like "Danger Waterfall Ahead" (you don't say) with the company name featured prominently.

It's disgusting, cynical behaviour from them. I actually wonder if this is just the thin end of the wedge, if they're planning on being even more 'helpful' up there, to the detriment of the average joe who just wants to spend some time at a waterfall.

[MESmith]

I recently went back to the waterfall at Mae Kampong and found that it's been defaced by a dozen Flight of the Gibbon signs. Bright yellow, more than a metre square, all containing really helpful messages like "Danger Waterfall Ahead" (you don't say) with the company name featured prominently.

It's disgusting, cynical behaviour from them. I actually wonder if this is just the thin end of the wedge, if they're planning on being even more 'helpful' up there, to the detriment of the average joe who just wants to spend some time at a waterfall.

I was up there last month & couldn't believe it. The signs are huge & spoil the whole nature experience. Mysteriously, as I descended 2 or 3 managed to "fall down"......

IMHO Mae Kampong has gone downhill since FoG arrived. A lot of new building taking place, expensive coffee shops & homestays. Very nearly had a head on collision with VIP minibus speeding up the twisting road, with police escort, expecting everyone to get out of the way - except on blind bends you don't know they're coming So much for "eco tourism". Before FoG very little happening at Mae Kampong. Now it's changing.

[Greenside]

I recently went back to the waterfall at Mae Kampong and found that it's been defaced by a dozen Flight of the Gibbon signs. Bright yellow, more than a metre square, all containing really helpful messages like "Danger Waterfall Ahead" (you don't say) with the company name featured prominently.

It's disgusting, cynical behaviour from them. I actually wonder if this is just the thin end of the wedge, if they're planning on being even more 'helpful' up there, to the detriment of the average joe who just wants to spend some time at a waterfall.

I was up there last month & couldn't believe it. The signs are huge & spoil the whole nature experience. Mysteriously, as I descended 2 or 3 managed to "fall down"......

IMHO Mae Kampong has gone downhill since FoG arrived. A lot of new building taking place, expensive coffee shops & homestays. Very nearly had a head on collision with VIP minibus speeding up the twisting road, with police escort, expecting everyone to get out of the way - except on blind bends you don't know they're coming So much for "eco tourism". Before FoG very little happening at Mae Kampong. Now it's changing.

Whoever was responsible for placing the signs pictured is not only a vandal but a dumb one.

They're presumably there to influence the choice of tourists and since a goodly (I'd like to be able to say with confidence, major but tourists, who knows?) proportion will be negatively impressed to the point of telling others about this desecration of the environment, it will certainly generate negative publicity which could easily be avoided. If the owner is western then I'm surprised and disgusted even more. Once pictures like the ones above make their way onto Trip Advisor, Thorn Tree and others, one hopes they will see the error of their ways.

Edit - Postscript: Actually on 10 seconds reflection it's so blatantly dumb, I can't help but wonder if they've been posted by their competitor simply to tarnish a reputation. Are the Flight Wars that intense?

PS#2 Just for the record, my stepson's school definitely teaches respect for the environment and I'm sure that many others do too. I think there's a "lost generation" of largely country dwellers who have brought the old ways into the city where they become more obvious for all too see.

Edited January 23, 2011 by Greenside

[cmsally]

Actually very coincidental you should mention this; as 2 of my friends visiting from US went there last week with FOG. They mentioned that compared to last year (when they also went) there was a lot more building going on. For them this spoiled the experience somewhat. They are just your average pretty easy to please tourist. So I would imagine others have noticed too. But I suppose those that haven't visited before have nothing to compare.