The Second Walk: Temples, Shrines, and Chinese Foundations

A few weeks ago, my little group from the National Museum Volunteers set out on our second factfinding walk through Talad Noi and Chinatown. We are still searching for the best and most interesting places to visit in the area, and this week, we saw quite a few new places. Now, the hardest part will be deciding the route we will take!

Wat Mangkorn, the central Mahayana Buddhist temple in Thailand, is a beautiful old building, but is currently undergoing a massive three-year renovation. The temple is hidden away behind a large, busy construction site, although you can still enter through a warren-like maze of corrugated metal corridors.

Wat Mangkorn is a beautiful and very important Chinese temple - the most important Chinese temple in all of Thailand and the center of spiritual and cultural life for the kingdom's Thai-Chinese population.

They are getting ready for Chinese New Year (which is still several weeks away), by decorating the temple in red and gold Chinese lanterns. The Spring Festival is the most important cultural holiday in China (like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year rolled into one!), and is a very big deal in Thailand as well, not only with the Thai-Chinese population.

Since the renovations on this historic temple will take another three years, they are keeping the temple open throughout the process. It's a bit chaotic - even more than usual in a notoriously chaotic part of Bangkok. The chaos is part of Chinatown's unique charm, though.

Next, we walked down a narrow street behind Wat Mangkorn to the Tai Hong Kong Shrine. The shrine is run by a Thai-Chinese charity foundation called "Poh Teck Tung". It's so interesting, that I thought it deserved its very own post. I'll write something up tomorrow! The short version is, the foundation provided emergency rescue services and handles unclaimed bodies after road accidents.

Even though this area is predominantly Thai-Chinese, there's also a small Thai-Indian influence on the neighborhood, noticeable in this small Ganesh shrine near the foundation.

It's not too long until Chinese New Year, and the shops are already starting to sell lucky wall hangings, red envelopes, and other festival goods!

These tiny market alleys are always fun and interesting to wander through.

The Thian Fah Foundation Hospital is another well-known Thai-Chinese foundation based out of Yaowarat Road. The foundation was established in 1903 to provide free medical care to those who could not afford it. Today, they provide both TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) and Western medical treatments. There's a shrine to Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, just outside the hospital.

The Guanyin statue dates back 900 years to the Song Dynasty. It is made of carved sandalwood and plated in gold, and is both extremely valuable and extremely important to the Thai-Chinese community in Bangkok.

 The shrine is open 24-hours, and is extremely popular.

Across the street is the towering castle-like Wat Traimit, the Temple of the Golden Buddha. The temple itself is relatively new, constructed back in in 2010, but the relic it holds is what makes Wat Traimit so important. 

The Golden Buddha is one of the religious wonders of Thailand. Nobody knows exactly where it came from or when it was created, but the giant statue is made of 5.5 tons of solid gold, making it the largest and most valuable Buddha statue in the entire world. 

Discovered on the 2000th anniversary of the life of the Buddha and seen as a holy miracle, the statue was discovered beneath an old and forgotten plaster Buddha image.

Nobody knows much about the history of the world's largest golden statue. It's been suggested that it was encased in plaster to protect it from the Burmese during attacks on Ayutthaya, but it seems as if the statue is much older. The features of the Buddha suggest an Indian influence, leading many scholars to believe that it was cast during the much older pre-Ayutthay Sukothai Dynasty (possibly around the 13th century).

It was early afternoon, and though I was starting to get a bit tired, we couldn't stop yet! 

We ended up visiting a few more local coffee shops. One of our most important tasks is planning a coffee break for our walking group. We still are not 100% sure of where we will take them, but will keep working through January to plan the perfect walk.