I remember many years ago just after recently arriving in Thailand , sitting on a bus heading for chiang mai, sat next to me was a middle aged buddhist monk , its was my first encounter with a member of the what I now come to call the Saffron Gang . This Saffron Gang member proceeded over the next few hours to try and extract money from me , sell me a computer and recommend I visit his brothers karaoke joint .
Over the proceeding years the media attention relating to the ever increasing wrong doings of SG members has gone from a trickle to a flood . My Thai wife is a staunch follower and hefty donator to her local temple , but now the cat's finally out of the media bag , she's finally gone into the kitchen and smelt the coffee.
As the daily media stream of negative articles about yet another bad monk surfaced , this endless and relentless bad press started to take its toll on her faith and belief that monks could do no wrong , at first when I commented to her about another SG member being arrested on drugs charges , child rape or taking a trip on their own private aircraft to buy a new Gucci bag , or open yet another foreign bank account , she used her stock answer , may be one or two bad monks , but not many .
No there's more than one or two
A SG Member buying a valentines day present for his girl friend
.
Over the proceeding years the media attention relating to the ever increasing wrong doings of SG members has gone from a trickle to a flood . My Thai wife is a staunch follower and hefty donator to her local temple , but now the cat's finally out of the media bag , she's finally gone into the kitchen and smelt the coffee.
As the daily media stream of negative articles about yet another bad monk surfaced , this endless and relentless bad press started to take its toll on her faith and belief that monks could do no wrong , at first when I commented to her about another SG member being arrested on drugs charges , child rape or taking a trip on their own private aircraft to buy a new Gucci bag , or open yet another foreign bank account , she used her stock answer , may be one or two bad monks , but not many .
No there's more than one or two
A SG Member buying a valentines day present for his girl friend
.
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