Some strange things go down in my local park. You get your normal lunch-breaking office workers, truant teenagers and drunken homeless people swatting imaginary demons, but Belmore’s location directly across the road from Sydney’s Central Station and the pathways which dissect it mean it’s also a busy pedestrian thoroughfare.
My manual labouring career has been replaced by a desk job which means some form of recreational exercise is in order. Being a long-standing Muay Thai fan I decided to check around to see if there are any gyms in my area and a web search turned up an add for Saturday and Sunday morning classes in trusty Belmore Park. Saturday rolled around and I wandered over to the appointed place at the appointed time but there was nothing resembling a Muay Thai class on the go. There were however, over 1,000 Thai people all dressed in white assembled in the middle of the park.
I say they were all dressed in white but that’s a bit of an exaggeration. A group of children and teenagers were actually dressed in outlandish elfin-like costumes. These cheerful sons and daughters of Siam skipped around the perimeter of the assembled crowd carrying a giant plastic flower each. One guy in particular was wearing what could only be described as a gold cat suit and a matching bonnet. Was I witnessing the biggest Muay Thai class ever assembled outside its ancestral home? Surely not, I decided. You couldn’t train wearing that thing.
A stage lined with a row of seats had been erected and the purpose of this entertaining yet slightly alarming spectacle began dawn when a dozen monks sat down. The white-robbed Thais kneeled in neat lines facing the stage and some chanting got underway.
The Thais all carried plastic bags with various foodstuffs inside and the monks had brought large brown bowls with them. These facts, coupled with the bits and pieces of Thai I could understand, led me to conclude that I had stumbled upon an alms giving ceremony – when Buddhists earn karma points by giving food to the monks and doing various other associated good deeds.
Although most of the people passing through the park largely ignored the goings on, a group of interested parties gathered to try and work out what was happening. I was standing among them, wondering if the Muay Thai class I got out of bed for would kick off after the event, when I felt a tap on my arm. I turned around to see that one of the white-robed Thais – a cheerful, mid-thirties woman – had broken ranks in favour of a chat with a random spectator.
“Hi! I see you standing here long time,” she said with a mega-watt Thai smile. “Would you like to help me give alms to the monks?”
I’m not sure why she picked me from the gathered crowd of confused onlookers but she was delighted when I told her in Thai that I would love to; that it sounded fun. So I was escorted to a spot right in the middle and there I sat, delighted to have again found myself the only white lad in a sea of smiling brown faces. In a park in the middle of Sydney city centre.
The monks began to file up and down the rows and I couldn’t help but get slightly nervous as they approached. It reminded me of queuing up to get the bread from the Priest at mass when I was a kid. I strained around trying to see exactly what the drill was for handing over the food while my new buddy piled packets of instant noodles and Morro bars up in front of me. Everyone was doing the same thing: pick up food item as monks approach. Hold in both hands as if praying. Raise to your forehead when first monk gets to you. Carefully place in bowl with both hands. Bow to monk with hands in prayer position. Repeat for each monk. My alms giving passed without incident although I wasn’t convinced that you still get karma points for handing over food that wasn’t yours.
My self and my new-found karmic colleague got chatting and she mentioned that the temple, which had organised the event, held free Thai language lesions every Saturday afternoon to which I was welcome to come along.
“Sound!” I said, forgetting that she probably didn’t speak Dublinese.
“Excuse me?” she answered, wondering whether her English wasn’t as good as she previously thought.
“Sorry, I mean I would love to go,” I said.
I got the details of where the class would take place (in a centre right beside the park), and what I would have to bring (nothing because everything would be provided), before saying my goodbyes. I headed home tingling with positive karmic energy and what have you, while marveling at how friendly, generous and just basically bang on Thai people are.
