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Ooops, wrong religion . . .
In my post about Wat Phra Singh the other day I mentioned a photograph my friend Noom took of the main Buddha at the wiharn which was surrounded by mysterious spheres of light, light reflecting off a dirty camera lens in my estimation, the power of the Buddha being captured on film in his. I couldn’t locate the shot for that post but have since so I thought I’d throw it into the mix.
Noom has a very intimate relationship with his gods and expects that they know of him and are willing to pay an equal amount of attention to the glory that is Noom. The photo below was taken at the white wat just outside of Chiang Rai (that’s the public restroom in the background). The beam of light wasn’t visible to the naked eye, but showed up in the photograph. The result got a very satisfied nod from Noom. I’d argue, again, that the boy needs to clean his camera lens a bit more often, but then I can’t really disagree that the gods shouldn’t favor him. At least not if they have good taste in men.
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In our Asians’ world view, it isn’t a matter of whether the camera lens was clean or not. What does count is the random probability of the light hitting the lens and the dust at exactly the right angle to produce such an effect. Even western-educated Asians, like myself, are often fatalists and believe that nothing happens to us by chance. Not even a combination of things as ephemeral as light, dust and a deity’s image in the background or our presence on hallowed ground at that particular time.
Sure, once you know that the dust on the camera lens can produce such an effect, you could try to re-stage similar photos with other subjects, but that first unplanned one-in-a-million random shot which produced such a spectacular effect is surely evidence to us that ‘someone up there’ touched us.
So, by our lights, Noom is right to feel blessed when he sees that photograph. I’m surprised he hasn’t asked for it to be blown up, framed and displayed in a particularly prominent position in his home. I know I would…except that I would use it as evidence that even old gay sinners are loved by our gods. And point THAT out to every member of my family whoever looked askance at me in my de la Renta gowns and Jimmy Choo high heels! 😛
It never dawned on me that in Chiang Mai Noom wasn’t mispronouncing ‘choose’ but rather specifying brand! Thanks XD!
Thanks for the input too, it just . . . fits. That shot of Noom in front of the toilet, btw, he keeps in his wallet and is quite fond of showing people. And the Thais always get it.
Certainly they would. It’s like he’s been personally ‘touched by the light’ and many would give their right arms for a similar photo of themselves.
Hello, here you can find the optical background for the spheres:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orb_(optics)
Thanks Andy!
Great link and explanation.
But I’m not telling Noom.
🙂