Smoke

Smoke


In 2000, while commuting with my boss from Bangkok to Rayong, we pass a Buddhist temple.
It was cremating a corpse and there was a lot of black smoke coming out of the chimney.

I said to my boss, "I have been working the last 8 years for an Incinerator company, and the company was proud to build incinerators which didn't produce smoke. Environment friendly. In Belgium, any factory or individual who was producing such a lot smoke would get a hefty fine and closed down immediately."

My boss started to laugh as he answered me: "Thai people have a different logic than in most western countries. A factory which has a chimney and is producing smoke is a good factory. The people who live around the factory and see smoke coming out of the chimney, that's a sign that the factory is good working. When no smoke comes out of the chimney, it is a sign that the factory is not working anymore. The same logic applies to the temples."

That was my Lesson #1 in Thai logic.


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