Brooke Schedneck, "Religious Tourism in Northern Thailand: Encounters with Buddhist Monks" (U Washington Press, 2021)
New Books in Anthropology
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How Do You Explain Buddhism to Western Tourists?
The way that the student monks explain Buddhism to Western tourists is very interesting. You say that the monks like to emphasize meditation, which as we know has been going through a boom in the Western recent years. At the same time in their explanations to the tourists, they tend to downplay other religious practices like devotional rituals and making merit - which ironically tend to be the usual activities of Thai Buddhists.
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