Buhay Bangkok

There’s a craze going on among Thai drivers. There’s no single word to label it yet, but it involves hanging a stuffed toy at the rear of the vehicle, alongside the exhaust pipe, and drag the poor thing as one goes his daily business.

At first, I told myself what a waste of toys. Doraemons, Pikachus, Hello Kittys, and other generic stuffed bears and dogs and other fauna are dragged through dust and grime. I even saw a Mask Rider Black stuff toy once. A photo in the newspaper featured a taxi’s rear end festooned with a dozen or so teddies, some as big as a four-year-old child!

I thought these stuff are hung from the rear-view mirror inside the vehicle (except the huge ones, of course!), not the rear of the vehicle?

It turns out that this latest trend has some supernatural and superstitious reasons. According to a news report that I read, Thai drivers do this to be safe from evil spirits. They claim that these malevolent spirits possess drivers thereby causing road accidents. Solution, hand all these stuffed toys from the rear end of your vehicle and let the evil spirits possess these inanimate objects instead.

Reminds me of the Biblical story of Jesus casting out a legion of demons from a man and having them possess a herd of pigs, instead. The difference is that the pigs were alive while the stuffed toys are…well, stuffed.

Police are not amused though. They announced they will arrest drivers whose vehicles have these adornments. “They might cause road accidents,” police said. Indeed.

What I find amusing is the supposed involvement of these supernatural spirits in road accidents that are often caused by spirits of an altogether different variety, especially those from bottles labeled Johnny Walker or Singha.

Newspaper reports have always carried news of vehicular accidents in Thailand caused by drunk drivers. Perhaps these drivers should have let the stuffed toys drink all the intoxicating liquor instead? That way, the ‘evil spirits’ will not lead these drivers off the right track.