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	---> MORE Thai Proverbs: _________________________________ Keeping your head down Standing the World on its Head Beware of Appearances Keeping Your Head Down When the Cat's Away You've Got to be Stupid Before You Get Wise Measuring Someone's Footprint Be compliant! Snake Snake Fish Fish Bid Tong Lang Phra - To do good by stealth The Menacing Tiger Little birds nest according to their size Keeping Your Head Down The Chameleon That Lost Its Head Out of Pride Wisdom come from Stupidity Follow the old, and the dogs won't bite you LOOKING AT THE TSUNAMI DISASTER Measuring Someone's Footprint One drop of honey Keeping Your Head Down Avoiding Victory Blame and Responsibility Beware of Appearances When the cat’s away, the mice play Water, water everywhere…

Bid Tong Lang Phra -
To do good by stealth

Sometimes - just once in a while - a person might want to do a good act without making a big show about it ...in other words, "to do good with the left hand that the right hand doesn't know about." And there's a Thai proverb in respect of it: bid tong lang phra.

When Thais visit their local temple, they frequently take toob tien dork mai too - incense sticks, candles and flowers. The toob they put in the large container filled with sand in front of one or other of the main Buddha images in the vihara - the main chapel. Having wai-ed in front of the Buddha image, they first light the incense sticks and candles, and with the flowers, place them in the appropriate receptacles. Still kneeling, they then bend their heads over their hands and suad mon - say a short mantra, perhaps afterwards asking for an intercession that may help them: pass an exam, do a successful business deal, solve a family problem etc. - though strictly speaking, invocations of this sort are best made to the appropriate spirits, such as the jow tee or guardian spirit who can be best encountered in front of the spirit house that every residence and major building will have beside or in front of it. (Take a look at the spirit shines in front of Chiang Mai University just before end of term exams? What does the extraordinary number of floral offerings there tell you? "It's true we didn't put in quite as much studying time as we should have, but if nevertheless you help us get through the exam, we'll make an appropriate `thank you' offering later - OK?").

Digressions aside though, what does this bid tong lang phra proverb really tell us. It means, `Putting gold on the back of the image', and to explicate further, it refers to the wider practice of honouring the Great Being and making merit by sticking gold leaf on any part of an image. Now naturally, the face itself and the rest of the front of the image are highly favoured, and that's where you'll usually see gold leaf being put where images especially revered for their efficacy are concerned. And after all, people naturally feel that while they're making merit like this, it doesn't do any harm to let others see them doing it. Not only merit sought for, in other words, but a bit of worldly admiration too. But just as Westerners hold that there's special merit to be gained from good works done without the desire for publicity, so too in Thailand. And just as `not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing' is honoured more in the breach than the observance, so too in Thailand, where it's pretty unusual to stick gold leaf on the back of a Buddha image.

That's what the saying means, then, though whether you interpret it to mean, `to do something in an ineffective way' or `to do something meritorious, privately' - well, you'd best consult a Thai acquaintance or two and let them guide you. There's something decidedly ambiguous about the saying the way it stands.