Monks in Laos

Lao women giving their offerings to young Buddhist monks and novices

From the age of 12, boys can become novices and live in a wat (monastery). While a full-fledged monk has 200 or so precepts (rules) they have to abide by, novices only have 8. Nonetheless, it’s a strict lifestyle–no games, no running around and jumping (specifically, no jumping), very few possessions, and possibly the most difficult to me–no food after 12 noon. Every morning, the monks wake up at 4am for chanting (and in process, wake up the entire neighborhood) and then do an alms round where they take their bowls and walk the streets accepting food and other offerings from people. In Luang Prabang, the procession is quite beautiful with hundreds of monks filling the streets (though watching dumb tourists get in their way and shove cameras in the monks’ faces is pretty meh).

A procession of monks and people (tourists) giving offerings, a woman selling overpriced rice to tourists watches on

It’s fun seeing these young boys trying to behave, but we’ve caught more than a few being “naughty.” We saw one boy with a cellphone, when he saw us looking at him, he guiltily put it away. Another time, while climbing a hill, we saw two boys hiding behind a statue speaking in hushed voices, I can only guess that the illicit conversation was about video games or girls. Hugh noted, “I look at them and I see my baseball team, you know shaved heads and everything…” (referring the baseball club boys in Japan.) While many young novices surely want to become monks, many are orphans, or want to go to school, or are sent there by their parents and don’t want to be there. Infractions like having a fruit shake in a nightmarket can be punished by beatings or being expelled from the wat. During our time in Laos, we’ve met many young men who were once novices, but decided to be normal men when they turned 20 (which is when a novice must decide.) I look at these young boys and then think back to the ones I was just teaching in Japan and I see this huge gap in personality and dedication, but then I see these monks watching kids play games enviously or peeping at girls through a fence and I’m reminded that in the end, boys will be boys.