Wednesday, September 24, 2008

New Thai Amulet Magazine from Malaysia

I was walking past a news stand a couple of days ago, and I saw this new Thai amulet magazine from Malaysia titled "The Legend of Thai Amulet" or 泰佛传奇 on sale. This should be the third one after "Siam Horse" 暹马 and "Siam Buddha Manual" 暹佛秘笈. It looked quite attractive on the outside, but priced at $7.50 I thought it was a little expensive.
Upon reading it, I found that it had quite a no of misleading info and pictures. For example, on the above article about Somdej Toh, they ripped off my Wat Ampawan, Singburi photo (top left corner) and tried to pass it off as a photo of Wat Rakhang in Bangkok. Look, I don't mind if people use photos from this blog, but at least have the courtesy to inform me please. It is one thing to rip off my photos; even worse, they mislead readers with wrong info about them.
On the next page, they again used my photo of female devotees praying at the Somdej Toh shrine in Wat Ampawan (lower left corner). But this time I don't know whether they are trying to pass it off as Wat Inn or Wat Rakhang. There are other blatant mistakes in the magazine, but I shall not point them out here. Overall this new magazine does have some good info, but they are all quite general in nature. It is undeniably ruined by the rubbish editing they did inside. My verdict - 3/10. Don't waste your money buying it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is unethical for the magazine to rip off photos from your blog and pass off as their own collection (implicitly with their copyright). In fact after some time, they may turn around and accuse you of ripping the photos off their magazine and put on your blog! Therefore you should contact the magazine editor and sort this issue out amiably such as both you and them would not accuse each other of copyright.

Furthermore perhaps you can freelance for them in the future so that they can partly sponsor your trips to Thailand! :)

Anonymous said...

their act is one of stealing. anyway like ask u are monks supposed to do free chanting for the deceased, or r they allowed to collect cash or angbao?

cuz i have a friend's dad who passed away recently. The undertaker charged him $350 for 2 nights of monk chanting mahayana sutras.

my belief is that is a waste of money as chanting services should be done out of loving kindness for the deceased and not an opportunity to gain more money.

divanhot@gmail.com

Thai amulets said...

hmm... i also facing the same problem.