Yesterday there was an article in Shinmin paper regarding a Taiwanese lady hiring 4 hot dancers to do a sexy dance in the nude as a way of offering thanks to the Phra Prom shrine in Zhanghua county. Apparently half a year ago she was having a lot of problems in her career in the precision engineering industry; but after coming to this shrine to pray for assistance from the Deva, her prayers were all answered one by one. So in order to fulfill her vows, she decided to show her gratitude in a grand manner - by putting up a sexy dance show in the cold spring weather! The police have learned of this act and subsequently stated that they were going to investigate. The lady was likely to get into trouble with the authorities now.Why do something like that? I think she probably got her inspiration from the mother of HK celebrity Nicholas Tse, Deborah, who did something similar at the Erawan shrine in Bangkok decades ago. But hers was a special case and for anyone else to imitate that would be considered sacrilegious. This is part of the warped culture of Taiwan where having half naked (at times fully naked) women dancing at funerals and religious thanksgiving ceremonies can somehow be accepted. But anyone with common sense should see that taking off all your clothes at a holy place of worship is outrageously disrespectful. Besides, Phra Prom being a Brahma Deva has completely purified himself of desire; how can he be pleased by such lowly performances? One is more likely to be punished by the guardian deities for disrespect rather than rewarded. The worship of Phra Prom is a part of the Thai Buddhist culture that have taken root in East Asian lands like Taiwan. However it is sad that even this aspect is not spared from the prevalent warped culture there. This shows that their understanding of Buddhism is still painfully lacking.
The only accepted form of dances that one can offer to the Devas are traditional artistic dances, like the ones we can see at Erawan Shrine regularly. That is certainly much more tasteful and respectful than sexy dances. I hope the Taiwanese can educate themselves on what is acceptable and what is not by learning from the right sources - the Thai Sangha. Otherwise they are just going to continue embarrassing themselves by doing such foolish things.
