10/20/2004: Extreme piercing in Thailand

Welcome to Phuket! These gents are ritual vegetarians. See? See what vegetarianism eventually does to you??

Actually the captions don't explain the ceremony much, except to suggest that they are concerned with the moving of evil spirits. These guys believe they are possessed. I find it hard to disagree.

Why do the evil spirits get all the press? Why doesn't anyone think of the good spirits?



It's really the feather lining that makes this outfit.



Thanx to madmonkey for the last image. Pfft, I spent like 50 dollars for an appropriate piece of wood to stow my good knives in.

First of all, I wouldn't want to live in Phuket. It's as if no one cares about anything!

I truly and sincerely hope each one of these guys is current on their tetanus shots.

Whew! That last one just makes my stomach flip-flop!

Stupid just seems to ignore any sort of barrier.

Maybe they could have a cable show called "Extreme Religion" and put it on ESPN with the rest of the extreme stupidy going on there.

It shows that different cultures, have different customs. Thank goodness, what would the world be like if all cultures were the same. I think it would most likely be totally insincere and the world would suffer for that. Look at what happens when one society pushes its political ideas on another.

Yeah, but there's still the tetanus issue...

It looks to me like these dudes have a teensy bit too much time on their hands. And there's not only the tetanus issue, don't forget the unattractive facial deformities that will no doubt result from these practices. Yuck.

You can talk about cultural diversity all you want, but when I look at something like this I think about a scene in Se7en.

Insane people do not think they are insane. They think YOU (the sane one, we all suppose) are insane and they will tell you, in minute detail, how insane you are...

...It's always really enlightening to hear this.

Neat, that's a Bianchi bike in the famous Celeste green that they have used for so many years!

I just lost my cookies!

Bah- ba -ba- bo, ching ching!!

Things would turn really ugly if that fella with the bike through his cheek tripped on something. I also wonder if they have their dinner before the rituals start? Can you picture how many bits of rice and lentils there would be all over the place?
The real fun starts with the post-ritual balloon blowing-up competition....

I can't really decide whether he took the pedals off to decrease the weight or to keep anyone from riding it.
If this guy really had huge cahones He'd turn the bike loose. Must be what his friend "pulling up the rear" is for.
"Hold on loosely, but don't let her go"......cheese & rice !!!! Please don't let her go...................

One other thing: I'm phishing for an answer to this question-
HOW THE HELL DO YOU PRONOUNCE PHUKET ?????????????

No soup for you!

It's About Time!

Finally we see what piercing is really all about. I'm tired of these stateside pansies who think piercing is all about a little bit of metal through the eyebrow or the tongue. Back when I was a boy, we were ashamed to show up at school with anything less than a railroad spike through our tongues.

"If I had six divisions of these men, our worries here would be over."

the last one makes me think of ed norton at the end of fight club.

The bike thing would have been a lot cooler if he had streamers in the spokes, and maybe a baseball card ...

I saw a show on National Geographic channel called "Taboo". There's some Hindu festival where folks ritually pierce themselves, usually with these little trident thingies that are representative of the god who is being honored, as well as with multiple fishhooks in the back, from which fruit offerings are hung. If you don't do the fruit offering to the gods thing (melons, not kumquat sized fruits, incidentally) you can have a family member hang onto cords attached to your hooks and tug on you from time to time as you parade through the town.

According to the practitioners, when you are possessed by the spirits, you don't feel the pain, nor do you bleed.

One of the people focused on in the show was one of the ritual piercers, and his brother, who "lost his faith" about halfway through the several mile walk up the big hill to the temple.

He was hoping that the spirits wouldn't leave him this year.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doodle I just lost my cookies!

I wouldn't be suprised in the least to find out those two guys with the bike and knife piercings use something like safety pins to keep those gaping holes closed so they can eat without the food getting out before they're done with it.

All I can say is....WTF?

No, I"m not a social engineer. However I have studied sociology extensively. Does that mean when a picture of a man in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank strapped to his wheelchair in a V.A. hospital is sitting there smoking a cigarette it is acceptable because our culture taught us it was o.k to smoke.

Or maybe a waitress at your local bar wearing a gas mask to prevent inhaling second hand smoke. I'm sure some in that country smoke and I see many piercings here I just hope we don't reach that extreme. "Live and let Live"

I could give you a definition of insanity. However a wise man once wrote.... "Insanity is being old enough to know better but still too young to care." Some think that humility is cumbersome. However, practicing it brings wisdom.

Phuket is pronounced FFOOKET. I swear this is true, my brother in law honeymooned there about 5 years ago. And you can guess what tourists call it, and dirty minded postal workers who deliver the holiday postcards, and equally dirty minded small boys running around the house shouting 'FOOKET!! FOOKET!! with imense delight. Behind my town there is a hill named Bleadon, and we used to love saying, as kids, we're going up Bleedin 'ill. Sad parents ... don't try...!

They shut them off during smoke time. It wouldn't do to have old people both gasping for breath and bursting into open flame at the same time.

One of my EMT friends used to do tricks with an O2 tank. The best was taking a hit off the tank and then blowing through the cigarette.

You should be careful around the stuff, but it's not like it's hydrogen or anything.

That's hepatitis. And/or really poor hygiene.

Rule of thumb: The crazier the patient, the more likely it is they smoke.

There are a bunch of studies on this, although I honestly forget if the conclusion is that the smoking itself is calming for them, or it in someway enhances the antipsychotic meds.

Oh, and not that it means anything, really, many of the staff smoke too. Probably higher numbers than the general popultion.

My mother's neighbor was 87 with terminal cancer. His wife made him go outside in the MA winter to smoke.

I'm an American who is ethnically and religiously tolerant - the first thing I noticed was how skinny everybody there is.

A few years back, an emt from CA. spent a few weeks here. She said all oxygen cylinders in CA. were marked flammable. I beg to differ, as to being flammable. I have worked w/oxygen, as a welder since 1959. Oxygen will NOT burn. So I had to take here out to shop & show her. Oxygen accelerates( like to have never found that word) combustion!

methanphetamine, it's rife as hell it thailand, people on that shit do things like this.

it would be kind of funny if he let the bicycle go!
"look mum no hands"