Fat Buddha
Ms P and I were waiting for Ms L who had gone to the washroom, when two foreign men of indeterminate nationality/race approached us out of the blue and asked, “Are you girls Chinese?”
“Ermmm, yes?” while thinking, “Picked up outside the washroom? What’s the world come to!”
“Okay, could you help us answer this question then? You know those statues of this fat person you see all around Singapore? Is that Buddha or Confucius?”
“What?”
“Oh, y’know, the one about this round, looking very fat? My friend here and I are having an argument about it. He says it’s Buddha.”
“Oh you mean the Happy Buddha. Yes it’s Buddha.”
“But isn’t Buddha supposed to be skinny? Y’know, since he was fasting and everything.”
“That’s true. Erm.” Ms P and I look at each other hesitantly. She adds, casually stepping away, “You’ve asked the right person. She’s a Buddhist!”
“Erm, I suppose Buddha probably doesn’t have to really look like that. It’s more a symbolic kind of statue, and for us Chinese, being fat is being associated with being happy. It’s a cultural thing.”
“But the Buddhas in Thailand are skinny. Like y’know, the ones lying down.”
“Oh yes that’s true. Not all Buddha statues are fat.” Ms P and I again eye each other, but this time more with amusement.
I laughed, “I know! Maybe for the Thai, you don’t have to be fat to be happy!”