Where Money Grows on Trees: Living Small

Our friend's grandma lives on the banks of the Mekong. She's an elder and advisor to the village.  Every year she organizes a huge party, with meals for hundreds, live Isan bands playing into the night, and a forest of money trees to be planted at the temple and used for charity.  


The  hundred-baht bills are worth about three bucks, not a trivial sum in rural Thailand.  Still, villagers donate one or more of the red bills, bearing the sacred image of the king, and attach them to the money tree. (Visiting foreigners are advised that a one thousand baht donation is appropriate for us).  When the trees are ready villagers carry them in a noisy procession to the temple, where the money will be used throughout the year to help the poor and support the monastery.  In the procession is a pickup bearing the Buddha statue followed by a sound truck blaring Isan music. Some villagers dance their way down the road.