Keeping the Faith?

Wandering the backstreets of Silom, one of Bangkok's busiest areas, I came across two cemeteries, one Christian, one Chinese, although the Christian burial ground was mainly of Chinese people. The neglect of the grave sites was not only a bit sad, but also somewhat disquieting. Photos of the deceased stared eerily at me as I walked by their overgrown resting places. These persons once laughed and cried, and were cared about long ago. Their bodies and ashes now give way to neglect and fading memories of descendants. It is appropriate, I thought, for nature to take back their remains and to slowly and imperceptibly take away their tombs grain by grain with each cycle of tropical storms.

The Christian cemetery

The roots of a sacred bodhi tree entwine a misplaced marker in the Chinese cemetery

Photographs on the tombs are personal links to those who have died

How many years ago was this incense last lit?

A faithful Chinese lion stands guard in perpetuity

A couple gaze from their resting place

Ashes no longer protected by the vault's seal.

The haunting glass eyes of a guardian lion keep watch through the encroaching vines