What you need to know:
- This cafe in Bangkok serves quirky coffee and lets you sit in a coffin
- The cafe aims are getting people to understand death and reduce their materialistic outlook to life.
Dubai: Have you ever contemplated life and death over coffee? No? Well, in this Bangkok ‘death awareness’ café, coffee and coffin come together to help you do that!
Sip on a cup of coffee while sitting in a coffin and think about your life’s purpose – is what The Kid Mai (Think New) Death Awareness Café allows the customer to experience.
No, we are not kidding.
What is it?
According to an article by the American broadcast channel CNN, this open-air lunch spot in the capital of Thailand includes decorated coffins, a skeleton splayed on a couch and quirky beverages named “death”, “painful”, “born” and more.
There is a flower wreath that reads, “Eventually, you can bring nothing”.
The café is a Buddhist “exhibition” that creates an experience for customers that can change their lives.
The coffin at the café is white and is adorned with gold on the outside. It has soft padding inside and is found on a raised platform near the café tables.
After spending three minutes in the coffin with the top closed, people either come out shaken, terrified or relieved. According to reports, many customers don’t sit in the coffins because it scares them.
Who is behind the concept?
Assistant professor Veeranut Rojanaprapa created this café as a part of his thesis in philosophy and religion at Saint John’s University in Bangkok.
According to an article published on travel guide book publisher Lonely Planet’s online website, Rojanaprapa said: “This idea came from the research about Buddhist philosophy to create a right – wisdom society in Thailand ....
“The results found that awareness of death in Buddhism is strong enough to make people recognise their value of life [and] that when they recognise this, their greed and anger will decrease automatically.”
The concept aims to inspire people to understand that life is fleeting, which is why the setup and decor of the café reflects the permanence of death as compared to the impermanence of life and material things.
Permanence of death
A lot of people fear the unknown and this causes extreme anxiety for some individuals. There are many groups and cafes around the world that allow people to meet, have coffee and discuss their fears about mortality.
Death Café, a non-profit get-together, or a social franchise, was created for the purpose of allowing people to talk about death. They hold group discussions around the world, and started with places in France and the UK.
The idea behind this initiative stems from the need to reduce the taboo surrounding death, so that people can live better lives.
According to their website, Death Café has held 8,762 meetings or events in about 65 countries.
