How Did We Get Here: The Child’s Angel Quick Rapture

“How did we get here?” is a sentence frequently uttered in Thai newspapers. It is uttered on the articles about Child’s Angel dolls — a fad in Thailand. But what’s a Child’s Angel doll. It looks like this:

The image doesn’t tell you anything, though. It turns out that not any doll that looks like that is a Child’s Angel doll. For a doll to be a Child’s Angel, it must be blessed by person who knows some sort of magic. The person then fixes a spirit into the place through some sort of voodoo science. After a spirit has been fixed, the doll is now a Child’s Angel doll. I am not making this up.

Since a Child’s Angel doll supposedly contains a spirit, some people would then treat these dolls as if it’s their own children. They believe that if these dolls are well-treated, they will be blessed. It’s like a 5 year old girl pretending that she has a baby.

Well, it’s adorable when a 5 year old does that. But it’s creepy and pretentious when older people do that. And there are problems when you try to push a 5 year-old logic into the real world. You are bound to get some funny look when you try to spoon feed a doll with actual food at a restaurant. People probably will give you a funny look as well when you book a doll its own seat in a bus or a plane, and let it sit on that seat.

Surprisingly, Thailand is surprisingly flexible. Some restaurants actually start to have special perks for these dolls. An airline allows passengers to book seats for these dolls. Although you may think these establishments are stupid, they are actually quite smart. In the real world, there are not many places that would be friendly to grown men playing with dolls. Therefore, by catering to them, you can attract more customers. It’s also much cheaper to service a doll than an actual person.

Although Thailand strongly believes in spiritual stuffs, this is apparently too much. Newspapers quickly meme’d out the sentence “How did we get here?” As these dolls become famous people, so do the people’s ire. Suddenly, these dolls become a butt of jokes. Because there’s nothing funnier than grown men playing with dolls.

As holy as these dolls may be, they cannot survive being butts of jokes. Although Thailand tends to have fads that quickly die all of the time, Child’s Angel dolls are special, because they die off so quickly. People now start to abandon these dolls within weeks when the dolls become famous and mainstream.

Are these dolls actually popular? Who knows? But it’s a perfect fodder for Thai jokes. Let’s end this with a conversation between a reporter and the Thai prime minister who is inexplicably asked about using surplus rubber to make more of these dolls. A reporter has made a faux pas and hilarity ensues (Only if you understand Thai):