Go to the profile of Roxanna M Brown
Roxanna M Brown

Buddhist Temple Life

Roxanna M. Brown (right) met “Joe” Ngertongdee at a Thai Buddhist Temple where he nursed her back to health after a serious bout with addiction around 1980. Also pictured (left) is Roxanna’s friend and cousin Karen Linder whose husband owned a factory in Michigan which produced products for the physically and mentally disabled, Danmar Products.

Relations with India and the Middle East flooded SE Asia not only with oil for development but with Opium. Addicts often convalesced, in Thailand for example, in the Buddhist temples, which had been notoriously closed by China to keep such influences out and to more effectively get people working. The Temples in Thailand have acted as drug rehab clinics, reformatories for the young — such as “Joe” pictured (center) — and arts and education centers.