Yesterday’s Bangkok Post reported that Buddhists are upset about monks’ dedication to the world Cup rather than their spiritual duties. Worshippers have arrived at the temples to find the monks exhausted from viewing the late-night games and have complained that this is not the way to enlightenment. Mostly women are taking issue with this, since Thai men are also suffering from having to watch football until 5am.
This devotion of young monks to the worldly path of football was humorously portrayed in a very small Bhutanese movie THE CUP (2000).
Set in Bhutan during the 1998 World Cup the story follows the tribulations of a young monk trying to bring a television into a remote monastery to watch his team, the French, play for the championship.
The film is a little slow for most westerners. No car chases or gun play, but the director/writer-director Khyentse Norbu is a revered Tibetan lama and also the third incarnation of a 19th-century Tibetan saint. He bases the story of apprentice monks on his own experience as a football fan.
The young devotee struggles with his superiors who can’t fathom the value of kicking a ball, but he triumphs to mount a satellite on the roof of their monastery to see his team win the cup.
In the end everyone is happy because things just happen that way.