While you can find just about anything you dream of in Bangkok, Thailand, one of the things most people don’t ever dream of buying is a roasted and tattooed human foetus that has been decorated with gold leaf and is being sold as a way to make you rich. Unfortunately, that’s what Bangkok police confiscated from a Taiwanese man this week — six gold leafed foetuses packed into a suitcase and ready to be smuggled out to Taiwan for sale on a Taiwanese website. Wonder how he thought he would get them through Thai customs?
Owning a gold leaf human foetus in Chinese culture is said to be lucky and can make the owner very rich, at least as far as some black magic practitioners are concerned. The 28-year-old man, Chow Hok Kuen, who was born in Taiwan but holds a British passport, planned on putting them up for sale once he got to Taiwan. He’d already paid a second Taiwanese man 200,000 baht, or around $6,450, for them.
Chinese buyers of the human foetuses will usually keep them in family shrines and worship them just like some type of god.
Chow Hok Kuen was arrested at his hotel in Chinatown and now faces a year in jail and a 2,000 baht ($66) fine. Apparently, dealing in human foetuses in Thailand doesn’t come with particularly strict consequences, yet saying something negative about the King will net you a 20-year jail sentence. Amazing Thailand, indeed.
Amazing Thailand, indeed.