Finding herself perched inside a coffin at a Bangkok “death-awareness café” was far from the scenario the author imagined for her stay in Thailand’s busy capital. Confronted with her mother’s third cancer diagnosis, she discovered an unexpected source of comfort amid the city’s oddities. In Melbourne, her mother is battling liver cancer for the third time, while the author copes with an anxiety disorder. After eight days in Bangkok, she stepped into a Muay Thai gym where champion Saenchai seized her by the throat. The bout unfolded smoothly at first; her opening jab lived only a fleeting moment before Saenchai slipped forward, clinching her tightly.
His shoulder pressed against her face, sweat stinging her eyes as she drove her hips forward, attempting to rise and employ the usual escapes that work on ordinary opponents—not on a legend of the sport. Her soles left the canvas, gravity aligning with Saenchai’s side. He chuckled; she returned the laugh. Having begun Thai boxing in 2023, this session marked her seventh drop-in, turning combat into a form of self-care. A diminutive Buddha statue perched in the gym’s corner, seemingly withholding judgment. While anxiety dwells in future worries, a punch aimed at her visage forces her into the immediacy of the present.
From childhood to the death café
She spent her childhood flicking through family photo albums. Her two brothers and she grew into the frame while her parents shrank. The mother’s hair changed. The father’s belly arrived. She’d count the years between photos, then beyond them. Would they be there when she was 30? 40? 50? The pages ran out before her questions did. At school camp, she’d lie awake in her bunk. Please don’t let anything happen to Mum and Dad while she’s away. She’ll get an A on her next test.
She’ll eat Mum’s congee, a culinary miracle of no flavor and too much fish, in under three hours. She’ll even apologize for shredding her brother’s coloring book. Never mind what he did to her kite. She was eight and already bribing death. As an adult, she trades imagined disasters for immediate ones, five days a week. Someone knees her in the liver. Her world is the next three seconds. Then Mum’s cancer returned and the next three seconds stopped being enough. She’d spent decades afraid her mother would die—now, doctors were discussing how to keep her alive.
The Elder exhibit rushes her through the decades. A gray wig, clouded glasses, a weighted vest, sandbags at her wrists and ankles. She shuffles across the room, older, as everything becomes annoyingly, administratively difficult. Bangkok was already booked. The city prescribes exposure therapy. Her first dose: The Kid Mai Death Awareness Café, next to a horror escape room.
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Every few minutes, someone screams like their browser history is being judged at the pearly gates. Her existential crisis comes with surround sound. Buddhist philosopher Veeranut Rojanaprapa studies death. He opened the café in 2018 as fieldwork for his PhD. Thailand is 90 percent Buddhist. Could thinking about death make a whole country less greedy, less angry, less corrupt? His theory is simple: Remember you’re dying. Try not to be an asshole.
Neighbors objected to the coffin deliveries. Nothing says new café like a shipment of caskets. Veeranut was delighted. “I love all of the complaints. Because if they are complaining, it means they are thinking about death, they are aware of death.” Enlightenment isn’t everyone’s priority. The coffin selfie is. “Some people want to see if the coffin is comfortable,” the receptionist says. “Others are scared of death.
They want to understand. When they get inside the coffin, they think, ‘One day I will be here alone.’ Then they have many emotions. Maybe they can make peace with death.” She points her to the four rooms. Birth, Elder, Pain, Death. Red wombs bulge from the walls of the Birth exhibit. She crawls inside one and assumes the fetal position. Normally, her spiraling gets her there for free.
From contraception to conception
Three days ago, she ate at Cabbages & Condoms. The restaurant was founded by Thai activist Mechai Viravaidya. He decided condoms needed the reputation of a vegetable. When Thailand’s HIV epidemic hit, he took condoms where they had rarely gone before: taxis, traffic police and Buddhist monks. New HIV cases fell by around 90 percent, an estimated 7.7 million infections. At the restaurant, no surface is safe from safe sex. Lamps, walls and a life-size Santa Claus with condoms dangling from his beard are covered. Everything except the food.
She has gone from contraception to conception. Menopause is one room away. In her early 20s, her mother appeared at her bedroom door holding a bag of sanitary products. “I don’t need these anymore.” “Oh, OK,” she accepted the stash. “Thanks.” She did not register that her mother was marking an ending. She does not know if she wanted her to ask. She did not. She still has not.
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At her bedroom door, her mother was already negotiating with a body that had stopped consulting her. She gave her what she no longer needed, then went outside to put chicken in the sun. Her mother believes sunlight kills germs. She wants to go back and keep her in her doorway longer. She wants to ask: “Mum, was it hard?” But she was full of beginnings, and her mother held the door open from the other side.
Playing critically ill
In the Pain exhibit, she changes into a surgical gown and commits to ICU cosplay. Monitors crowd in, beeping on a 30-second loop. The mattress crackles under plastic. An IV bag hangs beside her head, taped shut and empty. She is the only one treating mortality as a catastrophe best prevented through sufficient worrying. Reincarnation. Afterlife. Nothing at all. She is agnostic and will not find out in time. Impermanence does not require belief. Playing critically ill is disturbingly entertaining. The secret is to never actually need intensive care. Her mother never got to play.
Yesterday, beneath the gilded spires of the Grand Palace, she texted her mother: “How did the second treatment go? Any side effects?” “Fine. I’m very tough, you know.” She added a flexed-bicep emoji. She needed “fine” to be true. Two months later, she will learn she could not keep food down. She landed in emergency. Of course she did not tell her. Cancer had not stopped her being her mother, protecting her from the scary parts.
Her hospital stay ends in 10 minutes. Her mother’s lasted four days. A wooden coffin waits in the Death exhibit. The assignment is to climb in and decide what deserves her last day. A black book by the exit demands an answer. She lowers herself inside. The lid closes. Pitch black. Maybe playing dead in a Buddhist country while her mother lies in a real hospital bed is bad karma. Her fingers curl beneath the edge of the lid. She does not lift.