A Monk-dern Day Surprise

We are living in a modern world.  We are blessed with a lot of technology that makes our lives easier.  Cell-phones, laptop computers, coffee-on-demand....we've got it pretty good these days.

On a soon-to-be related note, when I picture a Buddhist monk, I picture someone in modest orange clothing meditating on the front steps of a huge temple hidden away somewhere in the mountains.

Imagine my ignorant surprise when I got to witness those two worlds coming together....

I meet one of the students that I tutor, Apple, at Starbucks in a big mall right off the subway every Tuesday and Thursday morning.  One day, she stopped speaking mid-sentence and stared over my right shoulder for a few seconds before I turned and looked at what had rendered her speechless. It was that guy, who walked in and sat down by himself.

Then as I had just finished snapping a pic of the first guy, his friend comes walking in with a laptop bag over his shoulder and sits down at the table.  Apple couldn't even believe what she was seeing, and her mom is a Buddhist.

And a week or so later a few different monks were in the Starbucks, and one of them even went outside to make a phone call.  I wish I knew who was on the other end of that phone.

This makes me wonder what other crazy surprises are in store for me in this crazy city.  A taxi driver who follows the normal rules of safe-driving?  A seller in a market who offers a fair-price to a foreigner?  A Chinese man with even semi-impressive facial hair?  

This modern-day monk thing has sure opened up a world of possibilities.