Last Saturday, I conducted what was almost a full-day class (from 9am to 4pm) for a group of thirty-plus Singapore Tourism Board certified guides. It was held in Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery, with free vegetarian lunch and introductory Dharma materials (books, notes and DVDs). The syllabus included classroom lessons on basic Buddhism, aided by Powerpoint slideshows, video screenings, Q&A sessions… followed by a guided tour of the temple itself, on how to properly guide tourists around the temple. At the end of the course, a quiz of 25 multiple-choice questions was given to them to measure their understanding. No penalties or prizes though.
At the last stop, seated on the floor of the Hall of No Form, I told the class while they were adding up their scores – ‘Multiply your score by 4 to get your score percentage. If it’s less than 50%, you can consider coming back for a recourse!’ I said that jovially of course, not intimidatingly. Earlier, I had admitted honestly to the class that one of the key reasons the temple offers such courses is because staff, like me, had come across tour guides who explain the sights in the temple erroneously, and in some cases, nonsensically! Since I had briefly covered the teaching of karma, I told them this, ‘If you are not sure (when asked a question by tourists on Buddhist elements in a temple), just say you are not sure. Only say what you know. If not, it’s bad karma (if you cook up some rubbish answer)!’ [Yup, I gave them my email address for any future Dharma enquiries :-]
Great Job 🙂 Yes, this is one way to share/introduce Buddhism in a correct way.
It would be great, if Tour Agents organize tour to Temple, there is a Volunteer or Staff to guide the tourists thru and this would ensure good and correct information. But the problem would be man power! No matter how you trained Tour Guides, it is never 100% error proof, because it is still up to the ‘person’ inside them whether to have integrity or not. And if they don’t buy the idea of ‘Karma’which Hinduism and Buddhism believed in, they can just don’t care. Anyway, this is good enough, there can’t be totally 100% perfect.
Tourists might already have their own faiths; Buddhism could be introduced to them in a different way that would help to bring awareness and religions in harmony.
For those without any faith, it could be a good start for them to get to know Buddhism if they wish. Depending on the nature, they could zoom into Buddhism via proper Buddhist text (a reading booklist???) or zoom in from other ways – like from the philosophy side etc hence there might be a need stand by a list of non-Buddhism or Religions books that speaks Buddhism correctly. I don’t know … just a quick thought on this issue on the surface level ….
Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu!
Here are 2 suggestions…
Not sure if meditation is included as part of the lesson, but if it’s not, perhaps it’ll be a good idea to begin or end the full-day class with a 5-10mins meditation session in Wu Xiang Dian. That’ll give the guides a real feel of what it’s like, and perhaps, plant some seeds. 🙂
A growing FAQ section on the KMS website may be helpful to forgetful guides and even the public who wants to know more about the monastery and Buddhism in general. As a live Q&A system, it may even grow to be an authoritative knowledge-base that people will go to whenever they have questions. 🙂
Good suggestions! I’ll reflect them to those in charge. Amituofo 🙂
Meditation for Tour Guides (relax first, before going into the real stuff …, very caring and making sure they are real comfortable, oh tea break too – an hungry man is a angry man ), … Not a bad idea … maybe it can even evolve into something else too. Meditation Tourism???? Or …???
There will always be changes, old tour guides leaving and new ones joining, not a bad idea to conduct these classes regularly for new comers, sharing Buddhism and arousing interest in Buddhism if they have no other religions yet. When I was in work force, I love those chances my boss allow us to attend seminars or exhibition (free or not) during office hour.
The Free Distribution of Dharma Books at KMSPKS, it seems that the Office Reception is the best place, as it had all, compare to other spots in the KMSPKS. Such good stuff, must let others know, just like the website 🙂
The course cannot be too intensive or pushy, as it’s for training tour-guiding more than meditation. A good lunch is served. The course is conducted a few times every year in English and Chinese. Some of the guides are nominal Buddhists who became more interested in the Dharma too. They know the reception office and website too :-]
Right and agreed, that the course cannot be too intensive or pushy, need to be careful too, as the audience might be of a different faith, mutual respect.