Between motivation and work, this generation of young people still chose incense.
Say it and you may not believe it.
When the new generation of young people, become the new main force to light incense. Temples and beliefs have become the top traffic of our time.
How hot is it? It is said that on a high temperature day of 40 °C in Hangzhou, there are young men and women queuing up at 6 o'clock every day to buy "Lingyin Temple Eighteen Seed Bracelet".
Young people may not understand what the six roots, the six dusts, and the six senses of the eighteen sons are, but the emphasis is on making a wish.
So much so that some time ago, the official public account of Hangzhou Lingyin Temple issued a statement, requiring all online platforms to stop all commercial activities in the name of Hangzhou Lingyin Temple.
The reason is that some people have registered a trade name in the name of "Ling Yin Temple" and offer it for sale on the Internet, but the problem is that Ling Yin Temple has no official authorization at all.
After the announcement was issued, many people who spent a lot of money to buy bracelets online were shocked to realize that they had fallen into the way.
Recently, there was a new Netflix drama, which filmed the high-end of human nature of this "empty glove white wolf".
What's even more surprising is that this turned out to be a Thai drama -
"The Peerless Temple Hoax".
Thailand, which is very "Buddha", is paired with a very cool Netflix, with a score of 7.9, which is not low.
The temple fraud, the unrequited love of the mage, and the high energy throughout the whole process, also did not shy away from revealing the dark side behind the temple economy.
It turns out that faith is the most profitable business in the world.
The temple is the eternal flow.
Just like Douban netizens commented, "Faith is faith, practice is practice, but running faith and practice is definitely a business!"
Since Netflix dares to shoot, let's lend me a pair of discerning eyes and see this strongest high-end game in Asia clearly and truly.
01 A high-end game of human nature
"Religion is the longest-lasting flow", let's say Thailand, which is more than 95% Buddhist, and has more than 40,000 temples in the country.
These temples play a very important role in the life of almost every Thai person.
Whether it is a wedding, a funeral, or a solution to worries, the common people like to run to the temple, between the psychiatrist and the temple, people would rather go to the temple to donate money and accumulate merit.
Such a large sum of money, the Buddha would not ask for it.
Whose pocket did that go into?
The male protagonist Ah Sheng, originally started an NFT game with two friends and made a lot of money.
It's a pity that they were betrayed by their own people, and the debt company that colluded with loan sharks hacked into the system, and the entrepreneurial trio woke up and became unlucky people with more than 50 million debts.
Frustrated, Sheng returned to his hometown and followed his devout mother to the temple to worship incense, when he suddenly found a way to make a fortune:
Acting Teraji.
In Thailand, temples have extremely high incomes.
In the play, a temple with good incense has more than 20 million baht of incense money in a single day, which is equivalent to more than 4 million yuan.
Business requires costs, and only these revenues are unprofitable, and thousands of people willingly come to give money every day.
There are no taxes to pay.
The game or something, it's just weak. There is no better business in the world.
The question is, how do you get this deal up with modern traffic?
Shengli immediately found his old partner, the technical flow Baoer and the problem-solving expert rich second-generation game brother.
New project, temple start-up.
Next, the story enters the "entrepreneurial cool article".
To put it bluntly, the underlying logic is still the same as when they were engaged in games.
In addition to basic product forms such as tickets, incense, bell ringing, and signing for signs, the temples in the play also have upgrade services at various stages of birth, old age, sickness and death, and at various prices.
Donation merit is also divided into three, six, nine and so on - you can buy a top package of up to 230,000 yuan.
Isn't this the same way to play with game top-ups?
That's easy to do, just think about the Internet.
First choose a potential temple, not big, not small, the location is not biased, renovation costs are required, but the temple is well-equipped, there is dark horse potential, the dream love temple is coming-
Pulan Temple.
Entrepreneurship is seizing the day, it is better to directly copy the bottom.
With a monthly salary of 40,000 yuan, he bought off the original agent of this temple and directly contracted to operate.
Next, how to build a brand and become bigger and stronger?
The first step is to renovate + repackage (new media operation).
Renovations and everything are trivial, but the point is to discover the highlights: a hornet's nest under the chin of a Buddha statue that looks like a pinch of beard.
Poked?
Wrong, it's simply unwanted.
With a differentiated marketing grip, it is also necessary to improve the user experience.
The basic donation is paid in cash, and the upgrade service is paid by scanning the code, which depends on a particular one.
Also, go online on the official social account of Pulan Temple, personify the temple, the Buddha called you to burn incense, do you go?
There is even welfare drainage.
After a wave of operations, it has earned a wave of popularity, but there are many people who receive free "holy water", and there are basically no new donations.
In the final analysis, there are too many temples in Thailand, and there is not enough differentiation to get the maximum traffic and even less money.
So there is a second step: a "fan circle operation", start.
The core of the fan circle culture is always idols.
Temple, is the brand.
The temple economy can be understood as the most long-standing fan economy.
But the top popularity of the Buddha is shared by more than 40,000 temples, and in order to be in the position, you must have your own top class.
The entrepreneurial trio is also related to the Buddha, and they found a perfect candidate in a temple in the countryside-
Master Dole.
With a delicate face and an ascetic appearance, he is still a real monk, with connotation and faith.
All the men and women in the hall were fascinated by the Dharma he gently spoke, and even people like Ah Sheng who did not believe in Buddhism really felt the charm of Buddhism.
Mage Dol must be poached!
谈钱,太俗! 那就捐个庙吧。
Master Dole finally relented: he was willing to come and practice for a short period of three months.
It's enough, as soon as this set of image photos is released, there will be a live webcast, like most Internet celebrity events in this era, Pulan Temple, which exploded overnight.
Regardless of whether you really believe in Buddhism or not, you will come to Pulan Temple to "support" first.
If it's just ordinary people, it's not really fire.
Knowledgeable people know that they must get donations from politicians to be considered top popularity.
No, a local politician immediately came to the temple and ended the donation to the previous temple and instead donated 16 monks who were collectively ordained to the Pulan Monastery.
This leads to the third step: business competition.
The six roots of Buddhism are pure, but this huge business is also like a battlefield.
The temple, which was robbed of "customers" and "business" by Pulan Temple, quickly planned a counterattack.
But they are obviously not thinking on the Internet, but doing things with traditional thinking: looking for the motorcycle party to cause trouble.
That's easy to do.
As a senior Internet person, the entrepreneurial trio quickly found the mastermind behind the scenes, dug up the opponent's black material on the Internet, and then found a water army to post, and won directly.
But to achieve this step, it is still a temporary traffic, how can we find long-term traffic explosive products?
Step 4: "Make a miracle".
The honeycomb Buddha statue of the temple appeared, and Ah Sheng and they produced a batch of bee charms.
But to make an influencer product, you have to create a social networking event.
Without miracles, create "miracles", and the product will be popular.
Ah Sheng pretended to be a reporter and followed the rescue team around looking for accidents.
The original plan was to put the bee rune together at the scene of the car accident, and then prepare to buy off the survivors, so that the other party lied that the reason why he survived was all thanks to the protection of this bee rune.
But the plan didn't go well at the beginning, there are some things that can't be bought with money, and one driver injured his legs because of the accident and rejected Ah Sheng fiercely.
But everything in the world is unpredictable. Sometimes, faith cannot be explained by common sense.
The Buddha pendant that Ah Sheng inadvertently left behind became the key to the reversal.
A few days later, the driver was able to walk again.
Therefore, he was convinced that it was the Buddha pendant who created a miracle, and he didn't need to use a penny, and shouted for the bee god rune directly in front of the TV camera.
This is good, "miracle" + Internet celebrity temple, the bee rune has become an Internet celebrity product in short supply, and it has been fried to a sky-high price by scalpers, and some experts have analyzed that it is worth 100,000.
So far, a temple start-up has been a complete success.
But the trading of immortals also has to face the test of reality.
02 A game of survival
Speaking of the story, the audience can also see:
This temple-based business is essentially a manipulation of human nature.
Buddhism universalizes sentient beings, and the Buddha doesn't care about making money.
But where there are people who make a lot of money, where there are interests, there are strife, and where there are good thoughts, evil thoughts breed.
For under the sun there must be a dark side.
The trouble of the entrepreneurial trio is coming soon.
The first crisis, the idol "collapsed".
At the beginning, he was able to impress Venerable Dole by promising to help him cultivate the Dharma Cultivation Pavilion.
With Master Dole, there is a series of successful plans in the future, and even the photographer takes promotional photos for him for free, because how can he collect money for taking pictures of the mage?
The Master is a true practitioner, and material interests cannot shake his heart, but as a person, his heart will be moved.
No one expected that he would have a love for designer Bao'er.
Ah Sheng saw the thoughts of Master Dole, and kept creating a way for Bao'er, who loved him, to be alone with the mage, hoping to completely tie up the mage and turn three months into eternity.
This wish is fulfilled.
As early as when the trio was doing periphery, Mage Dole debunked it, which was superstition.
In the end, Master Kor did not stop the three of them, and participated in them as a promoter.
For Boa'er, of course.
But I didn't expect the side effect to be: Master Dol is a true gentleman, and since he has moved his desires, he will also court.
Okay, well, now it's off.
The second crisis, civil strife.
The originally lonely and nameless Pulan Temple was instantly revitalized into the largest flow pool within a radius of 100 miles.
The "means" on the peer were resolved by the entrepreneurial trio.
But an even bigger crisis arose: the monks fought for fame and fortune.
There are people involved in drugs with the outside...
The three young men came to make money, once because Gen-la Dol had witnessed the charm of Buddhism, but as they went deeper, they witnessed the shadows under the sacred cloak of the temple.
But compared to the ensuing crisis, this is nothing.
The biggest crisis is coming: the three are reduced to pawns in the money game.
In this "temple scam", the entrepreneurial trio gradually changed from the set-up to the insiders.
In fact, from the very beginning, the audience can find that something is wrong.
Although the trio's planning is really powerful, the whole process is like a hanging.
When you encounter an obstacle, you can easily solve it.
It seems that there is someone behind them who is helping them all the time.
Ah Sheng originally just had feelings, until Ah Tang, the former agent of the temple, was selling goods in the temple and was discovered by the abbot's assistant and called the police.
As a result, the black police even beat them, suspecting that Ah Sheng and the three were also involved in the drug trade and used the temple to launder money.
Tang also escaped from capture and found the game brother in the trio to ask for money.
But strangely, Ah Tang died suddenly.
Ah Sheng and Bao'er were both taken to the police station, and they were also released not long after.
The black police investigating this case are black enough, but I didn't expect someone to be blacker than him.
Who is behind the scenes?
Is it the abbot's assistant?
He does have something, but the real backer behind him is the local councillor.
At the end of the day, the business trio is just one part of a larger business.
Illegal transactions, money laundering, and other unspeakable things carried out by parliamentarians using temples as intermediaries are the real big deals.
The black police crossed the line to investigate the case, but if they continued to investigate, they would also find out the affairs of the councillors, and the councillors were not helping the trio, but themselves.
Parliamentarians, black policemen, lawyers, one after another.
In a big chess game, three people are just chess pieces.
The councillors took a fancy to the "talent" of Ah Sheng and the three of them in running temples, and asked them to continue to help them and go to the larger state capital to run temples and "promote Buddhism".
After learning the truth, the trio has no choice at all.
After all, when they were invited to the table by the parliamentarians, and after looking at Ah Tang's hand as the main course, they understood: If they enter the game, it will be difficult to get out.
Many viewers have noticed that there is a Thai picture at the beginning of each episode, which is very beautiful and allegorical.
The three protagonists are like Monkey King Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing of Journey to the West, but Sun Monkey has great ability and can't escape from the palm of the Buddha!
As the story ends, Ah Sheng discovers the clues left by his long-missing father, which is related to the temple, and the story of the first season has also turned into a potential beginning of the second season.
Bigger innings, in the back.
03 The Peerless Temple scam, one is willing to fight, and the other is willing to suffer
"The Peerless Temple Scam" is not a head drama that flies on the Internet.
The biggest big-name male protagonist in this play, Pinaro Su Pan Pingyou.
is only in the 2017 Thai dark horse movie "Genius Gunman", playing the second male.
Even judging from the performance, the performance of the protagonist trio, including him, was not a success.
The drama can be successful, in addition to the unique theme advantage.
The key is the strength of Thailand's film and television industry, not only dare to shoot. From the script to the production, it reflects a very high standard.
Especially in a big Buddhist country like Thailand, the depth of the drama has not relaxed at all.
In addition to the thorough deconstruction of the temple business, there is also a stroke of genius in the play, which is Master Dole.
First of all, the actors are really well found, clean and clear, calm and gentle, forbearant and firm, and their acting skills also beat the protagonist trio.
There is a scene where Master Dole is beaten, and when Bao'er treats his wounds, as soon as Bao'er leans over, the actor suddenly takes a breath and rubs his fingers.
It turns out that the three words of moving the heart can be filmed so secretly and restrainedly, and so moving.
Once, under the pink sunset and fireflies, the two were talking about Buddhism, but the Venerable Master suddenly realized that he had never loved.
Later, in the "Spring Dream" related to Bao'er again and again, he became more clear about his feelings of love.
As he himself said, love does bring happiness, but happiness and pain often go hand in hand.
If you decide to love, you have to be prepared to suffer.
After decades of Buddhist practice, once I was moved and determined to return to the world, Bao'er was stunned and fled.
I think that at that moment, what many viewers felt was not a bloody romance drama, but the charm of Buddhism.
The world, love, the Dharma, all the things in the world, are all part of the Dharma, and the Dharma itself is a very great, great thing.
But the Dharma is true, and so is the buying and selling that comes from it.
The best thing about the whole drama is that it not only presents the charm of Buddhism, but also does not shy away from the shadows under the light.
For example, the trio in the play, when they cut leeks to their homes several times, they were both funny and embarrassed.
Because the miracle scam was too fierce, Ah Sheng's mother was also fooled.
Ah Sheng's father disappeared when he was young, and he was not heard from for many years, and his mother was once an alcoholic, and she was in debt, and later became obsessed with worshipping the Buddha, and seems to have found refuge in her faith.
But she didn't want to believe that her husband was dead, but went to ask for the bee charm and asked him to come back safely.
The grandfather of the rich second generation broke a bone in a fall, and instead of being hospitalized, he went to buy a bee rune.
Even though the trio knew that the miracle was made by themselves and told their family that the miracle was fake, the family was still obsessed.
He also scolded them for not understanding faith and offending the gods.
In fact, such a story is familiar to us.
Over the years, similar temple fraud cases have long been revealed by legal programs.
"Today's Statement" reported on a case.
Several people who have just reached the level of Chinese, claiming to be the reincarnation of the Jizo King Bodhisattva and the Great Energy Emperor, can teach teachers to open their own divine sense.
I found some childcare ghosts to talk about it, and I encouraged the students to buy high-priced membership classes.
There is no shortage of intellectuals among the members, and they are fooled regardless of cultural level.
In this way, he collected more than 5,000 yuan in 3 years.
There is also the "release of mineral water" incident that occurred two years ago.
Some elderly people bought boxes of mineral water that had been blessed by the master, and poured water into the river and the sea with some words.
Accumulate merit in this way.
As the new generation of young people also began to seek Buddha and buy "holy relics", the new generation seems to have begun to follow the path of the older generation.
The aforementioned "fake 18-seed bracelet" is only part of the scam.
Where there are people, there is a lack of faith, and there is also an opportunity for "temple fraud".
These realities, in fact, point to the same thing as Netflix's new drama-
The unspeakable of faith and the indescribable of human nature.
One of the details of the play is that some real believers do not believe in the so-called "miracles" made by the trio.
It's the cause and effect of all things in the world.
Why has Buddhism and faith survived to this day, and why has incense continued to burn?
Because human beings have not gotten rid of spiritual confusion because of the progress of science and technology.
And with the advent of the new generation, the former temple scam has been injected with elements of the new era:
Fan circle culture, fan circle wars, idol worship.
Even if the scam is deconstructed hand-in-hand, the believer will always believe.
Because the so-called "metaphysics" is the spirit of faith.
This is the most powerless part: you can never wake up someone who willingly sleeps to the end.
Just like Ah Sheng's mother in the play, she really believes in miracles, Buddhism?
I'm afraid it's actually just an obsession in my heart.
When you break this deception, you break her illusions, but what if someone just wants to live in a dream forever?
The real trick is never the trick.
It's the human heart, the side of human nature that is willing to be deceived.
As Ah Sheng said at the beginning, faith-based donations cannot be valued.
Life is a practice, constantly entangled with desires, constantly succumbing, and happiness and pain coexisting.
There is always nowhere to put people's hearts, human nature is always contradictory, it doesn't matter if you are deceived, you just want peace of mind and buy a happy life.
The essence of this high-end game of human nature is-
One is willing to fight, the other is willing to suffer.
In the last sentence, although Netflix dared to shoot, the ending was still not good after all.
If it is a national drama, the ending should be that the trio take the initiative to turn themselves in, change their past mistakes, and become newly created people.
You see, Thai dramas still lose.