Not all Buddhist temples offer a Zen-like experience, with manicured gardens and meditative art. In countries like Thailand and Singapore, visitors can visit Buddhist “hell parks.” Once used to warn fellow believers of the punishment they’d inflict after a lifetime of evil, today they resemble theme parks straight out of a second-rate horror movie.
Visitors crawl through life-size plaster casts and creepy statues that depict demons torturing humans who’ve fallen into Buddhism’s lowest realms. In some depictions, screaming sinners are placed in giant cauldrons and boiled alive in peanut oil.
Today, families visit popular parks like Singapore’s Hell Museum for a tacky good time (imagine pretending to be chopped in half and taking wide-eyed selfies). But these horrific images of the afterlife have historically had spiritual significance, and they offer a deeper understanding of how death and the afterlife are understood in Asian cultures.
