Nezha Pavilion Temple outside Palladium Mall @ Bangkok [Thailand]

I am no stranger to Palladium Mall at Bangkok as I once stayed in the connected Berkeley Hotel Pratunam back in 2018. However, I don't really remember this pavilion right in front of the main entrance and its patron deity is a well known figure in Chinese legends and mythology.

Known as Nezha, he was said to be born after spending a few years in the womb of his mother, and can walk and talk upon birth. Blessed with special skills and strength, he became enemies with the royal dragon family from the ocean and eventually, had to kill himself in order to save his family and townspeople. 

You can read more here; I learnt most of Nezha's history from a Hong Kong drama serial when I was a kid and the deity's immortal age was somewhere around early teens; which means kids of my era absolutely adored him! I bet the hula hoops, which looked like Nezha's Qiankun Ring (乾坤圈) weapon, were in great demand then.

Given his age, soft drinks are used for offerings. In Singapore, people would usually put out Yakult / Vitagen yogurt drinks instead. Oh well, different country, different culture and tradition. I was quite fascinated with this 'temple' as I don't remember of any temple in Singapore that honors Nezha. A search on the web revealed that there's such a temple; Tian Teck Keng Temple (天德宫) along Tampines Link. 

One interesting fact about the sculpture at Bangkok is that Nezha was standing on a dragon. Even though Nezha was eventually immortalized, the enmity between him and the dragon family continued to be unresolved, especially since it was Nezha who first killed the son of the dragon king. Drama right?