Chocolate Buddha

I know I might offend some religious Buddhists by posting this photo.  But that is not my intent.  My intent is to expose, and incite reflection.

My wife and I received this box of chocolates as a gift from a visiting friend who lives in Belgium. (She bought them from a well-known chocolatier in Bruges.)  The chocolate on the photo is the last piece.  Yes, it's a Buddha figure!  When we saw this piece of chocolate, the first thing that entered my mind was: the controversial Danish cartoon of Muhammad depicted as a terrorist.  My wife thought of the Spanish chocolate-covered white biscuit called "Filipinos" (brown outside, white inside) which caused such a brouhaha in the Philippines not unlike the recent reaction to Chip Tsao's article.

Is this offensive?  Well, I can just imagine if, say, an enterprising Chinese had manufactured Jesus Christ chocolates (or Jesus Christ hopia!) and sold them in Hong Kong!  Will you buy them?  Will you eat them?

My wife said maybe the Buddha chocolate idea might be a better sell than the Jesus Christ one. Well Buddha looks so jolly and plump, eating him almost evokes a happy thought.  But eating Jesus Christ? Don't we need to do confession first?

P.S.

Well what do you know?  After I wrote this blog, I goggled "chocolate Jesus" and found this news article "Chocolate Jesus exhibit canceled" by the Associated Press (March 30, 2007).  Read on. Or better yet, watch this debate.

There's more apparently: a song entitled Chocolate Jesus. "Well its got to be a chocolate jesus/

Make me feel good inside/ Got to be a chocolate jesus/ Keep me satisfied"

And there's a chocolate Mary too!

And yes, chocolate Hindu deities! “In the case of [Krishna and Ganesh], Hindus asked me to make them … and many of the folks who buy them are Hindus”