Jim McMahon

What’s this superhero doing outside a Buddhist temple near Bangkok, Thailand? It’s all about marketing. About 95 percent of Thais identify as Buddhist, but that stat may be misleading. As Thailand’s economy has boomed in recent decades, many young Thais have shown more interest in Western imports like iPhones and shopping malls than in the principles of Buddhism—a 2,500-year-old religion that began in India and warns against the pursuit of material wealth. So monks at the Wat Tam Ru temple are trying to attract a new generation to the faith: They’ve installed 10-foot-tall superhero figures—like the Hulk, at left—and so far, it’s working. Surin, a monk at Wat Tam Ru, says teens rarely visited before. Now, he told the EFE News Agency, they come to take selfies with the superheroes “and while they are here, they also pop in to pray.”