Why Thais lavish treats on ‘angel dolls’, and what sparked a creepy craze

Tukta, with her braided pigtails, long lashes and rosy cheeks, is enjoying a day of pampering. Wearing gold bracelets on both wrists, she’s just had chocolate cake at a cafe and is about to watch a film at a multiplex in downtown Bangkok.

According to her “mum”, Tukta loved the cake and will enjoy the movie, but we’ll have to take her word for it. Tukta, whose name means “doll” in Thai, is literally a doll.

That hasn’t stopped Wimonrat, a young Thai office worker who asked that her full name not be used for fear of being ridiculed, doting on the toddler-sized plastic toy as if it was her real daughter. She wines and dines Tukta, sitting the doll at restaurants tables with a plate of food in front of it, takes it on trips, and tucks it in at night. She does everything for the doll that she would do for a normal child – short of breastfeeding it. “She is too old for that,” Wimonrat says with a giggle.

Tukta is a luuk thep, or “child angel”, and Wimonrat believes the doll is alive, in a sense, animated with the spirit of a childlike angelic being that entered the plastic toy during a blessing ritual performed at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok. By pampering the doll, Wimonrat seeks to gain karmic merit – and get lucky. “If I take care of her well, she will make me lucky. I believe that,” she explains. “I’m happy to do it. I love dolls.”

Creepy and costly: ‘Angel doll’ mania is sweeping superstitious Thailand

She’s not alone. Thailand has been gripped by the outbreak of a new trend – equal parts fashion and superstition – in which men and women from all walks of life coddle and indulge lifelike dolls as if they were their flesh-and-blood offspring. Many of them spoil their child angels rotten, treating them to lavish meals, taking them on foreign holidays, and buying them expensive gifts. Many luuk thep have their own little dolls and other toys to play with, while several shops sell a variety of accessories for them.

Luuk thep dolls, most of which are high-quality imports and can cost up to 100,000 baht (HK$22,000), occupy a place between lucky charms and cuddly toys. They serve as potent talismans for Thais obsessed with the vagaries of their fortunes, for which they constantly seek supernatural remedies: with amulets, through making merit, by beseeching spirits at shrines. The dolls, which are often made up to look eerily similar to real children, can also serve therapeutic purposes by keeping their owners company and offering them hope and comfort in troubled times – this in a nation where the economy has been stagnant and the ruling military junta brooks no dissent.

“When I feel lonely, I play with Tukta, wash her hair, and watch TV with her,” Wimonrat, who is single, says. “She loves soap operas.”

Two of the young woman’s friends, too, lavish attention on their own dolls. They bought their luuk thep from Mae Ning (“Mother Ning”), a popular Bangkok doll collector who uses ritualised incantations to ask the Hindu goddess Parvati to breathe life into her factory-made dolls before she offers them for “adoption” to customers.