The Nutty Turtle Collector

So we're hanging out at the pier, as we often are of an evening, and the Nutty Turtle Collector comes along. We've seen him a few times now, and he's clearly bonkers. He bounds up in a battered crash helmet, flashes a wild-eyed and toothless grin, hops down the steps and over the edge into the murky water, and ducks under the pier. There, he wades around in the filthy water with a torch for a while and then emerges triumphantly brandishing a plastic carrier bag full of turtles ranging in size from tiny to maybe 8 inches long, which he proudly displays to us for a few moments before jumping on his bike and puttering away.

We asked him once what the turtles were for. Turns out they're for merit-making, the Buddhist practice of earning karma for the next reincarnation. You can make merit in a variety of ways: offering incense and candles to Buddha; giving food to monks; generally being a nice person... and releasing animals into the wild. That's what these turtles are destined for – they've been plucked from their home by Nutty Turtle Guy, whence they will be carted off to market to sit in a bucket of water until some worthy fellow comes and buys one to release it back into the river from which it came in the first place. I hope the poor turtles get to earn a little Buddhist merit for the inconvenience this process causes them.