MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND
At 4,500 apiece, angel dolls are not cheap.
Businesses from airlines to restaurants to tutorial schools
tutorial schools
Meaning: a place where students pay to get extra instruction, usually to prepare for examinations
Thai Translation:
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have jumped on the bandwagon and are now offering special promotions that treat the human-like dolls as actual humans to gratify their owners.
Nakonchai Tour bus company and Thai Smile airways are even selling tickets for the dolls.
Groups of as many as 30 restaurant-goers are reportedly bringing their dolls to dine with them at restaurants such as HOT POT and Neta Grill which has necessitated a new set of restaurant policies to protect this newfound market.
Dolls under the height limit for small children can eat all they want for free and other customers in the restaurant must respect a doll owner's right to privacy and are barred from taking photos of them eating with their dolls.
Many doll owners already believe that if the dolls are treated like real children they will bring them good luck and fortune.
Fortune-tellers have asked monks to give the dolls a blessing (bless the dolls) in a special ritual and other prominent monks have chosen to speak out against the dolls (get the details here).
Meanwhile, government officials have allegedly speculated that the dolls might be made of rubber in the future to use up the rubber stocks that the government is planning to accumulate by buying rubber from rubber farmers at above market prices.
The new multi-functional wonder dolls truly seem to be all things to all people and might even be likened to an emotional Swiss Army knife.