The Foreign Service Journal, May 2021

86 MAY 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL LOCAL LENS Please submit your favorite, recent photograph to be consid- ered for Local Lens. Images must be high resolution (at least 300 dpi at 8” x 10”, or 1 MB or larger) and must not be in print else- where. Include a short description of the scene/event, as well as your name, brief biodata and the type of camera used. Send to local- lens@afsa.org . BY TOM FENTON n KOH SAMUI, THAILAND Tom Fenton is an information management specialist currently posted in Bangkok, which he says is a pretty good place to ride out a global pandemic. His previous posts were Budapest and Khartoum. He shoots with a Canon 80D. He would like to stress that no cats or dragons were injured in the taking of this photo. I n this picture is a ruthless killing machine that would eat you as soon as look at you. Also in the picture, a dragon. We spotted this little guy hiding out, completely unfazed by the ferocious beast in whose mouth he was lounging. In fact, after I took this shot, he put his head down and resumed his nap. The dragon is at the base of “Guanyin with Eighteen Arms” (see inset), the main statue at Wat Plai Laem, a modern Buddhist temple complex on the island of Koh Samui, Thailand, that incorporates elements of Chinese and Thai traditions. Guanyin is the Buddhist bodhisattva associated with com- passion. We visited Wat Plai Laem in November 2020. n