The Death of Jatukham Fever

Written by Stephen Cleary
The following is a brief translation of a headline story from Wednesday's Thai language 'Thai Rath' newspaper.

Dozens of Jatukham amulet vendors and customers made another harsh complaint last week to the ‘Office of the Consumer Protection Board’ this time in regards to the latest brand of Jatukham called ‘Super Profit Rich’, which turned out to not be as nice as promised in the original advertisements. In fact, the Board has received more than 200 complaints this year from disgruntled Jatukhum fans. Jatukham Fever is finally coming to its end after countless competitors have flooded the market with low quality unattractive amulets.

Just yesterday, our reporters went to 3 popular Buddhist amulet locations to investigate for themselves whether there had been a demise in interest for the Jatukham amulet. It was found that there was nothing of the enthusiasm and fervor for the Jatukham amulet as the one which took the country by storm earlier in the year. There were far less Jatukham stalls and customers these days. Much of the demise in popularity is due to the market having been stalked by mostly fake amulets. Amulets which were once asking a price of several hundreds can not even be sold for tens of baht now. One shop we saw had placed up a sign stating ‘Business Closed’ and were selling off their amulets for just 5-20 baht. Still, no passer-bys were interested!

One amulet dealer admitted that just too many Jatukham amulets and different brand names had been produced. He went on to say that some vendors had ordered hundreds of thousands of baht’s worth of amulets during the Jatukham fever, but now – they couldn’t knock them off anymore. He blamed the demise on too many brands, unattractive brands and the rampant counterfeit production of popular ones. He said that customers had felt cheated by producers who had promised ‘lovely’ amulets but after receiving theirs, complained that they were just not up to standard.

It certainly looks like the billion baht Jatukham amulet industry will soon be coming to the end of its short life.

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