A  few years ago, I was as shocked as anybody when a Vietnamese sangha bought an old Salvation Army building and turned it into a Buddhist Monastery in extremely blue-collar Warren, Michigan. Warren is a factory town, known mostly for automotive plants and high-tech manufacturing and engineering. It’s a very, well… “white” town. The area where this monastery went up is in south Warren, which is a working-class area with liquor stores, check cashing shops, and a few bars. It was like a bloom of flowers in the desert, both literally and figuratively (they planted colorful flowers everywhere, and if you know Vietnamese Buddhists, you know they love their flowers!)

Here’s a picture of the statue in front of the chùa (temple):