Every detail in Kid Mai Death Awareness revolves around the law of birth – aging – sickness – death. To enter the cafe, customers have to go through a dark alley with questions like “Are you tired today?”, “What’s the purpose of your life?”, “Is anyone waiting for you? The menu also has four special drinks named “Birth”, “Elder”, “Painful” and “Death”.

Each room opens up special experiences for customers. For example, the “Birth” experience allows customers to lie in suspended hammocks that simulate time in a mother’s womb. The “Painful” room has hospital-like clothes and beds, with reminders to stay healthy while you can. In particular, there is a large coffin for customers to experience the feeling of “Death” within 3 minutes.

If you lie in that coffin for about 3 minutes, the water bill will be deducted by 10%. Many diners when coming here are curious and want to try lying in that coffin, they share that they want to try it not because of the discount on drinking water, but when lying in it, they feel more calm.

The café was set up by Dr Veeranut Rojanaprapa with Buddhist aims in mind, the idea being that if we’re more aware of our deaths we’ll behave more selflessly. Rojanaprapa has said that “awareness of death in Buddhism is strong enough to make people recognise the value of their life,” and that coming to this understanding means “greed and anger will decrease automatically.