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WINDOW ON
THAILAND
Thai New Year starts off squeaky
clean
By Sara Schonhardt
BURI RAM, Thailand - The villages in
Thailand's northeast - known as the country's rice
bowl - are villages in every sense of the word;
from their shaded porches and dusty gravel roads
to their stilted wooden houses built in
traditional Thai style. This is where people
gather in the shade during the day, fanning
themselves as they lie on long bamboo tables under
open thatched shelters.
Village elders and
small children frequently ride past on rickety old
bicycles - throwbacks to the 1950s - with u-shaped
handlebars and banana seats. In these relic
villages, where water comes through a pipe in the
wall pushed by a rudimentary generator, where
toilets don't flush and floors are covered with
packed earth and concrete, one is sent back in
time to an age long before the advent of the
Internet.
Of course, these tranquil
villages haven't escaped entirely unscathed;
mobile phones are all the rage, everyone has cable
TV and the glow of fluorescent lighting casts a
greenish-blue aura over everything. Yet as
Thailand prepares to celebrate its annual New Year
festival known as Songkran, this region has
preserved its sense of tradition.
This
time of year marks Thailand's hot season and is
punctuated by Songkran, a Sanskrit word meaning
"to move into". The festival is celebrated from
April 13-16 and marks the beginning of a new solar
year.
On the practical side, Songkran is a
fun-filled way to beat the heat, making it one of
the most important festivals in Thailand and also
one of the most enjoyable. The highlight is plenty
of playful water-throwing, but unlike Bangkok,
where pop culture rules the day and where Songkran
has become nothing more than a crazed
three-day-long water fight, the plains of northern
Thailand, or Isaan, still honor more traditional
New Year celebrations.
First stop, Buri
Ram
In the town of Buri Ram, the place to
be seen is still the local market with its surplus
of fruits, vegetables, meat stands, sweets stalls
and various other food vendors. Life in Thailand's
small towns revolves around the city market, a
source of food, drink and merriment. The market,
or talat, is the hub of nearly all
commercial and social activity. People go there to
buy, to sell and simply to catch up on the latest
gossip.
During Asia Times Online's trip to
Buri Ram for last year's Songkran festival, we
bought everything we could get our hands on: cream
cookies, banana bread, mangos, rose apples, fish,
herbs, soft drinks, beer and a smattering of other
edible goods, despite having little room in our
pickup truck as it was packed with the bodies of
various village children.
After mulling
over how best to arrange our wares in the pickup,
we began the journey to the village just after
dusk. Unlike the ceiling of night in Bangkok, the
night sky in Buri Ram is strikingly smog-free. We
could hardly take our eyes off the heavens, which
gleamed like a velvet sheet laden with diamonds,
though my hands clutched with urgency to the side
of the pickup as it cruised at top speed over Buri
Ram's bumpy backroads.
We arrived at our
destination around 9pm. On an ordinary night
people would already be in bed, but this was a
special occasion and our hostesses' house was a
hotbed of activity. After we had clambered down
from the truck bed, people in the village
gradually began appearing, curious as to who or
what was causing the commotion. Drinks were laid
out on long bamboo tables along with plates of
cookies. Men sat around an adjacent concrete block
drinking beer from bottles, and we the
farangs (white foreigners) took our places
on display.
Foreigners rarely visit the
villages in Isaan in the numbers in which they
flock to the south, so we were a bit of a novelty.
Many stared. Several of the older villagers wanted
to touch us and after a few timid requests, the
flesh squeezing and skin stroking began. According
to our hostess, this is a common reaction. Many of
the villagers like the way farangs feel,
she said - soft and mushy, she added with a jab.
Grueling farm work has left most of the villagers
looking sinewy and the sun has turned their skin a
deep, dark brown. The women's figures are slightly
compacted, like human accordions, and the men are
thin poles of muscle and bone.
The
curiosity apparent to us that first night was
matched in the days that followed by an
unrelenting sense of compassion that was nothing
short of endearing. For the next four days, we
were welcomed into the homes of various strangers
who fed us and brought us small gifts.
Let the celebrations begin
Apart
from a new beginning, Songkran is a time for
thanksgiving and reunion. More important, Songkran
signifies the process of cleansing and
purification. Bathing rituals allow people to
purge themselves of their ills, misfortune and
evils so that they may start the new year pure and
clean.
To get a fresh start, people don
new clothes for the festival and visit their local
temple to offer food and other goods to the monks.
On the first day of Songkran the women in
our hostesses' home woke early to prepare food for
the monks that would come through the village
seeking alms. Each day a train of saffron-robed
monks walks through the village after dawn to
receive their daily food ration. Because Buddhist
monks are devoid of earthly possessions, including
money, they depend on the villagers for food and
other goods. In turn, the villagers gain merit by
giving offerings to the monks.
On this
particular morning, we took part in the ceremony.
This reporter was in charge of the sweets, which I
raised slightly above my head while bowing before
moving down the line, placing a sugary treat in
each alms bowl as I went. I ran out of goodies
before I reached the end but was told that the
offerings would be evenly divided among the monks
when they returned to the temple.
When the
goods had all been handed out we each stood back
from the lineup and gave a deep wai,
palming our hands together at our chests and
bending our heads down to meet them - a sign of
deep respect. The train moved on and we returned
to the house to prepare for the day's next ritual:
the Bangsakun ceremony. This is a religious
service performed in memory of the dead and is an
important part of every Songkran festival.
According to tradition, when a person dies and is
cremated, the ashes and charred bones are buried
at the root of a sacred fig tree. Today, people
typically place their relatives' ashes in a pra
chedi or pagoda located on temple grounds.
The Bangsakun ceremony often is officiated
by several monks at the place where the deceased's
ashes have been deposited. A sacred string is tied
to the pagoda and run through the hands of the
monks, who kneel facing the family and conduct a
series of chants and blessings. When the ceremony
is finished the family heads off to the main
temple with food, money trees and various others
offerings that they bestowed upon the monks.
After parceling out their gifts, our
hostesses' family members took their places on the
floor as the monks ate their meal on a slightly
raised platform. When the meal was finished, the
head monk led a long prayer before the statue of
the Buddha and we paid our respects to the shrine
of the village's oldest monk.
In keeping
with what may seem a rather bizarre tradition,
Buddhists believe it's good luck to enshrine the
first monk in the village in a glass coffin. They
then place the coffin on an altar and drape it
with flashing lights, fake fluorescent flowers,
and gaudy gold ornaments.
After several of
the village elders had taken turns placing incense
sticks around the altar, the remaining food was
given back to the family to share and we returned
to our hostesses' home to while away the
afternoon.
Water wars
The
following day we went for a drive, passing through
several other small towns where the water festival
had already started.
In Isaan, water is
vital to most villagers' livelihoods, and the
custom of throwing water during Songkran is
thought to have derived from a northern rainmaking
ceremony. According to local myth, serpents called
naga brought rain by spouting water from
the sea; the more water they spouted the more rain
there would be. Today, from busy town centers to
dusty village yards, people everywhere partake in
these playful water wars.
Of course, now
there's also a crazed, alcohol-induced element to
the festival (this year, as previously,
anti-drunk-driving campaigns have begun in earnest
to keep intoxicated celebrants off the roads), but
we were well prepared and had loaded the truck
with buckets of water and powder, which is wetted
to form a paste, providing one of Songkran's
oldest traditions. The white paste is a sign of
protection and promises to ward off evil. The
person with the paste is often older and he or she
applies the paste to various parts of the face and
neck of others. One is expected to leave this
paste on until it washes off on its own, which in
many cases doesn't take long.
As we rode
through village after village people ran out into
the street with hoses, buckets and water guns in
mad pursuit of our truck. At one point we made the
mistake of stopping at a traffic light, where
several passers-by took the opportunity to hit and
run. By the time we arrived at our hostesses'
home, there was not a dry spot on anyone.
The following two days mimicked the first;
only the setting was slightly different. Sometimes
a water fight would break out in the street or
start in the yard of a home and expand to
neighboring houses. Those tasked with venturing to
the store to stock up on supplies never returned
dry.
On the third and final day of
Songkran, a day known as Wan Payawan, we honored
the village elders by pouring water over their
palms and feet, to wash away evil and bestow our
blessings. On this day, families also sprinkle
scented water from silver bowls on a Buddha image.
This ritual is practiced on the first official day
of the New Year, and in turn the elders perform a
ceremony that involves tying strings around the
wrists of others in a gesture that imparts good
wishes for the new year.
Before we left,
several villagers approached holding out such
strings. For the next few minutes we each watched
in awe as people recited short prayers of blessing
and filled our pale upturned wrists with white and
yellow strings that cannot be removed unless they
fall off on their own.
All told, it was a
deeply touching example of Thailand's cultural
distinction as well as the Thai people's reverence
for family, religion and tradition.
Prime
Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's administration has
recently begun to exploit the country's cultural
uniqueness in favor of economic gains. Last year
the Tourism Authority of Thailand spent 70 million
baht (about US$1.75 million) during Songkran to
promote the northern city of Chiang Mai as the
regional hub for tourism. That figure is expected
to increase this year.
Some say the
tourism campaign could benefit the region, which
has been less popular among tourists than the
white-sand beaches belonging to the country's
south. Others worry that an influx in foreigners
could cause the region to loosen its grip on more
traditional Songkran celebrations.
Whatever the case, this festival is
certain to capture any who have the good fortune
to experience it. So as the hoses wash away the
year 2547 and the water guns spray their salute to
2548, all we who will be there getting soaked to
the bone have to say is chok dee (good
luck).
Sara Schonhardt is a
regional editor for Asia Times Online.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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