Let me first start by saying whenever a few consecutive days pass without a new post, even when one is due, blame it on books, and those who recommend them to me. I have been lost now for several days in a beautiful Burmese love story. My apologies for that. But I am not in Burma. Not yet, anyways. I am in Thailand. In fact, as I write I am sitting under and umbrella looking out at a small island no more than a couple hundred meters away, surrounded in long boats, each proudly flying the Thai flag. This post is not about small islands or boats though. This post is about a culture so different from my own: a culture that hosts the worlds largest water fight upon the arrival of each new year.
In the U.S., we gather around T.V. screens in bars and living rooms, some of us will even find our way to Times Square, just to watch a giant ball of lights slide down a pole in the first few moments of our new year. A few courageous (or drunk) people may grab a stranger and plant a kiss on them. Others, will hold onto their closest friends or lovers and give out a holler. Our celebration of the new year is, like many other cultures, a celebration of new beginnings and a time to come together. However, I am under the impression that most of us do not spend this time with our families, or even in our home towns. I believe many of us get away with simply considering the holiday a chance to go extremes in our celebrations, giving the excuse that the slate will magically be erased come the first day of the new year.
In Thailand, the new year celebration takes place in April, at the end of the dry season: the hottest time of the year. It is called Songkran. I am not trying to say that Songkran is not extreme or wild in any way. In fact, to say that would be an immense lie. But the holiday does seem to have more meaning than that which our new year in the States does.
The aftermath.
Though the official Thai new year is now the first of January, Songkran is still a three day long national holiday, from the 13 to the 15 of April. Songkran is recognized and celebrated in several Southeast Asian countries, but supposedly none to the extreme of Thailand. The festival is the national time for cleansing. Traditionally, families and friends will dab talcum powder on their cheeks and arms to represent the sins of the past year, and rinse them off with scented water. It was told to me, that this is a time for Buddhists to visit monasteries, and for people all over the country to see family. It was told that the first day of Songkran is a day for respecting elders, that the second day is a day for families to pay respects to one another and pour water on each other for cleansing, and that the third and final day, is the day for Buddhists to visit monasteries to pray for the new year, pour scented water into the hands of Buddha and onto his shoulders, or on the monks when they bring food or donations to them. I do not know for sure if this is all true, as it was told to me by the bellhop at the hotel in Bangkok, but I have no reason to distrust him. Others, he said, use the time to thoroughly clean out their homes and work places.
Security guard taking part in the festivities
A foreigner such as ourselves, however, would have no idea of any of these significances just from walking down the street. Especially not in Bangkok. We arrived in the evening of the first day of festivities. We were greeted by hundreds of thousands of people, packed onto a road only a few short blocks away from our hotel. Everyone was soaked. Groups of young boys would pass by with super soakers tucked tightly under their arms. Young girls giggled, clutching bowls of talcum powder, swirling their fingers around in it. Fire trucks were on almost every corner, using their hoses to drench the crowds and spray those watching on bridges from above. We all couldn’t help but think, “at home, this would be mayhem”. But here it wasn’t. As my father put it, it was organized chaos. A mass of articulately uniform chaos. A puzzle that Westerners would never be able to figure out on our own. As each day of Songkran came and went, my respect for the holiday and the culture, and absolute awe of it all grew and grew.
The first night my brother and I eagerly ventured out into the crowd and I was nervous I would lose him, or that I might fall and not be able to get back up. My worries soon vanished as I stepped into line. That’s how it worked. You picked a direction, and you fell into a march with the person in front of you and the person behind you. You saw only the smiling faces of the people on either side of you, walking in the opposite direction. The crowd moved as a unit, its thousands of hands reaching out of nowhere, lightly grazing its hundreds of cheeks and chins and foreheads with the white muddy powder. From another mysterious place a bucket would emerge over a head, pouring water down a face, revealing the dark skin under the powder once again. And the rhythm began: step, smile, powder, water, step, smile, powder, water…and it went on for minutes, then hours, then days. It was a an indescribable grace unfitting for the size of the party.
Night time on Silom Street
Police cars and pick up trucks equipped with flashy, expensive stereo systems blared music across the crowds. People inched their way into the doors of swampy Seven-Elevens to buy bottles of beer. Red light streets were lined with men and women in short shorts dancing on boxes above the crowd, getting sprayed down by each passing water gun. Murky puddles that would have been avoided at all costs in LA and New York consumed the pavement here and pedestrians sloshed through them without a single sign of concern.
Jack and I, slathered in talcum powder.
On the third night, when police cars slowly made their way through the crowd, leading along garbage trucks, the crowd roared every time its sirens sounded, and marched in front of, behind, and to either side of the procession. Talcum powder was smeared onto the windows, and quickly erased by the spray of water guns, but no one hit the car, jumped on it, or tried to break the windows; acts that would be expected in such circumstances in the United States. Everyone was happy, and everyone was treated with respect.
Throughout the rest of Thailand in smaller towns and villages, Songkran must have looked very different. More traditional or cultural. But I believe that something about the mass of bodies snaking around those few wet streets in Bangkok gave me a better understanding of this culture than I could have otherwise received. I will never forget the number of eyes I met in those few days, and how much the words “Happy Songkran. Thailand.”, touched me. We were welcomed into this country with dripping arms, and plastered faces, but we were welcomed nonetheless, as each and every foreigner is. I only wish I could say the same about my own country.
Silom Street by day.
