Thai Holidays

There are at least 16 public holidays in Thailand. Unlike many holidays where I come from, these events involve very little marketing and lots of celebration. Schools close, business stops, and firecrackers fill the streets. As a foreigner, I have yet to understand some of these holidays—most of them actually. But a few stand out as noteworthy.

Songkran

Songkran has its root in a solemn religious ceremony involving sprinkling water on the shoulders of the elderly, but the tradition has been…uh…adapted. Imagine taking a city of junior high boys, loading them up with barrels of water on the back of a pick-up truck, and letting them drive down the highway tossing buckets of water on each other. That pretty much sums it up. Except that it’s the grandmas, the college professors and the pig-tailed preschoolers participating in the fun. When you run out of water you simply stop at a good Samaritan’s house, grab a hose and refill your industrial-sized trashcan in the back of your truck.

If you step outside during the days surrounding this three-day festival you WILL get wet. Trucks fighting on the interstate maintain relatively normal speeds. When you get closer to the town center, however, the crowd is so thick that it takes 1 hour to drive a 1 mile stretch of road. (Nate thinks 2 hours is a more accurate number. We can’t remember the exact amount of time.)

Sadly, Songkran is not all fun and games. Last year 321 people were killed and 3,040 others were injured during the event. (Mostly due to motorcycle accidents.) You can see why we were glad that Baby "A" chose to arrive late, avoiding the need to drive to the hospital (located by the busiest part of town) during this festival.

Loi Krathong and Yi Peng
Now imagine taking those buckets of water and turning them into flaming lanterns and firecrackers. That’s sort of what these festivals feel like, at least in our neighborhood. Again, the roots go back to making floating offerings to the water goddesses and making merit by lighting lanterns. But to the Westerner, one of the most apparent pieces of the celebration is beautiful FIRE. And lots of it.

During our first year here we took K to a neighborhood celebration that felt like a giant walking potluck happening in the middle of the street. All the restaurant owners brought out their three-gallon pots and served up free, delicious (well, mostly delicious) delicacies of…stuff. Mostly made hot peppers, rice noodles, and a few undefined animal parts. Since the event began after sunset, it was too dark to tell exactly WHAT we were eating, but at every table, a smiling neighbor would add another paper plate of food to my already full hands.

Most of my memories from that night revolve around trying to balance five paper plates of food (with no idea where to dispose of any of them) while trying to keep K out of the way of the exploding fireworks that seemed to be sporadically taking off from random people’s back pockets. It was crazy. And amazing. Partially amazing because we all got out of there with all limbs intact.

The rest of the celebration involves lots of lanterns (think mini hot-air balloons.) Our friends taught us how to launch these. With their expertise, we were mostly successful. But from our balcony view I could see quite a few less successful lanterns burning in trees and in the road. Again, no one else seemed concerned. Thai people are amazingly adept at keeping the combustion under control--or at least pretending it doesn't exist. This event taught me that my (perhaps paranoid) view of fire safety is radically different from my neighbors.

While Loi Krathing isn’t actually a holidays, (it’s one of the many festivals that goes above and beyond the 16 “official” public holidays) it’s definitely worth experiencing.

Royal Plowing Day
Not all Thai holidays are high drama. (At least not in the eyes of the foreigner.) I still have yet to figure out the ins and outs of Royal Plowing Day. It involves hooking up oxen to plow the rice fields, offering them a variety of food like beans and rice whiskey, and then predicting the outcome of the farming season based on what they choose to eat. It’s sort of like groundhog day except that it’s taken a lot more seriously and schools and businesses close for it. Who can complain about that?

Considering the amount of rice that is consumed in Thailand, it totally makes sense to have a holiday to kick off the season, and it’s great to see the community (including the Royal family) rally behind it.

Children’s Day

Ahh…There’s the event I missed out on as a kid. It’s just what it sounds like—a day to honor, spoil, and celebrate kids. Hallmark is missing out on this one.

While we do miss gathering with our families during our traditional American holidays, we can’t complain about a lack of celebrations happening in Thailand. I also can’t complain about the Thai style of skipping the commercialism and going straight to the main event. This Thanksgiving when you’re eating your cranberries and turkey, know our celebration is, well, turkeyless. But we’re having the time of our lives making friends, eating chicken feet soup and avoiding those fireworks…this year from the safety of our balcony.

The Market for Beauty

The market for “beauty” looks different in every culture. I first noticed this when I went to buy deodorant in Thailand. No deodorant on the shelf made claims to make the buyer smell better, perspire less, or feel fresher. Instead they claimed to turn the buyer’s armpits a few shade whiter. Yes, whiter. While my western friends are lying in the sun and investing in tanning sprays, my Thai friends are purchasing soaps, shaving cream, and lotions to make them paler.

Even food is not exempt from this marketing scheme. Today I found a whitening smoothie on my menu.

Other attractive features in Thai culture seem to be large, broad noses and small biceps for college boys. I’ve been told that some of the guys even take feminine hormones to try to decrease their muscle size.

Again, from my American upbringing, this makes no sense. But who’s to say that desiring tan skin and large biceps makes sense. And why do we make such a big deal about everything from the color of our hair to the width of our toes?

Man looks at the external appearances, but God looks at the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7) For those of you who stare in the mirror every morning and can’t stop thinking about how undeniably gorgeous you are, perhaps this might be sad news. But for the rest of us, we can rejoice that God made us in His image. Tan or pale, large or small, brown eyes or blue eyes, we all have a chance to harvest beauty in our heart. Stop stressing, people, (I include myself in that exhortation) and stick it to the marketing companies. God made all people and all cultures beautiful AS THEY ARE.