Sà-wàt-dee bpee mài (Happy Songkran) — Thai New Year 2565
Previous posts:
April 13-15 marks the new year for Thai people. Never having been colonized, they use their own calendar—over 500 years older than our Jesus-based calendar. Theirs is Buddha based. They do, however, conform to Western standards of January 1 as the official start of every new year. It’s also observed in Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, parts of northeast India, parts of Vietnam, and Xishuangbanna, China (which borders Laos and Myanmar). Here’s a bit of a brief on it.
You just have to contend with the 543-year difference because every document, including bills, uses that calendar.
Songkran is a water festival. There are the formal ways of doing that (see the video down below from our own homegrown ceremony last year) and then the informal ways…where like yesterday evening when I headed out to do the rounds, I was sprayed and doused with water all along the 5 kilometers.
Short intro this time, but the rest is free, you just have to grab the free level of membership.
…No, that’s just the tropical downpour you’ll get caught in now and then while on motorbike. I’m not sure you get used to it, but it happens often enough that you easily shrug it off. Everyone does.
So I was saying about making the rounds. It was fun. A bit strange, as many take the holiday more seriously in terms of time off, with family. So, lots of places are closed when it’s prime money-making time. You can still find lots open, though.
One place I frequent, Laguna, is an open air thing with about a half-dozen individual bar stations and as many pool tables. One young 22yo girl, 4-days fresh from Buri Ram—out near my village house—was trying to get my attention.
Totally debaucherous, right? Well, at least she has a proper tight ass…very much unlike other videos I see of enormous jello ass doing this sort of thing. She speaks nary a word of English but is quite adept on the Google Translate app.
…No, I went home alone, as always. This sort of entertainment and enticement is ubiquitous around here and many other places you find a lot of foreigners (‘farang’) in Thailand. It’s a riot of fun and I met two new mates, one an Ozzie and the other, a Brit. Joel and Neil. This happens all the time but as I’m telling them of my Thailand adventures beginning in 1986, they’re like, “I was 10,” or, “I was in diapers,” or, “wasn’t born yet.” The latter applies to every single chick I take time to chat with.
Everyone was also engaging in the din sor pong ritual, which is a powdered limestone mix, with water, applied to the face. After chatting a bit, Neil, the Brit, goes and gets some and applies it to me.
So, as best as I grasp the ritualistic symbolism, the water is a cleaning sort of thing. Rebirth, yada yada—not unlike any of the others, even Christian baptism. The powder on the face is a ward-off-evil thing.
Of course, in that setting, making that video, watching the young chicks entice us, the running joke was “Hey, Neil, you’re shit for a shaman. I’m worse off. Now the evil is running to my loins and beyond!”
…Arriving in Thailand over two years ago, January of 2020, Songkran was completely cancelled in April, as lockdowns began the dominoes tumble mid-March. Later, the government bestowed a make-up and subsidized travel costs for a weekend in early September.
We all loaded up two cars, one of which I rented, and headed off for an 8-hour drive to Pattaya-Jomtien. I don’t think I ever posted about that trip. Here’s my favorite three photos.
Those kids had never been to an ocean beach and didn’t know how to swim. Water skills are a huge problem in Thailand and it has an enormous drowning tragedy with kids out in the villages with tropical torrents, flash flooding, etc. To exacerbate the problem, most Thais are afraid of the water (likely instilled because of drownings…a vicious circle). Now, they’re afraid of the sun, too. Fucking frustrating for me very often, as not only have I no fear, I embrace both.
The woman in the photo is my girl’s mom, Jon. Grandma for Chili and Wasabi. The joke is that’s it’s her who should be my GF, at 48, 14 years my junior. It’s funny. I call her mæ̀ (pronounced kinda like maaaa), not Jon (pronounced John).
The happy is that Chili and Wasabi are now capable swimmers and most importantly, I’ve taught them to flip over and float on their backs if tired or in distress in any way. I love those two girls. They have never said a cross word to me either. Newha ehwa.
Finally, I gave the link to last year’s 2021 Songkran post, above. Here’s the video as to how it goes down solemnly on the home front at the house I built; as again, the public festivals were banned for a 2nd year because of a cold.
Someone told me, about the rituals, that it’s kinda corny.
I agree. But it’s not as though all other religious ritual isn’t. Baby in a manger? Virgin birth? A star in the east summoning wise men? Baptism? Phone-booth confessionals? Born again by saying magic words? Flags, patriotism, et al et cetera?
…Since our pool here in the compound is undergoing enhancements, I think I’ll get my 2nd-day-of-Songkran at the nicest private pool in Rawai, only a mile away. Shark Bites.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT AND HOW IT WORKS
Free The Animal is an eclectic writing project about everything since November 2003. 23 years, 5,500 posts, 5 million words.
It's a paid membership blog. Most posts are free and public, but only paid members can comment. What determines whether it's free or paid is when I publish. Monday through Friday, free and public. Saturday and Sunday, for paid members. That's it. Membership info here.
Love this post. I got to Thailand in 1984. But did not get to see these festivities. At the time our group was invited to some hill tribe villages along the border, and someone pointed out a man. We were told he had just arrived after walking overland from China. The villages we visited were growing fruit trees as their cash crop. When I re-entered the US, a border official would be an accusing asshole to me because of the stamp in my passport. Welcome home.
A few years later I would visit Xishuangbanna by way of Kunming. I was teaching English at Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Trade and it was a good destination for us foreign teachers during winter break. I still have some textile treasures from that trip. A child’s hat embellished with silver disks, beads and fluffy dog tails, a worn embroidered and decorated bag, pieces of trim that were removed from old garments most likely. They probably sold the old stuff to tourists and decked themselves out with new handiwork. Fine by me, I can still see the detail and I like it better that it was pre-loved.
One early morning we took a ferry going up (down?) the Mekong. The mist cleared, we got off the boat and started walking, rice fields all around. Soon we met a man with a rifle. He asked, are you looking for the ___? My friend who speaks more Chinese than me, didn’t know what he was asking. He said to follow him. So we did, on a trail through the rice fields. We had no idea where or what we were getting into, but he had the rifle. We walked and walked past farm fields, till we came to a small monastery. The monks were friendly and told my friend they didn’t get a lot of visitors being so far out in the sticks. They gave us tea and snacks. After we visited for a while, we noticed one of our three was missing. He was gone a long time. We finally went to look for him. Before we saw, we heard. CLACK. CLACK. One American and several monks in saffron robes, leaning over a billiard table. Under the trees, in the open air. No language problem.
Great story. I was part of a rather historic mission in 1986 to Qingdao.
latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-10-31-mn-8345-story.html
When I can to Thailand in Jan 2020, it was by way of a refueling stop in Qingdao. My what a difference, flying into the place at night. Back in ’86, dull dull dull, just like the article says. After the brief stop, it was on to Kunming, where I got to spend about 12 hours walking around the airport until the flight to Chiang Mai the next morning.
Yes I would call that historic.