My excitement started early last week when the students and other teachers started telling me about the festival. Although the actual day of the festival was supposed to be Sunday, my school celebrated it Friday afternoon. I had many of my classes attempt to explain the meaning behind the celebration. Eventually, I learned a few things about the holiday. The focus of the day is the launching of "krathongs" into a body of water (anything from the main river in Bangkok to a bathtub is acceptable). A krathong is a piece of banana tree stump decorated with banana leaves, flowers, a candle, and three incense sticks.
The launching of the krathong is supposed to represent a number of things. The first is an apology to the river god for both polluting and using his water over the past year. The second is to ask for forgiveness for our wrong doings over the past year. Finally, it represents things you are asking the gods for over the coming year.
The other major event of the festival is the Noppamas Queen Beauty Contest. It is named after the Queen who is given credit with inventing the first krathong. For the contest, one girl from each class competed against the other girls her age. They were all dressed in traditional Thai clothing and had their hair and makeup set in the traditional way.
I couldn't help but imagine the outrage that would occur in the United States if a school set up a beauty contest between a bunch of 11 year old girls. Not only that, but each contestant (with one from each class and as many as 12 classes per grade, there were a lot of girls in this contest) was given a long introduction (in Thai of course) where their weight was included as part of the facts about them. It just goes to show how different many cultures around the world can be. While the beauty contest was going on, they also had a field day of sorts for the students (and teachers like me) that weren't so into the contest. I really enjoyed hanging out with many of my students in a more informal setting.
Me and the two other Americans I teach with, Becca and Jim, were treated like celebrities the entire day. We were asked to dress in traditional Thai outfits for the event. This was not too hard for Jim and I as we were only required to wear a flowery shirt (although mine looked like a cross between scrubs a nurse would wear and the shirts that the outside bartenders at Churchill's used to have to wear) but poor Becca had to spend all morning getting dressed by the Thai girls. The picture below shows Becca and I with a number of our bosses and coworkers. It also shows how much taller I am than the rest of this country.
After the beauty contest, we were asked to join the director of our school in a small parade over to where the krathongs were to be launched. The school doesn't have a nearby river so they simply flooded an area of the parking lot. I was skeptical of this at first but it actually turned out pretty cool. The first picture below shows the krathong that was made for me. The other pictures are of all of the krathongs (each class had one) floating on the man made lake.
After school, Becca and I headed out to meet some friends of ours in downtown Bangkok. We were lucky to stay in a great room overlooking Bangkok's largest river for the weekend. As I said, the festival was officially on Sunday but Friday and Saturday night both saw a lot of fireworks and river celebrations.
It was definitely a great weekend to be in Thailand. I really enjoy the chances I get to learn about Thai culture. I was thrilled that the holiday fell during my time over here. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. I'm very jealous that I can't be home to celebrate. Eat some turkey for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment