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Songkran,
is the ''Thai New Year''. Calculated by the lunar cycle,
this year's date fell on April 13. Shortly after dawn,
devout Buddhists gather at the neighborhood temples to offer
food for the monks and prayers for the New Year. By
mid-morning, though, the town degenerates into a battlefield
as the good people of Songkhla abandon themselves to a mad
free-for-all orgy of throwing, squirting splashing, heaving,
hurling and dumping water on each other. Around streetcorner
washtubs lurk little children, armed with water dippers, who
gleefully ambush anyone foolhardy enough to venture past.
Teenagers on motorcycles weave wildly through traffic, ready
to pounce in hit-and-run squirtgun raids. Pickup trucks
packed with nubile schoolgirls, fetchingly drenched, prowl
about the streets in search of victims for a watery mugging.
Songkran
festival is then the festival to celebrate Thai New Year's
day. We will do good things such as offering food to th
monks, pouring scented water over Buddha image, building
sand pagodas, releasing caged birds and fish, paying respect
to the elder and asking for their blessing and splashing
water to other people. This is the way we express happiness
and joyfulness. There are also games and other fun
activities we do on these days |
