What is Songkran and how do Thai's celebrate
Truly, there are different ways people celebrate New Year. While western countries use fireworks for the celebration, Chinese nationals have their dragon dance. However, Thailand has the most unusual way of celebrating New Year, and this is known as Songkran Festival. If this is the first time you heard about this, then you may want to know more. Who knows? You might also be interested in joining them.
What is Songkran Festival?
If we would take a look at the history, Songkran actually originated from Burma. In fact, there are also other countries practicing such festivity like Vietnam and Laos. The word Songkran was actually derived from “Sankranti”, which means “to move or to change”. Celebrated on particular dates in 13 April – 15 April, Songkran 2017 is regarded as the longest holiday in Thailand. Unlike other festivals in the place, Songkran is said to be the grandest since it is traditionally celebrated for three consecutive days.
Similar to other nationalities, Thais also have beliefs which truly originated from their forefathers. A day before the celebration of Songkran, the housewives must clean their house and remove all the rubbish. Otherwise, it might bring them bad luck for the remaining months of the recent year. As part of the belief, Buddha images should be washed carefully so as to bring good fortune to house owners.
Rather than an earthly enjoyment, Songkran 2016 focuses on spiritual intentions like giving alms to monks and paying a visit to Buddhist temples in their place. In addition to that, they build sand pyramid images and festoon colorful stuff such as flowers and flag lets.
But before we forget, the festival would not be complete without the so-called Water fight. Armed with water guns and water containers, TRAVELERS and natives including children throw water upon others, which symbolizes cleansing and rejuvenating of their bodies. There is no exception in this festival but obviously everyone understands the real meaning of this event
Info from the net
2 comments:
Very interesting article. I had heard about the "water fights" before but now I understand the "why" of it. Thank you.
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