Happy New Year

It is April 13th, and time to celebrate SongKran, the Thai New Year. This 3 day national holiday has become famous for street parties, loud music, and massive water fights with squirt guns, hoses and buckets of water. Traditionally tossing water on a passerby was considered a blessing, a symbolic washing away of the old year, but today the water festival can get crazy. Walking down the street while being doused with water is inevitable, but It’s all in good fun.

Pickup Trucks with water barrels troll the streets splashing at will.

Remember: Soaking Wet is Spiritual Cleansing

There is also a religious aspect to the holiday, as Songkran marks the new year of the Buddhist calendar. By adding 543 to 2023, the present year of our Gregorian calendar, we have the new Thai calendar year, 2566 BE (Buddhist Era). In the Theravada Buddhist tradition the year 0 represents the moment when the Buddha attained Para-Nirvana (His release at death from Samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth).

During the Thai New Year it is customary at home and at the local temples to pour water from silver bowls on Buddha statues. Among the other Songkran rituals, scented water (header photo) is poured on the hands of elders, as blessings are exchanged between the generations, and a white paste is applied to the face as protection from evil.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

From Hua Hin Thailand