"We Keep Our Traditions Alive"

“We Keep Our Traditions Alive.”

Loy Krathong and other Thai Traditions on Parade

Loy Krathong is a Thai water festival celebrated on the full moon of the twelfth lunar month.  The word loy means to float, and the krathong is the decorated object, often shaped like a lotus, which is floated on the river. Homemade krathong are constructed of a piece of banana tree stalk, banana leaves, flowers, a candle, and an incense stick.  Here is a picture of some larger ones from our weekly Peace Corps newsletter:

 The purpose of floating krathong is to pay respect to the Lord Buddha and to the goddess of water, or, in the words of a fellow-teacher:  “We thank the river for the water we have used and we apologize to the river if we have offended her.” You can also put all your negative thoughts into the krathong and let them float away. Parades, beauty contests and other competitions are part of the festival as well.

Loy Krathong has many opportunities for students to participate, especially dancers and marching bands. When my co-teacher told me that quite a few of our students would miss two days of class (one to rehearse and one for the parade), I grumbled about so much lost teaching time, having already missed classes during Sport Week in early November. He replied simply:  “We keep our traditions alive.”  – I guess you can’t argue with that.

I watched two Loy Krathong parades, one in a nearby village and one in the town that is the center for our amphur (=district within a province) and want to share a few images and impressions from each. 

The parade in the nearby village was on a Sunday afternoon, November 17th. I had been told it would start around 2pm, but actually, that was when the participants started assembling to find their spot in line. The parade started much later. Here are pictures of two displays I liked.

1. The photos show you two ends of the parade float spectrum. The one on the left looks like a gigantic krathong and, in my opinion, deserves a prize for artistry and symmetry. I’m not sure, but the little figures at the top might be the King and Queen. Every parade I’ve seen here includes multiple images of Their Majesties.  I thought the display on the right was a wonderful collage of fertility/fruitfulness images. Having it pulled by an ordinary tractor, the kind you see every day going from village to field and back again, honors the farmers who thank the water spirits for their harvests.

 While waiting for everything to get organized, people passed the time drinking beer and dancing.  Here is a brief video of dancers with puppets of a type I hadn’t seen before:

As you can see, the puppet-master/dancer carries the puppet apparatus on his shoulder, and poles are attached to his legs to make the puppets behind dance when he dances. Despite the heat (I sweltered in the shade of a tree), the dancing went on for the better part of an hour – and who knows how much longer after I left.  In the video, you also see a man with a balloon under his shirt to simulate pregnancy – one of many cross-dressers waiting for or taking part in the parade.  Here are some others:

 I asked several colleagues what the significance of the cross-dressing is. The only answer I got was: “They think it’s funny.” That might be the right answer for the man with the balloon belly or the guys in the photo above left, but the ones on the float in the photo on the right seem to be all about glamour. I wondered if they were part of a beauty contest, but never managed to find out, since I had to leave before the end in order to bike safely back to my village before dark.

The second parade, in our amphur town, was the following Tuesday.  It was very long, lasting more than two hours, and again, I couldn’t stay to see who won prizes. Here are some dancers from our school, getting ready.  

I helped scotch-tape the extensions onto the dancers’ fingers so they would hopefully stay in place during the performance. The other picture above is the start of the parade, with portraits of the King and Queen – who were seen many more times before it was over, as various schools and other organizations carried their portraits at the start of their segment of the parade.

I was lucky to be standing near the judging booth, a great vantage point for filming performers as the parade stopped for them to exhibit their skills to the judges. 
 

The dancers above are not from our school, but are wearing the same costumes and performing a similar dance. You can see that movements of the hands and fingers are an important part of the performance. It’s harder than it looks – several people have tried to teach me, thus far to little avail. I chose to include these dancers because their performance segues into the Muay Thai dance,performed by male dancers.  I have a video of the dancers that I wanted to upload, but it's too big and I have quit trying for now. If and when I figure out how to do it, I'll edit the post and let you know via email.

Muay Thai (ancient Thai boxing) is another tradition and sport that I knew nothing about before coming to Thailand . Briefly, the dance is traditionally part of the ritual performed before a Muay Thai boxing competition. The boxer honors his teacher by showing, through the dance, that he has mastered all the necessary moves and maneuvers. The tattoos are to protect the dancer/boxer from evil spirits and also to give him courage and good luck.  For the sake of readers who are better informed and already knew that Muay Thai has been accepted as an Olympic sport, I won’t go into further detail, but here is a link if you want to read more: http://www.kombatgroup.com/html-muay-thai/history.html

I hope the pictures and videos give you a sense of a few Thai traditions that are kept alive as part of Loy Krathong and other festivals.  Many Loy Krathong festivals in larger cities, especially in the North, are much more elaborate, with fireworks and Yi Peng in addition to krathong. Yi Peng are lanterns that are released into the air to float above the river while the krathong float below.  As you may imagine, all these lighted objects are not without hazards – Yi Peng can start fires, and krathong in large numbers clog up waterways.  The home-made ones, constructed with mostly natural materials, eventually disintegrate, but purchased krathong may be made with styrofoam and other non-biodegradable materials so that the result, sadly, is to further offend the river by polluting her, despite the intention to honor her.  But protection of the environment in Thailand is a much larger issue that will have to wait for another time.