The Thai new year, Songkran, is a traditionally Buddhist festival that signifies the end of the year. Historically, the tradition was to sprinkle water on one another as a symbol of purification. Yet, as time went by that custom basically transformed into one country-wide water fight.
As someone who thrives off games like laser tag, Songkran sounded amazing. After celebrating today, I have a few thoughts to share.
1. Thai people are not big dancers.
I love to dance. I could be sitting at dinner with my family in a nice restaurant and randomly start dancing. Unfortunately for everyone watching me, I am truly awful. In case you think I am over exaggerating, I will look you in the eye and tell you: my dancing looks not unlike a fish out of water having a seizure. But don't you worry, this doesn't deter me. I even joined my high school's cheerleading team and danced in front of the entire school. I have no shame.
But I digress.
Imagine me, a 5'7 white girl failing her limbs around in an attempt to "ju-ju on that beat." As I have observed, the average height of the women in Thailand seems to be around 4'9 (only partially kidding). So I stood out, not only because people feared I was having muscle spasms, but because very few other people were dancing. And, let's get this straight, this was definitely a dancing scene. The music was loud enough that I couldn't hear my eardrums screaming as my hearing slowly disintegrated; there was even an attempt as a mosh pit in front of the DJ. But everybody else around me seemed to just mildly jumping to the beat, maybe even throwing their arms in the air when the beat dropped. But I was not impressed.
However, let's make it clear: we showed up a party in the early afternoon in a pretty family-friendly area. In fact, the celebration was so family friendly that we even saw a pair of LDS Sister missionaries. They carried water guns and were as equally soaked as the rest of us. (I hope that I am called to serve in Bangkok.) But the point is, I'm not sure if we - the Mormon family of 5 - showed up at the best time for dancing. But whatever the Thai people lacked, I sure tried to make up for it.
2. Bangkok in April is a great place to be soaked in water.
It is hot!!!!! Very, very hot!!!! When we started approaching the big venues where everybody was wet, at first I tried to avoid getting squirted with water guns. My laser tag instincts kicked in and I tried to doge the streams of water. Unfortunately, I'm actually incredibly bad at laser tag. So I utterly failed and got wet very quickly. But, much to my surprise, it felt amazing! It was around 90 degrees Fahrenheit so the water was a welcome relief. Plus, after we eventually decided to leave, we dried off super quickly!
3. Everybody participates.
On the train there back, almost every person between the ages of 9 and 40 had some type of water gun. I saw water guns decorated with Hello Kitty, Spider Man, Mickey Mouse and the American Flag. There were lots of vendors selling water guns on the sidewalk, but our family didn't buy any. At first, this seemed like a great missed opportunity but then I remembered how bad I was at laser tag (which I imagine is similar to a water gun fight) so then I wasn't so sad anymore.
Overall, it was a great experience. I'm super glad we went and experienced a little slice of Thai culture. Even though I listened to the song "Turn Down For What" approximately 300 million times, I wouldn't trade the experience for the world.
In my younger days (20s and 30s), I used to have a whole arsenal of water guns. I would love a city-wide water fight, but I’m not sure that I would agree with you that it would be worth it if I had to listen to that song 300 million times.
ReplyDeleteOh no, I’m 41. I’ve aged out! But I look younger, so I’ll age myself back in.
ReplyDelete