Most tourists in Thailand think of
Songkran as a huge 3 or 4 day water fight. No holds barred. Take no
prisoners. A great big, loud, obnoxious, drunken party. Similar to
the Full Moon parties people think that it is okay to lose your
inhibitions and do things that you would never do at any other time.
Acting like this tends to support the
stereotype of falang being loud, obnoxious, and not respectful of
Thai culture and customs.
Chris and Angela Scott made a nice post
on their Tieland to Thailand blog about the expectations and
realities of Songkran that tourists have and experience once they
attend the Songkran Bash in Chiang Mai.
Traditional Songkran Celebrations are
quite far removed from the current Tourist Event Songkran Water
Fight.
We have been able to observe the more
traditional celebrations and have avoided the Tourist event
altogether. We find it hard to imagine how the tradition became so
bastardized except to pander to the Tourist industry. The
traditional celebration is a beautiful, peaceful, respectful, and
culturally significant event.
The gentle splashing of water over the
elders shoulders, back and hands is traditionally done with the
utmost respect as a symbol of cleansing and renewal. Songkran is the
beginning of the Thai New Year and it is traditionally a time for
families to be together.
You won't find adults doing things in
public that they would normally chastise and punish their children
for if their children did the same back home. They wouldn't tolerate
their 8 year old bringing a squirt gun into a restaurant and
squirting their sibling with it at the table. They wouldn't tolerate
their other child throwing a glass of water on the first child in
retaliation either. But here they think it is okay because they are having fun.
They wouldn't tolerate their teen son
using a festival as an excuse to grope unsuspecting females, but it
happens quite often at the tourist celebrations here using the
traditional white powder as an excuse to “cop a feel”. Thai
authorities have outlawed the use of the traditional powder in some
areas during the Songkran celebrations in tourist areas this year
because the groping is against their cultural mores. Enforcement may
or may not happen. Probably not, but it shows that the Tourist Event
is getting so out of hand that they felt the need to address the
problem.
Throwing buckets of ice water onto
passing motorcyclists in their home country would be punishable by
law, but here it is all part of the fun even though people are
seriously injured (and even some deaths) because of it.
A good description of the traditional
celebration can be found here:
Sawasdee bpii mai. Sawasdee Songkran.
Khap!
