News from the Interzone:
Chiang Mai, Song Kran, April 18, 2006

Ok, well, I have just returned from my first big day attending the festivities of the Thai New Year’s Festival known as Song Kran. (the festival lasts for three days, April 13-15 although it really starts a day early, and the whole country is largely on holiday for the whole week, although many businesses are still open) Now it may be that some of you have experienced this festival, and so what I write will come as no surprise to you. And I myself had heard much about the festival both by word of mouth and in various guidebooks etc. But if you have not experienced it yourself then there is no adequate way to describe it. Indeed words are totally insufficient to give proper homage to this unique and most spectacular event. This festival has been celebrated here for many centuries, perhaps for over a thousand years [The city was founded as the capital of the Kingdom of Lanna in 1296 c.e., although the site was inhabited before then]. Song Kran (Disparagingly very similar to the word "song kram" which mean "war") is essentially the world's biggest water fight; it is celebrated throughout Thailand but Chiang Mai is the largest and notoriously most festive celebration in the country. There are also variations of the festival in the surrounding countries and in Taiwan (perhaps also in China, though I really don't know). It is rooted in ancient religious beliefs combined with a celebration of summer and a desire to cool off in these hottest days of the year here.

The central festivities in Chiang Mai take place around the old moat that surrounds the ancient city in a square circuit, about 1.2 kilometers to a side. All along the length of this circuit, people line up, armed with the most amazing variety of water pistols, buckets, hoses, water machine guns, cannons, hydraulic pumps, tubes, cups, sponges, plastic bags, bottles, tubs, barrels and anything else that could possibly hold or throw water. Starting slowly at first (c. 10 am) but breaking into a frenzy within a couple of hours, the massive water combat ensues, a running street battle in which there are no sides, no partisanship, no rules (although there are temporary alliances, as for instance one side of the street vs. the other but you should expect your allies to soak you at the first opportunity, even in the middle of a heated melee with the "opposing" side) - but the entire proceedings are imbued with respect, fun and goodwill. Everyone, young and old, rich and poor, Thai or Farang, male, female or something in between, engages wholeheartedly in a chaotic and wet melee- and everyone who enters into the central combat zone gets wet. I saw people spraying police (from behind) and soaking the pizza deliveryman. My friend described going to a remote temple in the mountains and, as he approached the central Wat, several grinning monks emerging from behind a wall and throwing a bucket of water over his head. It is just completely unhinged controlled chaos in which everyone has a good time and there are smiles on the faces of all. What is best is that this is all done with a total absence of malice: your best friend or worst enemy can spray you equally and it is all much the same.

Huge quantities of alcohol are consumed. Nevertheless everyone behaves themselves. It flies totally in the face of what Western, and particularly American, culture would call public safety or normal behaviour. Our societal obsession with public security and liability could never allow for such a wild free-for-all. In fact the safety hazard is not just imaginary as every year there are many traffic accidents and last year they beat a world record with hundreds of road fatalities. This is due not just to the alcohol but the fact that any moving vehicle is considered fair game as a target, and revellers chuck buckets of water (often iced) in the faces of the drivers of any open aired vehicles But it is not dangerous in the way that drunken parties in other places often are, as perhaps Mardi Gras in New Orleans, or Carnival in Rio are sometimes said to be- there are no rashes of kidnapping or murder. But frankly it is a miracle that there aren't a lot more accidents- with the innumerable motorbikes, tuktuks, Song Thaews (small trucks which function as a kind of minibus), cars and flatbed trucks, chock to the gills with crazed, drunken revellers, dancing girls, people in masques, ladyboys, octogenarians, mothers with babies, vendors, farang, families, advertisers, icepeddlars, etc. all of them going bumper to bumper around the moat, surrounded by tons of pedestrians, all engaged in aquatic combat, or hauling ice or buckets of filthy moat water---- (as for me I found the most threatening aspect of the festival to be the unclean water which is for the most part drawn from the moat and which is clearly not clean. I was particularly concerned about trying to keep the top of my beer capped with a finger at all times so as to prevent ingesting too much of the brackish water and contracting giardia or…? And by the second day I was wearing earplugs to prevent too much from entering my ear canal; after the end of the third day, on recommendation of the pharmacist, I flushed my ears with 3% hydrogen peroxide).

Song Kran is Madness, absolute and complete Madness- like in the movie "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" ---- Madness, and in the best sense of the word; like the "80s Ska band— Madness. Daft, as in Punk. Wild and Crazy – as in those beloved Czech brothers from SNL… Ba-Ba-Bo-Bo- Çok zirdeli—but oh my God what fun--- I watched a woman, absolutely drenched and running madly through the street, being doused repeatedly with buckets and buckets of ice cold water screaming, "This is sooo fabulous!!;" and she was right. It is like a whole city of children, laughing and playing all together. I actually found myself thinking halfway through the first day, "I don't think I have had this much fun since I was ten years old," and really meaning it. It is the kind of thing that really instils a good feeling about humanity and our possibilities. [Although I am no optimist I insist on Positivity- this affected me like a visit with the Dalai Lama, a second set Estimated>Eyes>Wheel>Terrapin, like the Doors of Perception (you know which kind), hospitality of strangers, a really good tiramisu, children"s smiles, the fantastic imagination of Jack Kirby, etc…]

Occasionally the ice water can be somewhat of a surprise and after a full day of it, even though the ambient temperature may hover around 100 F, there are a fair number of people shivering. There are little trucks, flatbeds and tuktuks everywhere carrying massive amounts of ice around which may be purchased in blocks for reasonable amounts, in order to fortify ones ammo supply. This is apparently a fairly recent development historically; and it seems that the Thai take particular pleasure in making Farang the victims of their ice water attacks- but again it is seemingly never out of meanness or cruelty – indeed the ice water is not necessarily always unwelcome, as it is so brutally hot, especially around midday; as a result of this behaviour, it comes as a real surprise when occasionally someone comes up and pours some very warm or mildly hot water on your shoulders or head.

The festival is really exhausting- I awoke on Sunday, tired and aching all over. It took me most of a day (and a 2 ½ hour massage) to approach normality. I am not really sure what to do with my massive plastic water machine gun now- it sits in the corner of my room as if to say, "You're coming back next year aren't you?" If you don't like water, getting wet, having fun, or people in a good mood don't come anywhere near here during this festival; but if any of those things appeal to you then don't miss it- it is absolutely fan-farking-tastic. I have been to many many festivals all over the world and this one is without doubt my favorite ever. (I am tempted to write here about my least favorite festival as well but I said I wanted to promote positivity so I will comment only upon inquiry). You couldn't dream up such a thing as this, nor make it happen. It is unique to this place- no effort to emulate it elsewhere could possibly succeed. One of the weirdest things about it is that at the end of the day, it all just sort of comes to a stop. There is some kind of police ordinance that the water throwing should end by 7 pm but this is not what ends it- it is some kind of unstated communal agreement that the day is done- everything just returns to normal, almost in a flash. You go out to bars, restaurants or clubs later in the evening and it is like any other day. FESTIVAL!!! Landru couldn't arrange it any better (Are you of the body brother?).

Now I should mention that there is a much more traditional and as it were religious aspect to the festival. There are numerous parades involved (which are seemingly endless) and it is here that one can see a larger segment of the population in their celebration. Many of the celebrants in the parades are dressed in any variety of traditional costumes. They carry flowers, branches of palms and other trees, insignia, etc. The parades are replete with vehicles most of which are carrying images and statues of Buddha, often decked out with elaborate arrays of flowers and decorations. The people in the parade and those surrounding them pour water over the images and over each other- except here it is in a much more restrained fashion, and the water tends to be scented with jasmine or some other delicious fragrance. Taking part in the parades here in Chiang Mai are many villagers from the areas surrounding the city including many members of the non-ethnic-Thai tribes who live here in the mountains of the north. There are marching bands with traditional instruments, beauty pageant winners, Meuy Thai fighters and other savage looking warrior types, old people, farmers, et alii. It is very interesting (and I thought) quite moving to witness.

Now as for the religious significance of all of this I am not properly educated on the topic of Buddhism and eastern religions in general (and I would welcome any input from my readers) to speak with any authority but I do have a few thoughts on the matter. The obvious signification of all this pouring of water, aside from the clear advantage of doing so in the hottest part of the year, is a kind of cleansing. And indeed Buddhists like their religious counterparts elsewhere do not limit such ritual ablution to this one time of year. Any day of the week one can see people in the temples pouring fragrant waters and oils over the images of Buddha (often paying a little money for the use of the cup or mug to a little stall outside the Wat). Now this is one of the many ways for Buddhists to acquire merit.

And clearly there are parallels for cleansing in most major religions. For the people of the Book such cleansing has been an essential feature of religion dating back to antiquity. Cleanliness in mind and body has been a central feature of Judaism since its inception and the hygiene of the Jews spared them many of the excesses of the plague and the ire of their gentile neighbours. John the Baptist inducted Christ himself, the anointed one, into the rite of baptism and we see Christ later washing the feet of commoners. One of the many features of the old religions of Palestine that was taken up by Catholicism was baptism and every catholic child for the last two thousand years or so has been either baptised or denied entrance to heaven. Of course anyone knows that Holy water is good not just for baptism but is also the bane of vampires and sickens most lycanthropes. And one of the most obvious and central features of Islam is ablution before prayer- hence the ancient mosques of the middle east are surrounded with fountains and water basins and any time of the day one can see the faithful dutifully washing themselves around any busy mosque. Hindus flock to the Ganges to drink in its sacred waters (despite the festering corpses and huge quantities of sewage- few get sick from this apparently) and massive festivals like the Kumbamala (sp?) celebrate its sacred properties. Any reader of the Classics can see that the Greeks and Romans would regularly engage in ritual cleansing and any entrance of pollutants into the sacred precincts of a temple was considered most impious. I have no doubt that similar things can be found throughout Africa, whether Dogon or Zulu, and hence onwards to the pyramids of the Mayans and Aztecs and on to the cannibal tribes of Papua New Guinea (ok I am really just guessing here- but it seems likely).

But I really cannot imagine any of them having a festival anything near as cool as Song Kran (religion can be such a downer sometimes). The Thai have a specific national character that allows for this, and permits piety and fun to coexist, a blessed and happy coexistence. I am singularly impressed. I highly recommend Song Kran to all lovers of festivals, water and fun. Incidentally Chiang Mai is a really beautiful place to visit anytime of year, but I will write more full on this topic elsewhere.