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Loy Krathong
Nov. 16th, 2005 09:42 pmThe full-moon night of the twelfth lunar month is an important festival in Thai buddhism.
This has two effects. It means that spending the day visiting temples has some of the same problems as devoting Easter Sunday to visiting churches: everything's shut, or at least shut until the cantor has finished listing the hundred and eight virtuous aspects of the Buddha.
And it's an excuse for a party in the evening. You make or buy a krathong, which is a thick slice of (floating) banana-wood, augmented with chrysanthemum flowers and banana leaves in the shape of a lotus-flower, and with three joss-sticks and a candle in the middle. The fanciest (there was a display outside the main shopping centre) are a couple of feet high, with several tiers of large centre-pieces made out of carefully carved pumpkins, swedes or turnip-like vegetables. You find a body of flowing water, you light the candles, the candles immediately go out, and you consign the krathong to the waves.
So, I acquired my krathong at the market outside the Temple of the Hundred-Foot Golden Standing Buddha (a sign at the bottom of said buddha stated 'miraculous powers, especially towards those who offer a head of a fish of the mackeral kind, a boiled egg and a lei of flowers'; this explained the feral cats, mostly and unsurprisingly Siamese, haunting the shrine). I followed the flow of krathong-holding Thais to the local pier, and took a quick cruise up and down the river, the night balmy and lighting provided by the occasional brave krathong below, the lights of the riverside hotels alongside, and Zeus, Raiden and Thor Electrical Illuminations above. My candle did not last.
Back to the pier, barbecued squid-onna-stick in spicy soy sauce for supper, and so to bed. I apologise in advance should my next message have something of a gastric focus, though the storekeeper took care that the squid was thoroughly cooked through. In hindsight, I should possibly have taken the even more Lovecraftian squid-heads-onna-stick option.
This has two effects. It means that spending the day visiting temples has some of the same problems as devoting Easter Sunday to visiting churches: everything's shut, or at least shut until the cantor has finished listing the hundred and eight virtuous aspects of the Buddha.
And it's an excuse for a party in the evening. You make or buy a krathong, which is a thick slice of (floating) banana-wood, augmented with chrysanthemum flowers and banana leaves in the shape of a lotus-flower, and with three joss-sticks and a candle in the middle. The fanciest (there was a display outside the main shopping centre) are a couple of feet high, with several tiers of large centre-pieces made out of carefully carved pumpkins, swedes or turnip-like vegetables. You find a body of flowing water, you light the candles, the candles immediately go out, and you consign the krathong to the waves.
So, I acquired my krathong at the market outside the Temple of the Hundred-Foot Golden Standing Buddha (a sign at the bottom of said buddha stated 'miraculous powers, especially towards those who offer a head of a fish of the mackeral kind, a boiled egg and a lei of flowers'; this explained the feral cats, mostly and unsurprisingly Siamese, haunting the shrine). I followed the flow of krathong-holding Thais to the local pier, and took a quick cruise up and down the river, the night balmy and lighting provided by the occasional brave krathong below, the lights of the riverside hotels alongside, and Zeus, Raiden and Thor Electrical Illuminations above. My candle did not last.
Back to the pier, barbecued squid-onna-stick in spicy soy sauce for supper, and so to bed. I apologise in advance should my next message have something of a gastric focus, though the storekeeper took care that the squid was thoroughly cooked through. In hindsight, I should possibly have taken the even more Lovecraftian squid-heads-onna-stick option.
