In the last week we have
witnessed the ordination of three monks, a cremation ceremony for one Royal
family member, and the cooking of a cat with an oxy-acetylene torch.
Let's talk monks first:
Several of our hosts have communicated that it is customary for young men to
enter the monk-hood at about the age of twenty. Evidently, the period for which
they will remain monks typically ranges from as long as a few months to as
little as a couple of weeks as will be the case for the young man whose
"buat pra" (ordination) we attended on Easter Sunday. Ordination
events here last for two days and are a significant production. Many people are
fed by the family of the young man. A disc jockey is hired and of course along with that there is
a lot of singing and dancing. Sounds pretty standard for a party, I know. The
thing about Thai's is that is that when it comes to festivities, they go BIG.
This particular party lasts for two days, where people eat all day, and people
drink all day, and the Thai dj blares at a volume that is beyond the comfort of
this avid concert goes and lover of hip-hop music, pretty much all day. People
do talk, but most of the activity is focused around large trays of food (3x2
feet) being brought out to recent arrivals to the party by a small army of what
appear to be relatives. The cooking pots look to be around 10 gallons each, and
there are many. Typically at least five different dishes arrive on the trays,
accompanied by rice of course and bottled water with ice. If you are a drinker,
which most men are, the ubiquitous Hong Thom is never late to follow. You eat
what you can, and then wait a while and eat some more. If it appears you are
low on any one item, another bowl quickly appears. And if you come in the morning, there will be different food than when you dropped by at night.
The Thai dj usually shows up
with some sort of vehicle mounted equipment (think pick-up bed with shell stuffed to the brim workstation), at least one trailer stacked 10-12
feet high with giant woofers strapped down and ready to go anywhere, and sometimes
with his own stage. Since pretty much everything is done outside in Thailand, the
dj can literally pull his vehicle up (often an 80s model "pup" truck
weighed down well on its rear leaf springs), wire up the speaker trailer and
blast the fast base with flute music in no time. Thai music is like nothing I have ever heard
before. It boasts an ever looping fast base beat reminiscent of electronic music, a hammering flute, and non-stop
wailing lyrics. When performed live by musicians, it sounds nearly exactly the
same as on recording.
Sunday we saw the most impressive
rig so far: an "E-tan", which is an oversized topless pick-up with an exposed
motor and single wooden bench seat, purpose built by Thai companies for farming.
This one, was fully decked out with all the knobs and switches to rock your
party. A photo should be on Picasa today and is truly worth a look. Got to love Thai ingenuity.
Sunday morning, while much of
my krup krua (family) back home was asleep on the night before Easter, Erin and I danced our way down 3/4
of a mile of main street to our local temple. We were surrounded by about 100 buddhists
and trailed by a four piece band with loud speakers in the back of a truck.
After circling the temple three times on arrival, with the whole parade (only now he band
was on foot with the loudspeakers on a wheeled basket), the young man entered
the temple to receive his robe and more blessings, I assume, and we all went back to his house to eat again.
I asked my host paw Sawaeng why his older son who is he same age as myself and
not married, why he has not been a
"pra" yet? He responded that the family could not afford the party. These usually cost around 100,000 B, he said. Without bothering with the dollar conversion, suffice to say that Erin and I will live on right around 16,000 B/month including our house rental. 100k B is big money.
...RED
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