Transit
The Tradition of Loi Krathong
On the 12th month of the lunar calendar typically coinciding with November, two key competing night rituals in Thailand prevail: One, the placement of an illuminated flower wreath into a natural body of fresh water. Two, the ascendance of large candle-powered amoebic-shaped lanterns to the sky. The flower wreathe ritual comes from Loi Krathong, a festival from South West Thailand which thanks rivers, lakes and ponds for the life and tools they give. The flying lantern ritual comes from Yi Peng, a festival from Northern Thailand that physically sends light to a box in heaven containing Buddha’s hair along with the world’s pains and sorrows-- Surprise!
Bangkok is a city with ability to blur difference through celebration. So while glistening malls flash “Happy Thanksgiving!” down onto massive outdoor Christmas displays on November 28th, millions of residents and tourists jam the streets and trains and waterways to participate in Loi Krathong and Yi Peng. Stuck within this wild wave of undulating progressive flesh, I am particularly looking forward to the sky becoming much like an invasion of can-sized fire-bugs. I have seen amazing pictures taken from Chiang Mai and even if my celebration arises from a happen-chance stop-over in Bangkok enroute to Indonesia , I wouldn’t mind becoming an infinitesimal part of the scene.
Yi Peng, but not in Bangkok anymore. I didn't take this picture.
“Rao bpai ti reua tam nai krap? Kon mak mak kon. Rao dai bpai ti suuan,” I say to my teacher Nao, “why are we going to the river? There are too many people. We can go to the park.”
Nao is patient. Frankly my Thai is horrible, but after three days together Nao can understand me like an experienced care-giver does a non-verbal child. “Suuan mai mee Loi Krathong kha. Le rao ja je kruu le rak riaan iik kha,” she says, “the parks will not have the floating baskets. And besides we are meeting others.”
Travel in foreign countries with those actually from those countries is often like this. You discover as you go. The common denominator is sweat, excursions two hours too long, foods you politely swallow without chewing, sudden fatigue at the realization that everyone knows more and better. Todays epiphanies include: The lighting of the lanterns in Bangkok is banned this year due to multiple fires last year caused from ten million flying candles. Failure to comply with the edict is punishable by death or five thousand dollars. We are meeting three other teachers and three students at the Sathorn Taksim BTS stop while another student is already waiting for us at a stop far upstream. You can’t go home in such traffic even if you wanted to.
I am just happy I don’t have diarrhea, which would be typical, and have just learned how to use the words who, what, when, where and how-- tam nai, arai, meua rai, tii nia, yang ngai. And with these and other auspicious beginnings, we arrive at Sathorn Taksim, find our party, and get on the public boat-bus without difficulty just as it starts to rain. We disembark at Phra Athit just when the clouds part. The weather is uncharacteristically cool. Thousands talk, gesture and move in happiness and excitement. The displays, food stands, surrounding neighborhood, and traditionally dressed are a forward blur of colors and smells.
Loi Krathong that fish like to eat
As there are no options for lanterns, we all buy wreaths, which range from the expensive flower sort to the inexpensive carbohydrate kind. The latter resemble bright melted marsh-mellow piles without the skin, advertised as environmentally conscious because fish can eat it. This naturally makes me smell the purchase causing Nao and her friend Ice to look at me as if I have just taken-off and whiffed my socks. “Arai kah,” says Nao.
“It doesn’t smell like bread,” I say in English. I haven’t yet learned food vocabulary.
“It’s bread,” Ice says, “the fish like it.”
“And the candle and incense,” I say, “will they like that too?” This comment elicits simultaneous smile and glare.
Being Thailand, there is the usual large but calm wide line of people. They stand waiting their turn at the edge of an elevated pool of water constructed for placement of Loi Krathong en masse without people falling into the river. Pool jets move the lanterns once placed from left to right. Men with bamboo polls then assist the bobbing vessels in making a ninety degree turn to a water slide that gently accelerates the offerings directly into the Chao Phraya River now dotted with what looks like thousands of free lit-cupcakes. I am one of the last in the group to put my colorful concoction in the pool. I wish for peace and safety for my family, my community, the world and am thinking this is one of life’s moments until I see my wreathe heading in the wrong direction. I think this must be bad luck, a supernatural interdiction, but before I can turn to Nao for explanation and solace, one of the pole guys recognizes the wandering basket and redirects it with gentle push.
Launch point into the Chao Phraya River
As I admire the tranquility of age-old gesture in a city that never sleeps, Ice asks me in her clear slowly spoken English what I apologized for. “Uh,” I say, “Apologize for what? I only wished.”
Ice, whose name is common-place in a country where the temperature is consistently above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, explains that wishes can’t come true without penance. She for example apologized for urinating in the river, throwing once a drumstick into the river, not last year giving Loi Krathong to the river, not visiting with more frequency the river. “And so I will get my wish!” she happily explains as if bragging.
Her words urge melodrama. Can one stop the water jets? Should I give chase to the inanimate? Should I call out “chuay duai!” and in which of the five tones? From up-pool, I look desperately at my wreathe-basket about to make the ninety-degree turn to emancipation. I wonder if the river will understand a wish without humility. I wonder if it might understand that sometimes you don’t know exactly what you are doing when you are just beginning to learn Thai.
Teachers teaching students
