There was a very big event in my community this week (in April). A monk had died about 3 weeks ago and the villagers have been planning for his funeral for 3 weeks. He was in a casket this whole time in the Wat while the villagers planned. I attended 1 of the planning meetings and there were so many people there, all taking a part in this. That alone shows you how important monks are to the Thai Buddhists. Sometimes I question the sincerity and legitimacy of many of the monks (let’s hope this doesn’t give me bad karma!) but this was an older guy who was a monk all of his life and was well respected in the community. My host family and I went to the Wat a few nights during the week to help the ladies prepare while the men set up chairs, tables, etc and basically re-did the Wat. There was apparently some heavy fundraising for the event, so the money went to getting the Wat done up all fancy. Wednesday was the big day and nobody went to work because we were all at the Wat. There were tables upon tables of food as each village set up food stations and fed everybody in the community. It was really nice to see that everybody came together and just handed out food; it was very community oriented. I did help serve some food at 1 point and everybody came to my station to get food from the farang…it’s seriously hysterical how much of a novelty I am here. It’s like, I’m just a regular old jo schmo just like you guys but they still think it’s hysterical when I do things like this. Otherwise, I was fed all day long and chatted with people – 2 of my favorite things: food and people. So, I’m not sure if it was the aura of the event, the food or leisure socializing but for the first time, I just fit right in and it felt so good after feeling like the odd man out for the past month.
After a day of eating and chatting the ceremony began with, you guessed it, some chanting with the monks. I’ve never seen so many monks in one location before. They all went up to the casket that was placed in this little house-like-building in which you had to walk up about 6 steps. After that, all of the villagers went up to pay their respects, placed a flower on the casket and said a prayer. Later that night once the sun set, the little house with the casket was lit on fire and we watched it burn with fireworks in the background. The fireworks will forever elude me, but the burning was interesting. I learned that Buddhists used to bury bodies like Christians (if I understood correctly, this was about 50 years ago), but they began to burn for 2 reasons: burying bodies took up too much land and it ‘was dirty’ because of disease then being in the ground. After all was said and done, we went to celebrate, Thai style of course. The typical Thai party consists of the market stands, like any festival back home, with a massive stage that is decorated with insanely brightly colored curtains and electric lights. The stage is then taken over by singers and dancers. These dancers defy the typical modest Thai culture. The dancers are practically naked and dance provocatively. Yet women don’t wear clothes that show shoulders or anything above the knee because it’s viewed as inappropriate. I think it’s just another reflection of a culture that historically has been so sexually repressed and now people are going a bit buck wild. It reminds me a bit of America in the 60’s and 70’s, although not nearly as wild. While the singers sing and the ladies dance, the audience gets all giddy like they are at a concert with the biggest celebrity in the world (I love this, think it’s so cute!) as the drunk 14 year old boys, along with some drunk grandmas, tear up the dance floor. I was given flowers to give one of the male singers – when you do that, it basically means that you think they are great/beautiful so everybody got a kick out of that. I left at 10:30 that night and woke up at 5:30am to the music still going and people still dancing. These Thai’s know how to party!
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