I’ve found a new challenge: hosted by Sue Llewellyn aka Skinnywench. This is what she says about it: “Every Monday I will dip into my old English Oxford dictionary and pick a word on the page that it falls open at. The challenge is to post a photograph, poem, story – whatever the genre you like best to describe what that word means to you.
It would be nice if you could link back to my challenge page so others can take part if they wish and because I’m lovin the posts of bloggers who pick up the gauntlet, because they are so good and many have put so much effort into them I am also going to reblog one or two other participants entries a week to share with you all. I’ve been missing some posts so it would be really helpful if you could add a tag called ‘a word a week challenge’ so I can read and share.”
Her chosen word for this week is “celebration”.
getting married Thailand style – the bride arrives on an elephant
dancers at the annual waterlily festival in North Eastern Thailand
look what I caught, says our friend
Chinese New Year on Koh Samui, Thailand
the art of making a drink
a funeral procession in Bali; funerals are not sad occasions but are for feasting and celebrating the life of the dead person
By chance, two days later I went into the nearby village of Nathon and realised that Chinese new year celebrations were happening there that day. The procession had already started from the temple and I caught up with it as it was making its way along the main street, around the top, back along the sea front and then down through middle street.
Some of the shops had very impressive displays of food and offerings. The more important the business the more important was the display. All the tables were decked out in red and gold and many of the women and female children were also wearing red and gold.
a street offering
dragon-decorated table cloth
a table altar
one of the lucky money collectors
lion dog
Outside the department store I came across a huge altar with lots of statuettes on it.
There were also fakirs with metre long skewers through their cheeks.
The statues were later removed from the altar, which was then completely dismantled, and put into portable shrines which were carried through town.
The fakirs paraded through town too, with helpers supporting the weight of the skewers together with children carrying brightly coloured banners
We noticed that many people had daubs of red on their faces and saw people carrying glasses of red liquid with which to anoint people – I wasn’t sure if it was red dye or something more sinister like cockerels’ blood!
Although this was the year of the rabbit, and in view of rabbits’ natural reproduction abilities, we were surprised that there were so few pictorial representations of rabbits and it took us some time to find these
On Chinese New Year’s Eve, which fell on 2nd February, we went to the village of Maenam on the island of Koh Samui, Thailand. Last year had been the first time Chinese New Year had been celebrated there and it had proved so successful that it had been decided to hold another celebration there this year.
Red lanterns were hung from the eaves and over gateways to welcome good luck, wisdom and long life. There was no shortage of nor choice of food on sale at the plentiful stalls lining the streets. There were also lots of other street vendors selling toys, clothes, monkeys carved from coconuts, insects woven from bamboo leaves, soap carvings, leather carvings and sweets galore. There were plenty of places to get something to drink too and one girl was doing a roaring trade selling mojito cocktails. We ended the evening listening to music in a bar appropriately called the Spirit House! Firecrackers were lit as the dragon passed each doorway with ear splitting explosions, producing clouds of acrid smoke, to replicate the older Chinese custom of lighting gunpowder-filled bamboo stems, which causes a small explosion and is believed to drive evil spirits away.
A Chinese street celebration would not be complete without a traditional Lion Dance which is thought to bring good luck. Normally, two very fit and energetic dancers take up the role of head and body and dance through the streets to drums and cymbals. These dances quite often take place on top of a series of poles set at different heights and require a high degree of agility on the part of the dancers. A mirror on the lion’s head reflects the image of any evil spirits that approach to frighten them away.
A Dragon Dance is also a very important aspect of the festival. In Chinese culture, dragons represent good luck, wisdom and long life. The beautiful red and gold dragons of Chinese New year are made of silk and papier mache and may be covered with strings of tiny lights. The colours have significant meaning to the Chinese as red represents luck and joy, and gold represents prosperity. Apparently the longer the dragon, the greater the luck so some dragons can be up to 100m long carried by 30 men, raising and lowering the dragon on poles to make him move. The one we saw in Maenam must have been about 30m long and required about 10 people to carry it. The dragon was led into each business establishment to be “fed” money. Each time the head of the dragon had to go as far as possible into the shop or restaurant and then had to back out and reverse a bit down the road before it could continue on its way. The noise in the street from the exploding firecrackers and drums and cymbals was deafening.
a string of firecrackers outside one of the local bars
the crowds in the main street waiting for the dragon. Note the man on the left hand side of the photo covering his ears with his hands to protect them from the noise of the exploding firecrackers
one of the lion dogs
one of the drums
acrobats
it was really difficult to get the whole length of the dragon into one photo!
what’s left after a string of firecrackers has exploded
one of the many food stalls. I think this one was selling something sweet but I don’t know exactly what
this man makes insects out of bamboo leaves which he then sprays red
the Chinese temple in Maenam, partially obscured by smoke from the firecrackers
really long strings of firecrackers!
another view of the temple with red lanterns and banners
dismantling the dragon
finely worked leather carvings for sale
iced cakes for sale
finally a very short video of the dragon being taken into one of the local businesses, which will give you some idea of the noise
This year the Chinese New Year fell on St Valentine’s day giving the consumer market a double whammy of things to celebrate and bargains to be had. In Bangkok it was feted as being the day of Luck and Joy with encouragement in the form of advertising to go out and spend money everywhere. Many of the big shopping malls had massive sales promotions. Elsewhere in Asia, things were a little more downmarket.
We were in Phnom Pen, Cambodia a few days before the Chinese New Year. One day we went into a bank where there was a beautiful money tree – a large flowering branch in a huge vase had been decorated with lanterns, red and gold money envelopes and other ornaments. I asked if I could take a photograph of it but was refused on the grounds that it might interfere with the bank’s security cameras. Perhaps if I had said I wouldn’t use flash I might have been allowed to take a couple of photos. Not to worry, there were plenty of other photo opportunities.
We were on the Thai island of Koh Samui for the actual Chinese new year celebrations. However we managed to miss the most important ones as they were apparently celebrated in a different part of the island from the last time we were here and we were unable to find out any information as to what was happening and where. Even when I went to the Chinese temple all they could tell me was that the following Saturday people would be banging the big drums and fakirs would be putting long needles through their cheeks. I think I’ll give that one a miss!
Interior and exterior shots of the Chinese temple – one of my favourite places.
This is the year of the tiger so tigers feature heavily in advertising and elsewhere. This paper cut was used in an advertisement at the local pharmacy.
This cutesy tiger adorns the door of a jewellry shop (very difficult to photograph because of the reflections).
I spotted this fabulous tiger on the door of a hairdressing salon in Siem Reap, Cambodia
The streets had red lanterns strung across them and lanterns were hung in front of many of the shops.
Amongst the first settlers on Koh Samui were Hainan Chinese and many of the businesses here today have Chinese links. In the shop which sells paraphenalia for temples and festivals there were mounds of joss papers, paper jewellry, paper clothes and shoes, paper money and other consumables – all of which will be burned, a symbolic burning of all things material.
Special cakes and sweets are produced and the rice cakes have special characters printed on them.
Even Dunkin’ donuts got in on the Valentine act with this sticky offering
In the days following the new year celebrations visits to local businesses are made by troupes of lion dancers and they bless the altars set up in front of the shops/hotels/restaurants and the premises, accompanied by the setting-off of strings of very noisy firecrackers.
We last experienced a Chinese new year in Thailand in 2006 and you can read about it here.
