My Third New Year: Songkran

I have had the opportunity to celebrate three different new years in Southeast Asia: Western New Year, Lunar New Year, and Songkran -- which is a new year celebration for folks from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Burma held around April 13-15 (extended if those days fall on a weekend). Since most of my students left for military training (mandatory for second year university students), I decided to take a week-long break to travel to Thailand for Songkran and run errands/see family in Sai Gon, and my friend Dave also came along since he had a holiday break.

Initially, my main draw to Songkran was the fact that it would be a multiple-day long water fight, which would take place during the hottest days of the year. Given that my family wasn't able to afford (nor wanted to spare the money to buy) water guns for me and my sister, I spent most of my childhood yearning for the $29.99 SuperSoaker with the water-tank backpack on the back page of the Toys 'R Us weekend ad. I dreamed of the day that I would get the chance to hoist the end of a SuperSoaker on my shoulder and shoot sharp bursts of water at the boys who teased me for having four eyes and a gutter mouth (cruel ways to say I had glasses and braces). Or the day I would be able to engage in a friendly water fight without having my neighbor yell at me and my friends for ruining the street asphalt with water balloons. (I kid you not.) Honestly, I had not known much about Songkran or the events that would take place beyond what friends told me and YouTube videos showed me. I wanted to create my own impression of it from my travels.

Day 1: Engage
When we arrived to Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, we boarded the SkyTrain to get to my friend Huong's apartment, whom I had known from Berkeley and had graciously allowed us to stay at her place. After a few stops, I noticed young Thai folks board the train with what I assumed to be sunscreen smeared across their cheeks and cell-phones hung in protective-plastic covering around their necks. Some sat down with a big water gun in their lap, while stood in groups with their gun loosely held by their thigh. My excitement grew each time I saw a young person with a water gun come onto the train.

Once we got off the train, we jumped into a metered taxi to get to Huong's. When we came close, we saw a group of kids outside a nearby 7-11 (they're everywhere in Bangkok) with buckets of water and water guns. Considering we had luggage, I was immediately thankful for being in a covered car. Regardless, our taxi got doused with water.

Ruthless kiddos

After we dropped off our things, we headed to the nearest 7-11 for our food supply and to purchase water guns. (Words of advice: DON'T buy water guns from 7-11. You'll see why.) The employees also kindly filled our water guns, and we noted how in Western countries, you would never see that kind of generosity. Then we took a taxi into town, which wasn't too far away. However, traffic was blocked for days going toward Khao San, the backpacker's area, so we got out and made the rest of the journey on foot.

With our (what we found to be) weak water guns in hand, we soon became victims to wet-chalk-smearing and water-dousing from ice-water buckets and high-powered water blasters. We walked in a line to squeeze past our predators and prey and through vendors selling water-dousing and shooting devices, food and drinks. Every person we passed was sure to leave us with one or the other, and I let out a gleeful shriek every time I was attacked, which contrasted with the silent yet friendly attackers who ranged from 5-year-olds who barely met the height of my knee to sneaky food vendors who hid behind their hot, fried food (amazingly untouched by water) with a water gun resting by their ankles.

The end of the massive water zone, with a water truck for unlimited ammo

Close-up. Look at the young girl in the front of her dad's motorbike. Pure awesomeness.

Taking a break to look tough. We were shot soon afterward.

Now, here's where I started drawing connections between Songkran and the Zombie Apocalypse. Yes, reading "World War Z," "The Zombie Survival Guide," and the first 90 issues of "The Walking Dead" as well as watching the TV series has created this survivalist-type thinking, but I couldn't help but think about the similarities, and how the creators of these books and series were so on point with tapping into the human psyche. Here's a Venn Diagram I drew to compare the experiences:

Venn diagrams are useful for organizing thoughts other than ones you gather from your 2nd read, former students.

Anyway, I digress. These were some basic rules of Songkran water fighting that I learned by observation and trial-and-error:

This called out to me throughout the day.

• Friendly-fire is accepted and expected.
• Stay off the streets, for safety reasons and to avoid truck beds fulls of people with buckets and water blasters.
• Food vendors are essential to survival and general food consumption. They can shoot you, but don't shoot back if you want that delicious omelet with rice.

Don't be this guy.

• Some places have been informally established as bases. Don't be a dirt bag and shoot people from the base, causing people within to put their guard back up, potentially have their meal soaked, or even turn the base into a war zone.
• Once you make eye contact with your prey/predator, you must shoot, or else they will attack you first. Don't let that cute 8-year-old girl fool you. She's smiling innocently during this stare-off because she has a bucket of ice water behind her that she will dump all over you once you let your guard down.
• Shoot people below the face. The face is reserved for chalk.
• Chalk people gently on the face. Don't slap it on them -- that's very disrespectful.
• No need to engage in a chase with your attacker/attackee. Just shoot and move on.

Area around Khao San. Notice how blocked up the road on the left is.

After realizing that the water-fighting continues into the evening, we caught a cab home (again, not realizing how close we were to the apartment) and researched Songkran and Bangkok a bit more to see what we could make of our trip. We then mapped out our plan for the next day, which involved seeing how much we could avoid the backpacker's area and getting hit by water.

Day 2: Learn
Apparently, the extremity of the water fighting had been a development within the past couple years; fun and water-fighting hasn't always been the focus of Songkran. Thai New Year is usually celebrated by visiting the wats (temples) and bringing food to the monks. Water is usually doused gently over the shoulder of a Buddha statue or people as a sign of washing away the bad forces. Some people even purchase gold-stickers to re-touch worn-Buddha statues. We dedicated our second day to learning more about the culture and observing the holiday celebration.

A womyn washing and cleaning the Buddha statue

Folks praying for new year blessings

Wat Pho: home of the largest reclining Buddha in Bangkok

When I asked for a coffee shake at Wat Pho, I didn't imagine that my coffee would get shaken in this manner.

The delivery and quality was worth every Baht.

Tuk-tuks get the worst of it. Observing from inside a Thai dessert shop after eating delicious seafood phad-see-ew.

From the top of Wat Arun: the sunrise temple. (In case you're wondering how I managed to get chalked on a day of avoidance, a womyn dancing on the street intrigued us and sneakily gave us some new year's blessings. Songkran is everywhere.)

Rainclouds looming over the city, heading over Wat Arun. Looks like they'll be the main predators for Songkran tonight.

We had a nice day checking out the wats, learning about the holiday celebration through respectful observance, and practicing our Thai (with my Southeast Asian phrasebook in hand), but we were ready to escape tourist-filled, humid Bangkok to go to the local island of Koh Samet.

Day 3 - 4: Escape
Koh Samet is a three-hour bus ride and one-hour ferry ride south of Bangkok. In researching a destination to travel to, Dave and I agreed that we need to be around water and would enjoy a break from a touristy area, so this place seemed best -- and it was. On the way in, local kids threw buckets of ice-cold water at us, but once we got to the area we were staying in, we seemed to be in a place unknown to the rest of the world. There were more Thai folks than foreigners (which is what this beach was noted for), and they also seemed to want to spend their Songkran holiday in peace. The rain seemed to come only during early morning or late evening hours, and I was able to swim, walk around, and enjoy watching the clouds pass and the stars come out without the normal noise and air pollution. This was the last of my out-of-country travel under the Fulbright grant, and I was able to enjoy every bit of it.

Lunch at the top of a pier, overlooking Candlelight Beach