Songkran: Profound Bangkok-countryside link that withstands test of time

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Foreign tourists and locals take part in water fights to celebrate Thai New Year, locally known as Songkran, at Khao San Road in Bangkok on April 13, 2022. (Photo by Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP)

 

Thailand’s most-celebrated and globally-renowned festival has had its fair share of politicization, with people being urged a few years ago to throw water using bowls of a specific color a great example. But the national bonding this traditional New Year period created has managed to defy all odds.

 

Songkran is a local festival that represents Thai harmony and a solid linkage between rural people and those in the cities. Why are Bangkok streets empty during Songkran? Partly, it’s because many Bangkokians take their vacations upcountry, where celebrations give them more fun. But more significantly, it’s because Bangkok-based workers, business executives, or high-flying professionals want to pay visits to their family members or relatives. Pick out anyone among the movie stars, business hotshots, high-ranking bureaucrats, politicians or even media moguls and chances are that he or she has a strong rural root.

 

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It’s Thais’ great responsibility to keep it that way. The country’s political strife has made just about anything _ events, occasions, lifestyles, individual behaviors, court verdicts and etc _ a divisive and caste issue. Truth is that Thailand is a true land of opportunities as well as an amazing social mixture, and the Songkran exodus proves that.

 

Full Story: https://www.thaipbsworld.com/songkran-profound-bangkok-countryside-link-that-withstands-test-of-time/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2022-04-14

 

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