From the Land of Smiles...

Chinese New Years!

Hey Everybody,

I haven't posted much in the last few weeks, but that's because I haven't really been doing very much. I've been going to school during the week and hanging out at home on the weekends. I have made a few afternoon trips to Pattaya and Bangkok with my host sister's, so thats been fun.

One thing that has happened though was Chinese New Years. It was this past weekend. On Saturday morning I got up early and went to a Chinese temple with my host dad and host sister. The Chinese Temples are different than the thai temples. I think I like the thai temples more. Oh, and two of my host aunts, one uncle, and 4 host cousins came too. Anyways, we had to go around and light candles and put them on different tables. Then we went around to the tables and put food on them. We put a plate of fruit, desserts, and meat. We put the plates on top of sheets of gold leaf (I think). Oh, and we put little cups of tea and whiskey too. Then we went around with incence and wai-ed. After that we burned the sheets of gold leaf and took the food back.

Then I went to a second temple with my host aunt, cousins and host sister. This one was a temple for a "King" except he wasn't really a king. He helped Thailand become its own country when it was part of Burma. When we were there we bought flowers and candles and incence and went and wai-ed. After that we went home.

When we were there many more relatives came. Everyone was busy for a bit finishing up food orders. Then we went and wai-ed to the "angels" who protect the house (chinese and thai) and to the buddha and to the relatives who have died. Next it was time to burn the gold leaf for the deceased relatives. Then, finally it was time to eat. There was alot of food, but alot of people as well.

Oh, one good thing about Chinese New Years is that older relatives give money to the younger ones, so everytime a new family member came all of my host sisters and cousins asked them for money. They gave it out in little red envelopes. I got 5 envelopes, from 3 of my host sisters, my host parents, and a cousin(i think). It totalled 1200 baht, which is about $35 canadian. I was pretty excited about that.

After lunch we decided to go to a movie. All of my host sisters, cousins and I went to see Underworld revolution. I knew it was about vampires, but I never saw the first one, so I had no idea what to expect. It turned out to be really gory, and had quite graphic sex scenes...not what i would have expected looking at the audience. It wasn't very good...apparently the first one was better.

That night I went with Peep and Pook (my middle two host sisters) to Bangkok. We went out to dinner at MK before taking Pook to the airport. She was going to Tokyo for a week for an internship. She works for Toyota. After we dropped her off we went to the departure desks to try to get my ticket cleared up. I have to get it revalidated because right now my ticket is booked for May 10th, although i'm leaving on June 16th. We got to the desk and they had just closed up, but the woman said that we could do it over the phone, so i'm going to try tonight or tomorrow.

On Sunday morning I went to another temple with my host mother and Peep. We went to do tombon. We gave food to the monks outside and then went inside the temple. At that point people were mediting, so Peep and I read books (there were a bunch in english). Then the monks came in and everyone chanted. It was different at this temple.Usually just the monks chant, or the people just chanted a little bit. At this temple the monks chanted first, and then many of them went to go eat (they only get one meal a day at this temple!) and then all of the people chanted. They did so many different ones that the temple has books that you can read if you've forgotten them. I've never seen that before. After that everyone else got to go outside and eat. There was tons of food, and it was really good.

It was so weird, there were alot of foreigners at this temple. Not vistors, but there were at least two foreigner monks, and at least 6 monks in training, one of whom was going to become a monk that afternoon.

After we finished eating it was time to leave so I went back inside to put back the book that I had been reading. While I was putting it on the bookshelf I heard over the microphone "where you come from" and I turned around and a monk was calling me over. He was really nice and just asking me questions, but I never really know how to behave around monks. Next to him was a younger "falang" monk, who turned out to be from Vancouver, which was really cool. I wanted to stay and ask him some questions, because I've never really had an opportunity to talk to a monk, especially one from a western country. I would have asked him some questions but Peep came in looking for me and we had to leave.

Anyways, I would write a bit more, but school's over so I have to go home. I'll post again soon.

-Lauren

posted by Lauren @ 11:47 PM