Renewal in April: Boun Pee Mai Lao
The myths and legends about the creation of the Lao people are vividly and prominently recounted and replayed during each Lao New Year Festival in ancient Nakone Louang Prabang. Nowadays they form more than ever the substance of this ritual without the competing presence of a king. Their origin lies in Spiritualism, a firm bond with the spirit world guiding and intervening in every aspect of daily life. It dates back in time to before the gods, to the time of the creation of the Lao. Human intuition has nurtured and entertained it ever since. They predate by eons such man made concepts like Monarchy, Religion, Capitalism, Communism, Constitution and so on. History and a people who are so firmly rooted and rest so securely in the knowledge of their origin pass such temporal phenomena with an annotation in the Annals of Human Pretensions and a cosmic shrug.
The 'Great City' Prabang, the former royal capital and cultural center to this day, was named after its guardian Buddha statue, the Prabang, a gift from the King of Angkor. In former times this statue symbolised the king's guardianship over the Buddhist religion in return for the Buddhist Sangha's legitimisation of the monarchy as founded in a mythical past. This mutually beneficial entrepreneurship used to be happily consecrated anew each April.
The Origin of the Lao People
Re-enacted every Lao New Year in Louang Prabang
The traditional celebration of New Year in Louang Prabang has become a huge local tourist affair. On this merry occasion the sleepy town of 30,000 souls is inundated by some 300,000 visitors for The Big Party. In the West, New Year celebrates the successful passage of time for those still alive and welcomes the challenge of a new year to give it another shot. Here it used to be both a serious and joyous event, the most important of the year, lasting three days. It's the occasion to return home for the customary annual family feast. The first day serves the contemplation of the passed year's events, the planting, harvesting and thanksgiving; the middle day is for visiting relatives' and friends' homes while the third day welcomes the New Year. It's time for renewal of physical and spiritual energy to face all the coming uncertainties. What better way to make merit in Louang Prabang than to take out your homestay Buddhas, dust them off, sprinkle them with scented water and carry them over to Wat Mai, the 'New Temple', for a blessing. Here the Prabang has been enthroned for the occasion to be inundated with water by means of a veritable irrigation system constructed to accommodate the thousands of merit makers. This obviously has nothing to do with atheist Buddhism but certainly provides a feel-good factor, a much needed boost, to face this unavoidable new adventure, to enter the new year on a spiritual high. After all, another year has passed which means there is one less to go! That's certainly reason enough to be happy, to celebrate one's luck; we are making good time.
Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar of Himayana Buddhist tradition definitely suffer from their New Year festivals which have gotten seriously out of hand. It was meant for gently pouring a small cup of blessed and perfumed water over each other's shoulder accompanied by one's best New Year wishes and blessings on the auspicious, third day. Instead, it's been turned into an unreal water battle in the streets, lasting for up to two weeks. It's all about the indiscriminate use of plastic pump guns of astonishing sizes and colours, water hoses, cruising pickups loaded with water tanks and screaming people, iced water, dirty river water, coloured water. Raving madness reigns in the streets. The Tourism Authority of Thailand is now actively promoting abroad this horror spectacle as a tourist event. Totally devoid of its original meaning of making-merit it is to be avoided like the vulgarity of a Cologne Carnival. Wise men and women choose to escape to Mahayana Buddhist countries like China and Vietnam or to Muslim Malaysia, the Christian Philippines or the Hindu island of Bali.
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