Loi Krathong Celebrations

Last week, my insight was that, in my opinion, Jesus overreacted to the Temple fair atmosphere he witnessed in Jerusalem. It was only people congregating around the most popular place in Jerusalem doing their thing. This week, my perspective is that human beings have more in common with each other than differences.

Yesterday in Thailand Lois Krathong or the Festival of Lights was celebrated around the November full moon. Everyone from babies to grandparents made or bought a krathong consisting of banana leaves, incense sticks and a candle or two and went to the nearest source of water, meditated with their partners or family and floated the offering down the river, just as Jews do during Yom Kippur at the full moon as we wash away our sins and I am sure Hindus do in the Ganges at various purification ceremonies.

The fascinating thing is that I was invited to our American Thanksgiving party with turkey and all the trimmings in a colleague's house. As you can see from the pictures, the house was spectacular and we were all having a good time singing karaoke, eating turkey and trimmings, drinking beer and playing music. When I left the party about 11 and went to the Chaao Paraya River with two friends there were literally thousands of people walking down to the river in couples or with families with little babies and grandparents in tow. Bands were playing, people were drinking beer and eating insects ( I even had a nibble) and buying or putting their own krathong in the water. The river was covered in sparkling lights as the krathongs floated away, either together, which meant the couple was going to have a good year, or separately, which meant the couple might not be a couple in the future. As you can see from the pictures, both events, the Thanksgiving party and the Loi Krathong Celebrations were both a lot of fun and human beings from the west and east both celebrated in virtual the same ways.

It is also amazing to me how all religions like Buddhism, Judaism and Hinduism have similar celebrations obviously originating from the same pagan beliefs popular in Biblical times.

During the day, if you are trying to figure out what Condoms and Cabbages sign is you see in the pictures, I decided to walk around my Sukhumvit neighbourhood and see what there was to see during the day. I do go out every night but the day was suprisingly different. This main street, like Yonge street, had such a different flavour. I found a beautiful soi or street, #12 which had two great restaurants, Condoms and Cabbages and Crepes and company. I chose Crepes and Company because of the leafy airiness, to say nothing of my yen for crepes. It is amazing that in this Asian city you can get absolutely anything you want, even served by the French speaking owner in a restaurant completely peaceful and quiet immersed in an urban jungle of flowers and trees!

As I continued my walk, as you can see from the pictures, I saw everyone preparing for the evenings festivities either making their krathongs or shopping for their parties and family gatherings. They were also busy cleaning their cars, pools and houses for the evening's celebrations.

Today, I am either going to pick another area of Bangkok to explore or play golf. Talking about golf, Friday I was playing with some beginners and playing a par three course. Even though the course was clearly short, I had a perfect game going into the 9th hole where I unfortunately hit it over the green into a river and took a two over. I can't ever remember getting 8 pars in a row and hitting the green on every shot. It's a nice feeling.

We also have very interesting times at school which are probably inappropriate for me to discuss on a public site, but just as in any institution, there are so many politics and intrigues it makes for many fascinating days. Luckily for me, because I am working literally for the fun of it, I have such a different perspective than colleagues who are depending on the job to put 'khao' on the table at night.

The weather is absolutely great if anyone wants to visit. The water in my pool is even too cold for me and I think we go down to about 27 degrees at night. Apparently the next three months will be gorgeous.

Speak with you soon.