Boy Luang Festival

 

This past weekend, I was treated to a rare treat called the Boy Luang Festival. It is a festival that occurs only in Chiang Mai and it hardly ever occurs. Tawm's mom said that it has happened only 2 or 3 times in her lifetime. The festival occurs when a new temple is built in the community or some other Buddhist building is built. This time, the festival occurred in our village because the temple near our house built a new pagoda (see picture below if you aren't sure what a pagoda is).

The festival is a great idea. It would be a great way to raise money for things in North America, it’s just too bad that this festival occurs for secular reasons. During this 3 day festival, people in the neighborhood turn their houses, usually their front yards, into restaurants. Each family serves different kinds of food and when people come to eat, the diners pay for their meal. The money earned doesn't pay for the meal, but the host family offers that money to the temple to pay for the building. The pagoda that was built costs more than 50,000 US dollars.

Along with that, people make or buy small money trees (see picture below). The flowers are made of paper and they attach money to the tree to offer to the temple. Afterwards, the villages gather together to parade down the street to bring their money to the temple as a way of making merit and improving their chances at a better next life. As people parade, they beat drums, clang cymbals and dance. It is a very joyous occasion for all that participate.

The thing that is peculiar (at least to me) is that as people do these things to make merit, people don't follow some other major Buddhist rules. Buddhism strictly forbids drinking alcohol (although you wouldn't know that if you came to Thailand), however most people drink lots of alcohol during the festival, even as they parade to the temple. As I watched, I saw a man kick a dog as he paraded. Again Buddhism teaches not to harm animals. Strict Buddhists are vegetarians and won't kill any kind of animal, including insects. Lastly, many girls were very scantily dressed as they parade to the temple. Although there's no rule against this, Buddhism teaches people put aside all desires but women dressed like that makes it hard for some men to do that. Buddhism is a religion of works. If your good works outweigh your bad, you can have a better next life. During this festival, although a lot of money was raised, it looked like there was more sins that occurred than good works and these were special days, I wonder what that says for other days in people's lives??

Like most things that happen in Thailand, things seem to contradict each other and this festival was no different.