The Song Kran Festival
Song Kran Festival is the Thai New Year Festival that starts on 13th -15th of April every year.Due to the hot weather which is very hot till the people splash water to each other to cool down.
Song Kran Legend had been passing through the generation. The legend of a wealthy couple but no child of them own. They went out into the wood and asked for the god for giving them a child. Soon the wish came true, they finally got a baby boy and they named him ” Khanta Kumarn”. The boy was special, he grew up very quick and also very claver. Till ” Phra prhom ” ( The God who protect the places with 4 faces, you could find his statues everwhere )wanted to prove the boy’s wisdom.
The God asked the boy the question, ” What part of human body make us splendour in the morning time,in the afternoon and at night?”. He also give the boy only 7 days to gave him the answer. Within 7 days of the deal, the boy might have died however if the boy could answer his question, he would cut his head to show respect to his wisdom.
Khanta Kumarn boy spent many days to get the answers until the last day. He was sad and up set to die because he had no answer for the God. So he went into the wood and sat down under the big tree to kill time. Above the tree , there was a couple of the vulture who lived on the tree. The female asked ” where could we find the food?” . The male vulture told the female not to worried because there would be a good flesh meat for them to eat the next morning. It would be the boy meat. Because he couldn’t answer the God’s question.
The female vulture was too curious to know so she asked what was the answer for the question. The male vulture said
The splendour of the human in the morning is the face. Because people wake up in the morning, wash their faces and even do the make up on their face to look nice.
The splendour of the human in the afternoon is on the chest. Because the day time is hot, people usually wipe their chests with water or perfume to refresh and cool down.
The splendour of the human at night is feet. People wash their feet before bed time. Because feet are the lowest part of the body and have to carry the whole body weight a whole day long. It is also good for the people health to have a good sleep and good restas well to have more energy for the next morning.
The boy was very happy and ran home with join. Noe he had the answer for the God. After Khanta Kumarn Boy gave the answer to the God. The God had the right answers he needed and had to keep his word.
Before he cut his head, he had asked his 7 daughters to take turn to carry his head and not to let the head drop on the earth because it would cause the fire and not up in the sky because it would cause the dryness and no rain at all. The God doesn’t want any trouble. This is the reason why you could see the picture of the Goddess carrying the container with the head during the Song Kran Festival. People try splashing the water to the head to cool down as well.
On 13th April every year, there is a parade as well as the floats from the local people join in the festival with all visitors could enjoy from Chiang Mai Train Station back to the old city wall as well as along the way and everywhere.
Stay wet and join in the festival!
