by Kristina Gawrgy | Staff Writer
The Thai New Year festival in Silver Spring may be a day to celebrate culture, spiritual rebirth and honoring elders, but when it comes to drawing people to the annual event, organizers and attendants agree the Thai food doesn`t hurt.
The Thai New Year, known as Songkran, is commemorated each year with a festival at Wat Thai, a Buddhist temple on Layhill Road in Silver Spring.
Mickey Arora, co-president of the Thai Student Association at the University of Maryland in College Park, said that several association members would be in attendance at the Songkran Festival on Sunday.
“It`s so much fun,” said Arora, 20. “It`s so lively, especially when the weather is warm. The food is the main attraction for most people.”
The festival is usually an extremely well-attended fund-raiser, which includes a religious ceremony, lunch offering to the monks, water blessings and Thai dance, food and souvenirs, said Sukanda Booppanon, a 30-year member of Wat Thai.
Booppanon has been a volunteer with the temple for about 25 years and said the festival has only grown in popularity among people outside the Thai ethnic group. “Friends bring friends and it`s a big event,” Booppanon said.
Booppanon said she was only one of more than 100 volunteers who help set up, cook meals and import authentic souvenirs and clothing from Thailand for the festival.
Wat Thai was founded in a small home in downtown Silver Spring in 1974 and moved to its current location in 1986. The festival was part of the temple since the beginning, but in the temple`s early days, attendance was only between 200 and 300 people, Booppanon said. Now they expect crowds of up to 5,000.
All the money raised is donated to Wat Thai, which operates solely on donations. The money helps pay for the maintenance of the building, monks` needs, and service projects throughout the world, Booppanon said.
Adele C. Schwartz, public relations chairwoman for Wat Thai, said about $50,000 is raised during Songkran, but it includes mailed-in donations as well as the money raised at the actual event.
The Thai New Year, also celebrated in countries like Burma, Cambodia and Sri Lanka, is an observance of the vernal equinox, but has its ties to Buddhism as well.
During the celebration, which usually falls April 13 to 15, people pour water on the Buddha image and sometimes on one another for blessings. Elders and monks are particularly celebrated on this day, and are wished a long life and health, Booppanon said.
Pradoochai Pronarai, a monk at Wat Thai, said the festival is important to celebrate God`s will, love and compassion. He also said that Buddhists who do not attend temple regularly come to the festival to offer and receive blessings to ensure they have a good new year.
However, the Songkran is a time for cleaning and renewal, even for the monks.
“We prepare many things,” Pronarai said. “We clean (the temple) and prepare candles for festival.”
Pronarai also said some festival-goers come from many neighboring states including Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
Arora said she sees the New Year as a time to celebrate Thailand and its culture. She expects to be at the festival early before heading home in Olney for more celebration.
“The food, the music, the colors. ... It`s just a time for everybody to come together and enjoy everyone`s company,” she said.
If you go
The Songkran Festival for Thai New Year will be held 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sunday at Wat Thai Washington, D.C., 13440 Layhill Road, Silver Spring.
Source: www.gazette.net (19 April 2007)
