Festival and Tradition
Loy Krathong Festival (Thai Full Moon Party)
It is really surprise to me when I found one article on the internet mentioned about Loy Krathong, one of the most beautiful festival of Thailand, was known in that way. In fact, it is true that Loy Krathong is the festival that people can celebrate but there is also norms and tradition to know more than the celebration, which will be described in the following paragraph.
What is “Loy” and What is “Krathong”
The word “Loy” is a verb, simply means “to float” something on the water. And “Krathong” means the object that is made to be floated. In fact, this word generally refers to any object that was made in a bowl shape in order to contain something and Krathong for this festival has the same meaning.
Thais use Krathong to contain followers, leafs or any other kind of natural object and float it on the water. The Krathong itself can be made from any object but it is mostly made from banana leaf cup. The objective of Loy Krathong festival is to scarify the water and also to ask for forgiveness on what people have done wrong with the water.
This tradition comes from, in ancient time, when every day life of Thais involves and bound with water and the river. So when every year during the full moon period, people made Krathong to scarify to the water. These traditions has been going on for many hundred years and still go on at present time.
At present time, even though the format and tradition is changed a little bit from what people in ancient time did, but the logics, objectives and norms behind the festival are still the same. The few changes have been made to the format of Krathong itself which using natural material such as banana leaf and now the environmental concern has become more significant, people instead using Krathong that made from bread, which can be eaten by fish in the river so this could help to reduce amount of garbage from banana leaf.
For the celebration, people also enjoy playing with many kind of firework, this still the same as what happen in the past, unfortunately that playing with fireworks is not as popular as in the past. This just because the expansion of urban life which is not allow people to play large fireworks at their residence.
If we bring the issue about what I have said in the first paragraph about the misunderstanding of the concept of Loy Krathong festival. Even though it is in fact has a celebration during full moon period, but not as same as full moon party on western style. There might be some understanding having party during Loy Krathong for some Thais in present time, but the activities and objective of the tradition have to remain the same. So that’s the story behind this lovely festival. It could be said that the festival is one of the most interesting and charming among other Thais tradition. The festival is organised around mid of November, during the full moon period.
