Folklore Museum project by Sterling  Ulrich

April 2019 was my third and final month as a volunteer at the Thaksin Folklore Museum. I have spent many days working on a big project, editing all the English panels in the museum. But because this is a festive month in Thailand, many of my projects were located outside the physical museum, in Songkhla or Hat Yai. 

I made several visits to Thaksin University to meet English language students under Acharn (teacher) Nok. These visits included playing crossword games, hanging out with students in the library and cafeteria, performing group activities with the “Actionbound” app, cleaning up garbage on Samila Beach, teaching English, learning Thai words the students taught me, and teaching about American culture. I was able to make friends very quickly and have plans to stay in touch with some of the students after I leave Thailand.

Between April 11 and April 16, we celebrated Songkran holiday. Songkran is the Thai new year and is sometimes called the “water festival,” because crowds of people line the streets, squirting water guns, spraying hoses, and splashing buckets of water on everyone they meet. It can get crazy, and a little dangerous, inside the big cities, but at the museum we celebrated more traditional rituals. On the first day of Songkran, the staff carved a beautiful pagoda made from white banana stems, and statues of Buddhist monks were placed inside it. Visiting monks sang chants to begin the ceremony, and people took turns pouring water on the Buddhist statues, or scooping rice into a large communal bowl. Afterwards, all the elders took seats, and we poured water on their hands to show respect and receive blessing. The ceremonies concluded with an outdoor banquet. The heat was extreme, but everyone made up for it by splashing water on each other.

The next day, I joined the museum staff in a parade for the “Welcoming the Angels” ceremony in Hat Yai. It is believed that on Songkran, the spirit who has been guarding the Earth departs, and the spirit of the new year takes its place, so celebrations are held for the spirit of the new year. We followed a short parade route downtown, carrying banners and a pagoda palanquin made from more white banana stems. At the center of town, the parade changed to a procession of traditional dancers, including the Manora of Southern Thailand, who wear beaded costumes with tiered crowns, funny tails, and elongated fingers. I had been reading about them in an book by Dr. Marlane Guelden, which was given to me by the museum staff. For the festival, there was a spectacular dance performance, followed by more chanting and rituals with the banana pagoda. People were hesitant to splash parade performers, so I miraculously managed to stay dry!

I had another chance to get very wet during my final week, because my friends from the museum took me snorkeling off the coast of Trang, in the crystal blue Andaman Sea. There were clownfish, parrotfish, and even a crown-of-thorns starfish—animals I had seen in pictures or movies but never up close in the wild. The area was beautiful and spectacular, with green hills and mountains rising straight and sheer out of the water, and bats nesting in the walls of sea caves. I am very glad I got to experience this part of Thailand, and I hope I can return soon to visit the many good friends I have made in this country.