Shan Tradition Rules in a Northern Thai Town
By Sai Silp
April 05, 2007—On a sweltering day in early April, a small boy in colorful costume sits on a man’s shoulders below a golden umbrella in a crowd of people parading to the sound of drums through the heart of Mae Hong Son—a sight to compete with the town’s lakeside temples for the attention of local people and visitors alike.
The parade is a highlight of the most spectacular festival on the annual calendar of events in this mountain-ringed resort town in northern Thailand, close to the Burmese border. Most of the participants are Shan from across that border.
Although the festival, “Poi Sang Long” (or “Crystal Sons Festival”), is a Shan-style novice ordination, local Thai Buddhists join in. Some participants travel from far outside Mae Hong Son province—locally-born Kesorn Boonmanee, for instance, brought her son for ordination from their home in Saraburi province, central Thailand, where her family moved several years ago.
Fifty boys from the Mae Hong Son area, aged from eight to 12, were ordained this year at Mae Hong Son’s Wat Hua Wiang. Thirteen local temples take it in turns to host the three-day event.
It’s a costly ceremony for participating families, who regard the ordination of their sons as a means of making merit. Saeng ong, who moved to Mae Hong Son with her family from Shan State more than 10 years ago, said the savings of several years had gone into the ordination of her eight-year-old son Maungharn. “We hope this merit-making will lead us to nirvana,” she said.
On the first day of the festival, the boys have their heads shaved and are dressed as princes, in tribute to the Lord Buddha, who was himself a prince before setting out on his path of religious discovery. on the second day, the boys are carried on the shoulders of their fathers or other relatives in a procession starting at Wat Hua Wiang, passing through Mae Hong Son and ending at the temple, accompanied by the sound of Shan drums and gongs. onlookers strew rice in the path of the procession.
Ordination follows on the third day, a time of celebration and feasting. Around 1,000 people, many in traditional Shan costume, gather at the wat, where for the next few weeks the newly-ordained boys will live in retreat and study Buddhism.
The scene in Mae Hong Son is repeated in late March and the first two weeks of April in towns throughout northern Thailand, where thousands of Shan have fled the violence and hard conditions of life in their region of Burma.
