Did you heard about the water festival in Thailand? Come and check our five spectacular Songkran facts for kids.
The Songkran festival is all about water as it celebrates the Thai New Year with a splish and a splash. The festival begins on 13th of April every year and it lasts for three days in Thailand. The holiday is all about moving forward in life and water helps the people of Thailand to do this. The Water is very symbolic, meaning it has special meaning, it is used to wash away the previous year to get ready for the new year. This is the start of the Buddhist New Year.
Spring cleaning plays an important part during the Songkran festival. Even family members who have moved away from home, come back for this special celebration. They will help their family with the spring cleaning. Similar to how they use water to wash the previous year away from themselves, the Thai people clean their homes to remove any sin that is present in the house.
This prepares the home and the people who live there for better luck in the coming New Year. They believe that any dust or rubbish in the house will bring bad luck to the home. Spring cleaning removes this bad luck.
Songkran is a Buddhist festival. Buddhism is a religion practised in Thailand and Eastern and central Asia. During the festival people visit Buddhist temples. They bring food to offer to the monks and they listen to them preach. During Songkran water is sprinkled over statues of the Buddha.
The Buddha is believed to be the founder of Buddhism, similar to how Jesus founded Christianity. Pouring water over the statues represents good luck and honesty. Water is also poured over the hands of elderly people as a sign of respect.
Some people bring sand to the Buddhist temples and place it outside. It is a tradition to replace the sand that may have been removed from the temple throughout the years. The people create sand stupas, which are like sand castles, these stupas are decorated with colourful flowers and flags.
Yes, you heard me right! Water fights take place on the street during Songkran. If you don’t want to get wet, then stay indoors because there is no avoiding the water.
People gather the streets with buckets, water guns and basically anything that will hold water to take part in the massive water fight. Sounds like fun! Everyone can be splashed, except elderly people and monks, and maybe don’t splash the police officers either!
We hope you enjoyed learning more things about Songkran as much as we loved teaching you about them. Now that you know how majestic the Songkran is, you can move on to learn about world festivals, religions and Myths like: Irish Festival, Festivals in Mexico, Festivals in India, Mexican Tradition, the Day of the Dead in Mexico, Ancient Greek Religion, Anglo-Saxons, Mystical Creatures, Minotaur, Ogres, Midas, Mermaids, 12 Olympians, Celtic Mythology, Zodiac Myths, Cats in Egyptian Mythology, Snakes in Egyptian Mythology, Greek Mythology Books, Greek Mythology Stories, Hideous Creatures, Hecate, Medusa, Athena, Egyptian Gods, Greek Gods, God of Fire in Egypt and Legendary Norse Mythology.
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