On May 1st the Thai Student Association kicked off the annual Thai Culture and Songkran Festival to celebrate the Thai New Year, with this year’s celebrations scheduled over a two day period. In the Thai culture, water symbolizes purity, is the source of life and the spirit of all things. The tradition of splashing water signifies washing away the negative things from the past year, to start fresh in the New Year.
The international community at NPUST is flourishing, with over 700 international students coming from countries around the world. Among these, 47 degree seekers are from Thailand, with an additional 12 Thai students visiting on exchange. Each year, the Thai Student Association puts on the Songkran Festival and in addition to the celebration of the New Year, the event gives NPUST students a chance to experience traditional Thai customs and also help Thai students feel a little more at home while they are away from family during this important festival.
On May 1st, the morning began with a dance performance by Thai students to set the event into motion. Indonesian and Vietnamese students were also invited to demonstrate some of their own traditional dances, adding an extra element to the culturally diverse audio and visual sensation. The opening performance was immediately followed by a traditional Thai water sprinkling ceremony, where water is dripped on the hand of others to offer blessing for the New Year. After that came the Songkran “splash”, during which students drenched one another with pales of water to keep up with the “new tradition” that the festival has taken on. The festivities also included lots of delicious traditional Thai foods, which were free for students and teachers enjoy, as well as traditional games and prizes—making the activity lots of fun for everyone. This years event was even extended into the following day, which set off with a dance performance by Taiwan students. Thai students later demonstrated a traditional children’s game, which was lots of fun, and left everyone full of laughs. After that, the festival came to a close with a Thai language competition, which which used a question and answer format to get lots of interaction between the participants.
