At the Thai temple in Thailand in 1999 in home town, Tonyang, there is a Thai New Year celebration. It is every year on April 13th. My small town is in Chiangrai, the most northern area of Thailand. Most villagers are rice farmers and grow rice two times a year. The rest of season, we plant vegetables and raise animals, fish, chickens, hogs, and buffaloes. We have very close relationship and everyone knows one another. For our religious events, we always gather at the village temple, the heart of our society. On that day,It was a very good day, and a happy day for every body because it was our New Year. There were gray clouds in the sky, and it was a little windy enough to blow some dust to the people. It was a little hot and humid that was a good day for playing water splash. It is a traditional celebration that we do before we go back home to continue our New Year celabration. There were around three hundreds of people at the temple. I think mostly people from our own village were there and some from small villages that were close by. Many gave food to the monks, and after that they ate and donated money to the temple. The elders wore traditional style dresses. They sat down, prayed and received blessing from the monks. The charity brought happiness and a smile on everyone’s faces. There were kids running around. Mostly, they had toys in their hands, some had water guns, bammboo guns, balloons, and dolls. It was a very fun day and there was a lot of activities going on this celebration day.
After the chanting from inside the temple stopped, a loud drum started to beat repeatedly and caught everyone’s attention. It was the beautiful mountain girl dancing show. There were eighteen of them. They wore hand knit black mountain girl hats which had bright orange beads and wood beads. The shirts were black with white and red stripes with their own style creations. All of the skirts were very short and handmade. They had small silver bells and colored beads all around the skirts. Everytime they moved, we must hear the ringing noise, that would make the mountain girl dancing interesting. Everyone loved this show.
“ Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!” The drum beated and the dancers showed respect to the crowd. All the people applaused. Some people were screaming and some yelling, because they really liked to see the show that happened only once a year. I was at the front row with my younger brother, nephews and a lot of children. After the mountain girl dancers finished, they showed respect to the four directions. I spotted my cousin. Her name was Somsai. She was one of the mountain girl dancers and she looked absolutely beautiful with the dress that she created. I tried to wave at her and I saw her smile. I thought she would see me. All the dancers were smiling, too. It seemed like every dancing girl had very white teeth with the red lipstick on and they liked to smile. The rhythm started slow and then faster. Every time they did the fast dance , jumping, kicking their legs or performing a circle, it made all the dust move. However, The more dust they made the louder the clapping from the crowd. It was a beautiful picture. Everybody enjoyed the show.
Suddenly, Somsai’s black short skirt fell off. Then all of the people’s eyes stared at her while the other mountain girl dancers kept dancing. It seemed like the crowd waited and were curious that what was my cousin was going to do with her falling skirt. Was she going to stop dancing and run away with short red pants?. Unexpected from the crowd, her friend that danced as her partner started to pull her skirt up while she was dancing. Then my cousin, Somsai, started to dance along with her. It is very slow rhythm at that time. It took almost one minute for her to tie Somsai’s skirt. People were laughing and smiling. Her face turned red, but she still danced until the show was done. The people loved the show and the dancers received two rounds of applause.
When the show finished, I ran and looked for her. Under the big tree behind the temple, I saw her. She was sitting still by herself with her head down . There was no beautiful hat on her head and no smile on her face. She was so sad at that time. “I was so embarassed and I wanted to wear a bag on my head.” She told me with a sad face and it looked like she would start to cry soon. I told her that, “you put the smiles in all of the people faces when you decided to keep dancing. “ “I believed that they admired in your spirit of the dancer like someone said, “The show must go on.” and you know that everyone loves mountain girl dancers.” A voice of old lady came from behind. She is the head chef of the village who everyone respects. She agreed with what I just said and I looked at Somsai. She wasn’t sad anymore. She had a big smile with white teeth and red lipstick. Somsai said, “Let’s go play water splash!.” At the front of the temple, All the people, old people, young people, teenagers and kids were having fun with water splash. They were laughing, smiling and screaming with happiness. Somebody held water cups and some held water guns. It was very nice and fun to get wet and make somebody wet that day. I think everybody forgot what just happened to Somsai, including her.
