Ringing in the new year, Thai style: reflections on love, light and water

Editor's note: Due to political unrest in Thailand, Ashley Fitzgerald recently returned to the United States to spend the holidays with her family. She filed this column from Thailand before her return.

In America, November marks the beginning of the holiday season as families gather to celebrate Thanksgiving and race to finish (or in some cases start) their holiday shopping. Although Thanksgiving is not celebrated here in Thailand, November is important all the same.

On the full moon of the 12th lunar month, Thai people gather together with family and friends. But they do not bake pies, nor do they roast turkeys (in fact, many Thai people I have spoken to do not even know what a turkey is). Rather, they come together to send off small lotus flower-shaped, banana leaf boats called "kratong." Through this gesture they hope to thank and honor the Goddess of Water as well as cast off any bad luck, anger or sins from the previous year.

To symbolize the release of ill feelings or impure parts of oneself, some people even include bits of hair or fingernails in their kratong. In addition, many will drop a few coins in the kratong before letting it go, as an act of merit-making and in the hopes that good fortune will come to them in the new year.

Loy Kratong, often described as the Festival of Lights, is perhaps the most beautiful of all traditions I have experienced here in Thailand. It also happens to be the most romantic! Handmade kratong complete with candles, incense and flowers line the street stalls, adding an extra vibrance to the already-colorful markets.

Boat parades of elaborate floats and take over the waterways, and people of all ages head out to the nearest river, lake or beach to send off their kratong and to take part in traditional dances. The light from the candles and incense burning inside these miniature banana leaf boats transforms the otherwise drab waterways into a glittering procession, while adding a mystical beauty to the sparkling sea.

Couples make a wish for a long and happy life together when they place their kratong in the water. As they watch the candlelit boats float away, they believe they may get a glimpse into their future. If the kratong float along together without parting, the couple believes they too are destined to "float on" together.

While Loy Kratong encourages one to look toward the future and start anew, I also saw the holiday as an opportunity to peek into the past.

I spent my first Loy Kratong in one of the festival's most popular destinations, Ayutthaya. A former capital of the ancient kingdom, now protected as a World Heritage Site, Ayutthaya offers much more than expansive waterways and extravagant fireworks displays. Majestic Khmer-style ruins whisper the grandeur of a once-powerful and culturally rich kingdom, while headless Buddhas speak silently of the kingdom's devastating demise.

In its heyday of the 14th and 15th centuries, Ayutthaya was an influential center of international trade, art and architecture. Following the death of King Narai, the kingdom fell first into internal conflict and temporarily into Burmese hands. The years of strife destroyed the previously prosperous city, leaving behind ruins of ransacked temples and beheaded Buddha images.

I walked among these battered but beautiful ruins, awestruck and saddened, reminded that man is just as capable of creating resplendence as he is of destroying it.

As I placed my colorful kratong in the candlelit Chao Phraya river that evening, I thought not only of the past year of my life, but of the many years, the many people who may have come before me to release their kratong in that very spot. I imagined what ill feelings or sad memories they hoped to send off, what dreams they had for their future. I thought of Ayutthaya's historic glory and destruction, the preservation of its past, the peace and successes of the present.

And as I watched my kratong drifting away, carrying with it regrets and tears of the previous year, the significance and quiet beauty of the tradition became clear: In order to appreciate the present and hope for the future, from time to time, we all need a moment to reflect on the past, a moment to learn from our mistakes, to pay our respects. And when we're ready, we desperately need a chance to set that kratong and all of our worries, hopes, and fears in the water and just let go, to watch it as it carries the hurts and haunts of our past away while illuminating a fresh path into the future.

Ashley M. Fitzgerald is a 2000 graduate of Harrisville Central School and a graduate of Middlebury (Vt.) College. She lives on Koh Phangan in southern Thailand, working to set up a school for others interested in becoming certified TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teachers. "Grown Local, Gone Global" is published every other Sunday. You may send your questions and comments to her at afitzgerald@wdt.net.