At home, young family members pour rose and jasmine water over the hands and feet of elders as an act of gratitude and devotion, while out on the streets, few escape a drenching from buckets, water guns, even fire hoses – their sins being “washed away” in the deluge – and a coating in din sor pong, similar to talcum powder.
The Buddhist festival marks the Thai New Year and is not just a time for national celebration; the fun, frolics and chance to hose down complete strangers are a huge draw for tourists – which is why Thailand’s National Soft Power Development Committee wants to stretch the festival out across the whole of April.
Not your usual Seoul travel guide: YouTuber ‘bored with Korea’ is on a quest
Not your usual Seoul travel guide: YouTuber ‘bored with Korea’ is on a quest
“We will not splash water only for three days but the whole month, with events to be held nationwide,” the Bangkok Post reports committee chairwoman Paetongtarn Shinawatra as having said.
Paetongtarn, who is also leader of the Pheu Thai Party, says her soft-power brokers want Songkran to become one of the “world’s best festivals”, whatever that means.
The committee estimates that an extended festival would add 35 billion to 40 billion baht (US$995 million to US$1.14 billion) to the economy.
The plan – given impetus by the December 6 announcement by Unesco that Songkran would be added to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list – involves all 77 provinces in Thailand coming up with their own ideas about how to fill out the month and submitting their suggestions to the committee.
The resulting programme of events will be branded as World Water Festival – The Songkran Phenomenon.
Of course, as is the way with these things, not everyone is happy – and perhaps with good cause.
Critics have warned that existing problems concerning water stocks and traffic accidents will be exacerbated by an extended period of merrymaking.
Last year, between April 11 and 17, 469 people were killed in road accidents in Thailand, according to statistics provider Statista.
That is an improvement on the 679 people killed over Songkran in 2018, but drink-driving revellers are still a huge menace, with motorcycles and pickup trucks involved in the vast majority of incidents.
Songkran marks the end of the dry season and the beginning of the monsoon – but with the climate being as unpredictable as it is now, an extended period of water squandering could just drain whatever reserves are left before the rains arrive.
Farmers are already sometimes asked to curtail their use of water in April.
Defence Minister Sutin Klungsang has warned of a lack of police officers to ensure order throughout a whole month of raucous celebrations, reports the Bangkok Post, but he assures the government his soldiers are ready to step into the breach if necessary – and their guns won’t be loaded with water.
Nattavudh Powdthavee, an economics professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, offers what is perhaps the most damning criticism of the proposal.
Do we really need to panic about a bedbug ‘pandemic’? Of course not
Do we really need to panic about a bedbug ‘pandemic’? Of course not
The Songkran “phenomenon” risks turning an extraordinary event into an ordinary one, he says. “If we make every single day of April a Songkran festival day, its value will diminish and people will be bored.”
Quite.
Destinations Known is of the opinion that if there were the appetite for more tourist-friendly events across Thailand in April, it would be sated by individual business owners sensing the opportunity.
Give them further incentives, by all means, but when has a large-scale, government-led tourism projects ever led to a phenomenon worthy of the word?
Philippe Starck ‘glorifies’ Perrier
Sticking with the water theme, news has reached us that if you were to check in to a Loft Premier Room at Singapore’s M Social hotel between now and February 29, you would receive not one, but two free bottles of fizzy water.
So what, you might think – but read on, because this fizzy water comes in funky new Perrier containers, “a brand-new version of the iconic glass bottle whose shape has been glorified, for the first time in its [160-year] history, by visionary creator Philippe Starck”, according to the press release.
“Reimagining” the Perrier bottle has apparently involved “taking inspiration from Fresnel’s optical lens design and the way it diffracts light, the thin horizontal streaks carved into the glass surface of the Perrier + Starck bottle create visual interest through a play on optics and light, illuminating the tremendous energy source and poetry contained within its bubbles”.
To the casual observer – and philistines such as Destinations Known – it looks like Starck has just added a corrugated effect to the glass.
Also included in the Perrier + Starck package (from a nightly S$290/US$216 plus taxes) at the M Social hotel, the design of which the Frenchman also had a hand in, are breakfast for two, “exclusive” Perrier merchandise and S$50 dining credit at the hotel’s Beast & Butterflies restaurant, where four Perrier-based cocktails are being served.
Bear marketing
The yuru-chara (“relaxed character”, in Japanese) had been flown in on a “business trip” by Hong Kong Airlines to celebrate its inaugural flights between Hong Kong and Kumamoto (HX686 and HX687; on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays), the carrier’s seventh Japanese destination, following the launch of services to Fukuoka and Nagoya earlier this year.
Our spies tell us that Kumamon was to be seen along the Central Harbourfront, promoting tourism in Kumamoto prefecture.
Next time you’re in town, Kuma, do say hello.
