#Cambodia - ANA to celebrate 25th anniversary

Religious ceremonies will be organised on the compound of Angkor Wat during the celebration of the anniversary. 

  The Apsara National Authority (ANA) will mark the 25th anniversary of its establishment by preparing information booths to showcase achievements to the public.

Students who want to ask about problems, challenges and future goals can also do so for a week from February 15-22 on the compounds of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom city.

 ANA disseminated information on Wednesday saying that by February 19, it would be 25 years that ANA was established in compliance with one of the five conditions for listing the Angkor Wat Resort as world heritage.

“To remind as well as advertise the 25-year achievements and future work vision alike, ANA will prepare information booths to display achievements and answer general questions during the exhibition on working achievements, problems, challenges and job goals for a week,” ANA said.

This information showed that over the last 25 years, ANA had renovated temples, developed the tourist sector, restored and reused ancient irrigation systems of the Angkor era, repaired and constructed physical infrastructure systems, especially community work in the city and five districts of the Angkor resort.

All of these had contributed to raising of citizens’ living standards and considerably changed and flourished many areas.

“The event will allow the public and students to learn about the work of the institution directly from ANA’s headquarters. Museums will open to visitors free of charge under the management of ANA,” it said.

ANA said that during the celebration of the anniversary, religious ceremonies would be organised on the compound of Angkor Wat. A total of 225 monks would be offered food on February 19.

Source - ThePhnomPhenPost

Author - Voun Dara

#Thailand, the land of festivals

 

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 We’ll start with Songkran because that’s the start of the Thai new year. It’s held on April 13. Having already blown most of the budget on fireworks for the western new year on January 1 and the Chinese New Year festivities, this time they use water as a means of ‘purification’, saying goodbye to the country’s hot season and welcoming the monsoonal rains. It involves a lot of water. In the past it was a gentle festival held at temples washing Buddha images.

It’s meant to be like this…

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  Fireworks, colour, smoke, noise, costumes, absence of occupational health and safety. That could describe any of the many, many festivals held around Thailand each year. Different regions, different festivals. Some reflect an ancient culture and a rich history, other make absolutely no sense but we enjoy them anyway. We’ll go through some of the main ones and a few you’ll NEVER see anywhere else in the world.

But it’s actually like this!

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 Somehow it’s morphed into a huge water fight, in some places, running over many days up to week (in Chiang Mai and parts of Pattaya). Ladeling water gently onto Buddha statues has been replaced by all-out water fights, loud music, foam and a party that has no rules.

If you’re outside during Songkran, especially in the main tourist zones, you WILL get splashed, probably drenched. The more the authorities try and play down the fun in Songkran the more tourists arrive each year determined to party in an event that’s somewhere between a video-game and the last half of ‘Titanic’.

And that’s just ONE festival!

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 The Vegetarian Festival, principally held in Phuket with it’s Chinese heritage, is an assault on all your senses. Parades are held around the island by various community groups with participants wearing white and followed up by either one or many mah-song. These mah-song have been ‘possessed’ by a spirit and display tourettes-like ticks, grunts and choreography that suggests their claims may indeed be true. If it’s all an act, it’s a very convincing one because, apart from all the cavorting down the street, they also have their cheeks and other parts of their body pierced – not by an earring or something tame like that – we’re talking spears, swords, petrol pumps, guns. It’s insane! These days there’s an ambulance following behind and probably more mah-song succumb to blood loss than is ever reported.

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 Phi ta khon (or Ghost Festival) is held in the Dan Sai district of north-eastern Thailand (near the Lao border) each year and usually follows a parade of people dressed up in rags with ghost masks.

Phi Ta Khon is the name given to a group of celebrations held over three days in the province of Loei. The most striking is the first day, the Ghost Festival itself, when the town residents invite the protection of the river spirit Phra U-Pakut, and then parade wearing the ghosts masks made of husks and coconut leaves.

But they also carry with them large phallic axes which are meant to reflect… oh, Google it.

 In Esan and around the Laos border areas there are many rocket festivals each year around May to June. Probably the biggest is the Yasothon Bun Bang Fai Rocket Festival. Imagine groups building their own rocket with the winner able to fire their rocket to the highest altitude. Like Songkran, the idea is to welcome in the forthcoming wet season (by piercing the sky to encourage rain).

The rockets used to be made out of bamboo but are more likely to be constructed out of PVC pipes these days and powered by ‘black powder’ which is regulated by certain rules (we doubt this claim!!). So there’s gun powder, loud music, alcohol and men in competition to fire home-made rockets high into the Esan sky – what could possible go wrong?! Some of the rockets reach heights of several kilometres and can travel a lot further down range.

Read more about the rocket festivals HERE.

 

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 Chinese New Year is big in China and it’s also huge in Thailand. Partly because there are many ethnic Thai-Chinese born in Thailand but also because there are so many Chinese visiting the Kingdom these days. The Chinese New Year festivities stretch from shopping centre sales to regional street parades to ceremonies for families and businesses.

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For a Buddhist country, Christmas is ironically enthusiastically celebrated. It involves presents, eating, celebrations, coloured lights and people spending money so it was always going to fly in Thailand. Thais remain completely bemused by Santa Claus, ‘baby Jesus’ and Christmas carols but, commercially, they’ve certainly embraced it now.

I have never seen better decorations or a celebration of Christmas than I have in Bangkok. My best Christmas moment was when I found a statue of Santa Claus nailed to a cross – a slight cultural faux pas where they’d confused Easter and Christmas and come up with a perfectly ‘Thai’ Christmas decoration.

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Source - The Thaiger

Today National Holiday in Thailand - Visakha Bucha Day

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Buddha Purnima is the most sacred day in the Buddhist calendar. It is the most important festival of the Buddhists, and is celebrated with great enthusiasm..
Although Buddhists regard every full moon as sacred, the moon of the month of Vaisakh has special significance because on this day the Buddha was born, attained enlightenment (nirvana), and attained parinirvana (nirvana-after-death of the body) when he died..
Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical founder of Buddhism, was born in India 3,000 years ago. There are various opinions concerning the exact dates of his birth and death, but according to Buddhist tradition, he is said to have been born April 8, 1029 BC and died on February 15, 949 BC, although other Buddhist scholars place his birth five hundred years later..
Shakyamuni Buddha was the son of the king of the Shakyas, a small clan whose kingdom was located at the foothills of the Himalayas, south of what is now central Nepal, fifteen miles from Kapilavastu. Shakya of Shakyamuni is taken from the name of this tribe and muni means sage or saint. His family name was Gautama (Best Cow) and his given name was Siddhartha (Goal Achieved) though some scholars say this is a title bestowed on him by later Buddhists in honour of the enlightenment he attained..
Even though many Buddhists observe Buddha's historical birth on April 8, the exact date remains in question. Although modern archeological and historical research confirms that Prince Siddartha Gotama lived around this time..
The exact date of Vesak is the first full moon in the fourth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. The date varies from year to year in the Gregorian calendar, but is typically in May. 

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