Darwinian Fitness and Song Kran - Way cooler than Halloween

More than 45 days have passed since the start of my summer vacation. Soon darkness will fall on my 2 month vacation. As of now I’ve noticed little indicators that suggest my "fun time" has already reached its peak and is now starting on it's dark descent. Most of my travel plans have already happened but more importantly, my funds that enable me to do cool shit are drying up. The parents have visited. So much damn fun! Song Kran water festival came and went as well. UBERFUN! All good things have to come to an end though. This includes all of my “6-month” buds from my teach abroad program have left Thailand during the past week. Thailand is becoming more of a lonely place by the minute. I suppose my lonely state is like sifting the dregs through my teeth after a delicious cup of coffee. A reminder that it was a quality beverage, but that its time to put the mug down, get busy, and look forward to the next batch. As of this moment I’m the only young white person within in a 100 mile radius. Scary! At the end of Song Kran week I boarded the night bus and headed back to my home. I’m back at school now, helping out with a brief summer school session. For 10 days I'll be teaching the very gifted 13 year olds English in 2 hour chunks.

The way that the seasons break down over here is slightly different than winter, spring, summer, fall. Its more like cool, dry, hot, wet. March through May is the hot season- April being the hottest, cruelest mother of them all. After 25 days, I can confirm it. the the month of April is the hottest, at least I hope it doesn't get any hotter. I'm doing about as good as the egg in the "This is your brain on drugs" commercials. I'm Cooked!

As I was melting into my bed sheets last night my mind started to wander as it often does in that state. I thought about what if I happened upon a time machine and accidentally travelled into Thailand (or somewhere similar to it) several thousand years ago. What if I had to live in an environment like this, hunter-gatherer style. If I had to survive within the uncompromising confines of rural Thailand, the rules of natural selection would be working against me. There's not a snowball's chance in hell my genes would be around for the next generation. I look around my town in Thailand and I notice that I sweat at least 10 times more than everyone else. If there was a water shortage, I would be the first one gone. Not to mention several other unfortunate physical traits: slow, heavy, white skin.... I'll keep it at that.

I'll move on from talking about my abstract dreams to something more fun and relevant... Song Kran!

Song Kran, it’s a nationally recognized, widely celebrated 3-day water fight all throughout Thailand. Song Kran is, in a word, "magical". Chiang Mai, which is considered the host city and birth place for Song Kran is where I was. I'll mention real quick that Chiang Mai is also notorious for having the craziest and biggest water fights in all of Thailand. That’s where I was, right there in the epicenter of fun. For 3 days, Anglos and Thai people alike throw on their water fighting fatigues and line the streets with buckets and water pistols for soaking. It looks a lot like this:

Its important to note that the center of this city has a wonderful moat running north-south along the main roadway. This is the front line of the water fight. Hundreds of people stand on the very edge of the bank, drop their buckets into the moat, fill them up, and pull them out using the rope (or something close to it) fastened securely to the bucket's handle (kinda like getting water from a well). Dipping and retrieving your bucket is only a 4-8 second maneuver if done correctly. Here's the moat:

Funny how Thai festivities keep coming back to buckets.

The moat makes for instant and unlimited ammunition all day long. During holiday hours the downtown roadways belong to the armed men and women standing by with their guns and buckets. Anything dry that enters the battle zone doesn't stay dry for more than a few seconds. Motorcycles, trucks, pedestrians, anything with the gall to pass through the center of town met the same end. Delightfully filthy moat water, lots of it.

Try to imagine small stages and loud speakers situated every 100 yards along the streets with dancers and Song Kran cheerleaders pumping up the crowds. Music blasting, everyone moving and shaking along to the infectious beat. Small parties and sustained-eruptions of wet people break out around these nodes of energy. During those 3 days I witnessed music cause a reaction like an alien mystery serum in a Sci-Fi movie would. Entrancing soundwaves transmitted to the eardrums of the masses. The sound waves were designed to evoke a very specific reaction: non-stop dancing and hurling of water-filled buckets. People snapped out the trance and wandered home to dry off and get rest as soon as the music stopped. Most of them anyway. Some of the hardcores (mostly white people) didn't get the memo that it was time to stop soaking people and continued to "celebrate" into the dark hours. Sigh, white people.

On the streets in the afternoon hours its pretty much a guarantee that no one* (almost no one) is exempt from a good soaking. Here's my experience...

Having just checked out of a hotel and seeing the folks off at the airport, I was dropped off by a tuk-tuk driver (taxi) just outside of the downtown battle zone. My mission was to walk 3 blocks to my guesthouse with the hopes of protecting the contents of my luggage from the outside world. When I embarked on the 3-block venture through the city streets, I was dry. It would have been clear to anyone with eyeballs and a 1st grade ability to infer that I was dry, unarmed and loaded down with DRY luggage. Anyone that witnessed me on in this state could rightly infer that I was not “in the fight”. As I was weaving between Song Kran participants and parked cars down the city streets it was obvious that I had no intentions or means of fighting back. All of this "common sense" was irrelevant, I soon learned. Common sense has no place in Song Kran. As far as the were concerned I broke two cardinal rules that day: (1)I was dry and outside at the same time; but more importantly (2) I was walking through a war zone with luggage. Luckily being from the Northwest, I had learned the importance of waterproof gear. Walking around for 20 minutes I became saturated from head to toe, but my camera, laptop, ipod, books, clothes, and other items in my bags remained bone dry. On any other day, soaking someone’s luggage would be grounds for unfriendly words. Not on Song Kran.

* - Only food vendors and merchandise shops could be considered as DMZ.

A nationally sponsored all out water fight sounds awesome, like it could work anywhere. Who doesn’t love a good water fight anyway? It made me think (I've got lots of time for that lately, maybe too much). Here’s what I came up with in short...

Some reasons why it works for Thailand:

1. Thai people never fully grow out of adolescence.



2. Thai people don’t really understand the concept of a lawsuit.
   


3. Thai history is not ingrained in violence, but rather ingrained in avoiding violence.



4. Temperatures during Song Kran afternoons range from 85-95 degrees during peak celebration.


5. Thai people have absolutely no qualms about cancelling work for 3 days.
   
6. Thai people don’t feel the need to drink heavily and get belligerent to have a good time.


7. Thai people smile when conflict occurs. All around have tolerate worse shit on a daily basis.

Here’s why it could never work in the States…

1. Americans are too competitive, and take themselves too seriously in general.

2. Americans wouldn’t hesitate to file a lawsuit if injury or property damage occurred.

3. Americans are inherently more violent in comparison to the rest of the world. It would
inevitably escalate to throwing ice or fist fights.

4. It would lose its appeal when people got soaked in 65 degree temperature.

5. American corporations would never agree to business closure for 3 days. Christmas is
bad enough.

6. Sporting events are proof that Americans can’t responsibly have fun in large numbers.
There's always a small group of people that get shit-faced and take things too far.

7. Average Americans wouldn't tolerate getting soaked with icy cold water by a
complete stranger; we get pissed off when the line at Starbucks is too long.

Let this holiday be a reminder to the rest of the world that life should be a constant celebration. Song Kran has shown that an entire country can come together for 3 days and have a peaceful all-out war war. Even more impressive is that this year's Song Kran came at a time of extreme political unrest; Thai people are more politically divided than ever. But this didn't stop them from carrying out tradition. The rest of the world could learn a thing or two from Thailand. Tossing aside for a second the scarcity and high cost of water in the middle east... Could you imagine if Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank adopted this holiday? That's a noodle scratcher.