Feel Green Feel Pra Pradaeng and a Spider Tattoo!

There was a large celebration in the park today, they have been preparing for it for weeks. It is the final, I think, Feel Green Feel Phra Pradaeng event. Even though some of my comments are grouchy, the event was pretty cool. I just do not like kids beauty pageants and politicians reading proclamations.

There were kayak races this morning in the park, men, kids, and women raced, Keenon won the women's boat race.

There was a children beauty pageant again, just like STOU. The kids had way too much make up, and too me looked uncomfortable. When people have so much makeup they look like dolls and not people. The girls were very young.

When people finished with their performance there was steam and confetti that erupted from the stage. Some of the music was from the Olympics or Star Wars, the speakers were way too loud and the announcer was perpetually yelling. The pageant just kept going on and on, way too long, and pretty boring. To me, the girls looked nervous and stressed.

I noticed a young women in the crowd, an older sibling, or young mother, maybe 20 or 25, with two kids, maybe 7 or 8. She was dressed normally, enjoying the events, especially the beauty pageant, just a normal women enjoying the celebration, but she had a spider tattoo under her right ear! The tattoo was very disorienting and did not fit her identity at all. Dissonance, something that does not fit, like the spider tattoo, sticks with me for a long time. I think I will always remember her.

After the pageant, politicians read proclamations, there were at least two long documents that were read to the audience. It was not very exciting! The politicians were sitting, like a reviewing stand, looking at the ceremonies and events.

There were some cultural performances, there was a Mon ceremony in which young women and men went through some indecipherable rituals with disks, I think it was some kind of courting ceremony. There were costumes and it lasted a long time. There was Mon music also that was being played. I think, in Phra Pradaeng, there is a group of people working to preserve the Mon culture. Again, for me, there are echoes of Alaska.

After the Mon ceremony there was a ceremony with sticks and dancing, people stepping between the moving sticks. It was interesting and again like many of the cultural celebrations that I have enjoyed in Alaska

After the stick ceremony there was a dance, to recorded music, by some young girls, it was not too coordinated, but again it was clearly trying to teach young people cultural traditions.

After all the ceremonies there was a very long set of drawings for prizes, bikes, and kayaks. The politicians gathered around and drew names from a box. One of the people in the community won a bicycle.

I took many photographs with my Voigtlander Bessa so I will not have the photographs for awhile. Celebrations are a great place to take pictures of people, some of them were not exactly flattering, but I hope they are real. We shall see.

It was a good Christmas day, better then sitting around waiting to eat, and then feeling stuffed and bored. Since my kids are grown, Christmas is not too special anymore. When my kids were young it was fun.