Buffalo Races claimed on CNN and the BBC as a must-see event.

The annual Buffalo Race, held around the 11th lunar month ,around the first weekend in October, farmers from all over the province bring their buffalo to Chonburi City for a festival that dates back centuries.

The races themselves are preceded by a parade of colorful buffalo-drawn carts Miss Farm Maiden Contestantsthrough the central part of the provincial capital. Then the contestants are led to the stadium while farmhands run along side and throw buckets of water on them to keep them cool. The buffalo are fed a mixture of beer and eggs to enhance their performance, and the riders probably consume one of the ingredients to gather their courage for the bareback ride of the rampaging beasts. Crowds whoop and roar and dive for cover as the numerous rounds narrow down the field to four finalists. Finally in the late afternoon the winning buffalo is festooned with garlands and prizes are awarded to the rider.

Although this day of fun and competition would succeed with just the buffaloes as the celebrities, there are other activities to make it a worthwhile outing for families.

A fair with food stalls and handicrafts appeals to visitors who love authentic Thai food, snacks and sweets. Then there are the rides for children, concerts of folk music and, of course, a beauty contest where the prize is the honor of being declared Miss Buffalo.

Daily Routine for Thais at 8 Am and 6 PM

                                      Our flag is known as Tong Trairong which mean Tricolours. 
                                        Red represents Nation, White Religion and Blue King.

 
Every day at 8 am, the flag will be elevated up to top of the flag stand while national anthem played, and at 6 pm it will be lowered down while national anthem again played. In schools, the morning ritual of singing national anthem while standing still to pay respect to the flag followed by a prayer is practiced. People on the street also stand still in the morning and afternoon. Do not be surprise if you walk along the street and people just sudden stop their activities and stand still singing the national anthem.

Golden Baby (Guman thong)

 

The story of the Golden Baby comes supposedly from a 19th century Thai tale called, “Khun Chang Khun Paen”. In brief, the story goes:
 

Khun Paen was a soldier, 400 years previous, a time when supernatural forces played an important part of traditional warfare.Khun Paen had wanted a protective spirit to watch over him in battle. To this end he cut the unborn foetus of his son from his dead wife’s womb and took it to a temple to perform an occult rite. 

 

    He wrapped the child’s torso in sacred cloth and roasted it on a fire whilst chanting ritual mantras and dark incantations to create the supernatural being with whom he could communicate.

 
The golden baby is a spirit of  stillborn babies boy. we believe it is just like a real baby that do need regular care and feeding. Thais worship then by offering red sweet water once a day. Some do believe of preparing a plate at the table for the spirit whenever you eat. Since the Golden Baby is still the spirit of a child, it also requires that you give it toys, and nourish it with love as you would a normal child then they will bring the master a prosperity as well as protect them from danger. 

 

Thai Starbucks

Nowsday, Thais start to drink more coffee. Before Starbucks came to Thailand, we do not have much coffee shop here. Coffee is just another drink where we order in a restaurant or buy it from Food cart on the street. We drink coffee at home or in restaurant. Once Starbucks spread around the country, people like more a concept of chatting with friends and/or relaxing while having coffee in the coffee shop.  Coffee shop became popular and that is why we have many coffee shops around country.

O-Leung /black coffee

Thai style Ice Tea- Cha dam yen

Nom yen

O-Leung : is our traditional coffee without milk. In Chinese, O-means black and Leung mean cold.
Cha-Nom : is Thai style ice tea with milk. Cha (tea)Nom(milk) where we put sweetened condensed milk with sugar.

Thai style hot coffee/Cha Nom/chocolate milk

Traditional coffee blender

Cha Dam Yen : is a Thai style ice tea similar to ice lemon tea but we do not put lemon in there.
Nom Yen: is a popular drink for kids. Nom (milk)  yen (cold). The based ingredient is sweet water intensive mixed with sweetened condensed milk. Normally we will use the red sweet water intensive and mixed with milk to get a nice pink color.

Popular coffee/tea brand

coffee cart along the street.

Popular Thai Milk brand

 

Hot coffee served with Thai style bread or congee

Hot coffee served with deep-fried dough stick

The Thai Spirit House stories

          Many Thais believe that the spirits are everywhere. When we build a new house, there is always the possibility that it has disturbed the spirits who live on the property. In order to protect their new home from retaliatory harm or mischief, some Thai families put up a little house for the spirits to live in. The spirit house must be located somewhere on the grounds we believe that if the spirits are provided with such shelters and appeased with daily offerings (food or flowers or phallic symbols), they will protect the house or building, and shield its inhabitants from harm."

Where you can see the Spirit House

The Spirit house can be seen every where at a prominent spot outside every business establishment,hotel,restaurants,hospital,a bar, disco ,inside temples ,outside caves ,in an uninhabited forest You may also see the spirit houses on the road which were built to pacify the tormented spirits of people who have died violent deaths in crashes at that site.Their theory is that if the spirits who haunt the place are given a home they will not spitefully endanger the drivers who must pass this way. In addition, It is common to see spirit house at the yard of every home.

                    Type of the Spirit House

Shrine of the household god(right)  / the spirit house(left)

1. The Spirit House with single pole. This house will be used for guardian spirit or we can call shrine of the household god.

2. The Spirit House for general spirits was build with 4 poles. It is common spirit houses are smaller than the shrine of the household god.

We can have shrine of the household god alone or together with spirit house. We will never build Spirit house with 4 poles alone. Because we do believe that the spirits can be bad spirits and we need the guardian to control those spirits as well.

Modern Spirit house

Modern Spirit house

  
Most of the spirit houses were built in a traditional Thai style houses in order to match Thai house in the ancient time. Nowsday the spirit houses turn to me more modern just to match the building and houses style in present..

Flowers for parents

Flowers that Thais used to symbolized Mother, Father and Student Virtue


Jasmine: Pure love of mothers

On August 12, Thais will celebrate Her Majesty Queen Sirikit Birthday anniversary as well as was established as the official Mother's Day in Thailand. The beautiful domestic jasmine flower, or málí, also became the symbol of Mother's Day at that time. The idea came about because of the flower's decent properties - it's soft and pure white and has a long-lasting, sweet smell. It also blooms all-year-round and has medicinal value for the heart. It is traditionally believed that white jasmine represents the selfless virtue of a mother who thinks more about the needs, happiness and wants of other people than about herself.. 


 

The Canna Lily: Father is a guardian of the family member

The Thai name for the canna lily is “Buddha Raksa,”which literally means “protected by the grace of the Lord Buddha.”,and since the color yellow represents the birthday of His Majesty King Bhumibol, the canna lily was selected by the Volunteer Society of Thailand in 1980 as the flower to symbolize National Father’s Day on December 5. For children to give to their fathers yellow canna lilies is therefore an expression of the love and respect they unconditionally have for the person who helps keep the family together and nurtures its members with care. 

 Ixora flowers/Eggplant flowers/Bermuda grass:  Student virtue

Thai people admire their teachers as their parents; therefore we have Wai Kru (Thai Traditional Ceremony) which means the ritual of paying respects to the teachers. Below are listed of flowers which students will give to the teacher for their own virtue.

 1. Ixora flowers represent sharp wisdom.
2. Eggplant flowers represent humility and politeness.
3. Bermuda grass represents perseverance and endurance.

Ixora Flowers

Bermuda grass

Eggplant flowers

Thai elephant can paint.

               

Paint made by elephant

   Wow!!!. I starring at the painting and I could not believe that these elephants have created masterpieces. It took them only 15 minutes to create those beautiful paintings. It would take me more times and less beautiful to make the same kind of images. I saw the 2 years old little one use his little trunk carry a paintbrush, holding his truck while thinking what he should paint next. He looks alike human using hand and think before paint. It is just wow. It is amazing that the elephant can definitely paint.

Customers reserved the paints, the price range from 2000- 6000 Baht

 

You may wonder how their trainers (Mahout) trained them. The first step for the young elephants was to learn to hold the brush in their trunk. Initially, the calves were reluctant to pick up a paint brush and it took more than a month of persistence before the would-be artists.  

The next step for the mahouts was to train them to actually put paint onto paper. Mahout has treated them with care just like they are their giant kids.