Thailand. Mother's Day, Thai Dancing and Tears.

As I reported last week there were a few ceremonies going on for Mother’s Day. I have reported about the 2 more serious parts of the day and now I will report about the younger students and what they did.

The year 4-6 students went to the sports hall so they could pay respect to their mothers. It was funny looking at the stage as there is a huge mural of Jesus Christ above the stage and there was an eerie bright light shining in above the mural like Jesus was watching over the ceremony. Maybe he was!

The parents of the younger students sat in chairs waiting for the ceremony to begin and there is always a good turnout by them. The younger students really like doing this ceremony for their parents.

Some more parents in waiting.


Now with nearly all Thai shows there is dancing of some kind and on this day we had some girls dressed in very lovely Thai outfits doing a traditional Thai dance that looked very nice.

The outfits are always elaborate and the work that goes into them has to be applauded.


The Thai dance teacher does very well with her students and her dance troupe has won many awards.





As with most ceremonies we usually have important guests to attend and watch over the ceremony and this is why the students had to practice this ceremony for 3 days the last 2 hours of each day to make sure everything looked perfect.

Some students waiting were in tears and this is the case every year, I find this amusing as Mother’s Day in Australia is about buying a present for mum and then usually a picnic or BBQ and a happy day but here the young ones really get worked up at times and end up blubbering messes. Last year, a foreign teacher was making his way to Tesco Lotus Shopping Centre a 300-400 metre walk. He noticed a young student walking the same way and it was boy from year 3 and he was in tears and on his way to see his mum at her work about 2 kilometres away. The teacher walked him back to the school and to the hands of some teachers to calm him down.

The first time I seen this I thought that maybe their mums had passed away but this wasn’t the case.

The parents come to the front of the hall and sit on the red carpet and their child comesalong and makes there way to their parent. They sit in a polite way and have a flower garland to give them. First they do a very deep bow into their mum’s lap and stay there for a few seconds and then they rise up give the garland to their mums and then bow to them again.

You will see many a student and mum in tears when this is taking place. Why? I have no idea but can only think that it’s a Thai thing. Thai people are incredibly family orientated and if kids back in the western world took just a small piece of this, things would be looking rosier back home in farang land.


So a few groups of students paid respect to their mums and there were still many to go when I left as it takes a bit of time to do each class. So I headed off to go back to the teacher’s room and do some corrections.





I was on my way when I spotted some girls in bright orange outfits. The dresses looked Chinese style and I am not sure why they were dressed like this but maybe they had entertained the young year 1-3 students who were in the main hall.

So that was the 3 ceremonies I watched and photographed for the day. I hope you enjoyed the reports and now mother’s day is over for another year.

The next big ceremony I will document at school will be Assumption Day. This is always a good laugh and there are many photo opportunities. This is when the lady boys or better known as Katoeys come out and like to shake their thing.

Brunty
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