Songpoo Day 3 April 2015

This is my sixth year here in Isaan.  Every year I have participated in a grand event called Songpoo Day.  Try as I may, I have not been able to figure out exactly what Songpoo Day is.  Despite my questioning, perhaps bordering on interrogation of my wife I do not understand much more about the day than when I first arrived.

From my wife I have learned ... "Songpoo Day, very good day, good day for Buddha, People take care Buddha, Happy happy - good for everybody, have party."  Well I do know and accept what she says.

Part of my difficulty in understanding Songpoo Day is the day that it is celebrated.varies from year to year.  Some years it is before Songkran and other years it is at the official close of the Songkran Festival.  The one thing for certain is that Songpoo is associated with Songkran.

Laymen Offering Food to the Monks

My latest theory on Songpoo Day is that it is a special event that is determined by each Wat as to when to celebrate it during the Songkran season.  During Songkran, respect is demonstrated to the elders by pouring scented cool water over their hands and and rubbing the back of their necks with the water to help cool them off during the hottest month of the year.  On Songpoo Day the people have a big party at the Wat.  Part of the ritual of the day is when the people walk around the Ubsoth (Ordination Hall) three times clockwise bearing money trees - actually banana stalks with bamboo skewers holding paper money stuck into the stalk.  The money trees are late offered to the Monks. The money is intended to help pay for the utilities and maintenance of the Wat.

Special Foods to be Offered to the Monks

The event starts off with the daily ritual of offering food to the Monks.  Because of the festive nature of Songpoo Day, there was more and a higher quality of food offered to the Monks than on regular mornings.  There were also more Monks at the Wat than a typical day.

Songpoo Day was celebrated at the "Outside" Wat, Wat Pha That Nong Mat.  Wat Pha That Nong Mat is located in the sugar cane fields outside of Tahsang Village.  The "Outside" Wat and the "Inside" Wat are Theravada Buddhist temples however they are of two different monastic orders - Mahanikaya and Dhammayuttika.  The Monks of the outside Wat are Dhammayuttika, a more restrictive order, than their Mahanikaya brothers of the inside Wat.

Although Duang's family prefers the Dhammayuttika order, Monks from both orders typically participate in family events.  This is yet another example of the Thai expression of "Same, Same But Different".

On special days such as Songpoo Day the Monks of both Wats will join together for the ritual. An example of another popular Thai saying "Good for me, Good for you"

Because this is also the school recess season, the Monks were joined by four "Nens" semanens (Novice Monks) school boys attending a sort of religious summer camp.

Villagers Building their Money Trees in the Vihear to Parade Around the Ubsoth

After the Monks had completed their meal in the Vihear, the lay people enjoyed a community meal. Upon completing their meal and cleaning up, the people went outside to participate in the festivities.  At these big festivals there are many booths set up with food, soft drinks, and drinking water.  You can eat and drink as much as you wish to ... for free.  My lunch was a bowl of Thai noodles with pork and chicken called "Rattna", an ice cream cone, to go along with the bottle of Coke, package of cake, and a banana leaf filled with rice/coconut milk concoction offered to me by one of the Monks.  It seems that they always take care of me on my visits.  It has gotten to the point now that they will stage direct me during the rituals - letting me know when and where to set up for a good photograph during the rituals.

Pare Enjoys One of  Her Many Ice Cream Cones - I counted three

Never Too Young to Enjoy Ice Cream

Or Too Old to Enjoy Ice Cream

Peelawat Enjoys Some Free Watermelon

Families provide the food, drinks and ice cream for the people in attendance.  It turns out they earn merit for providing offerings that attract people to donate to the Wat and to enjoy themselves.  The food is always good and everyone is in good spirits.  Some people are in better spirits than others but they have to provide their own ... and I am not talking about phi (ghosts).

Although you can drink beer and whiskey on the Wat grounds ("Up to you"), alcohol is neither donated or offered for sale.

Offerings to the Monks In the Ubsoth

Another ritual was conducted inside of the Ubsoth, the Ordination Hall.  Actually it was more like an Ordination Room than a Hall - a roughly 10 meter by 10 meter free standing building.  Because of the festival when statues will be washed, several statues from the Wat had joined the statues of the Ubsoth for the day.

Praying Hands Connected to Sai Sin (Sacred Thread)

Duang's cousin, the Abbot of a Wat out in the woods, presided over the ritual in the Ubsoth.  This was a great ritual.  Besides the lengthy chanting by the Monks, the Abbot burned two white candles over some water held in a pressed metal decorative silver colored bowl.  The water as part of the ritual this sacred water was sprinkled over the laypeople and poured on the statues.

Pouring Water On a Statue

Besides families offering food and drink, other people offered their talents.  Duang's youngest brother is a morlam performer.  He stages shows through out the province.  Duang's father, who died a year ago, was also a well known local morlam performer who taught many of the older traditional performers in the area.  To honor Duang's father and to make merit during Songpoo Day many of his compatriots and students agreed to perform for free at the Wat.

Morlam Show

As always, the music and dancing was great - a strong link to the Lao Loum ethnic roots of the people of Isaan.  People placed woven reed mats, sahts, on the ground underneath the tall trees of the Wat's ground.  The area was sprinkled with groups of grandmothers with their grand-babies, young people drinking alcohol, families, and the guys that you can always count on being drunk at these events.  Everyone was well behaved and there were not any problems.

Just Because You Are Not in the Band Does Not Mean You Can Not Play the Cymbals

Enjoying the Show With Yai (Grandmother)

Songpoo Day 2015 in Tahsang Village was a joyous occasion spent with family and friends. It was another example of an event that strengthened people's bonds to their faith, family and community.  It remains a cultural event that has been usurped and polluted by tourism.  My hope is that it always remains that way.

The Buddha Statue - The Rest of the Story

Two months ago, 1 February, I photographed and documented the casting of a new bronze statue of Buddha for the new Vihear (Wihan) at the Wat in the forest outside of Ban Maet.

http://hale-worldphotography.blogspot.com/2015/02/casting-wats-new-buddha-statue-day-2.html

After being cast here, the casting traveled to Loei where another larger statue was cast.  Later both castings were transported one day south to the factory in Chonburi for final assembly and finishing.

At first it was my understanding that the completed statue would return in a week.  It then became two weeks and was actually returned after two months. Returning yesterday was actually very good timing whether intended or not.  We are now entering into the Songkran, New Year, season.

Songkran is officially  April 13 to 15 ... Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  That is the way things are supposed to be.  However there is the way things actually are:  There is the Saturday and Sunday before the official start of the festival and there are the two days after the official closing of the holiday.  The Songkran Festival is also known as "Thailand's 7 Deadliest Days" due to the number of traffic deaths.

Although it is the first week of April, many preparations and rituals related to Songkran Festival are underway.  The placing of the new Buddha statue fit quite well into the spirit of the season - a season of joy and happiness.

The celebration of the arrival and placement of the statue was supposed to start at 8:00 A.M.  Based upon the issues of scheduling and timing that we experienced for the casting of the statue, we decided to get out to the Wat at 7:30 A.M. to ensure that we did not miss out on anything.

Well the law of averages does exist - even out in rural Isaan.  Nothing really happened until 8:30 A.M. when I was asked to haul a bunch (10+) people in our truck out to Highway 2410 which passes along the front of Ban Maet.  It turned out that many vehicles and people were assembling alongside the highway.  Soon Luang Por Pohm Likit arrived in a decorated truck bearing the new statue on the flat bed.  The Monk was also accompanied by a truck bearing a large speaker system and several musicians playing joyous ethnic music.  It turned out that the plan was for the truck bearing the statue to lead the procession of the people walking and dancing the 2 KM of dirt road back to the Wat.

I determined that the best place for photographs would be back at the corner just before the Wat.  It was another hot morning here and the sun was very bright - not particularly good for photography and definitely not good for standing out in the sun.  I walked out to the corner from the Wat and waited, and waited, and waited even some more.  I eventually walked back to the Wat and returned with a plastic chair that I set up under the shade from the small farmer's hut at the corner ... and waited some more.  Eventually a saamlaw, a three wheeled transport, arrived filled with some dancers.  The dancers, I can not honestly call them "girls", were excited to see my camera and posed for a group photo.

The Dancers Waiting to Join the Procession

After a while we heard the energetic music of the approaching procession.

Buddha Followed By the Dancing Villagers

Villagers Following the Statue

The dancers joined the procession to walk the short distance to the Wat.  Their arrival was punctuated by whooping and hollering that typically is associated with a wedding procession here in Isaan. It was a definite joyous occasion.

Arriving at the Wat

Upon entering the Wat grounds, the procession was joined by people who had been waiting for its arrival.  My wife is very reserved and somewhat shy ... except for things related to her faith.  Duang managed some how and some way to grab a prime spot to accompany the statue on its three time clockwise circumambulation of the Vihear.

Duang Escorts the Statue Around the Vihear

After three times around the Vihear the truck, transporting the statue, stopped at the edge of the building to the left of the raised platform where it would be placed at its final location.  I was curious s to how the statue would be rigged in to location.  I did not see a crane or even a boom truck to lift and place the statue.  I did not even see a ramp, rollers or even metal pipe to facilitate moving the heavy object.  Just how did the people move and place the statue?  Similar to the famous slogan of the investment firm, Smith Barney, "We make money the old fashioned way.  We earn it."  In the case of moving the heavy statue - They moved the statue the old fashioned way.  They lifted and moved it by hand. - many hands!

Some Say "It takes a village to raise a child" - It definitely takes a village to set a statue

Many of the village men surrounded the statue and grabbed a hold of it.  Under the commands of one of the men, they slightly lifted the statue and tilted the statue to a horizontal position.  Perhaps a concession to safety - one man placed a mon, small rectangular pillow, at the base of the statue's neck.  All went well and without much struggling, the statue was placed and slid into its final location.

Once  the statue was set, men poured some water on it and gently wiping the water. squashed bugs, and hand prints from the surface.

It was now time for the daily ritual of the people offering food to the Monks.  Yesterday because of the special nature of the day, there were more Monks participating in the ritual.  Some Monks from a more established Wat in the vicinity attended the ritual.  I suspect that the Abbot from that Wat was necessary to ensure that the process of enshrining the statue was properly done.  The Abbot always sits to far left of the lines of Monks - sitting in the front row and to the right of the others. Luang Por Pohm Likit sits to his immediate left.  There were two rows of Monks yesterday including several semanans (young boys on their school break as novice Monks).

After the Monks had completed their only meal of the day, the gathered laypeople ate the remaining food - a sort of community breakfast that strengths and reinforces the community as well as family bonds.

After the lay meal had been completed and the area cleaned up, a special ritual was conducted for the new statue.  There was a great deal of chanting by the Monks as well as by the laypeople.  As is typical for the rituals, the laypeople were lead by a man called a "tapakhao"  Tapakhao, the same as a  Brahman, are elderly men who were once Monks for a considerable time and have received advanced training in spiritual as well as ritual matters.

I especially enjoy the chanting of the Monks.  They chant in the language of the people who first brought Buddhism to Thailand - Pali.  The chanting is rhythmic and energetic to the point that is almost hypnotic. The voices of the various Monks seem to compliment if not harmonize with each other.  The Senior Monk leads the chanting almost always uses a microphone along with an amplifier.  Typically another of older Monks or a younger Monk with greater training will also chant using a microphone and amplification.  I have not figured it out yet but every time I witness the chanting, the Senior Monk will pause either to catch his breadth or to check on the chanting of the other Monks.  After a short pause he will resume is chanting as if he never skipped a beat.  For me, this hesitation and pause adds to the drama and atmosphere of the ritual.

I often reflect and appreciate as I photographing and witnessing the ritual that this has been going on for almost 2,500 years.  There is a connection to people for over 100 generations that is repeated every day.

As I look upon the laypeople participating in the rituals, I see babies and toddlers being taught the ways of the ritual - ensuring another generation will be connected.

The new Buddha statue, like all the other Buddha statues, serves as a reminder and focal point of the middle way that Buddhists believe will lead them to liberation ... enlightenment.

Mushroom Farming in Isaan

This blog was a long time in coming.  I started to write the blog eleven days ago, but I was not certain regarding the facts and details of the process for cultivating mushrooms here in Northeast Thailand.

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet and Google, I found some excellent information related to how mushrooms are supposed to be grown here. An excellent source was the "Mushroom Grower's Handbook" 2004 by MushWorld (if some one knows about how mushrooms are supposed to be grown is has got to be these guys!)

The sugar cane harvest is winding down now, but outside of the Kumphawapi Sugar Cane Company, there are huge mounds of waste - "bagasse" - a waste product that Duang and I refer to as "key oi" (sugar shit).  Bagasse smells sickening  - a combination of extremely smelly feet and overpowering sweetness.  Bagasse is composed of fiber, moisture, and soluble solids.  It is roughly one-half cellulose, one-third carbon, one percent nitrogen, with some potassium and phosphorous.

Often during our travels out to Duang's village we see people picking through the fresh moist mounds of bagasse seeking out mushrooms.  Local farmers also purchase truckloads of the waste to add to their  land as a soil conditioner.

My research indicated that sugar bagasse is used as a substrate for cultivating oyster mushrooms.  I became comfortable in my belief that Duang's relatives were growing oyster mushrooms.  Delving further into the handbook, Chapter 5, I started to have my doubts regarding the mushroom process in Isaan that I had observed previously. The handbook showed substrate being made and placed in small plastic bags that would then get inoculated with spawn. It outlined spawn preparation. The chapter also discussed incubation as well as pasteurization.

Duang's Aunt Preparing Mushrooms

I asked Duang what kind of mushrooms were the people growing.  She replied "Hed Fang"

With that information, I returned to my Internet research, this time- Chapter 2 of the handbook. Lo and behold, there was a table, Table 1, that was a list of commercially cultivated mushrooms in Thailand.  In addition to the common name, and Latin name the table provided the Thai name for the mushroom.  The last entry in the table was "Hed Fang" - Straw mushroom.  Things were starting to make more sense - I had seen rows of straw mounds where underneath I knew mushrooms were growing.

The remainder of the chapter provided details that confirmed some of my observations, straw mushrooms being grown from December to April  but a great detail of information no where near what I had seen on my trips out to the family mushroom plot.

It turns out that mushroom cultivation here in Isaan is another example of "The ways that things are supposed to be and the way that they really are."

I have written several times about the duality and dichotomy of life here in Isaan, I now realize that it also applies to matters other than religion, morality, ethics, and politics.

Aside from the way mushrooms are supposed to be cultivated, I will now share how they are cultivated by Duang's family along with several other villagers that I have observed.

Duang's Aunt Processing Straw Mushroom Spawn

One morning when we drove out to Tahsang Village, we saw Duang's aunt, Kwan's grandmother, sitting on the raised rustic platform located outside of her house busily working.  It turned out that she was preparing to grow some mushrooms.

Placed on the ground off to her right, were several large Kraft paper bags each packed solid with several clear plastic bags.  The plastic bags were stuffed with a moist organic mass and the ends were secured with PVC plastic collars.  The bags looked exactly like the bags used to grow mushrooms the way that they are supposed to according to the handbook - but not the Tahsang Village way.

Duang's aunt was busy removing the PVC collar from the bags and pulling the compressed organic cylinders from the polypropylene bags.  A large plastic tub, in front of her, rested on the platform. The tub had seen better days - about 50% of its rim had become detached from the thin walls of the container.  However the tub still was fit for many purposes, just not as many as previously.

A grating, perhaps a recycled oven rack or part of a display case covered part of the black tub.  After freeing the cylinders from their confines of the bags, Duang's aunt broke them up with her hands along with the action of running them back and forth across the grating.  Broken organic matter accumulated in the tub beneath the grating.

When the black tub was filled with broken organic matter, Duang's aunt added some handfuls of a prepared powder (special super secret powder?) using her hands to thoroughly mix and blend the contents of the tub. I suspect that the prepared powder contained nutrients and chemicals to assist the bloom and growth of the mushrooms. She then placed the loose mixture into the empty Kraft paper bags.  Later that day, at 4:00 P.M. the mixture would be used at the site of the family mushroom plot.

We dropped by the mushroom plot at 4:00 P.M.  The sun sets around 5:30 P.M. so the temperature was more bearable.

Kwan, Pare, and Their Grandfather Arrive to Work On Mushrooms

Duang's uncle arrived with his two granddaughters to work the mushrooms.  The plot consisted of several rows of plastic covered mounds.

The first task was to remove the polyethylene plastic sheet covering each row. Removing the sheeting carefully off to the side of each row revealed a line of compacted rectangles of what I assumed to be sugar bagasse for the substrate to grow the mushrooms.  Wrong!  I checked with Duang's uncle and it turned out that the blocks were actually formed out of cassava waste from the local mill.  I asked about what layers of other components did he use to make the rectangular blocks - the handbook had listed the layers and components to construct blocks.  Oh I forgot ... that is the way that they are supposed to be constructed.  The way that they are actually constructed, at least in Tahsang Village, is to put cassava processing waste in a wood form and compact it to form the free standing substrates.

Once the substrates in a row had been uncovered, Duang's uncle walked down the row sprinkling by hand the material that his wife had prepare earlier in the day.

Sprinkling Spawn on Substrates

Once the spawn material had been distributed along a row, the row was sprinkled with water from a watering can.  Once a row had been watered, the plastic sheet was then carefully placed over the substrates.  The free ends of the plastic sheet were held down with loose soil that bordered the rows.

Three days later the plastic sheet was removed from the rows and after hand made home made bamboo strips where installed to form hoops along the row, the sheeting was placed over the row of substrates.  A thick mat of rice straw was placed over the tent row formed by the hoops and plastic sheet.

Mushrooms Ready For Harvest

After three days, the straw was removed and the plastic sheeting was pulled to the side to expose the first harvest of Hed Fang.  Using ordinary kitchen knives, the women carefully cut the mushrooms ensuring that a portion of the stem remained on the substrate.  After harvesting of the crop, the sheeting was returned and then covered with straw.

Three separate crops of mushrooms are produced from a row - each crop about 3 days apart.

Preparing Harvested Mushrooms for Market.

The family receives roughly 70 baht a kilogram ($1.06 USD/pound) wholesale for their mushroom crops.  The family also enjoys the mushrooms in their cuisine.

I am continually impressed in the ability of the Lao Loum people here in Isaan to do what is necessary to care for themselves and family.  I have seen them grow rice, cultivate corn, sugar cane, peanuts and cassava.  They weave their own fishnets, and  baskets.

The people are very resourceful and self-reliant.  I consider myself very fortunate to be able to observe and document this way of life.  I consider it to be my responsibility to share this way of life with others if for no other reason than to educate others as to how others live.

Planting Cassava



Planting Cassava In NE Thailand

My last blog entry was about harvesting cassava (manioc, tapioca, Brazilian Arrowroot) on Duang's aunt's land eleven days ago, so it is logical that my next blog entry would be about replanting the cassava crop.  Replanting?  Yes.  As part of the harvesting process, the long slender stalks of the cassava plant were saved.  The stalks stripped of branches and leaves were gathered up from the field and transported back to the family home.

Back at the farmer's home or at a willing relative's home, the stalks are stacked like cord wood.  The stalks are then cut into 8 to 9 inch long pieces with a heavy cane knife - one stalk at a  time - a job performed by both men and women.  The short pieces of stalk are collected in woven baskets.  The pieces are then brought over to a tub of water where they are washed and wet down before placing them into recycled fertilizer or rice bags.  The stalk sections remain in the bags for three days, after which they are transported out to a prepared field and planted by hand.

After harvesting the field eleven days ago, Duang's family waited a few days before preparing the stalks from the harvest.  Yesterday they called to let us know that they would be replanting the field that had been previously harvested.  I grabbed my camera bag and we headed out to Tahsang Village - arriving at 10:00 A.M.

Although the cassava was being planted by hand, the actual preparation of the field is performed by a tractor.  Our weather has turned hot ... eleven days of heavily overcast grey skies with high temperatures around 38 degrees ... 38 degrees Celsius (centigrade) - 100F!  Upon our arrival, the temperature was already 34C  (94F).  Besides the heat, there was a great deal of dust.  The rains just before the harvest eleven days ago were just a tease.  The monsoon rains have not returned yet although the weather is more unsettled.  The ground is now very dry.

The heavy furrows created by the tractor plowing the ground were bone dry - fine particles of clay and slightly larger grains of sand without any organic matter or moisture to bind them together.  I placed the cover to a piece of my photo gear on a fertilizer bag laying flat on the ground.  When we packed to return to our home 30 minutes, I was stunned at the amount of dust on the cover.  I was glad that I had decided not to change lenses in that environment.

Loading Up Basket With Cassava Stems

Workers were kept busy loading up woven hand baskets with cassava stalks from the recycle fertilizer bags containing the processed stems from the house.  After loading up their baskets, the workers walked along the dusty furrows across the field.  At set intervals along the furrow, they tossed one of the 6-9 inch long stalks on top of the raised mounds bordered by the furrows.

Distributing Cassava Stalks Along the Furrows

While half of the crew distributed the stalks, the other half of the crew followed along, sticking the short stalks into the soft mounded earth.

Another Stalk In the Dirt

There was a rhythm to their labor - the work proceeded at a rather quick pace - a choreographed series of movements developed and fine tuned over many years of toil.

A Busy Morning In the Fields Outside Tahsang Village

The parked farm truck offered a little relief to the workers - a jug of cool drinking water with a common cup, a couple recycled fertilizer bags placed on the ground to sit upon, and just a tiny bit of some shade.  Things were so bad that the family dog spent all his time underneath the truck.

After one-half hour, I started gathering up my gear.  I walked over to my wife and asked her if she wanted to go home.  She quickly nodded "Yes" and actually got back to the truck before I did.

I could not imagine spending another 6 to 6-1/2 hours out there photographing let alone planting the cassava.  I could not imagine, but for the workers, it was their reality, their life.  I am impressed with people that I refer to as survivors, people who do what is necessary to support themselves as well as their family.  For many people surviving requires efforts and a life that many people can not imagine.

However, seeing and learning how people survive provides inspiration and admiration of what people are capable of.  It also demonstrates how much that we take for granted is not necessary to survive or to be happy.