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The 'buat'


khunsanuk

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Hi,

 

My wife's son entered monkhood last weekend, figured I'd write about what happened.

 

The weekend was off to a typical Thai start. On Friday evening I had gotten a phonecall from a Thai guy asking me what time he was supposed to arrive the next day. Since it was a number I didn't recognize, I figured it was the minivan guy. Proceeded to explain one van at my place at 6 and the other could go directly to the meeting place where we'd be leaving at 7. Convo was confusing, but my wife assured me that everything was fine after I called her.

 

So, next morning I get a call at 4:45 from the same number. Guy tells me he'll be there in about 30 min. Half an hour later or so, my wife's cousin shows up. No sign of the minivan. Another half hour later still no sign of him and I call my parents and Waerth to let them know we'll be around to pick them up later. Waerth decides to just come to my house instead.

 

Call the minivan guy again to ask what the hell is going on and ... get my wife's cousin on the phone. Turns out it was the cousin who called earlier, not the minivan guy :)

 

Call my wife who calls the minivan guy and then calls me back. Guys are running late due to another van being parked behind them. Finally show up, we go pick up Mom and Dad, meet at the rendez vous place to pick up everyone else and set off for the party at 7:40.

 

The trip was pretty uneventfull, with one small exception. We drove over a metal bridge that was build to replace the origional one that was totally wiped out by the floods.

 

When we got to the party, the first ceremony had just about started. This was the 'cut the hair' part. After some waiing, the monk-to-be was dumped on a chair in nothing more than a sarong and just about everyone at the party proceeded to cut off 3 pieces of hair. That done, the remaining hair was shaved off, including his eyebrows.

 

He was then dressed in a white outfit and drive to the temple. Not sure what happened there as the majority of people - including us - stayed behind.

 

While they were gone, we ate and were annoyed by the music which in typical Thai style was LOUD and over crappy speakers that distorted the crappy music even further.

 

The afternoon ceremony consisted of a guy speaking / singing in the likay style to the monk-to-be and his parents. This took well over 2 hours, but guy was very good, drawing both laughter and tears from the crowd several times. I didn't get all of it, nor did I watch the entire ceremony, but from what I gathered he talked a lot about what the parents had done for the monk-to-be and how he now with his monkhood would be 'repay' them for this.

 

While the above ceremony was going on - and pretty much throughout the day - loads of women were busy in the 'kitchen' to prepare food, and the various crews were building the stage for the evening's festivities as well as setting out the tables in front of it for the evening meal.

 

With darkness falling, my wife changed into a new dress for the final part of the day's ceremonies and with it it seemed her mood changed drastically. She'd been very serious and stressed all through the day, but at this point the important parts had been done and it was time to relax, and that was very apparent in her mood. All the stress had been relieved and she was very happy, smiling and running around talking and dancing with people the rest of the evening.

 

During the afternoon a lot of people had drifted off and they were now trickling in again to partake of the evenings festivities. An arch had been build and the monk-to-be and his parents were there to greet everyone, and accept envelopes with donations :)

 

Next they moved to the stage where one of my wife's colleagues acting as ceremony master invited everyone to the party and gave the stage over to the monk-to-be and his parents, both of whom proceeded to thank people for their various contributions.

 

Next up was Waerth. Yep, he did a quick comedy act and this went over quite well with the Thai crowd. He asked if anyone was learning English and one of the young kids immediately ran forward, so he asked her join him on the stage and used her as a 'partner' in the act. And he couldn't have picked a better person :) She is far from shy and couldn't speak a bloody word of English, which of course only added to the hilarity.

 

The rest of the evening consisted of drinking, eating, loud music, lots of dancing people. I.e. a typical Thai upcountry party.

 

On Sunday morning back to the party where - after a breakfast of ham/cheese toasties, coffee and khao tom - we proceeded to pile into cars again to drive to the temple. A couple hunderd meters before everyone got out to walk / dance the monk-to-be into the temple. Three rounds around the temple first, then the monk-to-be walked up the raised area in front of the temple and threw a huge amount of folded flowers into the crowd. He was then lifted over the threshold raised high enough so he could touch the top of the door.

 

While that was done, a second group arrived and proceeded to repeat the same process with their monk-to-be. When he too had entered the temple the actual 'become a monk' ceremony started. Lots of chanting, lots of kneeling, some water pouring, the usual :)

 

After that back to the party for a bit more food and we left for Bangkok around 1pm.

 

All in all a pretty good weekend.

 

Sanuk!

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You mention all the time 'the parents' of the monk-to-be. I assume this was the son of a previous marriage of your wife, so my question is, was the biological father there or did you all the time have to go on stage as one of the parents?

 

Nice one of Waerth by the way, to give a performance.

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Hi,

 

Yes, the son was from my wife's first marriage and yes the kid's biological father was there. He kinda stays in touch with his kids although other than that he is mostly useless. Quite sure my contribution to the cost of the party far exceded his :)

Same goes for the rest of the kids' expenses, something my wife has made very clear to the kids.

 

Luckily he showed up for this though as I would not have enjoyed doing all the shit he had to go through :)

 

Sanuk!

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Hi,

 

Yes, the son was from my wife's first marriage and yes the kid's biological father was there. He kinda stays in touch with his kids although other than that he is mostly useless. Quite sure my contribution to the cost of the party far exceded his :)

Same goes for the rest of the kids' expenses, something my wife has made very clear to the kids.

 

I guess you never heard, but your wife thanked you extensively in her thank you speech. Mentioning it would not have been possible without you (she was using your Thai name) and that she was thankful with all of her heart and that you were the cutest (narak maak ti sut) person she knows.

 

The performance was a personal challenge as I have never played alone and I was very afraid it wouldn't work, I shitted myself in the hour before it. But it went quite well and it sure has given me a morale boost, I guess 8 years of doing this group and having watched how it is done has payed off. As I have been thinking for years that I should go semi-solo (with one other person to start the show of) instead of staying with my boss. Now all I need to do is to learn more songs and find a helper for texts. :)

 

I was supposed to go with another group today to play in Chumphon but that was postponed because of the flooding.

 

The 23rd of January I will be in Surin most probably, don't know where though could be anywhere in that province.

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Hi,

 

I guess you never heard, but your wife thanked you extensively in her thank you speech. Mentioning it would not have been possible without you (she was using your Thai name) and that she was thankful with all of her heart and that you were the cutest (narak maak ti sut) person she knows.

 

I did hear that (got it on tape too :) ) and I know how she feels about me.

 

Sanuk!

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Hi,

 

Nice one of Waerth by the way, to give a performance.

 

Right, it went over well.

Thanks go to Coss as well for taking several hundred very nice pictures. Went through them earlier today and know that my wife will love them as they are several notches above the kind of pics we usually get from these kind of events.

 

Sanuk!

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