News
Increasing Community Involvement in Salak Yom Festival
- NameEva Rapoport
- Date14 Sep 2017
- CategoryICH News
![Salak Yom trees being erected. © Eva Rapoport](/upload/board/A112/thumb/Salak-Yom-Festival.jpg)
The merit-making aspect of the contemporary version of the festival takes quite a peculiar form. Since the trees are decorated not only with colorful paper leaves and flowers, but also with various objects quite useful for everyday life—clothes, packaged food, household products, and even bank notes—as donations to the monks of the local monasteries. The monks, however, are not expected to keep all of those items but share them with those in need. Lottery decided which community’s donations are received by which monks. So during the last day of the festival, each community’s representatives are waiting in the tents erected precisely for this purpose while numerous monks are wondering around with papers saying whom exactly they are getting donations from this year. Despite the religious idea underlying this entire activity, its atmosphere resembles more that of a fair.
This year’s Salak Yom Festival was held from 3 to 5 September. The display of Salak Yom trees in Wat Hariphunchai was complemented by a parade, traditional crafts market, and traditional dance performances. The traditional dance performances, however, were unfortunately accompanied by pre-recorded music and lit by colorful projectors as the current organizers believed that the use of technology could help the festival become up-to-date.
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