April 25 - On the afternoon of April 15th, the activity "Celebrating Thai New Year----Songran Festival" was held in the No.1 teaching building on north campus. The guests included the Consul General of the Thai Consulate General in Guangzhou and his wife, the Cultural and Agricultural Consul and GDUFS Vice-President Fang Fanquan. Also in attendance were all the teachers and students from the Thai faculty as well as Thai overseas students. Despite that the 2 hour long activity took place during rain, all the participants remained enthusiastic.
The guests
Over the last few years, many activities have been held to strengthen cultural exchanges between China and Thailand, including the frequent sending of art troupes and an obvious increase in non-governmental exchanges. Taking this into consideration, this activity was not only significant to GDUFS leaders, but was also supported by the Thai consulate general in Guangzhou. The activity allowed students to celebrate the Thai New Year and in the process, obtain a deeper understanding of Thai culture.
The festival began with the "water-dropping ritual". Young performers slowly sprinkled scented water and petals onto the hands of guests, who in turn sprinkled the water onto the heads of the performers. The implied meaning of the practice is to eradicate all the misfortunes and bring happiness as well as peace to the younger generations.
The festival started with the "water-dropping ritual". The young performers slowly sprinkled water combined with scent and petals onto the hands of guests, who in turn sprinkled the water onto the heads of the performers. The implied meaning of the practice is to eradicate all the misfortunes and bring happiness as well as peace to the younger generations.
Sending best wishes
Next came the performance of the celebration. The king of Thailand not only loves his people, but is also a very talented musician, with a doctorate of Austrian Music Academy. Many songs composed by him are melodious and popular in Thailand. The students sang several songs by him, such as "Wishes for the New Year" and "Have you Forgotten?"which granted the audience an chance to enjoy Thai pop music as well as understand their virtues of respecting the elderly and being kind to each other.
Presenting a song
Thailand is home to both beautiful music and expressive, diversified dancing. For instance, "The Song of Wreath" demonstrated Thai people's wish for the New Year with singing and dancing, together with robust yet reserved "Muqin dancing" and the vigorous, bright "Nanwang dancing". During the performance, the dancers climbed down to the audience and invited them to join in the dancing.
Expressive dance
In addition, the performance was punctuated with a Q&A session, with its questions covering Thai geography, history, human and culture. The audience was put on the spot to learn Thai culture from various perspectives. To promote Thai cuisine, the teachers and students from Thai department also prepared Tom Yum Goong soup, whose major ingredients include shrimps, turmeric and chili. Due to its function of beautifying the complexion, it drew a lot of attention from the girls.
Preparing the Tom Yum Goong soup
The group photo
The activity was successfully held after one-month preparation by students from the Thai department. A big round of applause arose from time to time during the performance. Afterwards, many guests took photos with the performers, and the sense of celebration lingered for a long time.
Source from: GDUFS News Website.
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