Every drop counts, how to use water properly during water festival?
When it comes to Songkran festival or Water festival, you can see people throwing water at each other all over the places. Water plays a major role in the festival. Symbolically it washes away the previous year so people can get ready for the next one.
Nowadays, traditional water pouring ceremonies take place at home while large-scale water fights take over main streets in cities like Bangkok and Chiang Mai. While Thais celebrate Songkran, the Burmese and Laotians also have water festivals of their own during this time.
Traditionally people poured just a little water on other people's hands as a way of blessing each other during the festival. In modern times Songkran has evolved into a massive spectacle of fun water fights. Big question is that should we conserve water instead of throwing it during the Songkran festival in April due to the worsening drought?
Let’s find a balance between honoring the traditions and respecting the limitation of water resources. Here are some of the suggestion:
1. Celebrate where the water already is. Make use of the plentiful sources of non-portable water such as private swimming pool, the sea, water fall. 2. Celebrate in the traditional way with plam Watering, sprinkling instead of drenching, or using mist sprayers instead of water machine guns. 3. Stay off the streets, celebrate with your friends and family in the garden. 4. Let’s promote water conservation via all media in neighborhoods and communities. 5. Inform tourists about the water crisis and encourage them to conserve water.
Let’s fully enjoy the Songkran Water Festival sustainably. Conserving water is not just done during Songkran. But it should extent beyond Songkran so that we have water to use for generations.
Reference: the phuket news and bangkok post