LAO NEW YEAR(Pi Mai) LAO NEW YEAR(Pi Mai)

Laos New Year is a wonderful example of the syncretism of Lao festivals, for it includes both Buddhist and animist elements. The best place to join the celebrations is in Luang Prabang, the former royal capital of the kingdom of Lan Xang. The city takes its names from the most venerated. Buddha image in Laos: the Phra Bang, which is the focus of worship dring the celebrations.

As we have seen, Lao New Year usually falls in the fifth (but occationally the sith) month of the Lao solar-lunar year, which begins in December, so it is sometimes called the Fifth month was decided upon by Lao astrologers centuries ago inorder to shift celebrations from winter to spring, which they considered a more auspicious time in the  agricultural cycle.

The festival begin on the last day of the old year, know in Lao as “the day when the year departs.” The second day separates the old year from the new;it is the “middle” or “neutral” day, and, depanding on astrological calculations, there may be two of them. The Lao believe the body does not age on these days between one year and the next. Then comes the first day of the New Year, “ the day when the year begins,” which is the last day of the three or four day offical holiday, though celebrations may well continue for a week or more.

Preparations for Pi Mai begin well in advance of the holiday it self. From early April, houses are spring-cleaned and preparations made to well come family and friends. Street are swept, and walls are whitewashed. In the temple, novice monks beautify the grounds, dust off the carrying chairs, or palanquins, in which the abbot of the principal vats will be carried in procession, and clean the tall gilt stands on which sacred Buddha images will be displayed for the veneration of the faithful.

Pi Mai is the time for families to be together, and especially for children to be with their parents. People travel from all aroud the country to be home at this special time. To ensure that no bad feelings carry though to the new year, debts are paid and personal differences resolved.