Wednesday Walk: walking around a village’s festival.

Mt gardener told me she would be participating in three village’ festival of rainy season. She was asked to be on a float representing self-sufficiency which would be decorated with fruits and vegetables. So, she asked for some fruits from the garden for hanging on the float. It was a festival to celebrate the arrival of rainy season. Almost fifteen villages would be showing off their floats in a parade. The local authority would decide whose float would get the prizes.

So, there would be many villagers from various villages to support and cheer their floats. Traditional and modern dancers would be competing for the prize money in this festival. I missed the festival last year, this time I made sure I could observe the local festival and get some coconut ice cream. I was expecting a elaborate floats and long parade of dancers together with lots of vendors selling food and snacks.

I cycled to my gardener’s house to deposit my bicycle. It’s a few minutes walk to the main road from her house. The best time to get there was in the afternoon when all the floats and parades would be arriving from the other villages. I was rather disappointed by the festival this year as there were fewer vendors and villagers; the floats weren’t very impressive as the other year. I found out that the new head of the local authority couldn’t get much financial support from the provincial governor. This year both the local authority head and the governor were newly elected and they weren’t old friends like the previous authorities.

In the past, the previous local authority had a lot of support from the provincial level. So, lots of funds were distributed to various villages to produce their best shows and performances. Thus year the slow down in the economy and limited budget meant that people had to cut costs on everything. However, the villagers seemed to have a good time and they participated in the competition and parade of dancers.

The festival gave villagers a good excuse to have parties in front of their houses along the main road. I was surprised to see lots of beer bottles and ice buckets on tables from afternoon till evening. People were determined to get drunk till late at night. Some had music blasting away with dancers in fancy costumes. I thought these people took the opportunity to break the safety valves in their mind to let go crazy for a day. People would get intoxicated in order to forget their misery and problems. These villagers had been under pressures for about two years during the lockdown and severe economic downturn.

It seemed customary for villagers to consume alcoholic drinks during social gatherings. Then all the intoxicated villagers could behave more ‘freely’ without being so prohibited. This new anomaly in modern culture was partly due to frequent advertisements by beer and whisky companies. These advertisements made drinking alcohol very cool, dependable and courageous. Some popular lines were “you’ll never walk alone” and “keep walking”. People who couldn’t drink alcohol were often made fun of and teased for not being ‘manly’, or incapable of taking on life’s burden!

So, I decided not to get acquainted with old friends who worked in big and well known advertising companies. These people were very bright and well paid so they could afford luxurious lifestyles. I had bad experiences when I had to deal with executives from big advertising companies in the past. I thought they were from other galaxies! Their attitudes and drives were dictated by money and profits. Some old friends who used to work in top companies told me how highly competitive people were inside. These advertisements did change social norms and attitudes in our society over the years.

I waited to see the float in which my gardener was supposed to be inside. I had to walk along the main road searching for my gardener. This gave me the opportunity to take photos of the atmosphere of the festival. For some villagers, this gave them the opportunity to get some social recognition and perhaps some fame. Some parents of young dancers were very proud of their daughters. It was a bit like a debutant occasion for their daughters. Some were just out there to have a good time and to gain some recognition or perhaps new admirers.

This festival gave me a chance to understand the changing sociological aspects of village culture. Fortunately, the traditional village life still maintained a strong cohesion among villagers. They would come to support each other when a family had a funeral. They would joined in activities for keeping the old village traditions and ceremonies. But the elders who were like ‘spiritual’ or ‘moral’ leaders in the village have become too very and too few. These elders kept the old ceremonies and the communication with ancestral spirits via medium ceremony. I wondered how many young people had the old tradition of psychic abilities and the knowledge of old wisdom or old stories.

Perhaps the impending digital world would absorb younger villagers into the stream of the Brave New World while those old generations would be left out of the race. This week, elderly people have been flocking to banks to ask staff for help in registering on to mobile app for government’s digital money (10,000 bahts or about 278 dollars). Those without mobile phones had to register at banks. Old people were so afraid that they wouldn’t get this ‘free’ digital money, some had cycled for over 10 kilometers to reach a bank in town.

But they were all turned away as they went on the wrong day! The failure and confusion in government communications have become the prelude to more disappointments, confusions and major failure in the near future. The computer systems for mobile registration did crash on the morning so the process was halted for several hours. This CBDC project was rushed into public policy out of the blue last year. Most economists and financiers objected the rushed scheme which could cause further technical and financial problems in the long run. The universal basic income (UBI) has begun to be implemented haphazardly in our country as if some politicians were persuaded by some super-advisers to initiate such a half baked project in a year.

Strange happenings and unexpected changes could be expected to occur later this year. The political coalitions of the government haven’t been very stable lately. People have been very stressful as a result of changes in government policies and laws. BigPharma pressure groups have been successful in lobbying for changing the law on cannabis. From liberalisation of cannabis, the government wanted to place cannabis into the category of illegal drug again. There’s a quiet fight going on between foreign drug companies and traditional Thai medicine groups. So there are lots of uncertainty in the future and political upheavals could erupt if the CBDC turned out to be a corruption and failure.

It’s a shame that local villagers smd most countryside people had no knowledge about cryptocurrency. I did talk to a few people about crypto, but they just couldn’t understand such complicated subject. I would be willing to give an informal seminar on cryptocurrency, but I had to change my mind later on. Hopefully, the flaws and bugs in the government’ CBDC project would materialise in a short time. Perhaps people would realise the lurking danger of a rushing such complicated project with far reaching consequences.

Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.

Stay strong and cheerful.

#wednesdaywalk hosted by @tattoodjay.