Poy Sang Long

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A Chiang Mai Shan boy is getting ordained with another 117 boys during the same festival.

The Poy Sang Long (Shan: "Festival [of the] Crystal Sons") is a rite of passage ceremony among the Shan peoples, in Burma and now in Northern Thailand, undergone by boys at some point between seven and fourteen years of age. It consists of taking novice monastic vows and participating in monastery life for a period of time that can vary from a week to many months or more. Usually, a large group of boys are ordained as novice monks at the same time.

The Shan have brought their amazingly colorful Poy Sang Long ceremony to northern Thailand. The ceremony goes on for three days, as the boys (dressed up like princes in imitation of the Lord Buddha, who was himself a prince before setting out on the religious path) spend the entire time being carried around on the shoulders of their older male relatives. On the third day, they are ordained, and enter the monastery for a period of at least one week, and perhaps many years.