Rocket Festival
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- This article is about the traditional Rocket Festival of Laos and Thailand; for another meaning, see Rocket Festival Spain
The Rocket Festival (Thai: บุญบั้งไฟ Bun Bangfai) is an ancient Lao merit-making (Thai: บุญ Bun) festival dating to prehistoric times. According to Frank H. Winter,[1] it is significant in the history of rocketry. It continues to take place in a number of locations both in Isan (Northeast Thailand) and in Laos, but it is vigorously and most famously celebrated in Isan's city of Yasothon. It is held in May, in the sixth lunar month. Originating in pre-Buddhist times, it is a fertility rite held to celebrate and to encourage the coming of the rainy season. As such, it is the most sexual and bawdy festival in Lao culture. Coming immediately prior to the planting season, the festival also offers a last chance to relax before this work gets under way.
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[edit] Festival weekend
As of 2005, the Yasothon version of the festival spread over three days in the middle of May. After preliminary events on Friday (Wan Sook Dip), on Saturday the home-made, richly-decorated rockets (Thai: บั้งไฟโก้ Bangfai Go) are paraded through the town.
Owing to the fertility rite origins of the festival, parade ornaments and floats often sport phallic symbols and imagery. Amid the festive atmosphere, dirty humour is widespread.
(But for proper interpretation please visit Lingam: tourists should keep in mind that the Linga is still held sacred in Buddhist Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.) A fair is held on Saturday evening, involving cross-dressing and large quantities of alcohol. Among the unique beverages to be found are "Lao Whiskey" (sometimes known as "Lao Lao" (Thai: เหล้าลาว), literally "Lao alcohol", but known more commonly as "Lao Khao" (Thai: เหล้าขาว, literally "white alcohol") and sato (Thai: สาโท), a brewed rice-alcohol similar to Japanese sake.
The rockets are launched on the Sunday. The winners of the competition are those whose rocket flies the longest, while those whose rockets misfire are either covered with mud, or thrown into a mud puddle. While popular and entertaining, the festival is also dangerous, with spectators occasionally being injured or even killed by the rockets. On May 10, 1999, a Lan 120 kg rocket exploded 50 meters above ground, just two seconds after launch, killing five persons and wounding 11.[2]
[edit] The Myth
When the Lord Buddha was in his Bodhisatta incarnation as King of the Toads Phaya Kang Kok (Thai: พญาคางคก), and married to Udorn Kurutaweeb (Thai: อุดรคู่รู้ทวิป Northern Partner-Knowing-Continent), his sermons drew everyone, creatures and sky-dwellers alike, away from Phaya Taen (Thai: พญาแถน; King of the Sky)[[1]]. Angry Phaya Taen withheld life-giving rains from the earth for seven years, seven months and seven days. Acting against the advice of the Toad King, Phaya Nark (Thai: พญานาค) King of the Nāga (and personification of the Mekong) and his Coalition of the Willing declared war on Phaya Taen -- and lost.
Persuaded to assume command, King Toad enlisted the aid of termites to build mounds reaching to the heavens; venomous scorpions and centipedes to attack Phaya Taen's feet; and hornets for air support. Aerial warfare against Phaya Taen in his own element had proved futile; but even the Sky must come down to the ground: on the ground the war was won, and Phaya Taen sued for peace. Naga Rockets fired in the air at the end of the hot, dry season are not to threaten Phaya Taen, but only serve to remind him of his treaty obligations made to Lord Bodhisatta Phaya Kang Kok, King of the Toads, down on the ground. For his part Phaya Nark was rewarded by being given the duty of Honor Guard at most Thai and Lao temples.
After the Harvest of the resulting crops, Wow (Thai: ว่าว, "kite"), man-sized kites with a strung bow, are staked out in winter monsoon winds. The bowstring vibrates Wow-wow-woW, Wow-wow-woW all night long to signal Phaya Taen that he has sent enough rain.
All participants (including a wow) may be seen depicted on murals on the front of the Yasothon Municipal Bang Fai Museum, across the road from the reviewing stand for the Yasothon Rocket Festival Parade.
An English-language translation of a Thai report on Bang Fai Phaya Nark (Naga fireballs) at Nong Khai gives essentially the same myth (without the hornets and wow) from Thai folk : The knowledge of Thai life-style[2]
[edit] The rockets
While the Thai language word for rocket is "jaruat" (Thai: จรวด), "Bang Fai" (Thai: บั้งไฟ) is the name used uniquely for the rockets of the Rocket Festival.
- 'Bang Fai' may also be spelled 'Bong Fai' (Thai: บ้องไฟ). A bong (Thai: บ้อง) is a cutoff section of bamboo used as a container or pipe; and colloquially, a pipe for smoking marijuana. [3]
While the traditional style of Bang Fai were, and still are, constructed of bamboo, many of the contemporary rockets are constructed of pvc piping, with long bamboo tails for in-flight stability (making them look like giant bottle rockets). Tails are tied to launch racks with vines; the time it takes for the rocket exhaust to burn through the vines (usually) allows the motor to build up to full thrust.
The rockets come in various sizes, broken down into three groups: The small Bang Fai, or "Noi" (Thai: น้อย), the medium-sized Bang Fai, or "Meun" (Thai: หมื่น), and the largest Bang Fai, the "Lan" (Thai: ล้าน). "Meun" is the number 10,000 and "Lan", the number 1,000,000. When not used for counting, "Meun" means "very (large)" and "Lan", extreme(ly). "Lan" rockets can be nine metres long and carry up to 120 kg of gunpowder. Contest rules require that the gunpowder be compounded by the rocketeers, themselves. The larger rockets routinely reach altitudes of kilometers, and travel dozens of kilometers down range (when they don't blow up).
[edit] In popular culture
The 2006 Thai martial arts film, Kon Fai Bin, depicts the Rocket Festival. Set in 1890s Siam, the movie's hero, Jone Bang Fai ("Firecracker Thief"), is an expert at building the traditional bamboo rockets, which he uses in conjunction with Muay Thai martial arts to defeat his opponents.
[edit] References
- Gray, Paul and Ridout, Lucy. Rough Guide to Thailand. Rough Guides, 2004. ISBN 1-84353-273-5.
- Tourist Authority of Thailand
[edit] Notes
- ^ Frank H. Winter, "The `Boun Bang Fai' Rockets of Thailand and Laos: Possible Key to determining the Spread of Rocketry in the Orient," in Lloyd H. Cornett, Jr., ed., History of Rocketry and Astronautics - Proceedings of the Twentieth and Twenty-First History Symposia of the International Academy of Astronautics, AAS History Series, Vol. 15 (Univelt Inc.: San Diego, 1993), pp. 3-24.
- ^ The Nation (Thailand), 05-10-1999
- ^ Sethaputra, So (1965). New Model Thai-English Dictionary. Bangkok, Thailand: So Sethaputra Press. ISBN 9-7493-5098-7.
