Carpe Diem
The perfect example of a transcendent cultural experience on our travels has been our privilege to experience three entirely different new years celebrations.
In January we rang in the calendar new year (January 1st) in Manchester, England. Growing up we always had the New Year’s party at my (Viv’s) house. In the last 20+ years I have spent precisely 2 New Years away from my home (until now), so our New Year celebration in Manchester was different in many ways, but also very familiar. We rang in this new year quite close to how we would have in Houston, albeit with less (read NO) family and friends around us.
We mostly stayed inside and talked about what the last year brought us, enjoyed the cold rainy evening, drank champagne, and watched the fireworks erupt all around us (we were on the 26th floor of a high rise hotel and could see fireworks for miles).
In February, we got to celebrate the Chinese New Year (AKA Lunar New Year or LNY) in Malaysia. This holiday is celebrated all throughout Asia and we had experienced some level of celebration in the States, but nothing compared to what we would experience in Malaysia. This new year’s celebration starts on the first New Moon of the calendar year and goes until the Full Moon (roughly 14 days). In 2024 that meant celebrating from February 10 - 24.
In the time leading up to February 10th we saw the massive preparations for the LNY season, in the form of very elaborate decorations and displays going up in every mall and building throughout Malaysia. Think Christmas in the U.S. or Europe with massive store window displays and pop up markets everywhere. These elaborate decorations and markets were dragon themed (year of the dragon) and included many beautiful and artistic elements (see photos for some of them!).
At midnight on February 10th we got to witness ALL the fireworks, as they are set off to scare away evil spirits and bring good luck for the new year. Some statistics say that this is the single biggest day for fireworks in the world. For the next 14 days we would randomly hear and see fireworks be set off, either randomly in the street or in a more organized manner at various events and venues. We also continued to see all the elaborate decorations and displays selling gift baskets filled with LNY staples like mandarin oranges, fruits, and the ubiquitous red envelopes. We closed the LNY season in Penang with an (unexpected) parade to mark the Full Moon, of which you can read more about in our Penang story.
By then we thought, surely we were done with New Years celebrations. Boy were we gladly wrong.
Finally we come to our third New Year celebration: Songkran in Thailand. We celebrated the Thai new year in Chiang Mai. If LNY is known for fireworks, Thai new year is known for massive water fights. Celebrated based on when the sun passes by Aires (mostly in April) it is marked by cleansing the buddha statues, annual cleaning rituals and various alms giving ceremonies. The holiday began on April 13 (though people really began celebrating on the 12th).
And the party was on.
For around 5 days almost everyone in the city was carrying a water gun or water bucket at all times. Businesses had hoses running out front and many had baby pools or large barrels of water for convenient water gun and bucket refilling. Pickups and large trucks were driving around with people and barrels full of water in the back with everyone throwing water or spraying you.
If you were lucky the people with barrels in the back of their trucks had large blocks of ice floating in the barrel so when they would throw water on you it was ice cold!
Closer to the old town area people were pulling (very iffy) water from the moat that surrounds the old town and refilling their water guns, pickup trucks and everything they could. Traffic was at a standstill in most places with people, cars and scooters all crawling along laughing, celebrating, and wetting each other.
You were pretty much guaranteed to get soaked if you were outside (not bad when it’s 40 degrees C, but definitely required some preplanning…Viv basically swapped her purse for a dry bag all week). In Chiang Mai this was not an isolated celebration limited to one or two streets in the city. There were hundreds of celebration events in virtually every part of the city, and from main thoroughfare to small neighborhood streets you were sure to get soaked.
Songkran was definitely our favorite “New Year” celebration and one that we won’t soon forget.
These three very different experiences have been the best reminder that there is no one way (or day) to start the new year or start anything really. As humans we often frame our mindsets in benchmarks which is why we set new year resolutions. But we have all done the, “oh i’ll start that on Monday”, or “oh I will check the laundry at 3:00pm”… until 3:05pm rolls around and you now have to wait until 4:00pm…. But, depending on where you are, the “New Year” can mean something different, and really any day and any time is the start of the new year.
If you can do it in the “new year” you can do it at any time. So don’t wait, do the thing, take the jump, seize the day. Carpe diem.