We woke bright and early on Chinese New Year's morning still smelling of incense from our celebrations the night before. You aren't supposed to wash your hair on Chinese New Year, because it means that you'll be washing away your good luck - as a matter of fact, there's a whole list of things you aren't supposed to do on New Year's Day if you want to have an auspicious year. For example:
- Don't cut your hair or toenails
- Don't cut your hair or toenails
- Don't clean the house or do laundry
- Don't wear black or white
- Don't eat porridge
- etc. etc.
Don't worry... we didn't do any of those things! What we did instead was dress up in our best Chinese outfits and head out to Yaowarat Road for some new year blessings!
We had bought the clothes from one of the many pop-up stores which appeared on the street in the weeks leading up to Chinese New Year. It's good luck to wear new clothes on the first day of the Spring Festival, so many people will buy traditional Chinese outfits to wear for the occasion.
I got a "Tang jacket", which is actually a Qing-era "Mandarin jacket". Pinky bought a qipao, a type of Chinese dress which was popularized in 1930s Shanghai. We took a taxi to Yaowarat Road, the center of Bangkok's thriving Chinatown.
Yaowarat Road is unique for many reasons. It's the world's biggest Chinatown, but what makes the Thai-Chinese community so interesting is the way in which they have both fully integrated into Thai society and yet still maintain so many of their important cultural traditions.
The Thai-Chinese are the largest minority group in Thailand, and Thailand is home to the largest community of overseas Chinese in the world! There are some 10 million Thai-Chinese in Thailand (about the same size as the entire population of Bangkok!) mainly centered in Bangkok and along the southern coast.
We donned our lucky red masks, and started exploring Chinatown starting at the Leng Buai Ia Shrine - the oldest Chinese shrine in all of Thailand!
The shrine, which dates back to 1658, is built in a classical Chinese architectural style. Originally a Teochew shrine, Leng Bua Ia was built by Qing-dynasty maritime traders sailing to Ayutthaya from southern China. The shrine was used by merchants to pray for favorable sailing conditions and prosperous business deals, as well as to socialize and make connections with other traders and merchants.
We left the shrine and followed the crowds to Wat Mangkorn Kamalawat, also known as Leng Noen Yi in Chinese. Wat Mangkorn is the central Chinese temple in Thailand. It is one of the very few Mahayana Buddhist temples in the country.
Wat Mangkorn is always popular, but on Chinese New Year, it was especially so! While things are slowly returning to normal, I'm still a little wary of crowds. Luckily, everyone was wearing their face masks, as required by law, and there were mandatory temperature checks to enter the temple. This was the most people I've been around in more than two years, since the pandemic began!
Every inch of the ceiling was hung with red lanterns, and the air was thick with the smell of incense as people made offerings to Buddha and the Taoist gods to pray for a happy and auspicious Year of the Tiger.
There are plenty of Chinese shrines in Bangkok, but not all that many Chinese temples. The difference is that a temple (technically a monastery) is home to a group of monks, whereas a shrine does not have monks and is typically cared for by a live-in family - the descendants of the original shrine builders.
Wat Mangkorn is a temple, and a very large one at that. There are monks, who wear Chinese-style sleeved monk's robes, albeit dyed in the iconic saffron orange of a Thai Buddhist monk. The temple, unlike most others in Thailand, is dedicated to Mahayana Buddhism, but also features statues and shrines of the gods and deities from traditional Chinese religion.
The largest offerings had been placed before the Caishen. The god of wealth plays an important role in traditional Chinese New Year celebrations, and visitors had placed ghost paper, fruit, and flowers before his statue.
In normal years, there's a dragon dance and a huge morning celebration at Bangkok's Chinatown Gate. Although the official celebrations were cancelled, it didn't seem to stop anybody from observing the holiday independently. For the past two years, gathering like this had been banned. As things slowly begin returning to normal, people are excited to be celebrating their important festivals again. I imagine that Songkran may very well be the same this year.
We only spent a short time at the temple. It was fun to see and experience all of the excitement, but the crowds were a bit too much for me. After taking some photos and observing all of the festivities, we were ready to go back outside.
Monks were giving out golden amulets of Caishen in exchange for a donation. Temples will sell amulets for festivals, fundraisers, and other special occasions to help support the temple's projects and maintenance. Every temple produces unique amulets; this one is specifically for Wat Mangkorn, which is what it says in gold on the box.
We wanted a break from the crowds, so we sat down at Zongter, a hip and trendy dim sum café in the heart of the Chinatown market. We had some dim sum and some delicious tea before deciding to call it a day. It had been a super fun morning, and we were tired, but happy.
This year is supposed to be good luck for those born during the Year of the Goat, which Pinky and I both were. You know what? I'll take all the good luck that I can get! I hope that the Year of the Tiger will be a good one for everyone! Happy New Year!
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