Maiyuu and I paid a visit to the supermarket. The fruit and vegetable section was unusually busy, with almost as many staff as customers bobbing about, almost everyone wearing yellow.
A large table stuffed with chicken, set among the fruit, attracted the most attention. A sign told me the chicken and fruit are on sale for the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival. This oddly-named festival, สาร์ทจีน in Thai, is for Thai-Chinese to pay respect to their ancestors.
The festival is to feed the ghosts of ancestors, which Chinese believe are released from the gates of Hell at this time of year, to wander the earth in search of food. Feeding them keeps them happy.
Paying respect can take different forms. Some people set up tables outside their homes, where they leave the food as offerings.
Work over, people have raced in to the supermarket to buy the goods fresh, the night before the festival begins. They are like the harried consumers in the West who do a last-minute shop before cooking big meals on Easter or Christmas Day.
 |
| A typical offering |
Demand for these birds always goes up before Chinese religious festivals, so the farmers come into town. They sleep under makeshift shelters along the railway line until they have sold their birds, when they can finally go home.
Some even slaughter the birds right there by the tracks. I see them drop the birds into large cooking pots, after they have killed them on chopping blocks.
I doubt the sight of these birds being killed would bother the supermarket shoppers just five minutes away. In Bangkok, after all, shoppers can go into live poultry markets and point to the birds they want killed. They can have them slaughtered on the spot and cooked ready to take home.
In fact, the farmers could probably do a brisk, direct trade from the railway line, if more people knew about their presence.
I pass the farmers to buy my lunch every day. The shop which makes my food is right next to the railway. It has been busier than normal lately, as farmers take a break from minding their birds to eat at my friend’s shop.
The birds smell, and with a new bird flu outbreak having freshly erupted, I am careful to avoid them. Today a farmer grabbed my arm, wanting money. I brushed past, and washed myself as soon as I returned home.
I saw two gay couples at the supermarket, sniffing around the duck stand.
They wore spiky hair-dos, and were over-dressed, as if seeking attention. One guy was dressed in pink, and looked like a doll. His boyfriend wore his jeans so low I could see more of his boxers than I could the top of his pants.
None of the young gays was as handsome as the many straight men shopping around them. Yet all wanted to stand out. Why is this, especially as they seem to have found a mate?
Postscript: One Thai blogger thinks Chinese elders are cunning in devising so many festivals to worship ancestors. It brings families together, and teaches them how to be grateful to people who have passed on before.
A Thai reader listed eight festivals held during the year, in which Chinese pay respect to one group of ancestors or another. That’s a lot of dead chickens - and gays showing off at the supermarket.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are welcome, in English or Thai (I can't read anything else). Anonymous posting is discouraged, unless you'd like to give yourself a name at the bottom of your post, so we can tell who you are.