A welcoming experience

Celebrating Chinese New Year with Hill Tribe peoples in Thailand

By Anne & Glenn Harty
March/April 2008

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On Chinese New Year, February 7, Mr. Winai, our good friend and fellow teacher from Nuchanat Anusorn School, invited us to go to a Hill Tribe village in the mountains to share in their celebrations. His wife Noi and her uncle and aunt also accompanied us.

Celebrating Chinese New Year at a Hill Tribe village. Chiang Rai, Thailand.

Chinese New Year is a time for business owners from nearby towns to visit their customers in the Hill Tribe villages and present them with gifts in return for their friendship and patronage during the year. It is a festive time with music, dancing, food and drink. Villagers save all year for this celebration, which lasts from a week to 10 days. Visitors are expected at any hour of the day or night and it is not uncommon to be with people in their home while a family member is asleep beside them on the mat.

Arriving in the evening, we were led to the home of the village leader and welcomed inside. On the floor in the middle of the room was a mat laden with foods and beverages. There was also a grand display of lights from which hung pork delicacies, fruits and vegetables, as well as steamed rice wrapped in bamboo leaves.

We were asked to model some of their Lahu (Musso) Hill Tribe clothing, an honor that we graciously accepted. And we attempted to dance with our hosts and learn their intricate steps. It did not matter to them if we couldn’t follow the steps; the important thing was that we were made to feel welcome. Ah, they were a happy lot. By the time the night was over we had visited six different homes and at each one we received hospitality and gifts.

Anne Harty and her friend Noi Srisuk in the home of the village leader.

Most of the village homes were built on stilts six to 10 feet off the ground. Beneath the home they stored such things as hammocks, firewood, a motorcycle, pigpen, and so on. Most homes did not have inside plumbing so all the washing is done outdoors. Some homes had a fire pit on the floor inside the house. There were no chimneys and the smoke from the fire filtered out the windows, doorways, and through cracks in the bamboo siding. From the outside it appeared as if the house was on fire. The most comfortable house we visited was built entirely from bamboo with floors that moved and squeaked as we walked on them.

In this village high in the mountains the air was cool and the sky was clear. Never in Thailand had we witnessed the stars shining so brightly as on that February night. Days later, we were still reminiscing about all that had happened, and felt a debt of gratitude to those who invited us, and the hosts who shared their homes and Chinese New Year with us. We were blessed.

Scarboro missioners Anne and Glenn Harty are living among the people of Chiang Rai, Thailand, and teaching at a secondary school.

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