Sabaidee Pi Mai Lao! Happy Lao New Year!

Sabaidee Pi Mai Lao / Happy Lao New Year! 

Pi Mai (in Thai, "Songkran") is the three day Lao New Year holiday/ Water festival. It also includes 3 days off for the holiday, so pretty much everyone from work is using the week to go on trips outside of Vientiane. While I'm kind of bummed to be missing the "best festival in Laos", it's really hard to turn down so much vacation time when there are so many places to go :) 

Maybe because so many of us will be gone, or because this is the last day before the New Year, we had a Pi Mai celebration at work today (Friday). On Wednesday, our office admin brought all of us proper "Pi Mai attire", which really just super colorful patterned clothing (think Hawaiian shirts). 

Much to my excitement, and to Nick's embarrassment, the admin brought us similar colors. (This is something that is really, really not that unusual in Asia- lots of couples wear matching T-shirts.)

The main events (waterfight, lunch, dancing) took place outside, which the business heads had decorated for the festivities.

We spent the first couple of hours working, but at 10am we went to our (for most of us anyway) first baci! A baci is a Buddhist celebration, and involved a bunch of prayers which I did not understand, led by a man who is not a monk. Other than that, I don't know much about baci traditions. I do know that all women must have their feet pointing away from the shrine in the center, which made for a really uncomfortable half hour sitting on the floor in a skirt.

(I think- THINK- that all the fruits and banana-leaf-wrapped rice bunches are gifts to the spirits, in hopes that they will provide good fortune and luck in the new year.)

At the end of the baci, the sticks with the white threads (in above picture) were removed from the shrine and distributed amongst those in the group. We took turns giving each other blessings ("Out with the bad, in with the good; I wish you luck, love, health and happiness in the new year") and tying the bracelets on each other. So now I'm wearing 9 white bracelets that I'm not supposed to remove. They're supposed to fall off naturally. It might be a while.

(We also had this special blessing, done by a senior government official- using a red rose, the "lower level" employees blessed her hands with water, and she blessed us with water on our shoulders)

After the blessing exchange, we went outside for lunch, carrying with us the water guns we got with our Pi Mai shirts. One thing I definitely learned today is that when you hand American guys in their 20's a bunch of waterguns and say "don't use these until the waterfight", this is interpreted as "Here is your watergun, the waterfight begins NOW."

After the first hour of spraying and dumping water on each other, many turned their attention to poor unfortunate people driving, scootering or walking by.  It became a little worrisome when some scooter drivers got sprayed in the face and lost control for a couple seconds... This wasn't really enough to stop some in our group. (During Lao New Year, even if you're just walking around during the day in Vientiane, apparently you're likely to be soaked at anywhere, anytime.)

Local kids joined in the fun. After three hours of water fighting, most of us were kind of over being soaking wet all the time- me especially- but since the kids came late to the party, they liked to come over and squirt water in my face when I was dancing or talking with other people. By 3pm, I was kind of done and ready to go home. (A lot of long-term expats apparently like to get out of Laos during the Lao New Year; one friend said it was because she "hated being wet all the time".)

Our afternoon: beer, squirt guns, and white talcum powder rubbed in our faces from time to time (no one was able to tell me why)

Mark, looking like a bad-ass.   

So much water in my eyes. All. Day. Long. 

While part of me is sad that we are leaving tomorrow (for Australia!!!) instead of staying for more festivities, I'm glad we got to experience some of the Pi Mai celebrations before we leave. Also, three days of being constantly wet doesn't sound super awesome. 

Happy Lao New Year! Wishing you health, wealth and love in the new year.

The bathrooms at work are ALWAYS out of water

I don't get what causes is, but once or twice a week the water on our floor goes out. It's usually fine at the upstairs bathroom, but it sucks being the one to discover that the water has, once again, gone out. 

In which we attend a Lao Wedding (Reception)

A Lao wedding is full of traditions, from the traditional "baci" ceremony to a blessing of the marriage bed. What I know of Lao weddings is mostly what I (a) read in my "Guide to Living in Laos" books, and (b) from what our office admin told us about her sister's wedding, which took place this past Saturday.

I wasn't able to be a part of the actual wedding ceremony, but we (work people) got to attend the wedding reception, which was both awesome and HUGE (I suppose it has to be, if you're able to invite twenty of your sister's work colleagues)

Apparently it's common to have a wedding "color", which guests wear along with the wedding party. The color for the wedding we attended was pink, although many people also wore red, so I'm wondering if there was a color for guests of the bride (pink) and guests of the groom (red). But it was kind of cool to see guests mostly wearing one or two colors. 

Note the drink choice: water, Pepsi and Johnnie Walker. That's it- three drinks that seem to be the standard for any successful Lao wedding. Food was Lao buffet style and I really liked it! Delicious fried rice.  

There were a couple professional photographers floating around the ceremony, but I wanted to (subtle-y) document the wedding myself, so I creepily snuck a couple pictures myself. Like a creeper.

One of my favorite things about the wedding were the "bridesmaids"- this seems to be way different that what it means in the States. They weren't a huge part of the wedding party, which was made up of mostly aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents, etc., of the couple. But they all had dresses made from the same fabric- having clothes tailor made here is SO much cheaper than in the States. So while they all wore a color selected by the bride, they wore all different styles.

(Another creeper photo by yours truly)

Also, a requirement for any awesome wedding: there was dancing. 

Lots of different styles, too:

 The first dances were traditional Lao dances, which I tried (unsuccessfully) to do. Mostly slow walking in a circle, and holding your hands and fingers out in front of your elbows, and slowly turning your hands in a circular motion. I'm sure there's more meaning to it than that, but the elderly couple who took me under their non-English-speaking-wings seemed to be satisfied with my attempts by the end of the dances.

After that there were "Lao line dances" (no idea what it's called in Lao, but it was definitely a line dance). A much simpler dance than what I'm used to (I lived in Louisiana for a year and a half and they were all about the line dancing) but still took me a minute to catch on. Also, it was HILARIOUS to see all the "falang" (white people) in our group because we were all towering about the Lao people. Usually I lose people in a line dance but that wasn't really an issue when it's a mix of Lao people and a group of guys mostly above 6 foot. 

And then they had a DJ come on who played Top 40. Most of the elder people had left by this point (11PM) but the younger people were all taking shots of Johnnie Walker and dancing. I even convinced Nick to do some swing moves, because swing moves are awesome. 

Surprise photo taken by the talented Miss Marissa :) 

Our work group at the wedding :) 

Also note:
Apparently wedding gifts aren't a thing. We were advised that we should use the invitation envelopes (addressed to us), take the invitation out, and put a minimum of 200,000kip ($26) in it. Genius- not only do they get a ton of cash, but they know exactly who gave what amount. Sneaky geniuses.

Getting ready for a Lao wedding

Yesterday evening the work group went to the wedding of our office admin's sister, which was awesome. 

Our admin arranged for the Fast 'wives' and I to get our hair and make up done at a salon near Guru Shop- it took about 2 hours (2 stylists doing hair/ makeup for 4 women) and cost 200,000kip (or $26) per person. I found a hairstyle and makeup coloring online that I thought would help "guide" the stylists (the salon is a popular one with the Lao women, but I don't know how often they style for white women).

The make-up and hair was a bit bigger than I was expecting- they used false eyelashes, which was weird. 

It was a lot of fun getting ready with the "Fast wives" :) Kind of like getting ready for prom!

Big poofy hair went well with my old-timey sunglasses though.

Big eyes, big hair; make-up done Asia-style!

The wedding color was pink- I would've loved to had an outfit/ sinh made but I just didn't have enough time.

Comics

Misadventures at the Lao tailor

A couple of months ago Jesse (fashionable coworker) convinced a tailor from Bangkok to come up and take measurements from almost every guy in the office, and then their new outfits and shirts were sent to Vientiane from Bangkok.

Nick and I didn't order anything, for different reasons (women's tailoring is more finicky so I'd want more fittings, and Nick ran out of time to get measured before the guys left to return to Bangkok). So Nick decided to try a local Lao tailor from a couple blocks over, and ordered a couple new shirts and brought over a work polo to be taken in a bit at the sides. 

The result was much cheaper (something like $20/ shirt, rather than $60), but also way more hilarious :

The brand new shirts look okay... But the work polo is definitely way too tight around his middle now.

On the plus side it will probably fit me great ?

'Spring' in Vientiane * cough cough *

Vientiane apparently only has three seasons : the hot season (which is about to start), the rainy season (which starts in summer) and the 'decent'/ tourist season (Nov - March).

So this was leaving work on Monday:

Hasn't started the activity of spring, though: Nick and I discovered a bird in the process of making a nest on our balcony :)

I tried taking a picture of the bird but when I got close she freaked out and flew away.

I'm missing when 'spring is here' meant this: