FEATURING JOHN KUO'S BLOG on the Water Festival

For future reference, John Kuo's blog, A Little Trouble in Big China, can be found here. I had on my to blog list a blog on Poshuijie, the water festival by the local Dai people, but as it turns out, John Kuo's blog on the Waterfest was perfect.

Here's his take on the water fest: this is his post, but I'm copying and pasting the post that I like here: - THANKS John!

Water Festival

By John Kuo on April 19, 2011 8:56 AM| No Comments

I was standing outside my hotel in Xingfu when I saw a car speeding down the main road. Pete, a Fellow at Xingfu Elementary School, stuck his body out the window, holding onto the white van with one hand and onto a bucket with the other. "Get in the car! Get in the car!" he yelled.

This past weekend was the Water Festival, a Dai ethnic minority festival where people splash water on each other to celebrate the New Year. Everyone gets into the festival and no one is safe. At first I thought I was going to miss the holiday because, for some odd reason, our bosses scheduled a conference at the same time. Luckily, there was Dai village right behind Xingfu Middle School.

Pete's yelling and the van's sudden appearance incapacitated me for a minute, but down the street I saw Laura and Christine being chased by water-flinging little girls, so I hurriedly jumped in the van. Once the others had escaped the water, we made our way towards the village and Pete pointed to a smiley man in the front passenger seat. "Yo, say hello to my friend Baozi," he said.

Along the way, children harmlessly splashed water against the car doors and we saw water gun armed gangs creeping out from alleys. As we passed a woman washing her clothes, Christine screeched, "Splash her, Pete! Splash her! I'm gonna get that bitch later." Earlier, the same woman had pretended to wash her clothes as we walked down the road, but in a moment of sneakiness, dumped her entire washbasin over Christine's head.

The road towards the village narrowed, and motorcycles carrying water bucket-toting children passed us, inches away from our windows. The village's main square slowly came into view and dozens of villagers eyed us hungrily. When we came to a halt, the Water Festival seemed to as well. Children surrounded our van, holding with buckets over their heads and water guns aimed at our faces. "We probably should have come with buckets," Christine lamented.

Christine was right. Within moments of exiting the van, we were all soaked. Since I didn't have a bucket, I just resorted to grabbing kids' filled buckets out of their hands and dumping water on their heads. Others just stole buckets from helpless children. Pete, who already had a bucket, would just catch water flung at him in his bucket and then fling it back, while repeatedly yelling (in English, of course), "You don't get it. I played lacrosse."

Pete, on the phone, and splashing kids

By the end, we smelled of river water and once we tired of being attacked by children, we joined Dai women wearing traditional dresses dancing in the village center. On the side, men beat drums. One Xingfu woman I talked to said that we should have gone elsewhere because Xingfu was too small. I disagreed, though, saying that Xingfu was just right; it was a genuine celebration.