Not a lot happens actually. In the evening people go to the temple and walk around the temple three times holding a flower, a candle and some incense. Three times for the three jewels of Buddhism, the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
This month didn't see a lot of blogging, because not a lot happened. February had advanced two weeks already when we saw what was supposed to be a spectacular Chinese new year. This was celebrated mostly in the parts of Bangkok where a lot of Chinese descendants live. The most obvious one being Chinatown. I stayed in the Thai parts and there were some celebrations to be seen, but very minor. The typical Chinese dragon dancing and prancing about and a million firecrackers being lit. As long as it makes a lot of noise, Thai people are happy. The main change this year was that a lot of people refrained from wearing the traditional red attire and changed to pink. The reason for this was to wish the beloved king of Thailand better health, pink being his second color, after yellow. Another unofficial reason was not to put too much red out in the streets. Who would have thought that a political color could have so much influence on a tradition that has been going on for thousands and thousands of years.
At the end of the month there was the event everybody had anxiously been waiting for. The court's decision whether or not to seize the assets of Mr. Thaksin. After about six hours of reading the verdict, the final decision was to seize only 60% of the assets, because that was the amount ill-gotten when he had taken the office of Prime Minister in 2001. This may sound like a lot of money, but I'll give you the numbers. They seized 46 billion baht of a total of 76 billion baht. So he's got some change left. And of course this is the money he had in Thailand, if you catch my drift.
As you can see, not a lot happened, but of course February is also the shortest month of the year. Let's hope March brings some more activities and adventures.
Let's hope.
