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Young World
Harvest celebrations
COMPILED BY NIMI KURIAN
Photo: AP
In Chonburi: The annual water buffalo race.
For the last 100 years or so, water buffaloes have raced at the annual Chonburi Buffalo Races. Its origins are innocuous enough with one farmer wanting to prove that his buffalo was better than the others. It was in 1912 that it gained importance when King Mongkut visited the area and saw the races. The annual race is held as a celebration among rice farmers before the rice harvest. Before the start of the races a sacred ceremony is held to express thanks for the rains and
to ask for a healthy and prosperous year ahead. The festival is not only meant to be fun but also to help preserve the traditional Thai way of buffalo racing as well as the number of the animals involved in Thai agriculture. Other activities throughout the day include clowns, a review of decorated water buffalo, contestants climbing an oily pole, a slingshot-shooting contest and the inevitable beauty contests for Miss Buffalo (a girl not a beast) and a Most Healthy Buffalo contest. The prize for the best decorated buffalo is almost as coveted as the prize for the fastest animal - $475 and an irrigation water pump.
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