EPISODE 6
RITUAL CHANGE
YASOTHON, THAILAND
Marching with swords in-hand, the ghosts of two ancient, Laotian lords lead a procession to cleanse the streets of Yasothon of evil spirits. Behind them is a holy arsenal of Bang Fai—giant rockets—that will soon be fired into the heavens to call on the rains of the monsoon season. As the original founders of the city, the duo have been fighting to protect their land for centuries from within the bodies of their living bloodline. Smothered in the nationalistic fanfare of the Boun Bang Fai festival, one would never suspect that these spirits were once political dissidents who waged war on the kingdom of Siam.
An elderly woman named Wassana Kru Saeng embodies one of these spirits at the festival. She lives alone in the center of old-town. Never married, never with children—she now lives to nurture the ghost of a dying past. A direct descendant of the founding lord, her identity is rooted in a story that can’t seem to compete with change. Today the Boun Bang Fai festival is a celebration of all things Thai, and it is exciting spectacle of highly dangerous bottle rockets that can be packed with up to 50kg of gunpowder. The festival takes place at the very end of the dry season, and is a type of mass prayer to the heavens to bring rain for better rice cultivation.
Although Wassana’s ancestors brought the tradition of firing Bang Fai, the animism that inspired it is long gone. Demographic shifts had Buddhism eventually re-encapsulated the symbolism of the ritual, and later, Thai nationalism further re-purposed the event. Ritual Change explores the space that Wassana occupies in one of Thailand’s biggest, most rambunctious festivals, and seeks to understand how the past can survive in a future that so vehemently seeks to change it.