Yesterday was another holiday in the month of May. It seems like there are so many! May 11th was Ploughing Day. Ploughing Day is an ancient Brahmin rite used to mark the beginnings of the rainy and ploughing seasons. The rite was held at Suan Luang which is the park near the Grand Palace. Sacred white oxen ceremoniously ploughed the ground and were fed many types of grains, seeds, grasses and alcohol to determine the forecast for the growing season by the oxen's preference food. Astrologers on hand predicted a fertile growing season with an abundance of rain since the oxen ate grass. Ploughing Day was reinstituted in 1960 by the King as a day for promoting agriculture. Yesterday's event was presided over by the Crown Prince. Farmers will now begin to plant the many rice fields around Thailand in expectation of a good harvest and wealth to come.
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