Why is April such a festive month across Asia?

People dress up, re-enact myths and play games, during the three-day new year festivities in Cambodia.

Seeing a society in celebration mode is a wonderful way to get to know it better. Whatever we believe reaches its most social expression in our festivals, with their often-intriguing mix of religious, cultural, ritualistic and joyous practices. April, in that sense, is party month across Asia.

In India, it is the month of a range of harvest festivals that also mark the start of a new year. In Punjab, this is Vaisakhi, a Sikh festival traditionally celebrated with processions performing the nagar kirtan or collective singing of shabads or hymns from the Guru Granth Sahib. April holds the first day of the Malayali new year, when people in Kerala observe Vishu. In Maharashtra, it is marked as Gudi Padwa and in Assam, as Bohag Bihu.

For thousands of years, people in these regions have prayed, sung hymns, feasted and made sacrifices to the gods, in thanks for a plentiful harvest, and as a plea for good fortune in the years to come.

Travel east and the festivities continue. In Thailand, Songkran derives from the Sanskrit “Samkranti”, literally “astrological passage”. As a new year dawns here, people celebrate by throwing water at each other, in revelry that likely began as a cleansing ritual.

In Cambodia, Chaul Chnam Thmey (literally, Happy New Year) is marked at the end of the harvest season. Over three days (usually starting on April 13 or 14), people dress up, dance and play games; offer food to the poor, pray to their ancestors, and bathe holy statues in purification rituals.

In Laos, Pi Mai (or New Year) is also a three-day festival. On day one, considered the last day of the old year, houses are cleaned, village streets swept, and flowers and water prepared for the festivities. The second day is a day of rest, called “the day of no year”. The third day marks the start of the new, with rituals, prayers and celebration.

In end-April, Golden Week begins in Japan (April 29 to May 5). This string of national holidays kicks off with Showa Day, the birth anniversary of the former emperor Hirohito (1901-89). His reign is considered a Golden Age for Japan; his nickname Showa is Japanese for Enlightened Peace.

Constitution Day follows, on May 3, followed by Greenery Day and Children’s Day, on May 4 and 5 respectively. That last was originally named Boys’ Day. A cloth carp (the fish symbolises strength and success, because of its size and longevity) would be hung outside homes, with warrior dolls in helmets and armour tucked into them. The fish was then offered rice cakes wrapped in oak leaves (“kashiwa mochi”), in a prayer for male children, for the family lineage to continue, and for descendants to prosper.

The renaming of that festival is a happy turn of events. What’s something that has changed in how you celebrate a new year? Write in; I’d love to know.

(Adam Jacot de Boinod is the author of The Meaning of Tingo)

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