A DIVERSITY OF THANKS : Temple to Host Thai River Fest

Two days after Thanksgiving, members of the local Thai community will celebrate their own day of gratitude: the annual Loy Krathong festival honoring Buddha and the rivers that sustain many Thai people.

Wat Thai in North Hollywood--the largest Thai temple in the United States--will host its first-ever Loy Krathong celebration, including prayers, Thai food and the traditional floating of little boats with candles on a pond created for the occasion.

Like people from the United States, who celebrate Thanksgiving to pay tribute to the earth’s abundance, people from Thailand set the day of the full moon of the 12th lunar month aside to show gratitude to rivers, which bring life to many Thai people.

“Instead of Mother Earth, we have Mother River,” said Phra Sumanatissa Barua, a monk at Wat Thai. “The feeling of the people is that the river is somebody who takes care of us and is patient with all our requests, like the mother who feeds the child.”

The tradition of paying respect to rivers comes from India, where the Ganges has provided for humans for millennia.

For Thai Buddhists, who celebrated their rivers in the evening of the holiday by floating banana leaves fixed with candles, the early part of the day was used for meditation and prayer to the Lord Buddha, Sumana said.

The holiday remained unofficial, however, until the 13th or 14th Century. Legend has it that Nang Nopamas, a lady in waiting in the royal court of Siam, awed the king with her boat, which was made in the form of a lotus flower and decorated with flowers, carved fruit and incense.

The king decreed that the event be known as Loy Krathong, or candlelight festival, and be celebrated on the last full moon each year, as an homage both to Buddha and the river.

Since then, the tradition of sending lighted boats onto the water has taken on a variety of meanings, said Nancy Poopongpaibul, a Thai language teacher at Wat Thai.

“Some people, when they float their boat out, say a little prayer asking for something, like good luck or a prediction of the future,” Poopongpaibul said. “But sometimes they don’t float it right and it turns over, so they think their luck might not be so good.”

The Loy Krathong festival at Wat Thai, 8225 Coldwater Canyon Blvd., will also include Thai classical dance and a Miss Nopamas beauty pageant. Most events will take place between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Admission is free.