THAILAND: Thousands celebrate the Lunar New Year at a Dragon Park in Thailand, praying for a good beginning to the Year of the Snake

Record ID: 861210

  • Title: THAILAND: Thousands celebrate the Lunar New Year at a Dragon Park in Thailand, praying for a good beginning to the Year of the Snake
  • Date: 10th February 2013
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF SPECTATORS
  • Embargoed: 25th February 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Thailand
  • City:
  • Country: Thailand
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA6E9FPOU1S9JFH59E8OSCP9P41
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  • Story Text: Thousands of people gathered in Suphanburi's Dragon Park in Thailand on Sunday (February 10) to celebrated Lunar New Year and mark the beginning of the year of the snake. The Dragon Park is one of the main destinations in Thailand for Chinese and Thai to start the new year.
    At the Suphanburi's city pillar shrine, a Chinese influenced shrine, people dressed in bright colours gathered to pray for good luck.
    Black snake is the sixth of Chinese's twelve zodiac signs. The snake is considered to be a lucky sign and people born in the year of the snake to be strong personalities. However it is also believed to bring unexpected changes, instability to those who don't prepare their plans well or evaluate their plan before taking actions. Chinese horoscope says that snakes are good friends with cocks and oxen. Their favourite colours are yellow and red. Monday is the lucky day with 2,4,7 and 9 being the lucky numbers.

    "If we make our lives better, I think our lives should be better. But if we don't do good things in order to achieve better life, and totally depend on our fate and just wait and hope for good luck, nothing is going to get better," said Siriporn Inthai, a businesswoman from nearby Nakorn Prathom province.
    Many of those born in the years of tiger and pig, signs which are in conflict with the snake, donated money at the shrine and wrote their names and date of birth dates on little red lanterns. The red lantern is believed to shield them from harm by the zodiac sign of the snake.
    During last year's celebration for the Year of the Dragon, the Dragon Park was blamed for a tragic accident when its fireworks got out of control. Five people were killed by simultaneous explosions caused by a malfunction of the ignition. More than 200 houses near the park burned down.
    A Dragon park official said they compensated all the costs to victims, and that they decided not to do any more fireworks at the park.

    "We have publicised that we won't launch fireworks, then more people come," said Jongluck Chaimon, a senior staff at the shrine in the park.
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