The Songkran Festival in Thailand (traditional Thai New Years) is the biggest and most sought after holiday on the Thai calendar. Songkran is usually thought of as a few inebriated day of throwing buckets of water and shooting water guns where everyone is a target.
However, with 66 million Thai inhabitants, there must be a bigger picture, so I turned to 27 of my Thai students to get a more local picture of what characterizes Songkran.
Tallying the results and analyzing the trends I came up with a single sentence that I think sums up what the Songkran Festival is for many Thai people.
Songkran is a long holiday to spend time being happy and excited with family and friends, respecting elders, going to the temple, playing with water, and eating seafood.
Below are the results with what I think are the most interesting answers, followed by the highest number of responses. I will let the interviews speak for themselves and hope you enjoy!