When rain is scarce or fails to fall in the monsoon season, farmers hold the Hae Nang Maew ritual — or Boon Bung Fai, if they are in the Northeast. During Hae Nang Maew, a female Siamese cat is carried around in a bamboo basket, paraded through the streets by brightlydressed folks who sing, dance, and plead for the clouds to break. Boon Bung Fai is an entirely different affair. Locals assemble gunpowder-filled bamboo rockets in the shape of Naga, since the Naga epitomizes water, power, and prosperity. The rockets are carted on elaborately decorated vehicles and then lit and launched into the sky, where, according to fable, they activate some kind of chemical reaction in the clouds that produces precipitation.