CELEBRATING SONGKRAN. Songkran, the Thai New Year, was celebrated recently at The Monkey & The Rat in Portland. The festive event featured a performance by the Thai Association of Oregon Dancers in addition to a water blessing. (AR Photos/Ronault L.S. Catalani)

From The Asian Reporter, V18, #18 (April 29, 2008), page 11 & 16

By Ronault L.S. Catalani

The third weekend of April was typical — lazy rain and azure sky and ferocious sleet, all in one Oregon afternoon. Just as apparently contrary, but just as simply true in this auspicious place, at this awesome confluence of generous rivers, of competing weather fronts, at this nexus of so many vigorous cultures on this Saturday afternoon was a thousand years of elegant cultural continuity gently presided by modest Theravada monks in a small Old Town art and décor shop.

The place was crowded. Probably 400 locals in succession, patiently packing in, then civilly unpacking out of The Monkey & The Rat. To get a peek at Thai princesses and apsara. To get a blessing from Abbot Lung Phao Subin Vachirapanyo and Lung Phao Montrichutimunto from Wad Buddhawararam, those venerable priests’ Buddha Temple. Portlanders getting what is rapidly becoming normal, a new normal here. Thai New Year in Old Town Portland.

The Saturday, April 19 event was conceived and set in motion by Christopher Yarrow, owner of The Monkey & the Rat and son of American folk/pop musician Peter Yarrow of the legendary trio Peter, Paul & Mary.

"I just wanted to make a community-feeling," Mr. Yarrow said, maybe a little startled by the scale of his success.

"It’s not just about selling things," he started again after pausing for words that might better render an idea he set rolling, an idea that gathered momentum and meaning from Portland, from all that natural and cultural energy resident in our region. "… It’s more about creating community. I can open our shop as a place for a cultural event, like we did for Khmer New Year, and then all the right folks show up."

And they did show up. Venerable monks from 55 miles south; elegant dancers, their proud parents and grandparents from the Thai Association of Portland; savory curries and fragrant jasmine rice from E-San Thai Restaurant; a Portland therapist trained in traditional Thai massage; Thai families and business owners, people young and old who have studied or served or done business in Thailand. An event scheduled for two or three hours lasted into late afternoon, so compelling was Mr. Yarrow’s "community-feeling."

Cindy Poonyagariyagorn, president of the Thai Association of Oregon, noted between her dancers’ performances that this was our City’s first public Thai New Year celebration. According to Mme. Poonyagariyagorn, the Thai Association is a nonprofit organization. The membership’s main focus is educating the public about Thai culture through traditional Thai performing arts. Songkran, she explained, is taken from Sanskrit, the sacred lingua of the Hindu religious tradition. "This special day celebrates our sun’s movement into the Aries zodiac."

Mme. Poonyagariyagorn is also the Thai Association’s traditional dance master, an arts teacher and life coach for those young women mesmerizing row after row of hushed shop visitors and Songkran celebrants.

Joannie Tatiyatrairong, who married into a Thai family and whose twin 14 year olds have studied under Mme. Poonyagariyagorn since they were four — two of those graceful young women who spun silenced admiration into Mr. Yarrow’s crowded little store — commented on the importance of her daughters maintaining their Thai heritage. "We want them to have a strong sense of Thai culture, not only in dance, but in their movements and manners. To understand why Thai people have so much respect for elders."

Traditionally, and still popularly so in both rural and urban Thailand, Songkran celebrates social and moral virtues. Central among them is respect for elders and gratitude to parents. This is ceremonially expressed by washing an elder’s hands in scented water. Sanctified water also carries New Year blessings when whisked about by reverend monks. Water balloons, water guns, and wayward garden hoses spray joy everywhere.

The first of these was properly demonstrated by Thai Association members. The second was solemnly delivered by the Buddha priests. But the third, more raucous activity was omitted by Mr. Yarrow inside his very special N.W. Second Avenue shop.

"I am so moved by what Chris (Yarrow) is doing here in this store," said Portland Thai artist Chompunut Xuto, whose paintings hang in the store. "He truly embraces Thai people and Thai culture. He is not only selling furniture or wood carvings, he has filled this place with the spirit of the people who created them. The kind, warm, loving spirit of Thai people."