Thai and Burmese New Year Party

04/17/07

The past weekend was the Thai and Burmese New Year. In Thailand, this festival is the most well-known because it is the time that Thai people and hundreds of thousands of tourists throw water to each other. Every street in Bangkok, in particular, Kao San Road and Silom road, wi ll become a battlefield that people will equip themselves with water guns, water balloons, bags of baby powder and hunt each other down on the street. No one will survive this battlefield without being wet. I had a lot of friends visiting Thailand this year; I guess a part of the reasons was there was a big circuit party in Bangkok.

Even though I was dying to join all my friends there, my friend, Sai and I had our own fabulous party on this occasion as well. The party was held at my mama Sai’s palace in Queens. Sai loves cooking, and he is a great chef. So he volunteered to cook all those delicious food like chicken satay, chicken salad, Kung Pao shrimp, shrimp fried rice, chicken wings and vegetable soup. I went to his house around 3 pm to help him set up the place and be his helper. The only thing I made was the sauce for fried rice, most of the time I cleaned, chopped vegetable, squeeze lime and put chicken satay on the sticks. Mama Sai cooked everything and he did such a great job. While I was helping him chopping chili and garlic, I came to my enlightened moment that I was bad at cooking. My chopping performance was clumsy and I was afraid of those popping up hot oil. But at least I am very good at cleaning, because I do not allow even one single dirty spot leave unclean. While Mama Sai was cooking, I cleaned vegetable, pans, pots, spoons and everything, and then I swept the floor after he’d done cooking. That is why some of my friends always say it’s good to have me at the party because even though I am no use of cooking at least they can still use me at the end to clean their kitchen and all tools.

Around thirty friends showed up that night. People seemed to enjoy drinking except me who was running around taking pictures and I guess I was the only one who did not touch any alcohol at all. But I still had a lot of fun. It was such a great time to have a lot of friends together under one roof besides the club’s roof.

We hung out until 11 pm. Then we moved to Stereo to pay homage to our favorite DJ- Offer Nissim. Yes, he did not disappoint any of us at all. He drove the crowd in this small venue wild when he showed up at the DJ booth at 2 am. I danced for seven hours straight, and my pant was soaked with my sweat. The funny thing was there was a white guy and a white girl kept watching at me dancing and then finally came up to me and told me how much they liked the way I danced. I remembered that guy right away from his juicy lip that he was the one who failed in the audition for the show “You Think You Can Dance” on Foxs last year. At that time, I thought he was crazy. He had too much attitude and weird couture but too little skill of dancing.

The music was so great that we stayed until the club was closed at 7 am.

Our Thai and Burmese New Year weekend was amazingly fun. Thanks to our Mama Sai. The next party will be a BBQ party in summer in the next couple months, I cannot wait!

Please visit Thai & Burmese New Year Party Pictures to see our fun party night.

Tae Athi