FGS South Island NZ Attended Songkran Thai New Year

As the austral autumn season approaches, it is also the time when the Thai celebrates with their Songkran or New Year festival. This Songkran festival was celebrated on the 12th of April this year in Christchurch, organized and held by the Wat Buddha Samakhee (Thai temple). Fo Guang Shan (FGS) South Island was among one of the invited groups, with Buddha’s Light International Association (BLIA) Vice President James Low, Director Cao Qian and BLIA Youth Adult Division (YAD) Albert Yuan as our representatives there.

The Thai Venerables led the Lay people for the prayer ceremony, wishing each of the guests a wonderful future. That day, besides several entertaining activities, there was also a display of splendid traditional Thai attires which people were allowed to admire and take photos of. The crowds numbered into a few hundreds. In reciprocity, Vice President James Low also casually invited the Thai Venerable to attend FGS south island’s Buddha Birthday Festival on the 26th of April.

There has always been a good close-knit relationship between FGS South Island and Wat Buddha Samakhee. Not only have the Thai Venerable attended the Buddha's Birthday festival before, but they had also been to some of the lectures held in the FGS temple. For example in 2014 when FGS Headquarter Vice Abbott Venerable Hui kai gave a talk on Christchurch Buddhism seminar, the Thai temple didn't send just a handful of religious representatives, but about ten other devotees for support.

During that day's event, the Thai Venerable also broadcasted about the upcoming “2015 FGS South Island Buddha's Birthday Festival - Future and Hope”, encouraging the guests that day to participate in that event too in the coming few weeks. They were also appreciative of FGS NZ's kind invitation to the Buddha's Birthday Festival. We hope that the relationships between Buddhist groups will continue, to help Christchurch's Buddhism progress and prosper into the future.