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Parenting: teens
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Photos of vivid Buddhist celebration in Thailand that’s a rite of passage for Shan boys

The Poy Sang Long celebration is a vibrant three-day ritual before boys of Myanmar’s Shan people enter monastic life for up to one month

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Ethnic Shan boys in shimmering clothes and colourful floral headpieces take part in a ceremony before they enter monastic life for between three days and one month – a rite of passage believed to bring merit and good fortune - at the Ku Tao temple in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. Photo: AFP
Agence France-Presse

Dressed in flowers, finery and make-up, scores of boys were paraded around a temple in Thailand after having their heads shaved – a symbolic start to a centuries-old Shan monkhood ordination.

The Buddhist celebration is unique to the Shan people of northeastern Myanmar, hundreds of thousands of whom have moved to Thailand during their country’s decades of dictatorship and turmoil.

Monks ritually shaved more than 40 boys’ heads with razors, tufts of hair falling onto lotus leaves.

In shimmering robes, jewellery and colourful floral headpieces, they were carried around the Ku Tao temple in Chiang Mai three times on relatives’ shoulders, to the rhythmic beat of traditional gongs.

Eleven-year-old Jomwong Koling, an ethnic Shan boy, is carried during the annual Poy Sang Long procession at Wat Ku Tao, in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. Photo: AFP
Eleven-year-old Jomwong Koling, an ethnic Shan boy, is carried during the annual Poy Sang Long procession at Wat Ku Tao, in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. Photo: AFP
Nine-year-old Sukit Luangla, a young ethnic Shan boy, wears white robes after getting his head shaved on the eve of the annual Poy Sang Long procession. Photo: AFP
Nine-year-old Sukit Luangla, a young ethnic Shan boy, wears white robes after getting his head shaved on the eve of the annual Poy Sang Long procession. Photo: AFP

“I’ve made this decision myself … I am glad and happy,” said nine-year-old Donlaphat Lungta, who was born in Thailand after his parents migrated there from Myanmar.

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