Thailand’s largest Catholic community marks Christmas with three-day procession in Tha Rae, known as ‘Land of Stars’

Locals call Tha Rae village in northeastern Sakon Nakhon province the ‘Land of Stars’ for Christmas celebrations its 15,000 Catholic residents hold each year

Descendants of uprooted Vietnamese, Chinese and Lao ethnic groups, the residents of Tha Rae are a rarity in a country that’s overwhelmingly Buddhist

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A mother and her child look at a nativity scene during the Tha Rae star parade in Thailand’s Sakon Nakhon province on Thursday. Photo: Vivat Thongantang

Published: 4:00pm, 25 Dec 2021Updated: 7:12pm, 25 Dec 2021

The story of how Thailand’s largest Catholic community came to be in one of the country’s poorest provinces is an unlikely one.

Tha Rae village in the rice-growing province of Sakon Nakhon, not far from the Laos border in northeastern Thailand, is home to around 15,000 Roman Catholics – the estimated 380,000-strong religious group’s largest settlement in the country.

Locals call the area the ‘Land of Stars’ for the Christmas celebrations that are held there, which see houses compete to display the best decorations, while a three-day star procession – symbolising the sign signifying the birth of Jesus, seen by the three Wise Men in the Bible – runs up to December 25, drawing thousands to the banks of a vast lake where the community is now rooted.

Boats carrying stars for a unique Christmas celebration are seen on Nong Han lake at the Catholic community of Tha Rae in Thailand’s Sakon Nakhon Province. Photo: Vijitra Duangdee

Descendants of uprooted Vietnamese, Chinese and Lao ethnic groups who settled in and around Sakon Nakhon province from the 1800s onwards, the Tha Rae community moved to a spot on lake Nong Han 137 years ago.

“Since then, Catholicism has been our anchor, it’s what holds everyone’s spirits together,” said Jaruwan Manomaiyakit, a 62-year-old local historian who is better known as Mary.

“We’re a proud, close-knit community,” she said, speaking in a French-designed building with Chinese script on the walls, steaming bowls of Vietnamese pork noodles on the table and Christmas music piped in overhead.

The Catholics of Tha Rae were led to their village in 1884 by a French priest called Father Xavier Grego, who helped them cross the lake on a giant raft made from bamboo.