Offerings: Food Traditions of Older Thai Women at Songkran

Abstract

“It is deep within our hearts that we have to do this.” Such words reflect the potency of subjective and social meaning of food occupations for older Thai women at Songkran, the traditional Thai New Year. This paper presents the Thai findings from a multi‐site research project exploring older women's experiences of food occupations at Songkran in Chiang Mai, Thailand; and Christmas in Auckland, New Zealand, and Kentucky, USA. Narrative data for this study were collected through focus group interviews with 33 Thai women aged 60 years or over as the women talked about planning, preparing, and offering food at Songkran. The women's stories reveal the centrality of carrying on ritualistic food traditions in Chiang Mai society. They must know and follow the ancient ways and recipes taught by mothers and grandmothers as they prepare themselves and the foods for going to the temple where they offer food to the monks and their deceased ancestors. Happiness comes from earning merit, doing the jobs themselves and knowing they contribute to a good and generous Thai society. Their ways are the traditional ways. Doing and passing on food occupations to their daughters and granddaughters will “serve the good traditions forever.” The findings from this study contribute to the occupational science literature through documenting food occupations and their meanings for older women within one cultural group. The multi‐site nature of the project contributes to understandings of occupation that transcend cultural boundaries.