Im building a new house for myself and family - well I cant say I'm personally building it, but I designed it and my brother is running the construction team and we both visit almost daily to see how the progress is going.
I have 2 brothers and my elder brother is a devout buddhist. He insisted on this ceremony that revolves around the pouring of the first footing of the building. I'm not a practicing Buddhist and not very religious so I had no idea how to organise this or what was the right protocols so I left everything to my bro and just followed his directions. Apparently it's quite a common ceremony and although I have never been to one before I was quite excited to be part of one for my house.
So the first part of this ceremony was placing all different items under the rebar where the concrete would be poured, placing some special bricks and hammering sacred pegs in a special order. There was prayers and and incantations recited and scattering of paper and all kinds of other things. My bro explained that we were asking permission and forgiveness from the guardian spirit of the land. I felt kind of embarrassed that I didn't know any of this stuff - after all I'm Thai.
After that part was completed we positioned the rebar of the first column that would be poured later that day. It was wrapped in a special cloth and had flowers and fruit attached - once again this was our offering to the guardian spirit of the land.
After that was completed we moved to where my bro had set up a ceremonial table full of offerings. There was lots of fresh fruit, flowers and unsurprisingly a bottle of Thai whiskey (we call Lao Khao). Guardian spirits like a drink I guess...:) There was lots more preying and although I didn't really know exactly what I was supposed to be saying I found the whole thing quite moving and was sure the guardian spirit would be OK with us building on the land as long as we treated it with the respect it deserved.
The final part of the ceremony was scattering paper (confetti) over the site while reciting prayers.
Im sorry I cant give you more details of how or why this ceremony takes place. Many people think that all Thai people know this stuff but it's simply not true. My family always turn to our older brother anytime things like this need attending to. I'm glad that we followed the rules for this and it also ensured our neighbours respect us for observing tradition. The construction is well underway now and I hope it will be finished within the next three months.
Here's me on-site sometime after the ceremony when most of the formwork was in place ready for the concrete to be poured.
