Water-Splashing Festival

New Year of the Dai

The Water-Splashing Festival, Poshui jie, is the most important festival of the Dai people of southern Yunnan, who live mainly in Xishuangbanna and Dehong and who follow Theravada Buddhism. It marks the Dai New Year and is also known as the festival for bathing the Buddha. China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism describes it as a festival of the Dai, Achang, Blang, Wa and De’ang peoples and one of the first items on the national intangible cultural heritage list.

The festival usually lasts three days. On the first there are dragon boat races on the Lancang River, Dai rockets and performances. The second is the day of water-splashing. The third coincides with New Year’s Day itself: people put on traditional clothes and visit the temple. In the afternoon women first wash the statues of the Buddha to receive blessings, and then everyone splashes water on each other — a wish for good fortune and for washing away illness and disaster.

The demon king’s head

One Dai tale tells of a demon king with seven wives. The seventh learned that a strand of his own hair could cut off his head, and used it. The head fell and caught fire, bringing disaster wherever it rolled, so the wives took turns holding it and splashed each other with water to wash away the blood. In Xishuangbanna and Dehong the story is retold at the festival in memory of the seven women.

In recent years the festival in Jinghong has drawn huge crowds of visitors from across China. Alongside the splashing there are celebrations, parades of folk culture, markets and the release of sky lanterns.