Picture Discussion

This picture has a setting of a roadside, where two men can be seen splashing water from a bucket and a container onto a passerby dressed in a swimming suit riding on a motorcycle. From this picture, I can deduce that this may be the famous water festival in other countries as the person on the motorcycle seemed to be prepared. This can be proven by what she is wearing, which is the female type of swimming suit.

During this water festival, which is usually celebrated in some Southeast Asia countries, nobody is supposed to get angry regardless of how aggressive the throwing of water could get. Hence, I can see that the motorcyclist is trying her best to ignore the fact that she has been splashed wet. Moreover, I think that she would not get angry anyway, because she had physically and mentally prepared herself.

On the truck, one more person could be seen there. I guess he or she could be helping out with the splashing of water. Therefore I think that the truck is used to contain the buckets of water for the two men to throw at onto the passing motorcyclists.

However, from another perspective, I feel that this water-throwing activity should be organised in another way. As seen in this picture, water was thrown at passing motorcyclists, where it could be a threat to their lives, as this could distract them from riding their motorcycles. The water also can cause their vehicles to skid due to the fact that the floor was wet because of the water. Thus the locals should do the water-splashing part in market places or in places where there are more people and slower traffic, instead of doing it in such isolated places. In addition, there will be more crowd in market places, hence increasing the exciting atmosphere of this water festival.

This scene is hilarious in the sense that it is quite common, however weird to see people dressing up like this just for this festival. Also, this scene could never be seen in Singapore as the locals here did not celebrated this festival before. This picture could be taken to show how this festival can be celebrated in different ways. I hope that Singapore would start to celebrate this festival so that families could gather during this day and have fun splashing water about. Most importantly, people are not supposed to get angry with the throwing of water and hence, children can get a chance to throw water at adults, but only on this particular day.


Seow Angeline (21)