07/08/2026
Water finds its way back to where it started. Rain becomes river becomes sea, and the sea, eventually, becomes rain again.
Songkran marks the traditional Thai new year, and for three days, the water that ordinarily anoints, in temple rites, in blessings poured gently over the hands of elders, moves into the streets and becomes something communal, unruly, and shared by everyone in reach.
What began centuries ago as an act of purification, washing away the past year to greet the new one with clean hands, has become one of the most widely celebrated festivals in the region, shared with Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia under different names, carried by different histories, but rooted in the same ideologies.
This issue, across Southeast and East Asia, we sit with the idea of renewal: what it means to begin again, what we inherit from the year before us, and what we choose to carry forward, water in two hands, home held wherever we happen to land.
Read the full issue on Publuu here: bit.ly/ASEAN25-26
