Myanmar

Myanmar: The Thingyan Festival

 Five-hundred years ago. Buddhist monks began the tradition of washing away sins, cleaning and purifying their minds for the year to come. Today in Myanmar, widespread throughout the whole country, every person, whether they’re two or eighty-two, takes part in drenching themselves and everyone else with water, by any means necessary. Hoses, buckets, water guns and sprayers attached to stages built in Rangoon, the capital, all for this water extravaganza in the second week of April, or the beginning of Myanmar’s new year, Thingyan. After arriving in Myanmar in the first week of April, I was enraptured by the excitement pouring into Rangoon, where I was staying for the first two weeks of my visit. All along the streets, colossal bleachers were being built, with nozzles arched, primed to jet water. I rented a car to take me to a pocket-sized apartment building right in the center of the city. I wanted to get the full effect of the illustrious water festival. In the wake of settling in, I toured the city and discovered all the hot-spots for the festival. I spoke with locals who understood English (and many excelled), and they explained to me what Thingyan is all about. One woman who was the owner of a traditional food market at the corner of the intersection, where it was THE place to be, translated Thingyan, meaning changing over or rotating. A new cycle. The new year. It came from a legend of a god who took the head of a dead hero, so it could find it’s true resting place. However, there wasn’t such a place found, so a council of maidens (in a place somewhere other than earth) held the head for one year each. And during the rotation of who the head went to, the period where the spirit of the revered hero would “visit the realms of the earth” became Thingyan, a cleansing time--now the eccentric water festival. Another elderly woman passing through a small shop where I was browsing, told me with an electrified and catching glint in her eye, that everybody, no matter who they thought they were, or whether they were wearing a bathing or a thousand-dollar suit, would be soaking wet. She smiled and said to keep an eye out for her. She was known to the city for her traditions on Thingyan. I felt the anticipation bubble up, adrenalized for a real water-fight. But also in that warning, I ambivalently braced myself for the vivacious people of Myanmar to surpass my marvelling and lofty expectations. That next Wednesday came around abruptly. Over the couple days before the country let lose, I established that it would be over the course of three days. Not just one. Not even two. But three. Three days of constant water sizzling over the firey hearts of the people. Thingyan always went from Wednesday to Friday. On that first day, I woke up to the joyful racket emanating from the city. It was a cacophony of machines, hoses, children’s shrill voices infused with blatant euphoria. And I saw why, once I had given it a little thought. It was the few days when they can spray and shoot and launch water at people and not get in trouble for it. I prepped myself for the extremes. I downed a bathing suit under a t-shirt and shorts and brought along a backpack with two towels. I wore waterproof keens I had brought, with a good sturdy grip for whatever would be flooding the ground. There were shouts, music blaring from every direction, vespas zooming around, and yes, the beginning bursts and streams of H2O. A clanking noise commanded as I realized every citizen brought out every bucket they had, ready to dump them on an unsuspecting dry person. I left my apartment and headed out to the street, where the water started flowing. And flowing. There was no danger of being run over by a car then, so I joined the mass of people in the middle of the street. The water was at our ankles, then our knees. I couldn’t help but wonder Are they going to flood the entire country? And also, way, way in the back of my mind, Isn’t there a water shortage? Then as my eyes caught sight of that seventy-year old grandma I’d met doing a dance off a balcony and throwing water down onto teenage boys bouncing in the back of jeep, any concern vanished. My eyes couldn’t even take it all in. A baby boy and girl, sitting in a large, kiddie-pool sized puddle, took turns splashing each other even as their parents were discoing next to them. Everyone was into it. The bleachers were crowded with people directing the hoses into the crowds. I stood in the middle of it all, purely amazed by how far past my expectations Thingyan exceeded. Miles past it. Or really, kilometers past it. There was nothing, absolutely nothing like it to ever exist. The unity of a country, all for just three days. The same three days they’ve been doing it for the past five-hundred years. -Dani B media type="file" key="Myanmar Thingyan.m4a" width="300" height="50"















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