CULTURE FESTIVALS

Culture

The social life of Myanmar Buddhists revolves around the Soon Kyway ritual which is breakfast or lunch offered to monks. After the monks had eaten comes a feast for as large or small the number of guests as preferred, from just family, neighbours and friends to hundreds of guests.

Young boys are initiated into the Buddhist Order of monks from the time that they could recite the proper ritualistic words of noviciation. The ceremony can be lavish or simple. They remain in the Order only for as long as they wish. When they reach the age of 20 they can become monks but can leave and enter the Order as many times as they wish. However, many remain for their whole lives.

In the same feast that celebrates noviciation, the girls of the family are having their ears boring ritual, an essential right of passage on reaching puberty.

Weddings are secular affairs but as newlyweds the couple would also give a Soon Kyway to have a truly Buddhist beginning of their life together. The wedding ceremony is as elaborate or simple as preferred, but for the celebration-loving Myanmar, it is usually more lavish than otherwise. The traditional ceremony, called Mingalar Hsaung or ‘the bearing of good fortune’ is beautiful and elegant.

For formal occasions Myanmar women all over the country may wear western makeup foundation, but daily, she prefers to wear Thanakha bark paste, lightly or thickly. Thanakha is a much valued wood with a soft, thick and fragrant bark, which is ground on a circular stone slab with water to obtain a creamy, fragrant paste. It gives protection against the sun as well as clearing and tightening the skin. It is cooling when rubbed all over the face and limbs.

Festivals

The Myanmar people love celebrations, feasts and festivities and there is at least one annual event each month. From October to May, pagodas all over the country celebrate their annual pagoda festivals. They are like country fairs with hundreds of booths and shops selling anything from dried fish to costume jewellery.

Another annual event celebrated very enthusiastically is the Water Festival in April, preceding the Myanmar New Year. People splash water on each other, symbolically cleaning the past bad fortune to greet the New Year with the good.

Less boisterous celebrations are the Light Festivals of October and November when office buildings and houses are lit with coloured lights. Pilgrims offer the light of 10,000 candles or lamps at pagodas. Fire balloon competitions take place in Taungyi, capital of the Southern Shan State and Pyin Oo Lwin, a hill resort near Mandalay. Younger members of the family pay obeisance to elders with gifts.
 

In November, the whole month is devoted to offering gifts to monasteries, called Kahtein. Markets, offices, families, neighbourhood organisations etc collect goods and cash donations, and arrange them decoratively on wooden frames. The cash notes are arranged in patterns of birds and flowers. These are carried with great ceremony to the monasteries as gifts followed by a food offering Soon Kyway as well as feasts for guests.

Myanmar is an agrarian country and celebrating the harvest is a big annual festival of cooking Htama Nei, sticky rice with nuts, sesame, ginger and coconut. It takes strength and stamina to cook it in large pans so competitions are held to see which group of men could stir it the best and which group of women could slice and dice the ingredients fast enough.

Animist worship exists side by side with Buddhism, and their worshippers insist that their deities are also staunch Buddhists. They are called Nat and are sometimes confused with Buddhist celestials that are also called Nat, but their status is not the same.
 
The animist Nats were humans who died violently and out of anger and bitterness towards their enemies, they could not pass into the next life. This, according to Buddhism, is a very bad state to be in, like being a ghost. They are feared for what they can do and worshipped because their devotees believe they can grant wishes. True Buddhists do not consider them superior beings. The celestial Nats are humans who had lived a good life and have been reborn as celestials. From this celestial state they can again be reborn as humans.

The most ‘powerful’ among the 37animist deities are the Popa family, headed by the Mother Goddess of Popa who is the patron Spirit of women; her two sons, the Taungpyone Brothers, Min Gyi and Min Lay; the Lord of the Great Mountain, patron of homes and towns, and his family including the 5 year-old Patron Spirit of Children; U Min Kyaw, patron of drunkards and gamblers; the Shan brother and sister Ko Myo Shin and Palai Yin, patron of families; and the deity of the delta, the Mother Buffalo Goddess, patron of the home. Their rituals called Nat Pwe are full of wild music, dancing, and eating because having feast for the Spirits is about making them happy. The mediums are usually transvestites who dance and act out the life stories of each Spirit.
 
Every August/September there is the annual Nat festival in Taungpyon, a village near Mandalay, to pay homage at the shrine of Min Gyi and Min Lay, the two Taungpyon Brothers. All mediums in the country are required to attend and they dance at this main shrine of the brothers, and perform rituals for 12 days; it is a Spirit party to end all parties
Apart from the numerous monthly Buddhist festivals Christmas and New Year are also celebrated not only by Christians but those who love fun… which is just about the whole population of Myanmar.

Performing Arts

Loving festivals, the Myanmar also love music, dance and theatre. The Zat or traditional dance theatre runs the whole night, beginning from about 8 pm until dawn. The dance and comic presentation called Ahnyeint begins around 7 pm and ends around 2 am. The classical Zat troupe is bigger and is led by a male dancer. The Ahnyeint troupe is far smaller and has one principal woman dancer and three or four younger ones. They all appear in turn, the main dancer coming last. The music of the traditional orchestra has a heavy beat combined with light taps on small drums. When it plays for the Spirit festival, the music is even louder and faster. Solo instruments for quiet evening music are the harp and xylophone. Fast dancing is accompanied by the thumping drums of the traditional orchestra while for slower classical dances, the musicians play sweetly and softly.

The dance and plays performed by marionettes are cherished traditions of the past and are still enjoyed. They are not only for children; the marionette troupes present classical plays in the same way of traditional dance theatre of the humans.

Literature and Arts

Myanmar has a strong and vibrant art and literary communities. There are over 70 private-owned weekly journals, one in English, and over 30 monthly magazines. However there are only a few translations of Burmese literature into foreign languages.

In the art world, many Myanmar artists, both men and women, are being promoted abroad. There are realism painters as well as modern artists who not only paint but do performance art, installations etc.

The most prominent artists are Kin Maung Yin, Sonny Nyein (sculptor), Po Po, Chan Aye, Phyu Mon, Min Wae Aung, Tin Win, Nay Myo Say, Myo Khin, Kyaw Moe Thar, Aung Myint, Tin Maung Oo (Yangon) Tin Maung Oo (Mandalay), Bo Gie, Nyein Chan Su, Min Zaw, Aye Ko, Nyein Aye Myint, Nann Nann, Zaw Win Pe, Mg Aw, Hla Hpone Aung, Ba Khine, Soe Naing, Myat Kyawt, Khin Zaw Latt, Mor Mor, Khine Min Soe and Moe Nyo, to mention but a few.

Major Art Galleries

• River Gallery, Strand Hotel, Yangon
• New Treasure Art Gallery, Thanlwin Road, Yangon
• Beikthano Art Gallery, Kaba Aye Pagoda Road, Yangon
• Studio Square, Pearl Condo, Yangon
• Golden Valley Art Centre, Golden Valley, Yangon
• Lokanat Gallery of Art, Pansodan Street, Yangon
• Htan Yeik Nyo Art Gallery, Mandalay

Crafts

Myanmar is a country that values traditions. Master craftsmen hand down their knowledge from one generation to the next, and thus, exquisite skills are preserved.

Making lacquerware is almost exclusively the trade of Bagan since a thousand years, but it is also produced in different styles all over the country. One of the most fascinating of lacquerware is the making of delicate cups with a base of thin bamboo strips and horsehair. The opposite sides of the lips of the cup can be squeezed together, as it is flexible.

Mandalay is situated not far from the Sagyin marble quarries that have been producing immense blocks of alabaster for centuries so that the marble cutters enjoy an endless supply of high quality alabaster in all sizes. The last royal dynasty of Myanmar with capitals around and in Mandalay built many temples or pagodas enshrined with huge marble images, carved from a single block. Some of these famous images are 26 ft high Kyauk Taw Gyi and the 20 ft high Lay Kyun Maha Aung Image in Sagaing.

Biggest among the single-bock marble images is the 37 ft high Lawka Chantha Abhaya Lahba Muni Image of Yangon.

Buddha images are also cast of bronze and the craftsmen compete with each other to see who could successfully cast the biggest images. Without modern tools and precision heat gauges and working with fires fuelled with wood, the work of bronze casting is risky but the men of this profession are masters who had learned from their fathers and grandfathers.

With millions of images in both pagodas and homes, gold leaf is essential in covering these images, sometimes to amazing thicknesses such as at the Maha Muni Image of Mandalay. The process of beating 24 carat gold into tissues to the required .000004-inch thickness is done by men wielding hammers weighing 15.5 lbs.

First 7 ounces of gold is pulled into a wire and then flattened into a ribbon 35 inches long and 0.78 inches wide. This is cut into 200 squares, and each placed between pieces of papers made of bamboo pulp. The whole bundle is then wrapped in two pieces of cured leather from a male deer. This package is hammered for 15 minutes according to a water clock. After this first beating young women cut the flattened gold into quarters and place each again between pieces of bamboo paper. Again wrapped in deer skin, the bundle is hammered for another 2 and half hours. The cutting process is repeated with the gold that has become thinner and wider, and finally the rewrapped bundle is beaten for 5 hours. Then the delicate and thin gold tissues are cut into neat squares and placed between thicker squares of paper to be sold at pagodas.

When the country has abundant timber it is no surprise that woodcarvings are excellent. In the past, palaces were built of ornately carved wood as were monasteries. This ancient craft still live on in the skilled hands of today’s sculptors, especially in Mandalay where wooden monasteries abound.

The combination of wood and gold leaf is seen in the glass mosaic works, where mirrored pieces are cut and set in wood bordered with wood ash clay, which is lastly covered with gold leaf. This type of decoration is seen on shrines, thrones of Buddha images, trunks, ceilings and pillars of monasteries, and smaller objects d’art.

Another handmade art, once seen only in palaces and monasteries and nowadays as wall hangings, is the embroidered tapestry. A square of black velvet is sewn with coloured strings twined with gold threads, and pieces of coloured silk are used to form the figures. Finally faux gems and pearls add the luxury touch.

In the country not too long ago, every house has a loom for the daughters to weave what they wore. Now, machine-made fabrics are cheaper but the weaving culture remains strong. For formal occasions the women still prefer to wear hand-woven silks which are often ornate and thick. The most expensive silk is called Lun Taya, meaning ‘a hundred shuttles’ as the design needs at least one hundred shuttles and many different colours of silk. For leisure wear there are smooth cottons in muted tones or shimmering colours that shine like silk. Designs of the ethnic races differ but all are beautiful, and also hand-woven in their traditional styles.

Another craft still made with age-old techniques and tools is pottery. The wheel is turned by hand or foot and the wares baked with firewood in brick and mud kilns. In spite of the primitive methods, scholars have noted the high quality of glazes seen in ancient pagodas’ decorations and plaques. Old, abandoned Celadon kilns have bee discovered by the thousands in the delta, with beautiful old plates and shards of the rare green glaze.

Making ornate bowls, trays and cups of silver is also a flourishing art, for formal ceremonies need them to hold flowers or rings at a wedding etc. The huge bowls are often embossed with high relief scenes from ancient tales.

Gems

rMogok is synonymous with ‘ruby’ for the world’s biggest and best rubies come from around Mogok, a small hill town in Myanmar. Private companies obtain a three-year licence to dig a chosen spot; it is sheer luck that sometimes, the same mine that gave up nothing for one licensee produced fabulous wealth for the next…. Within a matter of weeks.

Mogok rubies are prized all over the world as they have a red fluorescent emission, not seen in any ruby anywhere in the world. One famous sale was in 1995, when Sotheby’s sold a 27.37 carat Myanmar ruby for US$ 4 million. Another for sapphires was a 62.02 carat rectangular cut Mogok gem once owned John D. Rockefeller Jr. when it was sold in 2001 at Christy’s New York for a record $3 million.

The world’s biggest gem-quality ruby found in 1990 weighs 496.5 carats after polishing. This near-flawless gem is a treasure of the State. The world’s biggest gem-quality peridot weighs 329 carats and was also found at Mogok, as was the world’s biggest boulder of sapphire at 63,000 carats. They are on display at the Gems Museum in Yangon together with many other gems of the highest quality. Some are in settings, or strung into gorgeous necklaces in the case of gold and silver natural pearls, and some displayed as loose stones, including the 845-carat natural pearl, the biggest in the world.

One gem-quality stone that is impossible to display in this museum is the 70 ft long Imperial Jade boulder, with a 35ft circumference and still lies 40 ft under the ground. It was discovered on 1 January 2001 at the famous Hpakant Jade Mines, where the world’s only reserve of Imperial Jade exists.

The Nine Gem Ring is worn by men as a symbol of glory.
The gems are always set in the same order: ruby in the middle, diamond at top centre, then, clockwise, pearl, coral, topaz, sapphire, moonstone, zircon, and finally emerald. The ruby is for glory, diamond for dignity, pearl for grace, coral for power, topaz for health, sapphire for love, moonstone for perfection, zircon for strength and emerald for peace.