These days, people are very creative in celebrating the New Year. They launch their money into the sky and watch it burn, exploding into pretty patterns which they can admire for all of 10 seconds. And they get to strain their ear drums into the bargain.
Since I don’t have money to burn, I just have to find other ways to be equally creative. This year, I spent the change-over from 2018 to 2019 sleeping with ear plugs in. I’d already wished friends Happy New Year and warned them that I would have switched off my phone by the time they were burning their money in the sky or overworking their livers with alcohol. And my eyes would be shut and my ears deaf to the world as they have the habit of being while I’m in bed. Then I spent the actual New Year’s Day in the air sleeping when I wasn’t watching animation cartoons during the 15-hour flight to Yangon. What a creative way to welcome 2019!
Burmese people are even more creative in celebrating their New Year. They celebrate by throwing water at each other until everyone is soaking wet. Every New Year when I was in Burma, I watched from the safety of my parents’ balcony, people chucking water at each other and the victims chuckling and dancing. I mean, that’s not normal, is it? If somebody suddenly pours a bucket of water on you from the tip of your head, you wouldn’t be very happy about it, right? But not the Burmese. They graciously and eagerly accept the bucket of water drained all over them.
They call the event Thingyan (the Water Festival). It is to welcome the New Year in and lasts for five to six days with three or four days of heavy water throwing. The first day is spent welcoming the Thingyan spirit from heaven riding an animal chosen for that particular year (I must confess, I haven’t once seen him) and of course preparing for the next seriously dripping wet three or four days. Some enthusiasts start to play with water that very day. Then three days of everyone getting drenched together follow. On the last day which is the actual New Year’s Day, sitting deferentially in front of monks and Buddha statues, everyone pretends they have behaved themselves in the last few days.
The dates of the Thingyan are chosen according to the Burmese calendar. They normally fall around mid-April which is the hottest time of the year, so people tend to welcome the sensation of being soaked through.
Really good Buddhists choose to spend all those days on a Sabbath when they don’t eat anything after 12 noon. And they slip in some snacks when nobody is looking … well at least I would. Or they will choose to spend the days in monasteries doing Buddhist practice such as meditating, chanting prayers, listening to monks’ sermons etc. Luckily, my parents didn’t force me to go to the monastery and sleep to the monks’ sermons or sneakily gulp a meal. They probably couldn’t stand the embarrassment.
I had the chance to join in the Water Festival only a couple of times in my life. Well into my 20s, I was rarely allowed to go anywhere without one of my parents (or any trusted “grown-ups”) chaperoning me, so participating in Thingyan was forbidden. And my parents are not the type to enjoy that sort of thing. So, I had been complaining that I was missing out on the fun as watching other people making a fool of themselves kind of made me want to join them.
One year, my youngest uncle took pity on me (or got tired of my whining) and let me join him and his friends. They hired a driver and a car specially adapted for the Water Festival. In cities, people go out in open top vehicles to get wet. They modify these vehicles, taking out all the seats and putting in some handles. People stand holding on to them, exposed to the streams of water thrown from all directions while the car moves slowly along. It’s a bit like parading cows on open top trucks except the cows wouldn’t be singing tunelessly and dancing like zombies while splashing themselves with water. The driver’s windows would be safely wound up so the seats and the driver wouldn’t get wet.
Seeing that my uncle and his all-men party would be there to protect me, my parents let me go. I was about 18 at the time, but still looked like a 10-year-old or probably even younger since my uncle and his friends that I had known since I was six treated me like I was still six. They hadn’t noticed that I had grown a bit bigger over the years. But then to be fair, neither had I.
My uncle told me to sit near his knees while he stood. The car started moving slowly as I felt water thrown over us from each side as we cruised the city. We kept stopping in front of bamboo stages with beautifully decorated festive names. Small stages have music playing and equally drenched people standing with water hoses and buckets targeting people on the street below on vehicles, bicycles, motorbikes and even on foot. We took in the shower with joy under the hot April Sun. Bigger stages have dancers and singers performing as well. There will be a chorus of young women in uniformly designed traditional clothes dancing and singing. The women will have flowers in their hair and decorate their clothes with necklaces of seasonal flowers. Some of these stages have free food for the public. Sticky rice dumplings cooked in boiling water in a huge wok is the most popular offering. These are usually made by the local young people and some of the dumplings have bird’s eye chilli hidden in them as a joke. Being a smart cookie that I am, I always bite these cautiously until the filling is visible. Then I inspect it with a Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass before popping the whole thing into my mouth. These dumplings are served with grated coconut or sometimes with syrupy coconut milk. My uncle and his gang drooled at the dancing women while I drooled at the dumplings.
We also came across one of the Thingyan parades. They usually consist of decorated floats with festive names, carrying a traditional Burmese orchestra as well as dozens of young men singing and young women dancing in harmony. They roam the streets performing songs specially written for the festival including Than Chat which is similar to rapping but one man leads and the rest bellow at the top of their voices making fun of current issues in the country such as fashion, inflation, crime, corruption and inept dictators (except nobody dared mock the generals at the time.)
At big stages, we saw famous singers, actors and comedians performing. Cars would queue up – as far as queuing goes for the Burmese – to get in front of them to watch. I enjoyed the show, even though some pranksters would occasionally spot me sitting among the group of men and deliberately come and pour ice cold water over my head. How nice!
As we tootled along the city, some passers-by on foot or in drive-by cars also shot needles of water at us with water pistols. My companions would laugh every time that happened. They stopped, joined in with the singing and danced at every stage, shaking the vehicle violently. Still, my uncle made me stay put at his knee so I spent a lot of the journey staring at his and his friends’ knees comparing whose knees were hairier as they danced, hopped and ogled pretty women. At one point, I stood up and mimicked them: danced, hopped and ogled women. When my uncle became aware of me standing at his shoulder doing the same thing he did, he ordered me to sit down again. Why did he bring me if I wasn’t allowed to behave like him?
Thingyan was originally supposed to be gentle. People were meant to delicately splash each other with flower scented water to signify the washing off of sin from the previous year. But these days, the Burmese have taken that idea further with fire hoses, water pistols and buckets. Why be subtle when you can be a brick through a window?
When the day was drawing to a close, my uncle took me back home. I got the distinct feeling that my presence had cramped their style a bit. I heard my mum saying to my uncle, “Don’t get too drunk and get into a fight.” After off-loading their burden, they were off to drink and party all night and do whatever else I was shielded from knowing.
That was the last day of the water throwing period for that year. The next day was the actual New Year’s Day. My uncle and the gang who were drinking the night before would be in the monastery, being big innocent lambs listening to the monks’ preaching and even doing Buddhist practice like meditating and telling beads. They would be joined by millions of other Burmese in other monasteries doing the same thing. After going through the motions of Buddhist practice that morning and gorging on the festive food of sticky rice dumplings with coconut milk and fish noodle soup that my mum made, I just slept at home.
It was fun getting wet all day. But I have since concluded that sleeping is even more fun. No need to burn money, no need to damage ears, no need to get wet. What could be better than that?