HAPPY MYANMAR NEW YEAR SONGS AND DANCES – II

PareByokeApril 30, 201016min770

Rakhine thingyan 1-10.avi

YouTube – Rakhine thingyan 1-10.avi


  1. Traditional Rakhine (Arakanese) Water Festival- Rakhaine Thungran Live show 2010

YouTube – 1. Traditional Rakhine (Arakanese) Water Festival- Rakhaine Thungran Live show 2010

2. Traditional Rakhine (Arakanese) Water Festival- Rakhaine Thungran Live show 2010

YouTube – 2. Traditional Rakhine (Arakanese) Water Festival- Rakhaine Thungran Live show 2010

3. Traditional Rakhine (Arakanese) Water Festival- Rakhaine Thungran Live show 2010

YouTube – 3. Traditional Rakhine (Arakanese) Water Festival- Rakhaine Thungran Live show 2010

rakhita1_03.wmv

YouTube – rakhita1_03.wmv

rakhita2_16.wmv

YouTube – rakhita2_16.wmv

rakhita2_06.wmv

YouTube – rakhita2_06.wmv

Myanmar ethnic minorities style of celebrating water festival attracts revellers
YANGON, April 15 (Xinhua) — Water throwing pandal girls were sitting facing a water-filled boat with the backs to the open side of the pandal, while boys, either in group or individually roaming around and reveling songs and rhymes, came into the pandal to play watering with pandal girls.

This was one of the scenes of water festival in Yangon specially featuring Rakhine ethnic minority’s style of celebrating the water festival.

Rakhine state, where the ethnic nationality reside, lies in the coastal area in the country’s western part.

According to the Rakhine ethnic culture and custom, on request to the pandal supervisor ladies, the boys will choose the girl with whom they would like to play watering with.

The chosen girl then offers a bucket of water to the boy and he will start to play water, then the girl responses watering with her own bowl.

Other boys, while waiting their turn outside the pandal, will play music, songs or rhymes.

Such traditional style of water throwing of Rakhine nationality is unique among other nationalities of Myanmar, a pandal lady supervisor of the Rakhine Literature and Culture Committee, which organized the festival, told Xinhua Thursday in a festive trip interview.

The opportunity of watering each other in the pandals during the festive days is the affectionate and efficacious trust for boys and girls, she said.

It was seen that pandal, built of wood and bamboo and decorated with palm leaves and “padauk” flower, is placed with a long boat filled with water therein.

In fact, Rakhine national water festival is usually celebrated in three categories, namely, nantha grinding ceremony, nantha pouring to Buddha statues and water festival.

On the eve of the water festival, Rakhine people cleans the monasteries and its ordination building with water in every ward and village.

In that evening, Rakhine girls assemble at a pagoda platform or a hall bringing sandle woods of white and red. They grind the Nantha pieces or blocks on the face of Kyauk-pyin (round flot rock) to obtain the creamy sweet smelling Nantha.

At the same time, the young Rakhine men cheer and sing songs with the musical instruments to make the nantha grinding event into a competition.

The next morning, which is the first day of the water festival, the Rakhine people go to the pagodas and monasteries and do the cleaning and offering of the Nantha to Buddha statues, that is the gesture of welcoming to the Rakhine ethnic water festival.

Although the style of holding the Thingyan water festival is slightly different among Myanmar’s nationalities due to geographical conditions, its basically same tradition has existed for hundreds of years.

Offering wax smelly Thingyan rice is the tradition of Mon ethnic minority and the tradition of paying respects to the elderly and providing free meal by seeking fund with the performance of Thaman Kyar dances in Dawei and Myeik regions in the southern part is also among the happy occasion of Myanmar nationalities in the water festival.

Myanmar’s Thingyan water festival started from Tuesday (April 13) and is running for four days until Friday (April 16) and the new year will ushers in on Saturday (April 17) according to the traditional customs. But the public holidays have started from April 10 through to April 21 lasting a total of 12 days.