MY FIRST THYNGIAN

Kabar Aye Pagoda Road. It's only 9AM, but the party has started!

Watching the mad-wet-fun of thousands of people crowding the streets of Yangon, packed on the water spraying stages or crammed at the back of a pickup truck, dancing and laughing, drenched, soaked, numbed by the loud deep bass techno-trance music... it is hard to imagine that Thingyan originates from the Buddhist version of the Hindu myth where Arsi, the King of Brahmas became Ganesha, after getting decapitated and receiving an elephant's head in place of his human one, which is carried by a new princess Devi each year (hence the annual celebration). The spraying stages are big corporate shows, sponsored by upcoming brands of coffee, energy drinks, mobile networks, airline companies, cars, even the yellow pages get their stand. No Ganesha in the picture for the Water Festival in the modern urbanised Yangon! Being a Buddhist festival, the dates of Thyngian were originally calculated according to the traditional Burmese lunisolar calendar. It is now fixed to the Gregorian calendar and coincides more or less with Easter, and is comparable to other new year festivities in Lao, Cambodia or Songkran Thailand- where i plan to get wet at the same time next year (hoping for a different kind of mad-wet-fun).