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MYANMAR
(Burma) I first visited Myanmar in 10's. I returned in 2013. |
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Throughout the high country of Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, ethnic minorities number as many as a million people while others are feared to have dwindled to as few as 100. The future of hill tribes is an uncertain one: most are in the process of rapid cultural and economic change that will eventually alter them beyond recognition. In general, virtually all hill tribes are now changing greatly through the impact of Christian missionaries, as well as the effects of modernization, secularization, and sometimes industralization. These factors, among others, are tending toward a weakening of tribal languages and tribal identity.
This caption is from Vietnam -- a Lonely Planet travel guide. |
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Inle Lake is home to 17 villages on stilts, which are mostly inhabited by the Intha people. The Intha are Buddhist; here are around 100 Buddhist kyaung around the lake and perhaps 1000 stupas. The hard-working Intha are famous for propelling their flat-bottomed boats by standing at the stern on one leg and wrapping the other leg around the oar.*
It is in architecture that one sees the strongest evidence of Myanmar artistic skill and accomplishment.*
There are as many as 500,000 monks in Myanmar. Every Myanmar male is expected to take up temporary monastic residence twice in his life: once as a novice monk between ages 10 and 20 and again as a fully ordained monk sometime after the age of 20.*
Myanmar marionette theatre presents colourful puppets up to a metre high in a spectacle that many aesthetes consider the most expressive of all the Myanmar arts.*
The marionette master's standard repertoire requires a troupe of 28 puppets.*
Myanmar's truly indigenous dance forms are those that pay homage to the nat. In special nat pwe, one or more nat is invited to possess the body and mind of the medium; sometimes members of the audience are possessed instead, an event greatly feared by the locals.*
A zat pwe involves a re-creation of an ancient legend or Buddhist Jataka whiule the yamazat picks a tale from the Indian epic Ramayana.*
Much of classical Myanmar music, played loud like the nat like it, features strongly in any pwe, and its repetitive, even harsh, harmonies can be hard on Western ears at first. This harshness likely comes from the fact that Myanmar scales are not 'tempered' as Western scales have been since Bach.*
Myanmar has a population of 60 million people, three-quarters of them live in rural areas.*
Hpo Win Daung is a long mountain shaped like a reclining Buddha. It features 492 cave temples built inside the limestone cliffs. The caves, built between the 14th and 18th centuries, sprawl up and down the west side of the mountain, and are packed with 2588 Buddhas and some boldly coloured murals.*
Traditional weaving in Myanmar is an honoured handicraft handed down from generation to generation.*
Religion is a central part of Myanmar's culture. Theravada Buddhism is the most commonly practiced religion, but the diverse country includes a significant percentage of people practicing other religions such as Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and even Judaism. In smaller more traditional villages, the Buddhist monastery is the centre of cultural life.
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he best way to reach Bagan is by a day-trip on a Mandalay-Bagan ferry down the Ayeyarwady.*
The paya litterally means 'holy one' and can refer to people, deities and places associated with religion. Often it's a generic term covering a stupa, temple or shrine.*
The people of Myanmar have great respect for an expert puppeteer.*
The puppets include the king of gods, a Myanmar king, queen, prince and princess; a regent; two court pages; an old man and an old woman; a Brahmin astrologer; two orgres; an alchemist; a horse; a monkey; a mythical sea serpent; and an elephant.*
As with music, most of Myanmar's classical dance styles arrived from Thailand. Today the dances most obviously taken from Thailand are known as yodaya zat, as taught to the Burmese by Thai theatrical artists taken captive in the 18th century.*
Classic dance-drama is occasionally performed at the National Theatre in Yangon, were around a dozen amateur theatre groups regularly practise and perform yamazat.*
Traditional Myanmar music is primarily two dimensional in the sense that rhythm and melody provide much of the musical structure, while repetition is a key element in developing this structure. Subtle shifts in rhythm and tonality provide the modulation usually supplied by the harmonic dimension in Western music.*
While lacking material wealth, villagers reach for happiness by drawing on spiritual resources, maintaining a faith in Buddhist teachings.*
With more than 12 festivals in a year, the community life of the rural Buddhist revolves around discussing the last event, preparing for the next one, and looking forward to bigger dates in the months further ahead.*
Myanmar, commonly known as Burma, is a country located on the Southeast coast of Asia. Like other Asian countries, the nation is rich with culture and history. Although Myanmar was ruled under the British empire until 1948, it is still a very traditional country, keeping the same values and practices alive today. The culture, known as Bamar culture, is influenced by the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh, China, Laos, India and Thailand.
The Vanishing Padaung
While indigenous peoples own, occupy, or use a quarter of the world's surface area, they safeguard 80% of the world's remaining biodiversity.
Myanmar's Padaung have always had a precarious existence, but the next millennium will bring new challenges. Some will fight to maintain their traditional way of life; others will adapt and modernize or be absorbed by more dominant groups; others will probably die out, leaving only the faintest trace of what was once a fine culture. |
The Mandalay produce market is an up-to-your-neck , open-air produce market where ox carts, trishaws and trucks bring and take goods till up the little lanes.*
Dotting the 42-sq-km plain east of the curving Ayeyarwady, Bagan's 3000-some temples not only make up the most wondrous sight in Myanmar. The tallest and most majestic temples are awsesome, mingling Hindu styles from India with local-brewed Buddhist images in, atop and around the structures.*
Boy monks are really kids-at-heart.
Some marionettes may be manipulated by a dozen or more strings; certain nat may sport up to 60 strings, including one for each eyebrow.*
Chinlon or 'cane ball' refers to games in which a woven rattan ball about 12cm in diameter is kicked around. Informally any number of players can form a circle and keep the chinlon airborne by kicking it soccer-style from player to player.*
The most Myanmar of dances feature solo performances by female dancers who wear strikingly colourful dresses with long white trains, which they kick into the air with their heels - quite a feat, given the restrictive length of the train.*
Most popular of all is the a-nyeint pwe, a traditional pwe somewhat akin to early American vaudeville.
Women in the villages of Inle Lake weave Shan-style shoulded bags and silk Zinme longyi on wooden hand looms. Using raw silk from China, the weavers produce more silk garments than anywhere in the country apart from Amarapura.*
Farmers live in villages, their fields spreading out from these central cores.*
As a coming of age practice, boys are sent to the monastery for a short time, and after the age of twenty, they are encouraged to become monks. For young girls, there is an ear piercing ceremony, and like young boys, are invited to become nuns under the Buddhist faith. Although the country is ethnically and religiously diverse, it is nearly impossible for non-Buddhists to join the army or get government jobs.
The Asian country of Myanmar is known around the world for their traditional ways of life. Traditions are carried out in their culture from dress, to food, to living quarters, and mainly, their craft.
As many traditionally Buddhist cultures have, Myanmar's landscape is scattered with temples and monasteries.
The traditional dance forms of Myanmar can range from humorous to religious. Similarly to other Asian cultures and their dance, each dance is rooted in some sort of tradition with costuming and movements that hint at a deeper meaning.
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*These captions are from Myanmar (Burma) -- Lonely Planet's travel guide.