Myanmar celebrates festival

YANGON – MYANMAR’S partygoers enjoyed a splash of freedom on Tuesday as the ruling junta allowed them to enjoy street water fights for an annual festival welcoming in the Buddhist New Year.

Revellers in the main city Yangon dyed their hair an array of dazzling colours and cocked their water pistols to celebrate the annual Thingyan water festival – the only opportunity the government allows them to assemble freely.

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The The, a 22-year-old student, told AFP the festival – also celebrated this week across Thailand, Cambodia and Laos – was a good excuse to set aside recent economic troubles.

‘Forget about what happened lately. It’s time for us to have fun,’ she said, as other city dwellers doused each other in water around her. ‘I will spend (the festival) with my friends playing with water,’ she said.

More than 60 pavilions had been set up by businessmen around Yangon, with queues of revellers lined up to collect their pitchers of water.

Prominent families, major businesses and nightclubs build wooden platforms called pandals along the pavements each year, where bands play music and water pours down on passers-by.

But businessmen, who were permitted to set up 700 pandals in 2008, said a recent downturn in their fortunes had dampened this year’s efforts.

‘Some businesses stopped spending money on this festival although they spent so much in previous years. It’s because of the global economic crisis,’ one businessman said.

In Myanmar, gatherings of more than five people are illegal, but families and groups of friends made the most of the annual exception to hire cars and drive around the country’s main city, splashing water out the windows.

Although Myanmar is one of the world’s poorest countries, many people will spend their savings during Thingyan to hire a car, buy new clothes, or pay for access to the most popular pandals.

But despite loosening the law of assembly, junta authorities warned citizens to dress conservatively, in line with Myanmar tradition and culture, as some girls donned short skirts and beachwear in the hot weather. — AFP

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