Burmese Water Festival

TEXT:

This is a tradition that I have some experience with and that my aunt told me more about. When I was little, every April we would go to our local Burmese temple to celebrate Burmese New Year. After sitting through Buddhist religious services, us children would be handed little squirt guns. We were encouraged to go outside and shoot each other with water. There were often blow-up water slides and sprinklers outside, too. It was a lot of fun, so I never questioned what the meaning of all the water was. We called it the “water festival”, and I learned from my aunt that getting sprayed with water symbolizes a cleansing of the year’s sins and a clean slate for the year to come. She told me that in Burma the celebration is much more involved. Burmese people get inside open vehicles, like Jeeps or pickup trucks and form a parade. Each car passes by small stages where dancers perform in Burmese style. My aunt remembers them dancing to a song specifically relevant to the water festival. Other people on the small stage are tasked with throwing water at the passing parade of open vehicles so that everyone on them can be cleansed. 

CONTEXT:

My aunt noted that this was a tradition that Thai people also do, creating a sort of cultural bond between the two countries. She acknowledged that a lot of Southeast Asian countries share common cultural elements. 

My aunt also said that in Burma, teenage relationships were frowned upon. Dating wasn’t really a thing for her and her siblings growing up. The expectation was that they’d eventually bring someone to their parents and ask if they could marry. It wasn’t about the child’s romantic feelings as much as it was about the parents’ feelings. This relationship was subverted when the whole family came to the U.S., but that’s a different story. 

The reason I bring this up is because, strangely enough, the water festival marked one of the only times when flirtatious behavior was not only allowed, but even encouraged. Older children would chase their crushes around with water guns, trying to get water on each other. For children in general, the festival is more about having fun than it is about cleansing the past year religiously. 

My aunt acknowledged that in her generation she only remembers going to one official wedding. Everyone else eloped to marry someone their parents didn’t approve of. My aunt said a lot of them went to Shan state, a part of Burma that is known for its natural beauty.

ANALYSIS:


The water festival once again displays the ideals of community and neighborhoods in Burmese culture. Most holidays or events revolve around large groups of people that aren’t all blood related. It also displays the inseparable integration of the Buddhist religion into culture, but asserts that religion is more important the older you are. The water festival contains Buddhist services and food offerings are always brought to the monks who lead them, establishing respect for them as well as restating their central purpose to Burmese society as religious guides. Finally, my aunt’s generation of the family is very interesting because they seem to subvert lots of the traditional Burmese expectations for marriage and family. A few of my aunts and uncles aren’t Burmese at all (including my dad) – something that might be frowned upon back in Burma. However, they all had official, parent-supported weddings. I do know that my grandparents didn’t exactly follow their parents’ wishes and eloped, so they might be part of the transition to more romantically-motivated marriage too.

Burmese Marriage Ties

TEXT:

I talked to my aunt about some Burmese folk traditions and superstitions and she told me it’s bad luck to gift knives or scissors to a married couple. If you do, you’ve ensured their separation (so I guess it’s a last resort if your crush is taken). This is related to the symbolic tying of a couple’s hands together with cloth at Burmese weddings. The bind signifies that it is their duty to love and protect one another – that they are a team now and forever. But, you may ask, what about that amazing set of knives you never use that you just KNOW your newlywed best friend needs? In that case, they can buy it off of you, for whatever price you agree upon. It could even be a quarter, as long as it’s received as a transaction and not as a gift.

CONTEXT:

My aunt and my extended family abide by this tradition. My aunt remembered someone exchanging a quarter for some knives once, but it doesn’t really come up that often. It’s avoided because it’s easy to avoid – better safe than sorry. I don’t think anyone in my extended family would be horrified if someone gifted a sharp object by accident. They might be a little nervous, thinking “well what if it’s true?”, but not horrified. My aunt’s grandparents might have been, however. 

ANALYSIS:

I definitely didn’t know about this superstition because I don’t think I’ve ever really been responsible for crafting a wedding gift. I think this superstition signifies how important marriage is in Burmese culture. What’s equally as important is family image, because in Burma, that somewhat determines who your friends are and how successful you are economically. Having a marriage end in divorce (which is currently legal in Burma) brings shame to the families of the former couple. This is because it’s the parents who give approval regarding who to marry. It isn’t exactly arranged marriage, but parents always have the final say. If you get divorced it looks bad for them because they were the ones who deemed your spouse right for you. 

Htamane Puay – Burmese Glutinous Rice Festival

TEXT:

Every year, in February, small neighborhoods will gather and participate in “Htamane Puay”, or the Glutinous Rice Festival. Traditionally, the women of the neighborhood will prepare large quantities of sticky rice ingredients (rice, nuts, coconuts, seeds, etc.) and throw them into an enormous pot. Then, it is the men of the neighborhood who must be constantly stirring the pot so that the rice doesn’t stick or burn. They use enormous paddles to do this because anything else wouldn’t be large enough. Many men gather around the same pot to continually stir at the same time. The rice is offered with prayer to Buddha at dawn and is distributed to everyone in the community throughout the day. It is all done in the spirit of prosperity to come while giving thanks to what they have.

CONTEXT:

My aunt told me about this event and participated in it when she was younger, along with the rest of my extended family. The “neighborhood” was an important unit of people to them, just one step larger than family. Much of their lives when they lived in Burma revolved around those that lived nearest to them. They took care of each other, ate together, went to school together, and played with each other in the streets. Festivals like these were moments to remind a community to appreciate each and every one of its members. Also, the pictures we googled seemed much smaller than how my aunt remembered it. She thinks the pots have grown smaller over time, possibly due to the diminishing importance of the “neighborhood”.

ANALYSIS:

There’s a lot going on here for a folklorist to analyze. Most obvious is how closely knit a community can be compared to communities in other parts of the world. They rely on each other in times of hardship and celebrate together in times of prosperity – they work as a team and have responsibility towards one another. Second, it’s clear that common religion plays an important role in the daily lives and traditions of the community. They give offerings to Buddha and he gives back. Finally, there’s the assumed gender roles in the community. Men are expected to do manual labor while women are expected to do the more general parts of cooking. Both are equally important and the food would not be ready without one or the other.

Greek Red Egg Cracking on Easter

TEXT:

I have a Greek friend whose family still practices lots of older Greek folk traditions. One of these is an Easter tradition involving eggs that are dyed red. Everyone takes one and they begin smashing them against each other, two at a time. Typically, when two eggs meet, only one of them cracks. The person whose egg is left untarnished is said to have good luck for the rest of the year! It’s almost like a competition or a game, and my friend told me there’s some strategy to it, since you can use either side of the egg to hit someone else’s.

CONTEXT:

My friend doesn’t really believe in the superstitious aspects of Greek traditions, even if his mother and extended family do. He does, however, enjoy participating because some Greek traditions are very fun, like this one. My friend didn’t really know the significance of the eggs cracking or why they were painted red. We had to do some research to find out that the cracking of an egg symbolizes Jesus’ opening of the tomb he was buried in, and the red dye is to symbolize Jesus’ blood shed on the cross. He told me that his grandma definitely knew about this but had not discussed it to him as a child, probably because of its grotesque nature. For my friend’s Greek family, the tradition has a significance greater than its religious one because it brings the family together for the holiday.

ANALYSIS:

I did some more research on my own and found out that some people attribute the egg tradition to Mary Magdalene, whose cooked eggs miraculously turned vibrant red when she witnessed Jesus rising from the grave. Easter egg painting has remained a tradition across Europe and into the Americas. In America, where religious tradition has become remarkably secular, Easter egg painting has become a simple activity to entertain kids on the holiday. In my friend’s family, however, I believe the intention was to teach children about important religious stories and celebrations. Painting eggs red and cracking them is an easy way to remember what happened when Jesus rose from the dead. My friend may have been too young for the lesson to be taught, but he did know his grandma to be a teacher of religious stories to her chidlren and grandchildren.

Greek Fortune-Telling Coffee

TEXT:

I have a Greek friend whose family still practices lots of older Greek folk traditions. One of these is Greek coffee cup fortune telling, practiced specifically by his grandma. She has her subject drink a cup of Greek coffee, which leaves lots of residue in the cup after it’s drunk. Then, she flips the mug on its side, spins it three times clockwise, and then lets it dry on the side of a plate for a little. She would pick out certain shapes or patterns from the way the coffee residue stained the cup and use them to draw conclusions about her subject’s life. They’re usually scarily accurate, and predict specific things like falling in love, losing a loved one, or making successful decisions at work.

CONTEXT:

My friend witnesses this often at family gatherings. It doesn’t take long to perform and his grandma is an expert. He, however, does not really believe in the fortune telling, most likely because it doesn’t always pan out. He remembers one time where she told an uncle that she saw a rat for him, which meant that someone near him would die soon. The uncle was shocked, but my friend acknowledges that she could’ve been messing with him since he’s one of the only non-Greeks in the family (married in). Nothing bad ever happened to the uncle. My friend’s mother, on the other hand, does believe in the fortune telling along with some other traditional Greek superstitions. His grandma has taught his mother a few things about the process in hopes that one day she might be able to do it herself.

MY ANALYSIS:

The tradition is common to some others from around the world, like Chinese tea leaf readings. These types  I read online that that’s where it might have originated from. The coffee cup readings stem from a belief that there’s something in your being that becomes translated into the way you drink your cup of coffee that can reveal your fortune. I think the original purpose of the tradition was to provide hope in times of crisis and to have a way to be prepared for the possibly unpredictable future. Now, however, the tradition seems outdated and not that many Greek people believe in it. This could be a trait of the large Greek diaspora that lives outside of the homeland. It could also be a symptom of the times – science has progressed so far and we have so much faith in it that it seems impossible that something could tell our fortunes through just coffee grounds. The tradition functions as mere entertainment for the most part, now, and as a way to bond Greek families.