Feature: Myanmar ushers in new year after water festival

YANGON, April 17 (Xinhua) -- A large number of Yangon residents were seen crowded with some major pagodas since Sunday morning, especially the sacred Shwedagon Pagoda, paying obeisance to the Buddha, bathing the Buddha statues and sprinkling scented water on the Buddha images.

This was part of Myanmar people's centuries-old heritage practiced on the traditional new year day after the five-day water festival which ran from Tuesday to Saturday.

As new year is ushered in, Myanmar people, who are mostly Buddhists, are busy with their annual rituals such as visiting monasteries, stupas, temples to take precepts, give making donation and do meditation.

On this day, the youths normally pay their respects to their parents, grandparents, teachers and the elderly, some of them giving baths, shampooing or manicuring old persons at homes for the aged as a gesture of preserving Myanmar's age-old customs and traditions. Some offer natural fragrant bark scents to the elderly.

Also during the New Year, it is customary for people to free caged birds to the wilderness and fishes in aquariums to the lakes as a gesture of love for nature.

During the four-day traditional Thingyan water festival, people threw water on one another. By nature, water is cold and clean and, therefore, Thingyan water makes people cool, fresh and pleasant, and happy. It symbolizes the cleansing of the dirt of the old year and having a fresh and auspicious start for the New Year.

Water is a symbol of not only cleanliness but also of auspiciousness. The people in Myanmar believe that through the celebration of the water festival, vices and evil deeds accumulated during the previous year can be washed out and replaced by happiness and hope for a better life in the incoming year.

In old days, Myanmar people were content in sprinkling water using leaves on one another, the traditional way of observing the water festival.

Through the years, however, more people are now splashing water with one another using water guns or plastic hoses usually accompanied by loud guffaws, giving them more fun and enjoyment.

This year's Myanmar water festival ended on Thursday evening with a ceremony at the Yangon City' Pandal featuring live songs and dances.

Throughout the years, people look forward to the Myanmar water festival as an occasion to thank the deities for the good life, peace and prosperity for the community.

Among Myanmar's 12 seasonal festivals held every year, the Thingyan water festival is considered the grandest and the most anticipated event by the people of Myanmar.