သူငယ္ခ်င္း တို႔ေရ…။

အားလံုးပဲ မဂၤလာ ႏွစ္သစ္ပါ။ ဒီႏွစ္ဟာ ျမန္မာ ေကာဇာ သကၠရာဇ္ ၁၃၇၄ ခုႏွစ္ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဒီေန႔ ျမန္မာ ႏွစ္ဆန္း တစ္ရက္ ေန႔မွာ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို႔ ခ်စ္တဲ႔ အမိ ျမန္မာျပည္ ႏွင္႔ အတူ ျပည္သူ ၊ ျပည္သား ၊ ေသြးခ်င္း ညီေနာင္မ်ား အားလံုး ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္း စည္ပင္ၿပီး သာယာ ဝေျပာ တဲ႔ ႏွစ္သစ္ တစ္ႏွစ္ ျဖစ္ပါေစေၾကာင္း ဆုမြန္ေကာင္းမ်ား ေတာင္းလိုက္ပါ တယ္။

ဧၿပီလ (၁၆) ရက္ ၊ မဟာ သႀကၤန္ အတက္ေန႔ ဟာ ဒီႏွစ္ သႀကၤန္ရဲ႕ ပိတ္ပြဲေန႔လဲ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ယမန္ ႏွစ္ေတြနဲ႔ မတူပဲ ၊ ဒီႏွစ္မွာေတာ႔ ရေတာင္႔ရခဲ (၅) ရက္တိုင္တိုင္ ၿခိမ္႔ၿခိမ္႔သဲ ေရကစားခြင္႔ ရပါတယ္။ (၅) ရက္ ဆိုေပေသာ္ျငားလဲ လူငယ္ထု ကို ၾကၫ္႔ရသည္မွာ စိတ္ေက်နပ္မႈ အျပၫ္႔အဝ မရဘူး လို႔ ထင္မွတ္ ရပါတယ္။ ထိုသို႔ ဆိုရျခင္းမွာ အတက္ေန႔ ည ၈း၃၀ ထိ တိုင္ေအာင္ ေရကစား မ႑ပ္ အေတာ္မ်ားမ်ားမွာ မပိတ္ႏိုင္ပဲ ရိွေနျခင္းေၾကာင္႔ ပါပဲ။ ည ေမွာင္ရီထဲမွာ ေရပိုက္ေလးေတြ ကိုယ္စီ ကိုင္လို႔ အခ်ိန္ကုန္ သြားမွာ စိုးေနတဲ႔ သူတို႔ေတြရဲ႕ ရင္ထဲက ႏွေမ်ာစိတ္ကို ကိုယ္ခ်င္းစာ မိပါတယ္။ မ႑ပ္ ေပၚက လူေတြပဲ လား ဆိုေတာ႔ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ ေရပက္ခံ ကားေတြကလဲ အဲဒီ အခ်ိန္အထိ လမ္းေပၚမွာ ေရပက္ခံ ေနတာ အံ႔ၾသ ဖြယ္ရာ ပါပဲ။ ရန္ကုန္ ၿမိဳ႕တြင္း (၆) ၿမိဳ႕နယ္မွာေတာ႔ ၿမိဳ႕ေတာ္ စည္ပင္သာယာေရး ေကာ္မတီ က ခ်မွတ္ထားတဲ႔ ေရကစားခြင္႔ ပါမစ္ အတိုင္း ၆း၃၀ ဆိုတာနဲ႔ မ႑ပ္ေတြ အားလံုး နိဂံုးခ်ဳပ္ဖို႔ ျပင္ဆင္ ၾကပါၿပီ။ သို႔ေပသိ ၿမိဳ႕တြင္း (၆) ၿမိဳ႕နယ္ အျပင္ဖက္ . . . အလံု ၊ ၾကၫ္႔ျမင္တိုင္ ၊ မရမ္းကုန္း ၊ အင္းစိန္ ၊ မဂၤလာဒံု ေတာက္ေလွ်ာက္ မွာေတာ႔ ည ၈း၀၀ ေက်ာ္ထိ တိုင္ေအာင္ မ႑ပ္ေတြ သက္ဝင္ လႈပ္ရွား ေနဆဲ ပါပဲ။

သႀကၤန္ ေနာက္ဆံုးေန႔မွာ ကၽြန္ေတာ္ မနက္ တစ္ပိုင္းပဲ ဓါတ္ပံု ထြက္႐ိုက္ ျဖစ္လိုက္တယ္ ဗ်။ ထိုင္းႏိုင္ငံ ၊ ဘန္ေကာက္ၿမိဳ႕ မွ ျပန္လည္ ေရာက္ရိွလာမယ္႔ ကၽြန္ေတာ္႔ အေဖ နဲ႔ ဦးေလး တို႔ကို ေလဆိပ္ ႀကိဳရမွာမို႔ ညေနပိုင္းေတာ႔ ထြက္မ႐ိုက္ ျဖစ္ေတာ႔ဘူး။ အဲဒါေၾကာင္႔ ေန႔တစ္ဝက္စာ ႐ိုက္ထားတဲ႔ ရိွစု မဲ႔စု ပံုေလးေတြ နဲ႔ပဲ ဒီႏွစ္ သႀကၤန္ကို ႏႈတ္ဆက္ လိုက္ပါတယ္ ဗ်ာ။ ေနာင္ႏွစ္ေတြမွာ အခြင္႔အေရး ေပးခဲ႔ရင္ ဒီလိုပဲ ကိုယ္စြမ္း ၊ ဥာဏ္စြမ္း ရိွသေလာက္ ပံုေတြ ႐ိုက္ျဖစ္ ၊ ေဝငွျဖစ္ ေနဦးမွာပါ…။

ေက်းဇူးစကား

ဒီႏွစ္ သႀကၤန္မွာ အခုလို ဓါတ္ပံုေတြ ေဝေဝဆာဆာ ႐ိုက္ျဖစ္ေအာင္ တိုက္တြန္း ခဲ႔တဲ႔ ကၽြန္ေတာ္႔ ညီမေလး ေစာယုမြန္ ၊ ပိေတာက္ နဲ႔ ငုဝါပြင္႔ ေနတာကို ၾကၫ္႔ခ်င္ပါတယ္ ဆိုတဲ႔ ကၽြန္ေတာ္႔ ဘဝေဖာ္ ေမသီ ၊ ကၽြန္ေတာ္႔ကို ေကာင္းေကာင္းဆိုးဆိုး အၿမဲ အားေပးတဲ႔ ညီမငယ္ေလး ပီးႀကံဳ (ပံုႀကီး) ၊ ကၽြန္ေတာ္ နဲ႔ အၿပိဳင္ ေန႔တိုင္း ပံုေတြ လွိမ္႔တင္ေနတဲ႔ မႏၲေလး က ခ်စ္သူငယ္ခ်င္း ဒါ႔ပံု ဆရာ မိုဟာမက္ ညီမင္းစံ ၊ မန္းသႀကၤန္ ကို တကူးတက သြားၿပီး ကင္မရာကို ထာဝရ ေရကစားခြင္႔ ေပးလိုက္တဲ႔ ညီငယ္ေလး ရဲေအာင္သူ ၊ ပံုေတြ မတင္ေသးဘူးလား တေမးတည္း ေမးၾကတဲ႔ ကၽြန္ေတာ္႔ အမာခံ Facebook ဝိုင္းေတာ္သားမ်ား Myo Thaw Tun, Nyikita Nyi, Michael John, Tobie Aung, Ko Ko Sein, Htin Kyaw Myint + Yin Min Kyaw, William Gold, Stanley Kay, Nandar Aye, Mya Thet Wai, May Thuzar, Edward Chee, Sein Sein Gu, Gina Khine, Zaw Myint Thu (Nova Design), Than Zaw Myo, Myat Thu, Choake – Choake, Pho Thein (Daniel Thein Than Winn), Nwe Ni, Khin Khin Slone, Auntie Khin Khin Htay, Thura Aung, Htet Nai Nai, Saw Min, Shin Nawe, Stephanie Snow, Vi Vian, Sithu Wu, Sandar Yee Win, Phyo Wai, Dam Mam, May Sandi Htin Aung, Elizabeth Myat… ေခါင္းထဲမွာ ျဗဳန္းစားႀကီး စဥ္းစားလို႔ မထြက္၍ ေဖာ္ျပရန္ ေမ႔က်န္ခဲ႔သၫ္႔ အေပါင္းအသင္း သူငယ္ခ်င္းမ်ား အားလံုးကို အထူး ေက်းဇူး တင္ပါတယ္။ ေနာင္ႏွစ္မွာ သႀကၤန္ နဲ႔ အတူ ေပ်ာ္ေပ်ာ္ပါးပါး ျပန္ဆံု ၾကရေအာင္ ဗ်ာ…။

With a lot of Love…
YE LWIN OO (MPS)

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ကၽြန္ေတာ္ တမင္တကာ လုပ္တာ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး ဗ်ာ။ ဘုရားစူး ပါ…။ တိုက္တိုက္ဆိုင္ဆိုင္ အိမ္က ထြက္ထြက္ခ်င္း ႐ိုက္မိတဲ႔ ပံုက ဒီပံု ျဖစ္ေနတယ္။ သႀကၤန္မွာ လြတ္လပ္ ေပါ႔ပါးတဲ႔ ဖက္ရွင္ေတြ ဆင္ျမန္းၾကတာ ခုမွ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ ဟိုးအရင္ ေရွးယခင္ အစဥ္အဆက္ ရယ္ပါ…။

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ဧၿပီ ေနက ျခစ္ျခစ္ေတာက္ ပူေလေတာ႔ စတုဒီသာ မ႑ပ္မွာ ခဏ အနားယူ တာေပါ႔။ အဲ စတုဒီသာ မ႑ပ္က ေကၽြးတာက အုန္းႏို႔ေခါက္ဆြဲ ပါတဲ႔ ခင္ဗ်ာ။ စားၿပီးေတာ႔ လူေတြ အီးေလး ဆြဲၾကၿပီ ေပါ႔ဗ်ာ။ ေနရာ က လမ္း (၅၀) နဲ႔ အေနာ္ရထားလမ္း ေထာင္႔ စတုဒီသာ မ႑ပ္ ေရွ႕မွာပါ။

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” ဗိုလ္ႀကီး လာမွ ကၽြန္မ တို႔ ႐ြာေလး ျပာက် ရပါေတာ႔မယ္ ” ဆိုသလို ျဖစ္ေနတယ္။ ေသနတ္ႀကီး တကားကား နဲ႔ ပန္းဆိုးတန္းလမ္း (ကုန္သည္လမ္းေထာင္႔) မီးပိြဳင္႔မွာ လမ္းသြား ၊ လမ္းလာေတြကို တိုက္ပြဲေခၚသံ လုပ္ေနတာ…။

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ဒီႏွစ္ သႀကၤန္ ေရပက္ခံ ထြက္ၾကတာ ဂ်စ္ကား ထက္ Publica တို႔ ၊ Sunny တို႔ က အစီးေရ ပိုမ်ားမယ္ ထင္တယ္ဗ်။ သံရည္က်ိဳစက္ ကို ပို႔ရေတာ႔မယ္႔ အတူတူ မထူးပါဘူး ၊ တန္သြားေအာင္ သႀကၤန္ေတာ႔ လည္မယ္ ဆိုတဲ႔ စိတ္ကူး စိတ္သန္း နဲ႔ ထင္ပါရဲ႕။

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စူးရွ တဲ႔ မ်က္လံုး တစ္စံု နဲ႔…။ ေကာင္မေလး ကို ျမင္ျမင္ခ်င္းေတာ႔ အဲ… မဆိုးပါဘူး ၊ ယဥ္ယဥ္ေလး နဲ႔ လွတယ္ ေပါ႔…။ အမေလးဗ်ာ… သူ႔အေနာက္ က ဓားေပၚမွာ ေရးထားတဲ႔ စာကိုလဲ ျမင္ေရာ… နဲနဲေတာင္ ေဇာေခၽြးပ်ံ သြားတယ္ ဗ်…။ ဟ ဟ ဟ။

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လသာၿမိဳ႕နယ္ ၊ စာစစ္႐ံုး ေရွ႕က စတုဒီသာ မ႑ပ္ ပါ…။ မနက္ ၁၀း၀၀ မွ ညေန ၄း၀၀ အထိ လူဦးေရ အကန္႔အသတ္ မရိွ ထမင္း + ဟင္း + ေဖ်ာ္ရည္ အခမဲ႔ လွဴဒါန္းတာ သႀကၤန္ပြဲေတာ္ ေတာက္ေလွ်ာက္ (၅) ရက္ လံုးလံုး ျဖစ္ပါတယ္…။ သာဓု ေခၚႏိုင္ၾကပါေစ ဗ်ာ။

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လသာ ၿမိဳ႕နယ္ က ပိေတာက္ရိပ္ ေရကစား မ႑ပ္ ပါ…။ ကင္မရာ ေရစိုမွာ စိုးတာနဲ႔ မီးစက္ နဲ႔ ကြယ္ၿပီး မခို႔တယို႔ေလး ႐ိုက္ခဲ႔ ရတာပါ…။

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အတာ ေရထက္ အဆေပါင္း မ်ားစြာ ပိုလို႔ ေအးျမတဲ႔ မိဘေမတၱာ ဆိုတာ…။

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သြားမလုပ္ နဲ႔ . . . ေရေရလည္လည္ မာန္တက္ ေနတာ ေနာ္။

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ကေတာင္းက်ိဳက္ ထားတာေနာ္…။ ျမန္မာ႔ ယဥ္ေက်းမႈ ကို ဖီဆန္တယ္ လို႔ လာမေျပာနဲ႔။ ကမာၻ မွာ ပုဆိုး ဝတ္တဲ႔ လူမ်ိဳးေတြ အမ်ားႀကီး ရိွေပမယ္႔လို႔ ကေတာင္းက်ိဳက္တယ္ ဆိုတာ ကေတာ႔ ျမန္မာ႔ ယဥ္ေက်းမႈ စစ္စစ္ ဗ်…။

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ခုေခတ္က အလန္းေခတ္ ဆိုေတာ႔ အဲလို အလန္းပံုေလးေတြ တင္မွ ကၽြန္ေတာ္႔ ဘေလာ႔ဂ္ စည္ကားမွာ မို႔ပါ…။ ဟီး ဟီး ဟီး။

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မ႑ပ္ တာဝန္ခံ ဦးဦး ကို ေမတၱာ ရပ္ခံ ၊ အတင္း ဝင္ခြင္ ႔ေတာင္းၿပီး မ႑ပ္ေပၚ က ႐ိုက္ခဲ႔တဲ႔ ပံုပါ။ ဒီႏွစ္ (၅) ရက္လံုးမွာ မ႑ပ္ေပၚက ႐ိုက္ခဲ႔တာ ဆိုလို႔ ရွားရွားပါးပါး ဒီတစ္ပံုတည္း ရိွပါတယ္။

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မွတ္မိတာ… သႀကၤန္ အႀကိဳေန႔ ဗ်။ အထူးအဆန္း ၊ ေပါက္တကရ ေတြ သိပ္လုပ္တတ္တဲ႔ ကၽြန္ေတာ္႔ ဆရာ ေ႐ႊမန္းသား ကိုသုကာ (သခင္ႀကီး) က သူ႔ Facebook ေပၚမွာ “မန္းသႀကၤန္ အမုန္း စာရင္း” ဆိုတဲ႔ စာပိုဒ္ ေရးထားတာေလး သြားသတိရ မိတယ္။ “ဟိုဟို သည္သည္ ေလွ်ာက္သြားၿပီး အေၾကာ္ ေရာင္းတဲ႔ ဘရာေၾကာ္ ကုလား ေတြကိုလဲ မုန္းတယ္” တဲ႔ဗ်ာ။ ကိုသုကာ တစ္ေယာက္ မူးၿပီး ေလွ်ာက္ေရးထားတယ္ ထင္တာပဲ။ ဟီး…။ ကဲ… ကိုသုကာ မုန္းတဲ႔ ဘရာေၾကာ္သည္ ပါ ဗ်ာ…။

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ထီးေလးေတြ ေအာက္မွာ အရိပ္ခို လို႔ ဝမ္းစာ ရွာေနၾကတဲ႔ သူတို႔တေတြ ရဲ႕ သမုဒၵရာ ကလဲ လြယ္ေတာ႔ မလြယ္လွဘူး။

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မ်က္မွန္ ေရာင္းတဲ႔သူ လို႔ ထင္ရတာပဲ…။ ဒီေလာက္ ဆူညံ ပြက္ေလာ ႐ိုက္ေနတဲ႔ ေနရာမွာ အိပ္လိုက္တာမ်ား ေဟာက္သံေတာင္ ၾကားရတယ္ ဗ်ာ…။

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လမ္းမေပၚ ေလွကားေထာင္ၿပီး ဘာမ်ား လုပ္မလဲ လို႔ ၾကၫ္႔ေနတာ…။ ဖြားဖက္ေတာ္ ကို ေသခ်ာ ကိုင္ၿပီး “႐ိုး ႐ိုး ဝွ စ” လုပ္ေနတာကိုး။

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သႀကၤန္ သူဇာ နတ္မယ္  ေလးႏွမ ငယ္ . . . တစ္ႏွစ္တာ ခရီးကို မ်က္လွၫ္႔ျပ လိုက္ၿပီ . . .။

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ဒီအတိုင္း ၾကၫ္႔လိုက္ရင္ေတာ႔ ယာဥ္စည္းကမ္း ၊ လမ္းစည္းကမ္း ကို တေသြမတိမ္း လိုက္နာ ေနတယ္ေပါ႔ ဗ်ာ။ အမွန္ေတာ႔ မီးသတ္ပိုက္ နဲ႔ ပက္ပင္းတိုးမွာ စိုးတာနဲ႔ ကားစီးတာေတာင္ ဦးထုပ္ ေဆာင္းရတဲ႔ ဘဝ…။

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သႀကၤန္ သမီးပ်ိဳျဖဴ မ်ားရဲ႕ ယိမ္းအက အဖြဲ႕ တစ္ဖြဲ႕ ကို ျပည္တြင္း ႐ုပ္သံလိုင္း တစ္ခုက အင္တာဗ်ဴး ျပဳလုပ္ ေနတာပါ…။ ဒီလို ယဥ္ေက်းမႈ စစ္စစ္ ပံုေတြမ်ား က်ေတာ႔ လူေတြ သိပ္ၿပီး စိတ္မဝင္စားဘူး ပဲဗ်…။

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ခင္ဗ်ားတို႔ ေျပာေျပာ ေနတဲ႔ အလန္းဇယား ဆိုတာေပါ႔။ ေနာက္ဆံုးပိတ္ အိတ္နဲ႔လြယ္ ဆိုသလို… အလန္းတကာ႔ အလန္းဆံုး ပံုေလးကို ေနာက္ဆံုးမွာ တင္ၿပီး ၂၀၁၂ သႀကၤန္ကို ႏႈတ္ဆက္ လိုက္ပါတယ္။

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Hi Everyone! 2012 Thingyan is such an unforgettable moment for me. After all, I have had a chance to make Thingyan photos without boundary. I walk along the streets of Yangon alone, I drive around the town with my camera. I shoot pandals, I capture lives of street vendors, I catch the happiness of revelers, and present all these as mesmerizing Thingyan New Year Water Festival of all Burmese people.

Everyone is having fun wearing so called celebration mood. Yesterday, I’ve launched a series of Thingyan Day (03) photos in a different perspective; all in Monochromatic tone. Thanks for all my friends and fans who visit and left comments. And today, I am giving you another set of Thingyan photos taken on Day (04).

Happy Myanmar New Year to you all!!!

Best Wishes…
YE LWIN OO (MPS)

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လိုက္တယ္ မွတ္လား။ သူကိုင္ထားတဲ႔ ပိုက္ နဲ႔ သူ႔ ခႏၶာကိုယ္ နဲ႔။ အဟိ…။

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သာသာ လုပ္ပါ အန္တီရယ္…။ သားတို႔ မခံသာဘူး…

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အေနာ္ရထား လမ္းေတာက္ေလွ်ာက္ ျမင္ကြင္း…

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ေပ်ာ္မဆံုး ၊ ေမာ္မဆံုး တဲ႔ လူငယ္ တစ္စု…

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ေကာ႔လန္ေနေအာင္ က ေနေတာ႔တာပဲ။ အက်ီမွာ ေရးထားတာ ကလည္း အမိုက္စား ဗ်…။ SPY… WHO LOVE ME?

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ေနာင္ေတာ္ႀကီး Nyikita Nyi က ေသေသခ်ာခ်ာ မွာလိုက္တယ္။ အလန္းေလးေတြ ပါပါေစ ေနာ္… တဲ႔။ ဟုတ္ကဲ႔ ပါျဖစ္ေအာင္ ႐ိုက္ခဲ႔ပါတယ္ ဗ်ာ…

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မ႑ပ္ နာမည္ကို ရွာရွာႀကံႀကံ ေပးတတ္လြန္း ပါေပတယ္။ တစ္ခါထဲပါ တဲ႔…။ ဟိ ဟိ ဟိ…

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တို႔မ်ားဆီမွာ လုပ္တတ္ရင္ အကုန္ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္… ေအးေဆး…

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ေရမႈန္ ေတြၾကားတဲ႔ က သူမ…

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မ႑ပ္ေပၚက ေရပိုက္မ်ား ပိုင္ရွင္…

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အကို… ႐ိုက္ၿပီးရင္ အင္တာနက္ေပၚ တင္ေပးပါ ေနာ္ ဆိုတဲ႔ လူငယ္ တစ္စု…

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အမ်ိဳးသား ၾကက္ေတာင္ကြင္း ေ႐ွ႕က ဂရိတ္ေဝါ မိသားစု ေရကစား မ႑ပ္ ပါ…။ ေရခဲတံုးေတြ အျပၫ္႔ နဲ႔ လက္နက္ အင္အား ျဖၫ္႔တင္း ထားပါတယ္…

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ဂရိတ္ေဝါ မိသားစု စတုဒီသာ မ႑ပ္ ပါ…။ ေတြ႕သမွ် ၊ ျမင္သမွ် ေရပက္ခံ ကားေတြကို ဖိတ္မံတက ျပဳၿပီး ေန႔လံုးေပါက္ ၾကာဇံခ်က္ လွဴဒါန္း ေနတာ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္…

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အက်ိတ္အနယ္ ခဲ တဲ႔ပြဲ…

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(၄) လမ္းထိပ္က မိသားစု ေရကစား မ႑ပ္ ပါ…

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အျဖဴ က တစ္မ်ိဳး ၊ အနီ က တစ္မ်ိဳး . . .

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တီး တာေလးလဲ ေကာင္းပါတယ္ ၊ အဆို လဲ ပီျပင္ပါတယ္။ ဒါေပသိ ဘာလို႔မ်ား သႀကၤန္ မွာ ဂိုးသြင္းေကာင္းတဲ႔ ကိုကို သီခ်င္း ကို ဆိုရတာလဲ…

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သႀကၤန္ကို မွီၿပီး သူတို႔လဲ စီးပြားရွာၾကသည္။

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ေရေက်ာ္ ထိပ္က Hisense ေရကစား မ႑ပ္…

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ကၽြန္ေတာ္ ဘာမွ မလုပ္ဘူး ေနာ္…။ သူ႔ ဖာသာ သူ ကၽြန္ေတာ္႔ View Finder ထဲ ဝင္လာတာ…။ ဟိ ဟိ ဟိ…။

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ညီေလး ေရ… လုပ္ထား ၊ လုပ္ထား။ ဒီ အခြင္႔အေရးမ်ိဳး သႀကၤန္မွာပဲ ရတယ္…။

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သူတို႔ ခမ်ာလဲ ေျပးေန ၊ လႊားေန ရတယ္။ အရက္ ေရာင္းခ်ခြင္႔ လိုင္စင္ မရိွပဲ အရက္ေရာင္း လို႔ စည္ပင္ က ဆြဲစိ ေနတာ ၿမိဳ႕အႏွံ႔…။

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မခို႔တယို႔ ေလးနဲ႔…။

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Dear fans, friends and families:

This is auspicious Myanmar New Year time. Happy Myanmar New Year to you all! A few days back, I have had a blog post about Myanmar New Year festival. Narrations and descriptions are 100% English. Please follow the photos here…

This time, I am going to write in Burmese (Myanmar). For my foreign friends, my sincere apology to you all. It intended to write some local language to my native friends.

By the way, everything in this post is in Monochromatic expression. Well, Thingyan is fair. Thingyan is unbiased. Thingyan is consistent. Whether Thingyan photos are colorful or B&W, it still give you the same happiness, joy and merits.

ႏွစ္သစ္ ဆုေတာင္း

သူငယ္ခ်င္း တို႔ ေရ…။

ျမန္မာ သကၠရာဇ္ ၁၃၇၃ ကို အၿပီးအပိုင္ ႏႈတ္ဆက္ရေတာ႔မယ္႔ အခ်ိန္ကို နီးကပ္လာၿပီ ေနာ္…။ ႏွစ္ေဟာင္း က ကံမေကာင္းမႈေတြ ၊ ဆံုး႐ံွဳးမႈေတြ ၊ အပူအပင္ေတြ ၊ အခက္အခဲ ေတြအားလံုးကို သႀကၤန္ေရ နဲ႔ အတူ စီးေမ်ာခြင္႔ ေပးလိုက္ ၾကရေအာင္…။ ေနာက္ၿပီး ျမန္မာ သကၠရာဇ္ ၁၃၇၄ ကို လႈိက္လႈိက္လွဲလွဲ ႀကိဳဆိုၾက ရေအာင္ ဗ်ာ…။ က်က္သေရ မဂၤလာ အေပါင္း နဲ႔ ထိန္ေဝေညာင္းတဲ႔ အတာ သႀကၤန္ ႏွစ္ကူး အခါသမယ မွာ စိတ္၏ ခ်မ္းသာျခင္း ၊ ကိုယ္၏ က်န္းမာျခင္း နဲ႔ ၿပီးျပၫ္႔စံုၿပီး လုပ္ငန္း စီးပြားမ်ား အဖုအထစ္မရိွ ေခ်ာေမြ႕ေအာင္ျမင္စြာ လုပ္ကိုင္ ေဆာင္႐ြက္ႏိုင္ပါေစ ေၾကာင္း ဆုမြန္ေကာင္းမ်ား ေတာင္းလိုက္ပါတယ္ ဗ်ာ…။

၂၀၁၂ သႀကၤန္ (သို႔) ကၽြန္ေတာ္ နဲ႔ ရန္ကုန္ သႀကၤန္

ဒီႏွစ္ ၂၀၁၂ သႀကၤန္က ကၽြန္ေတာ္႔ အတြက္ေတာ႔ ထူးျခားတယ္ ဆိုရမယ္ ဗ်။ သႀကၤန္ အခ်ိန္ဆို ရန္ကုန္မွာ ရိွဖို႔ ခဲယဥ္း ေလ႔ရိွတဲ႔ ကၽြန္ေတာ္ ဒီႏွစ္ေတာ႔ မျဖစ္မေန ရန္ကုန္ၿမိဳ႕ မွာ ရိွေနတာ ပါပဲ။ ေနာက္တစ္ခု က ဘယ္လို အေၾကာင္းနဲ႔ မွ Blog Post ေတြ ျမန္မာ လိုနဲ႔ မေရးတတ္တဲ႔ ကၽြန္ေတာ္ ျမန္မာလို နဲ႔ Blog Post တစ္ခု ကို ေရးဖို႔ ငယ္သူငယ္ခ်င္း တစ္ေယာက္ က တိုက္တြန္း လိုက္ျခင္းပါ ပဲ…။ ထံုးစံ အတိုင္း ေမာင္ရဲလြင္ဦး တို႔ ကာလာဓါတ္ပံုေတြ ၾကၫ္႔တာမ်ားလာရင္ ၿငီးေငြ႕တတ္တဲ႔ အက်င္႔ဆိုး ေၾကာင္႔ အျဖဴ ၊ အမည္း ကို အာ႐ံု လာေနတယ္။ သႀကၤန္ ပံုေတြကို အျဖဴ ၊ အမည္း ဆိုရင္ လူေတြ ႀကိဳက္ပါ႔ မလား ၊ ၾကၫ္႔လို႔ေရာ ေကာင္းပါ႔ မလားေပါ႔။

“မိုးေပၚ ခုန္တက္ ကလိုက္ ခ်င္ပါတယ္” ဆိုတဲ႔ ႐ုပ္ရွင္ ဇာတ္ကားမွာ မင္းသား ေနေအာင္ ေျပာတဲ႔ စကားကို သြားၾကားေယာင္ မိတယ္။ သႀကၤန္ ဆိုတာ သစၥာ မေဖာက္ဘူး ၊ ဖက္မလိုက္ဘူး။ ပိေတာက္ ဆိုတာလဲ ကတိတည္တယ္ ၊ သိမ္ေမြ႕တယ္ ၊ တံု႔ျပန္မႈေတြ ညီမွ်တယ္။ အဲလိုပဲ အေရာင္မစံုတဲ႔ အျဖဴ ၊ အမည္း ပံုေတြ ျဖစ္ေပေသာ္ျငား သႀကၤန္ရဲ႕ အေငြ႕ ၊ အသက္ ၊ သႀကၤန္ ရဲ႕ ေပ်ာ္႐ႊင္မႈ ေတြကို ဖက္မလိုက္ ၊ သစၥာ မေဖာက္တမ္း ေဖာ္ေဆာင္ ေနမယ္ ဆိုတာ…။

ဒီ တစ္ခါေတာ႔ ခါတိုင္း ေရးေနက် ပံုစံမ်ိဳး မဟုတ္ပဲ သူငယ္ခ်င္း အတြက္ ေပါ႔ေပါ႔ပါးပါး ေရးသားၿပီး ပို႔စ္ တစ္ခု တင္ေပးလိုက္ပါတယ္။ Formal ပံုစံ နဲ႔ ေရးရတာ မ်ားေတာ႔ တစ္ခါတစ္ေလ လြတ္လပ္တဲ႔ အေရးအသားမ်ိဳးေလး ဆို အေျပာင္းအလဲေလး ျဖစ္မလား ဆိုတဲ႔ သေဘာေလးပါ…။

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ဒီႏွစ္ ႐ိုက္ခဲ႔တဲ႔ ပံုေတြထဲမွာ အစြန္႔စားဆံုး ႐ိုက္ခဲ႔တဲ႔ ပံု လို႔ ေျပာလို႔ ရတဲ႔ ပံုေလး တစ္ပံုပါ…။ ကင္မရာ ေရစိုမွာ စိုးလို႔ ဘုရား သိၾကား “တ” ၿပီး ေရေတာထဲ ဝင္႐ိုက္ ခဲ႔တာပါ…။ ကိုယ္လိုခ်င္တဲ႔ ပံုေလး ရလိုက္တာမို႔ အေတာ္ေလး ဘဝင္က် ခဲ႔ပါတယ္။ ရန္ကုန္ၿမိဳ႕ ၊ လမ္းမေတာ္ၿမိဳ႕နယ္ (၁၁) လမ္းထိပ္ မိသားစု ေရကစား မ႑ပ္မွာ ႐ိုက္ခဲ႔တာပါ…။ ညေန ၅း၀၀ ​ဝန္းက်င္ ေနဝင္ခ်ိန္မွာ ေနကို မ်က္ႏွာခ်င္း ဆိုင္႐ိုက္ထားတဲ႔ ပံုတစ္ပံု ျဖစ္ပါတယ္…။

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ဒါေလးလဲ တ႐ုတ္တန္းမွာ ႐ိုက္ခဲ႔တဲ႔ ပံုေလး ပါပဲ။ ေနရာကေတာ႔ (၁၆) လမ္း ၊ မဟာဗႏၶဳလလမ္း ထိပ္မွာပါ…။ ကၽြန္ေတာ္ ငယ္ငယ္တုန္း က ႏွစ္စဥ္ ၊ ႏွစ္တိုင္း (၁၄) မိသားစု ေရကစား မ႑ပ္မွာ ေဆာ႔တယ္ ဗ်…။ ကၽြန္ေတာ္က (၁၄) လမ္း အဖြားအိမ္မွာ ႀကီးျပင္း ခဲ႔တာ ကိုး။ အခုေတာ႔လဲ (၁၄) လမ္း မိသားစု ေရကစား မ႑ပ္ ဆိုတာ မရိွေတာ႔ ပါဘူးေလ…။ သႀကၤန္ နီးၿပီဆို ႏွစ္စဥ္ မပ်က္ တက္တက္ႂကြႂကြ နဲ႔ ဦးေဆာင္ တတ္တဲ႔ သြားေလသူ ကိုညီညီေမာင္ ကို သႀကၤန္ေရာက္ရင္ ပိုလို႔ သတိ ရတယ္ ဗ်ာ…။ သူသာ ရိွေနေသးတယ္ ဆိုရင္ ဘယ္သူေတြ ဘယ္ေလာက္တားတား မျဖစ္ျဖစ္တဲ႔ နည္းနဲ႔ ေရကစား မ႑ပ္ကို တာဝန္ယူ လည္ပတ္ ေပးစၿမဲ ပါ…။ ကၽြန္ေတာ္တို႔ကို ႐ုတ္တရက္ ခြဲခြာ သြားတဲ႔ အကို ေကာင္းရာ သုဂတိ လားပါေစ ဗ်ာ…။

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ရန္ကုန္ ၿမိဳ႕တြင္း (၆) ၿမိဳ႕နယ္ အတြင္းက မ႑ပ္ေတြ ထဲမွာ အစည္ကားဆံုး မ႑ပ္ ပါပဲ။ အေနာ္ရထားလမ္း ၊ စၪ္႔အိုးတန္း နဲ႔ ၁၉လမ္း ၾကားက SKYNET နဲ႔ SHWE FM တို႔ရဲ႕ ေဖ်ာ္ေျဖေရး မ႑ပ္  ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ႏိုင္ငံေက်ာ္ အဆိုေတာ္မ်ား ရဲ႕ ေတးဂီတ ေဖ်ာ္ေျဖမႈေတြ ပါဝင္တာေၾကာင္႔ လာေရာက္ ေစာင္႔စား ၾကၫ္႔႐ွဳ သူမ်ား နဲ႔ က်ိတ္က်ိတ္တိုး စည္ကား လွပါတယ္…။

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ေရမႈန္ေတြ ၾကားထဲက သူတို႔ တေတြရဲ႕ အေပ်ာ္ – ႏွစ္ေဟာင္းက အဆိုး အညစ္ ေတြ သႀကၤန္ေရ နဲ႔ အတူ စီးေမ်ာ စင္ၾကယ္ ႏိုင္ၾက ပါေစ ေသာ္ဝ္…

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တခ်ိဳ႕ တခ်ိဳ႕ေသာ မ႑ပ္ေတြ… ေဆာက္ထားတာ ဧရာမႀကီးေတြ ဗ်ာ…။ ေရပက္တဲ႔ သူက သံုး – ေလး ဆယ္ ေလာက္ပဲ ရိွတယ္။ အဲလို လူနည္း ရျခင္း အေၾကာင္းအရင္း ကေတာ႔ ေရကစားခြင္႔ လက္မွတ္ ေစ်းႏႈန္း ေၾကာင္႔ရယ္ပါ…။ မ႑ပ္ တစ္ခု ရဲ႕ ေၾကာ္ျငာ မွာ ေရးထားတာ…
ALL DAY – 120,000 KYATS / 3 DAYS 80,000 KYATS / 1 DAY – 50,000 KYATS ဟူ၍သာ…

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သႀကၤန္ အၿပီး စီပြားအျဖစ္ဆံုး လူတစ္စု ကို ေျပာျပပါ ဆိုရင္ ကားဝပ္ေရွာ႔ ဆရာမ်ား ဟု ေျပာရပါမည္။ ကား တစ္စီးလံုးကို ရစရာ မရိွေအာင္ ကျပ ၊ ခုန္ေပါက္ၿပီး ဒြန္႔တတ္တဲ႔ ညီငယ္ေလးေတြ ရိွေနလို႔သာ ကားဝပ္ေရွာ႔ ဆရာမ်ား ထင္သည္ထက္ ပို၍ အလုပ္ ျဖစ္ၾကပါသည္…

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Lady Ga Ga ရဲ႕ Bad Romance သီခ်င္း ၊ အမူးသမား ၊ ပုဆိုး ကေတာင္းက်ိဳက္ ၊ ကတၱရာ လမ္းမေပၚ မွာ Underground အက။ ဘယ္လို မွ စပ္ဟပ္ လို႔ မရတဲ႔ မဆီမဆိုင္ ကို႔ယိုကားယား ဗ်ာ။ သူ႔ Underground ဆိုတာ ကလဲ ၾကၫ္႔ရင္း ၾကၫ္႔ရင္း ၾကက္ဖခြပ္တန္း ေဆာ႔သလို ျဖစ္ျဖစ္ေနတာ ဗ်။ အဲ… ဒီလို ေပါက္ကရ အက မ်ိဳးေတြ က်ေတာ႔ သူငယ္ခ်င္း ေ႐ႊမန္းသား မာမီ ညီမင္းစံ တို႔ သိပ္ပိုင္ႏိုင္ တာေပါ႔ဗ်ာ…။ မယံုရင္ သူ႔ဆီ သြားသင္…။

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Dear fans, friends and families:

Happy Thingyan New Year to you all !! Warmest New Year wish from Yangon, Myanmar. May this Thingyan New Year bring all smiles and cheers; wipe your tears and bad luck along with its water.

ME & THINGYAN

The very last time I shot was 2008 Yangon Thingyan, it was four years ago which I still feel like a few months back there. In the following year, I was in Bangkok with my Mum. What about 2010 and 2011 Thingyan? Oh, I was in Singapore. And this year, I decided to be in Yangon as I need to babysit my beloved Mum. Every year if I happen to be in Yangon during Thingyan, I hardly ever go out and play water. Why? Thingyan, to me, is an absolute leisure time which I want to utilize it wisely. So what is my wish-list for Thingyan holidays? Stay home, spend time retouching old photos, write blog and recharge energy by getting enough sleep!

THINGYAN PHOTOS

A few days back, my notorious sister, Saw Yu Mon, said she was so much fervent too see happenings of Yangon Thingyan. She wanted me to go one round of Yangon and shoot. And on the next day, I was told by my girlfriend how much she was craving to feel the essence of Padauk and Ngu Wah flowers (flowers that blooms during Thingyan). That is the origin of this Thingyan post. That’s how I happen to shoot 2012 Yangon Thingyan. Not just for two of them, I have tons of my fans out there to share this joyful moment with. To my local friends who do not play water, to my friends in overseas who could not come back, to my foreign friends who would like to know more about Thingyan, I have put a big time for you guys.

THINGYAN, THE TRUE MEANING

“Thingyan” is the word derived from Sankrit, translate as “transit of the Sun from Pisces to Aries“. Among various festivals of Myanmar Lunar calendar, Thingyan is the merriest and the biggest celebration nationwide. In the cities of big or small, in the villages of far or near, everyone plays water…

THINGYAN, A HARMONIOUS BLEND OF FOLKLORE & BUDDHISM

Thingyan is ushered in by three or four days (five days in some years) of the Water Festival. The folklore says, Thagyarmin (king of the celestial), will be on a visit to the human abode for three days during Thingyan. It is by way of helping and guiding humans that he comes down to bring the New Year and remind people of their religious and spiritual duties. Thus, Thingyan is the time for Myanmar people to wash away themselves of the defilement and sins they might have collected during the old year and look forward to a better year and future. With Thingyan Yay (New Year Water), all the bad things will be washed away.

THE CELEBRATION

The main feature of Thingyan is water-throwing or pouring water. Temporary water-spraying stations, known as pandals, are set up along the road sides.  Some of the pandals are with music bands and traditional / modern dance performances.

“Thingyan” usually falls around mid April (the Burmese lunar month of Tagu). It is a Buddhist festival celebrated over a period of four to five days culminating in the New Year. In the past, the dates of the Thingyan festival are calculated according to the traditional Burma Lunisolar calendar and but now have fixed to base on Roman calendar (13 to 16 April) equivalent it often coincides with Easter. The dates of the festival are observed as the most important public holiday throughout Burma and are part of the summer holidays at the end of the school year. Water throwing or dousing one another from any shape or form of vessel or device that delivers water is the distinguishing feature of this festival and may be done on the first four days of the festival. However, in most parts of the country, it does not begin in earnest until the second day. Thingyan is comparable to other New Year festivities in Theravada Buddhist areas of Southeast Asia such as Lao New Year, Cambodian New Year and Songkran in Thailand.

References:
- Presenting Myanmar, Maung Kyaa Nyo, June 2000
- Flowers & Festivals Round The Myanmar Year, Khin Myo Chit, February 2002
- Myanmar Customs & Culture, U Than Pe, July 2009
- Wikipedia, The Free Online Encyclopedia

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“The Golden Padauk” – April in Myanmar unveils the burning climax temperature of all year round. It is the time of the year the leaves of the trees have dried up, curled crisp and fallen. But one large tree stands tall and green with its canopy of emerald leaves. That is Padauk!! Padauk (also spell as Pa-Dauk) waits for the first rain showers to burst forth into the bloom with its tiny fragrant yellow gold flowers.

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“The Majestic Bloom” – These Ngu Wah trees along the University Avenue road are in full bloom and their bright yellow flowers looked majestic with the autumn’s sunlight… This picture is captured for my girlfriend as to fulfill her wish…

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“Poetic Autumn’s Blossom” – Like Padauk flowers, Ngu Wah (also known as the Golden Mohair) is commonly seen in Myanmar. Ngu Wah is the national symbolic flower of Kingdom of Thailand where Myanmar’s is Padauk…

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“Round The Yangon” – A jeep full of revelers is doused with water on the streets of Yangon…

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“Magical Thingyan Yay” – Thingyan is the time for Myanmar people to wash away themselves of the defilement and sins they might have collected during the old year and look forward to a better year and future. The folklore says, with Thingyan Yay (New Year Water), all the bad things will be washed away…

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“J-Me & His Audience” – A local radio broadcasting company, Shwe FM, hosts a giant pandal in Yangon Chinatown with the live performances all day long…

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“Ni Ni Khin Zaw’s Performance” – 20-minute performance of new artist, Ni Ni Khin Zaw, at Shwe FM’s pandal  became a hit in Chinatown with her loyal fans and audience…

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“Rolling Stone” – Mazda B-600, a vehicle with the age of my Dad, still rolling on the street of Yangon… By the way, it is a very popular choice for revelers during Thingyan…

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“Cram on Kabaraye Pagoda Road” – The road features most of the giant pandals in town, traffic is simply dire even on the first day of the celebration…

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“Joy With The Water” – It is really blissful to see these people’s joy amidst the splashes of Thingyan New Year Water…

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“Hello Lady Fire Fighter” – She wants to use that 2-inch Fire Hose to play water but seems like she can’t handle well…

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“Thingyan Fashion” – People don’t set any boundary during Thingyan. Some young people dress up like this…

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“Thingyan Candid” – It wasn’t intentional at all. I swear! She passed by, I saw and I clicked! For my Shwe Mann Thar buddy, Nyi Min San. Lolz…

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“Thingyan Hangover” – People lose control and forget the limit with the joy of New Year… Every year, Thingyan ranks highest per day national alcohol consumption…

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“Splash Splash” – The revelers in front of POKKA’s pandal on Kabaraye Pagoda Road…

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“Dance With Water” – She noticed that I was shooting her. Do you know what did she do? She danced faster, moved sexier and shake her body harder… Oops!

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“Festive Thingyan Mood” – Those people on the pandals, those people on the road, those revelers on the cars, those people who passed by… They all have the same festive Thingyan mood… Because it’s Thingyan merit making and joy sharing time…

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“Shake Shake Shake” – With the music beats up and down, she shakes flawlessly in ease..

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“Five Whole Days” – 2012 Thingyan has five whole days of water splashing… People get one more day to play water compared to last year…

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“New Year Family Union” – Along with New Year merits, cheers and joys, Thingyan also is a time that most families celebrate union. Like Chinese New Year in China where people enjoy long holidays, Myanmar people normally take this chance to go back to native or hometown and enjoy once-a-year union with their loved ones…

]]> http://yelwinoo.com/festivals-events/2012-yangon-thingyan.html/feed 55 http://yelwinoo.com/festivals-events/kheng-hock-keong-temple.html http://yelwinoo.com/festivals-events/kheng-hock-keong-temple.html#comments Wed, 30 Nov 2011 07:51:37 +0000 Ye Lwin Oo http://yelwinoo.com/?p=2713 Kheng Hock Keong, A Brief History

In 1861, 11th year of the reign of Qing Emperor Xianfeng, the Hokkien community in Rangoon (today’s Yangon) founded the Kheng Hock Keong. Members of the Hokkien community as well as Chinese Shipping companies in Rangoon contributed funds for the Mazu temple construction located in the Yangon Chinatown. Located on the corner of Sint-oh-dann Street and Strand Road in Latha Township, Yangon (Rangoon), Burma (Myanmar), Kheng Hock Keong is the largest and oldest Chinese Buddhist and Taoist temple dedicated to the Chinese goddess Mazu in Yangon. It was originally built as a wooden temple in 1861 and completed in 1863. A new brick building was completed in 1903, costing over 153,000 rupees. Today, Kheng Hock Keong Temple is one of the very popular tourist spots in Rangoon.

Dedication & Worshiping

The temple was dedicated to Mazu, the Sea goddess and the temple name Kheng Hock Keong (Temple in celebration of prosperity / fortune) was chosen in appreciation to Mazu for her blessings during their sea voyages as well as for their prosperity and fortune in Burma. The Hokkien community’s clan association, The Fukienese Association is also located in the temple.

The Layout

The front court of the Kheng Hock Keong has an air well with corridors surrounding it leading to the main hall where the main deities are enshrined in altars. Mazu, the main deity is enshrined in the central altar. To her left is Guan Gong and to her right is Bao Sheng Da Di, the God of medicine. This layout was similar to an earlier Mazu temple, Thian Hock Keng, built by the Singapore Hokkien Chinese in 1840. During subsequent restorations, a Guan Yin sculpture was added to the main shrine just behind Mazu.

Celebrations

Kheng Hock Keong is the main site of celebration for major festivals such as Chinese New Year, Mid Autumn, as well as religious events such as birthday celebration of various deities. These events attract large crowds who arrive to participate in celebrations or to give their thanks. Throughout the year, the temple courtyard is a popular place for senior citizen to chat or to indulge in a game of chess with their friends.

Contribution to the Community

As a temple and a clan association, the Kheng Hock Keong continues with its historical mission to serve the community. They have established a free clinic near the temple and have a social welfare program for elderly citizens. Not forgetting the younger generation, the temple has also establish free mandarin classes for young Chinese Burmese.

Kheng Hock Keng also supports Burmese social endeavors such as contributing funds for the construction of Burmese temples. An example is their financial support for the construction of Sule Pagoda, a Burmese Theravada Monastery complex, where the hair relic of the Buddha is enshrined.

These activities reflected the spirit of earlier generations when they founded Kheng Hock Keong. While they rejoice in their blessings and good fortune, they have not forgotten to share that blessing with the larger society. The various projects today reflect that spirit of contributing back to society.

150th Year Anniversary

2011, with the celebration of Quan Yin’s birthday, Kheng Hock Keong Temple celebrated its 150th Anniversary celebration. 3 days celebration from 11-11-11 to 13-11-14 calls for all the religious Chinese throughout Yangon. People assemble and paid homages on this special occasion.

Sources: Wikipedia, Chinatownology.

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It is auspicious birthday of Quan Yin, even the blue sky pay homage to her! These high-rise table setting is the way Chinese people pay homage to Tian Gong (the God of Sky) on any kind of occasion…

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In Chinese traditions & customs, Red is Auspiciousness. Our people prefer red candles in such occasions…

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Some prayers are very particular. They have different kinds of prayer accessories to be used in such particular occasion…

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Kheng Hock Keong Temple has one of the strongest trustee funds in Rangoon. All the yellowish structure seeing here are not paints, but pure gold plates donated by pilgrims…

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Similar to other Mazu temples, Mazu, the main deity, is enshrined in the central altar…

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On the left alter is Guan Gong, the God of war…

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Quan Gong images are in different kinds… Depending on the personality, worshipers and believers can choose among the different mood of the God. And this statues reflects my favorite mood of Bravery & Conquer!!!

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On the right alter to Mazu is Bao Sheng Da Di, the God of medicine… Chinese people always pray to Bao Sheng Da Di before any major operations…

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Whether weekend or weekday, sunny or rainy day, the temple is always crowded with pilgrims…

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Bokeh test with Nikon 80-200mm f4, an old lens I succeeded from one of my Mum’s friend…

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The statue of the Guardian spirit at the entrance of the temple…

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The central door of the Temple Entrance!!!

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The auspicious Tazaungmone (pronounce as Ta – Zaung – Mone) is the 8th month of Myanmar lunar calendar. Tazaungmone (also known as Tazaungdaing) is a pleasant month at the end of the rainy season and also regarded as the beginning of the winter. Tazaungmone is a month with lots of merit making activities and events. Katina Robes Offering, Tazaungdaing Lighting Festival, Tazaungdaing Night Bazaar and Mathoe Robe Weaving Contests are outstanding events held in the month Tazaungmone.

MATHOE ROBE WEAVING

“Mathoe Robe” means the robe must be completed weaving and must be offered to the Lord Buddha before dawn of the full-moon day. Mathoe Robe offering takes place in many towns and provinces throughout Myanmar. But Contests taken place on the platform of the Shwedagon Pagoda is the biggest and the most famous in Myanmar. Hundreds of thousands of audiences are assemble on the platform of Shwedagon Pagoda to participate in the Mathoe Robe offering.

ROBE WEAVING CONTEST

Nine groups of six competed, each with a loom named after flowers. All competitors came to Shwedagon Pagoda prior to the contest to practice and learn the contest rules. The weavers came from various parts of the country. The contest kick off at 5:00 PM. Contestants taking part in the contest make great endeavor in weaving the robes. Every team must weave 2/80 fabric between 86 inches and 94 inches.

A contesting team has six members including the team leader. Though there are six members in each group, only three contestants (weaver, sparer and mechanic) may stay on the loom, while the others stay behind the loom. When the loom pauses, the mechanic must hurry to make repairs while the others wait. Members with stamina, energy and thoroughness are selected for weaving the robes and the other members stand by for assistance. Strength of communal work can be seen in this contest. The contestants feel no tiredness and energetically weave to complete Mathoe Robes before dawn.

During the weaving contest, the contestants can request for 5 minutes time-outs. The weaving contests stop at 10:00 PM sharp. Followed by the inspection and marking of the judges on Mathoe Robes’ Length and Quality. Prizes are awarded to the respective winners.

ROBE OFFERING

Later, Mathoe Robes are being prepared by gluing, sewing, patterning with golden papers and gluing golden lilies respectively. At the dawn of full moon day of Tazaungmone, prize winning team lead a procession of carrying the Mathoe Robes to four Buddha Images at four archways of the Shwedagon Pagoda and other prominent pagodas. Enthusiasts are alive with a teeming crowd till dawn. In fact, Mathoe Robe weaving contest and offering ceremony portrays good deeds of our people and our traditional characteristics.

SHOOTING

I used to have a set of Robe Weaving Contest back in 2008. It was just a small post with a total of 6 pics taken on the platform of Shwedagon Pagoda. This year, I decided to share more pics. I was lucky to have 3 photography friends accompanying me to this shooting. The crowd struck me out upon the arrival to the platform. Believe me, it was the largest crowd I have ever seen on Shwedagon Pagoda. We all got stuck at one corner and couldn’t move forward. There were fenders around the contest area. I wanted to go up the contest arena and shoot the looms. Special thanks to Ko Than Tun Lin who took care of my camera bag. I left them and sneaked into the contest area. Finally, I have got the pictures that I wanted. Happy Tazaungdaing to you all…

YE LWIN OO (MPS)
11.11.11

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Shwedagon Pagoda, the western archway with Tazaungdaing’s Full-Moon…

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The crowd moved very slowly and we all had to follow…

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The exhibition of the Buddha’s teachings along the Western Archway of Shwedagon Pagoda is a part of the celebration…

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Pilgrims pay a great attention to the displays (light boxes) describe the teachings of Lord Buddha with thorough explanations…

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I hope our people maintain this UNIQUE tradition and customs of Tazaungdaing Festival in full length…

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We had spent about an hour to reach to this contest arena… This is where the Mathoe Robe Weaving Contests took place…

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The weaver put a great endeavor amid the sweats in order to finish the robes in timely manner…

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Rules: Six members in each group, only three contestants (weaver, sparer and mechanic) may stay on the loom, while the others stay behind the loom…

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The cotton looms prepared for the replacement…

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Rules: Every team must weave 2/80 fabric between 86 inches and 94 inches…

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When the loom pauses, the mechanic must hurry to make repairs while the others wait…

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It’s such a breathe-taking scene, the weaver uses both hands and both legs, feel no tiredness and energetically weave to complete Mathoe Robes before dawn…

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Prizes are awarded to the respective winners…

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Tazaungmone’s full-bright-moon amid the clouds… Taken with NIKKOR AF-S NIKON 70-200mm f/2.8 ED NANO VRII lens…

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The great Shwedagon with Tazaungmone’s Full-Moon…

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Thousands of pilgrims on the Shwedagon Pagoda’s platform…

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The celebration continues throughout the night…

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The pilgrims spend the whole night on the Shwedagon’s platform… Till the next day morning to offer the Mathoe Robe to Lord Buddha by dawn…

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Every corner on the Pagoda’s platform is packed. Compared to the same event in 2008, the crowd is 3-4 times bigger…

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9,999 CANDLE LIGHTING taken place on the Shwedagon Pagoda’s platform on the same day…

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Hi everyone! Auspicious Tazaungdaing to you all and may Buddha bless with you with peace, joy and prosperity. Warm wishes from Yangon, Myanmar. For Buddhists, today is such an important Fullmoon Day of Lunar month, Tazaungdaing.

Tazaungdaing (Tazaungmone)

Yellow robes for Kathina offering,
the reward of the Path is the aim.

At this time, scattering the pollins,
the luffa at the end of its gold stem
is rich in fragrance.

Amid the sky
in heaven above
the golden moon Canda
and the brilliant star Pleiades
shine merrily.

by Khin Myo Chit

TAZAUNGDAING aka TAZAUNGMONE

Tazaungmone is the eighth Myanmar lunar month. The celebration of Tazaungdaing festival offer a special kind of robe to monks. The name of the month implies eradication of darkness by means of torches and other various lights. A unique ancient custom of this festival is eating Mezali bud (the cassia siamea bud) salad on the full-moon night. There is a strong belief that the salad will ward off the 96 kinds of diseases known to Myanmars. The rationale is that the guardian-god of the Mezali tree is supposed to be visited by various other gods on the full-moon night, their benign influence making the buds of the tree potently medicinal! It’s a little bitter taste with garlic flavor.

ONCE A YEAR NIGHT BAZAAR

Tazaungdaing is a month with a lot of activities. Robe Weaving, Alms Offiering, Kathina (Ka-Htein), Nirvana Bazaar (Neit Ban Zayy), Night Bazaar, 9,900 Candle Lighting and many more. I wish I could share every single the events here. But then it is not possible. Yes, all these merit making events take place on the same day, full-moon day. So I have to choose which event(s) to shoot.

Last night was full-moon eve. I decided to shoot the night bazaar. My fans in oversea are dying to see these night bazaar photos. They might be away from this ONCE A YEAR event for quite some time. For some of them; years, and some decades! Needless to say, they must be missing. And I can feel their pain. So it’s not a cure but just to relieve them from homesick, I have come up with this set.

Tazaungdaing Night Bazaar is just around the corner of my house. It’s merely 20 second walk from my home. But this is the very first time shooting night bazaar. Yes, I never happen to shoot but this year. I wanted to share this set as a documentary. But I wanted to have some special shots, kinds of pictures that people can’t shoot easily. Finally, came up with an idea of BIRD-EYE VIEW. Yes, to shoot the night bazaar from above. But then, from where to shoot? Thanks to my little brother, Pyay Thein, and his friend, Ma Moe Moe, for helping me find this special place to have the angle I wanted.

Happy Tazaungdaing to you all and there will also be a set of ROBE WEAVING CONTEST pics coming up soon.

YE LWIN OO (MPS)
10 Nov 2011

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Without Mr.Pyay Thein, I will never get this kind of high angle shot. Thank you so much for helping me to get this picture…

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Tazaungdaing Night Bazaar, a bird-eye view…

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Junction of Anawrahta Road & Phone Gyi Street… This 4-Day Night Bazaar will be from 9th Nov 11 to 12 Nov 11…

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I used to ride this kind of wheel in my childhood days. Till today, these wheels are not motorized but balanced by the skilled operators jumping from one step to another…

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These people accelerate / slow down / speed up or stop the wheel by jumping from one step to another with bare hand…

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Tazaungdaing Candid…

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Want to be a B’day girl or a Hero? Just buy a hat and your wish will come true!!!

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A vendor selling traditional crispy pancake made from coconut… Known as “Pyar Ohm Mont“ (translated in English as Bee-Hive Snack)… I use to like it a lot, sweet and oily though…

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A man preparing a traditional snack called “Yay Mont“… It’s salty pancake with peas topping, widely known as Burmese Pizza…

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To be honest, I like all these snacks sold by Street Vendors… This Yay Mont is my MUST EAT snack during Night Bazaar every year…

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Ko Pauk Various Fries… Wanna have some???

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Crispy Crab at Night Bazaar… It’s super big size…

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Shrimps Tempura… People normally eat it with tamarind spicy vinegar sauce…

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Glutinous Rice (Hta-Ma-Ne) vendor… It is also a very popular appetizer for Burmese people…

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Night Bazaar is an A-to-Z one-stop solution for all kinds of traditional hand-made foods. A vendor selling Sticky Rice stuffed in Bamboo (Kauk-Hnyin-Kyi-Tauk-Soot)…

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Sticky Rice stuffed in Bamboo (Kauk-Hnyin-Kyi-Tauk)… It is a very common snack in Myanmar. Sticky rice being stuffed into Bamboo and baked. By baking the bamboo, the sticky rice possesses a special kind of delicious essence…

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Hundreds of food stalls open this year and the whole road is packed. I had to wear a great patience while walking in the bazaar as there is not enough space even for walking…

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A vendor selling MASKS… These masks are made from paper and these all are special size for kids. My aunt always buy me when I was young…

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Tazaungdaing BOKEH (Blurry Beauty) for you all…

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Hello everyone. Happy Thadingyut to you all! Time flies so fast that auspicious lunar month of THADINGYUT comes again. Widely known as Myanma Lighting Festival, the celebration actually welcomes LORD BUDDHA from heaven after he preached the Abidhama (the most difficult of Buddhist teaching) to his mother reborn in heaven.

FLASH BACK

I made a flash back to 2009. It was 3rd OCT 2009 that I had my debut THADINGYUT photos on my blog.  A set of 10 pics taken on Shwedagon Pagoda had summed up tons of comments and voices from my fans and friends. It was simply mind blowing as I always love to hear from my fans.

2010 THADINGYUT

I could not get a chance to celebrate THADINGYUT last year. I was abroad on the job. I had applied leave but it had been declined due to shortage of manpower in our company. I missed out the chance in 2010. Can you imagine how much I feel tickling in my mind to shoot on this very festival?

2011 THADINGYUT

This year, I am back! I am blessed with what I want. As a family custom, our family went to our grandmother’s house to pay obeisance to her. We left our home around 7:00PM. Grandma is 97 years old and she is in a very good health. Dad, Mum, my little brother and I paid homage to our grandmother. I miss my little sister. I wish you could join us, Ei Lay. 8:00PM, I asked my little brother to drive me to Shwedagon Pagoda. And there I captured a few photos to share with you all.

Enjoy and photos, take pleasure in the festive atmosphere and let’s welcome our LORD BUDDHA.

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This scene struck me out! 2009 THADINGYUT was far more crowded…

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I normally shoot such angle from AUNG MYAY because it gives me perfect position to capture the whole pagoda. This time is different! The moon is there and I needed to judge where I wanted to put the moon in the frame…

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Pilgrims at AUNG MYAY… 2009 THADINGYUT, I couldn’t even find a space for me to sit down and pray… There were too much people back in 2009…

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A Buddha Image near AUNG MYAY…

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Pilgrims on Shwedagon Pagoda platform…

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A little nun offering LIGHTS to LORD BUDDHA…

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A man offering LIGHT… Back in 2009, there was 9,000 CANDLE LIGHT offering… And this year is only 4,500 LIGHT…

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This picture brings me back to my childhood day… My dad always bring us to Shwe Taung Sarr Pagoda on Thadingyut Full Moon Day and let us play in the pagoda compound…

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A Buddhist Association create image of LORD BUDDHA with fresh orchid flowers and fruits… It is such a detailing work…

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The Buddha images at the Southern Wing of the Shwedagon Pagoda…

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Built in Myanmar Lunar Year 1299 (A.D 1938) with the donation of 2 cents a person from Thein Gyi Zayy Market, Rangoon…

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An old lady with the helper came over to pay homage to LORD BUDDHA…

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This is for my big brother, Ko Ne Ne Hlwan Moe, who really loves my candle shots…

Here the Christmas comes!  “It comes once a year, but brings a lot of good cheers.”  December for me is truly hectic.  My office forced me to clear the annual leaves.  It’s due to the fact that we cannot carry our annual leaves to next year but to clear off within 2010.  I wish I could clear off my annual leaves days in Christmas and New Year.  But then HR officer said NO.  A lot of our senior fellows will be on Christmas and New Year holidays thus I need to back up their jobs.  So, I cleared off mine last week.  What did I do? I spent my annual leaves by doing a pre wedding assignment.

Me & My December

At the same time, I have been running on a Stock Photo Project under “Christmas Theme”.  Ko Htoon Linn Soe and I accepted a small stock photo project with some copyright sketches.  We have to give full copyright of all the pictures we have taken.  Along with the copyright agreement, we are bound to be constrained from sharing these photos on any kind of digital media.

The real dilemma comes when a lot of my dear friends and fans are waiting for the Christmas post on my blog.  So, I had to do 2 jobs at the same time.  I shoot photos for Stock Photo Project and I too need to shoot for my blog, for my friends and for my fans.  Singapore is small.  There are only a few hot places that I can explore for Christmas.  Plus there are a lot of limitations like weather, lighting, and most importantly TIME.  So far, we are lucky enough to have a collection of merely 25 solid photos for the project.  And we are still working on it.  It ain’t the end for us.  And I have got some nice shots for you guys.  Here they are.

Merry Christmas

I will probably be out of town during Christmas.  I will be in the sea with job assignments.  I will catch up with you guys as soon as possible.  MERRY X’Mas and Very Happy New Year. May your lives as bright as Christmas Lights…

YE LWIN OO (MPS)
17 DEC 2010

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Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful…

Christmas is the gentlest, loveliest festival of the revolving year – and yet, for all that, when it speaks, its voice has strong authority…

The iconic ION shopping mall on ORCHARD ROAD has the most sophisticated decors…

South-East Asia’s most famous retail thoroughfare is decked out in dazzling decorations once again as Singapore celebrates the spirit of Christmas…

Christmas is a time when you get homesick – even when you’re home… ~Carol Nelson~

Christmas is a necessity.  There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we’re here for something else besides ourselves. .. ~Eric Sevareid~

A corner of ORCHARD ROAD…

Christmas Street Performance in front of TAKASHIMAYA Dept. Store…

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love…  ~Hamilton Wright Mabie~

In Myanmar, there are seasonal festival in every month of Myanmar Lunar Calendar. These festivals develop harmony among the Myanmar people and make them relax both in terms of mentally and physically.  The lunar Thadingyut month falls in October. At the middle of the month, the Thadingyut festival, which is also known as War Kyut festival is celebrated throughout the country, especially on the full moon day.

Different regions celebrate Thadingyut in accordance with their respective rituals and traditions.  People decorate  pagodas, monasteries , houses and streets with various kinds of lighting: candles, oil lamps, oil lamps posts, lanterns, electrical bulbs, etc. for about 3 days. Some entertainments such as  stage shows, dances  traditional opera (in Burmese: Zat Pwe) are shown. Some regions pay homage to Lord Buddha with 9,000 Lights (See Mie Koe Htaung), some areas organize alms offering and free food donation for all visitors rich or poor (in Burmese: Sa Tu Di Tha), some celebrate with classical dances and sport competition and the likes.

Apart from the usual celebrations, people from TAVOY of Tenasserim Division celebrate a special  occasion: the FESTIVAL OF ALMS BOWL FLOWS (in Burmese: Tha Beik Hmyaw Pwe) at the early morning hours of the Full Moon day of Thadingyut. They usually put candles, joss sticks, fruits and money into the bowl and let it flow along the river. They said to pay respect to the noble Shin U Pa Gotta, the guardian of the sea in Buddhism.

And SHWE KYIN of Bago Division celebrate Thadingyut inimitably. People from these area commemorate so called FESTIVAL OF FIRE FLOWS (in Burmese: Mie Hmyaw Pwe) believing that their sins will be wipe away on the religious occasion of Thadingyut. It’s been 158 years that Shwe Kyin has been keeping that tradition. On the festival day, the competition of decorated boats and flotillas is also held along the Shwe Kyin River. People not only from Shwe Kyin but also from other regions nearby come to this festival and participate. Pleasantly decorated Motor Boats compete in Shwe Kyin River the whole day. When the sun sets, the beautifully decorated Karaweik Barge which carries the images of Lord Buddha and the Stupa of Shin U Pa Gotta monk turns round right three times to accept the homage of the people’s worshiping. Then, the people fire firecrackers and set oil lotus lamps along the Shwe Kyin River. There are countless oil lamps floating along the river. After lighting the camps, the stupa of Shin U Pa Gotta from the Karaweik Barge is moved to the bamboo raft, which is surrounded by the bamboo fence and then set adrift. According to the Buddha teaching, it is believed that the setting of Shin U Pa Gotta Stupas in the river will save and protect the people who make a living on the water.

COLORFUL LOTUS OIL LAMPS

The Thadingyut Setting Oil Lamps Festival of Shwe Kyin in Bago Division is very renown in Myanmar. It is annually held on the 1st day after the Thadingyut full moon day. The very objective of this festival is to offer lights to Lord Buddha and Shin U Pa Gotta by setting the colorful oil lanterns along the Shwe Kyin River. The makers of these lotus shaped oil lanterns believe that the festival wipe away all the sins and bad lucks along with the water.  Thus,  ladies from Shwe Kyin spend time to manufacture these oil lanterns by themselves to gain merit.

THE MAKING OF LOTUS LANTERNS

In making oil lanterns, the first step is to cut the  oil-paper of various colors around 2 x 4 feet. The oil-paper is a type of smoky paper, which bears heat, resists long hours of lighting and prevents from burning easily. Later, it is systematically cut and fold to the lotus shaped cups and stick with glue. A great deal of customary skill is needed in sticking to get the shape of lotus cup. Then the liquid wax is poured into lotus shaped cup paper and the wick is buried in the middle before the liquid wax gets formed. The wick is compacted to light a long time. Finally, you can pleasantly see the colorful, lotus oil lanterns. “Every year, not less than light 50 thousand oil lamps are manufactured not only for the people from Shwe Kyin but also for the visitors from various regions of the country,” a local said.

Credits: Ko Than Lwin & family (Ma Dauk Myo) for their heartiest host and the accompany.  Without them, there won’t be this post here…

Many groups of Burmese Classical Dancing Troupes (in Burmese: Yein A Phwe) on decorated boats to pay homage to Lord Buddha on this auspicious day…

A performance group demonstrating the lotus, a very symbol of Shwe Kyin Festival of Fire Flows…

5:00 in the evening, the performance troupes assemble at meeting point…  That’s SHWE KYIN RIVER…

The guards demonstrating the ancient tradition of rowyers…

The image of Shin U Pa Gotta monk turns right three times to accept the homage of the people’s worshiping…

it is believed that the setting of Shin U Pa Gotta Stupas in the river will save and protect the people who make a living on the water…

The audience on the bank of SHWE KYIN RIVER…

Pilgrims playing water along SHWE KYIN RIVER…

People started lighting up the lotus lanterns when the darkness comes…

That’s how SHWE KYIN natives pay homage to offer lights to Lord Buddha and Shin U Pa Gotta…

The fireworks started around 8:00 PM and that’s end of the festival…