Burmese Water Festival in Monterey Park, LA
Posted on April 17, 2008, by Hanna Ingber Win, under Culture.
These photos are from Thingyan (Water Festival) to celebrate the Burmese New Year. The festival was April 13, 2008, in Monterey Park, Los Angeles.
In Burma, all businesses, shops and restaurants close for the week to celebrate the holiday. Burmese society is typically conservative - except on Thingyan. Young people wear Western clothes, girls look sexy and all rules are ignored. Children run through the streets throwing water at anyone they can find. Or they wait by the windows of their apartment, ready to dump a bucket of water on the next passerby.
In Rangoon, teenagers and young people load up in cars or trucks and ride by stages set up in the streets with people spraying water hoses. Kids scream, sing, dance and try to find a police officer to taunt. Normally, being rude to a man in uniform would get you in serious trouble in this totalitarian country. But on Thingyan, anything goes.
Photos by Hanna and Aung Moe
