Sunday, 13 December 2009

• Pagoda Festival

  I’ve been meaning to write about the pagoda festival I went to, but I’ve been so busy this week. Actually, I’ve been meaning to write about this pagoda festival for about 3 years now. :P It’s just that this year, I finally worked up the courage to take photos there. Before, I was being very self-conscious, and even though I went to the pagoda festival like almost everyday for the last few years, I never got around to taking photos there.
  
  However, the photos I took aren’t very good because I went there during night time. And the friend that I went was embarrassed that I was taking photos, so she kept pulling me around, resulting in blur images. But I’m going to put them up anyways. I’ll try to take better photos at the festival next year.
  
  

  

  People at the Festival (balloon seller too!)
  

  
  

  The pagoda festival is usually held to raise funds for the pagodas. The shops that want to open at the festival have to pay a certain amount of fees to the pagoda trustees. Most of the pagodas have a fixed date for holding the pagoda festival: for example, Shwedagon Pagoda’s festival is always held during the month of Tabaung (starting on Tabaung Full Moon Day, I think).
  
  

  

  Little Kids Playing at Moe Kaung Pagoda
  
  

  The pagoda festival that I went to is at the Moe Kaung Pagoda, which was the nearest pagoda to my house. I remember going to the pagoda festival since I was a little kid. I remember that it was held almost always in December, after the 2nd Preliminary Examinations.  I remember going with my cousin and my childhood friend Khin and her mother to the pagoda right after the exam was over. We’ll ride the ferris wheel (or rather, I’ll watch from the ground as others ride, cos I was afraid of it at that time), or eat the snacks being sold there. I used to be very happy whenever there was a pagoda festival because there would be toy shops opened there, and I can almost always ask my parents to buy some toys for me.
  
  

  
  Toy Shop (see the guns? :P)
  
  

  At the pagoda festivals, they usually have traditional opera troupes (ဇာတ္ပြဲ) but I’ve never watched it before. It’s because they usually only finish at 3 or 4 am in the morning. I’ve never been interested in watching such shows. There was also a show by transvestites called “Moe Gyo Nghat Nge Lay Myar” (Thunderbirds) where (as a young kid, I understood it as) men dresses up in female clothes and act like females. After all these years, it is still operating, as I saw the same group at the pagoda festival this year. The only show that I went to when I was a kid was a puppet show, which only lasted about an hour.
  
  

  
  

  Zat Pwe (Opera) House
  
  

  These shows are held on the empty ground of the pagoda, and with temporary huts. If you wanted to watch a show there, you have to buy tickets, and you have to sit on mats. The mats at the front near the stage are the most expensive. But nowadays, you can buy the tickets with plastic seats which are the most expensive.
  
  I like walking along the busy street filled with festival-goers. But it can get very crowded at night that you have to push yourself in and out the crowd, which can be very tiring. There’s one major street next to the pagoda called Moe Kaung Pagoda Road, and during festival times, there are shops opened left and right. You can find all kind of shops: traditional snack shops such as “mont lin ma yar” which roughly translates as “husband and wife snack” because of the two parts that make up as one. (မုန္႕လင္မယား)၊ “yay mont” which translates “water snack” (ေရမုန္႕) because of the liquid form of rice batter that is fried to thin crisps,  and fried fritters such as gourd, shrimps, crabs, etc.
  

  
  
  Yay Mont
  (Actually I took this photo about 2 months ago at Moe Kaung Pagoda:
  since I didn't take any photos of it this year, I just added this one.)
  

  
  
  Buyers & Sellers
     
  
  Fried Fritters (crabs & shrimps fried with rice batter)
  
  
  Blurry Fried Fritters (cos my friend pulled my hand at that time!)
  
  
  Fried Quail (both eggs and the birds!)
  They look yummy but I've never eaten it before
  
  
  Hta Ma Nae' (a type of sticky rice)
  

  
  There are also toy shops, mat shops, and clothing shops where some are selling second-hand clothings. There’s a kyar zan chet shop that always opens only during the pagoda festival. There are also shops that sell kitchenware such as pots and pans. Those shops have been there since we were young. The recent additions to these shops now are shops that sell DVDs and VCDs, ranging from Burmese pirate vcds to Korean dramas and American series (with Burmese subtitle!)
  
  

  
  Shops Along Moe Kaung Pagoda Road
  
  
  Longyi Shop
  
  
  Mat Shop
  

  
  When I took these photos, I had to go there 2 times: the first time was with my friend (my childhood friend since 3rd Grade), her bf, her aunt, and this helper-kid from her shop. She was quite embarrassed that I was pointing my camera here and there, and kept pulling me away. Before I thought that everyone will be looking at me when I took photos, so I didn’t dare to take out camera. But once I did start shooting, I saw that not that many people were looking at me, so I became less self-conscious. Still, since I went there during night time, when it’s the most crowded, I didn’t take as much photos as I wanted, especially along the Moe Kaung Pagoda Road because we didn’t walk along that way that night. It was so crowded so we just escaped into the pagoda and then to the pagoda yard.
  
  

  
  A Fortune Teller that forecast  using shells
  You have to throw the shells into a plate and according to their positions on the plate, you're given a number,
  and they give you this card that has your predictions.. It's just for fun though :)
  
  

  My friend wanted to ride the ferris wheel, so I went along with her, while her bf and her aunt waited at the ground. She was telling me that the people who operates the ferris wheel knows her because she always always comes and rides it more than one time every year. :P So this time, we rode the ferris wheel three times consecutively. I was closing my eyes the whole time while the ferris wheel moved so she kept laughing at me, saying, “Hey.. don’t pee!” -_-
  
  

  
  Ferris Wheel that I Rode
  
  
  I took this photo 2 months ago, on Tazaungmone Full Moon Day
  There was these ferris wheel and merry-go-around thingy that day

  
  

  

  Fellow Riders
  (see how there's no railing to hold you in place when seated?)
  

  
  

  
  The Bouncy Playground
  (Photo taken from the ferris wheel)
  
  

  The strange thing about the ferris wheel is that it’s not operated by a machine, but with people, who climbs up to the middle tracks, and while someone pushes the carriages from the ground, they’ll be climbing up from here and there to make the ferris wheel move. The ferris wheel that we rode was a small one, so it only needed about 3 or 4 operators. But there was also this BIG ferris wheel, which needed about 10 operators, I think. I’m glad that my friend didn’t ask to ride that one, saying that it’s not worth it because it only turns for two times, where as the small one turned about 10 times. I was glad that she got dizzy after 3 rides, because I was also getting dizzy. But while I was up in the air, when the passengers at the carriages were still being loaded, so it wasn’t moving, I got up the courage to take a photo from up there. :P It’s scary because there’s absolutely no rail to keep us in the seats, so I just held tight to the rail beside me and the little kid beside me (pretending to hold him in place, lolz!) while my friend pointed at me and kept laughing. Some friend she is. :D
  
  

  
  

  Merry Go Around and the Big Ferris Wheel
  
  
  The Bigger Ferris Wheel that I didn't ride
  

  
  The pagoda festival started on December 1st and officially ended on December 7th. But there were still some shops still opened along the Moe Kaung Pagoda Road, so when I was coming back home from work, I took a stroll along that road and took some more photos of the shops. I was alone that time, so I didn’t stay very long. The pagoda yard was then empty, and there was no more opera troupes and ferris wheels.
  
  Since I now have experience taking photos this year, next year, I think I will be able to take better photos. :)  
  

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