Myanmar protesters seek joyless New Year to subvert junta’s ‘fun Thingyan’ festivities
- Thingyan is Myanmar’s most significant cultural event, marked by prayers and the splashing of water on others as a form of symbolic cleansing
- But protesters fear such activities would be used by the junta to show that life is returning to normal, even as the death toll from fighting grows and the number of refugees hits 900,000
An anti-junta militant of the Karen National Union is starting his day, deep in the jungles of the Bago Yoma mountain range in central Myanmar, by gathering firewood and water for his battalion.
As he goes about his daily chores, the graphic designer-turned-soldier, who goes by the nom de guerre Dat Khell, wistfully recalls his past celebrations of the important festival – before Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s junta seized power in February 2021.
“I miss Thingyan and my family at home,” Dat Khell, 23, said in a phone interview with This Week in Asia. “In normal times, we would ride around town with a truck we called the ‘Thingyan Vehicle’, splash water on festival goers on the road, dance with music in front of big stages and get soaked in the sun.
“It does not seem obvious that I miss the good times, when I am with my comrades,” he said. “But I feel it deeply when I am manning the sentry post alone at night.”
The four-day New Year festival is Myanmar’s longest and most significant cultural event, and is marked by prayers and the cleaning of Buddha’s image in temples and homes.
