Myanmar community celebrates traditional New Year festival

Participants in the event

The Myanmar community gathered to celebrate its New Year Festival, “Thingyan,” yesterday at Saint Paul School.

Held annually in Myanmar from April 13 to 17, the event marks the country’s biggest festive occasion, with residents splashing water on one another. According to the tradition, the water cleanses a person of their sins that was committed during the past year.

Yesterday, the community sprinkled water on their guests of honor as a traditional gesture to wash their sins and bad luck away from the body, mind and soul, so the New Year can be ushered in on a clean slate.

Held in the region for the third time, the Myanmar Social Club of Macau (MSM) provides a platform for its community to remember their tradition back home.

“The celebration [in Myanmar] includes sharing of food, going to the monastery, taking care of the elderly and splashing water on each other,” said Ricky Myint, chairman of MSM.

‘This is really a meaningful celebration for Myanmar people,” he added.

The festivity featured artists from Myanmar, traditional dances, live performances and the sharing of food.

He estimated there are approximately 60,000 Burmese linked people in the region, many of whom migrated to the region 30 to 40 years ago.

According to Myint, the association – which has some 1,600 members – has seen an increase in the number of Burmese migrant workers in the SAR.

Meanwhile, the chairman admitted that the absence of a consulate in the city remains a challenge for the community, but noted the association is working with the Myanmar Consulate in Hong Kong to assist its community in Macau.

Ricky Myint

“The consulate in Hong Kong is giving us a lot of support, especially to us as an association. From time to time, we help the Burmese in [processing the needed] documents,” said Myint.

Also, the chairman added that the association had opened a class for the community to learn English and Cantonese to fight the language barrier between them and their employers.

He also expressed that the community easily adapts to the local culture in Macau.

“The food here is totally different from Myanmar food. They [the Burmese] have difficulties in trying Chinese cuisine but that is just one of the things they have to adjust to,” he said.

MSM also holds other activities, including blood donation drives as well as participating in World Migrants Day, and hinted on playing a further part in local activities in the region in the future.

Meanwhile, Father Lawrence The Reh, a Catholic priest, expressed his hopes to conduct an official mass in the region.

Back in Myanmar, the Catholic community only accounts for 1.4 percent of the total population. In Macau there are some 50 Burmese Catholics.

“[We hold a] mass but it is not official. Maybe later we will ask permission from the bishop to give them a place to conduct the mass because [what we do] is just a private mass for them,” he explained.