Traditional festival lights up Myanmar

Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-24 18:36:57|Editor: Li Xia
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by Khin Zar Thwe

YANGON, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar is now filled with colorful lights and people are seen everywhere to celebrate the traditional Thadingyut festival which is known as festival of lights.

With the majority being Buddhist followers, Myanmar people began celebrating the Thadingyut lighting festival on Tuesday for three days across the nation.

The full moon day of Thadingyut falls on Wednesday of the seventh month in the Myanmar calendar year, marking the end of the rainy season.

During the festival, Myanmar people lit candles, and hang colorful light bulbs and paper lanterns at their houses to mark the day welcoming the descent of Lord Buddha from heaven.

The Thadingyut Lighting festival is also celebrated with Buddha's Dhamma teachings to drive away the darkness of ignorance and become enlightened in accordance with their beliefs.

Buddha descends from heaven on the full moon day after preaching Abhidhamma to his mother who was reborn in heaven for three Lenten months.

When Buddha was descending back to the mortal world, he took middle stairways made of ruby, out of three stairways which were made of gold, silver and ruby.

Buddhist people celebrate the festival to welcome the Buddha by lighting and decorating streets, houses and public buildings with colored electric bulbs and candles which represent those three stairways.

People are enjoying the three-day festival, paying homage to pagodas, offering alms, candle lights, joss sticks and flowers and fruits and some well-known pagodas are now congested with pilgrims from regions and states.

Apart from visiting pagodas, it is also a time for young people to pay homage to the elders including parents and teachers to ask for pardon if they had committed any misdeeds in the past days.

Well-known pagodas in Yangon, Nay Pyi Taw and Mandalay are crowded with Buddhist devotees and pilgrims during the festival.

Some people are offering free meals and traditional food to passersby and visitors at the pagodas.

As the festive days are marked as official holidays, express train tickets were sold out a week ago before the festival and hotels, motels and inns are fully occupied due to the large number of visitors from home and abroad.

On the festive nights, streets in Yangon are packed with street market fairs featuring food stalls and shops selling handicrafts, toys, eye-catching items along with street cultural performances.

People can also be seen strolling along the streets in downtown Yangon, and Ferris wheels and other fun rides attract groups of families and friends enjoying the festivities.

The night life during the festival is filled with joyful laughter, sounds of music and chitchatting voices of the crowds with multi-colored lights alongside the streets and houses across the nation.

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