YANGON, April 10 (Xinhua) -- Aye Aye Win, a 51-year-old woman from a village in Myanmar's delta region of Ayeyawady, is joyfully doing good deeds at a family reunion during the Myanmar New Year holiday.
She said that doing good things would bring good results and determine the quality of the incoming lives.
Thousands of Myanmar people have travelled to their native places during the Thingyan New Year holiday to reunite with their family and relatives.
Aye, who is the only sister among her six siblings, said she is joyful making merits together with her brothers, nephews and nieces who visited her during the holiday.
"I intended to do the most fruitful merits. Now, I'm supporting my brother who is to be ordained as a monk at our village's communal ordination ceremony," she told Xinhua on Sunday.
Myanmar people, who are famous for doing charities, have been forced to change the way they usually make communal donations because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Aye's brother Zaw Win, who was working in Yangon, is to be ordained as a monk at the village's communal ordination ceremony on April 13.
Aye bought monk's robes and other requisites for her brother.
Buddhist ordination ceremony is fundamental and essential in Myanmar people's merit-making journey.
"I will stay in monkhood for 11 days. I am just trying to accumulate merits as possible as I can," Zaw Win, 48, told Xinhua.
Many Myanmar people are Buddhists and they agree that merit-making is an essential part of their lives.
Myanmar people have learnt what are good deeds and what are bad deeds from their parents, teachers and monks at their early ages.
Kaung Zaw Lat, a 13-year-old nephew of Aye, said he would stay as a novice for seven days while his elder sister who studied in Yangon returned home during the Thingyan holiday.
"I am right now learning counting beads and some verses of Buddhist scriptures before I am ordained as a novice," Kaung, who recently sat for the grade-4 exam, said.
The 2022 Thingyan New Year holiday, which lasts for nine days, started on Saturday and will end on April 17, the Myanmar New Year Day.
On New Year Day, elderly people in Myanmar visit monasteries to take precepts, and young people pay respects to their parents, grandparents, teachers and elderly people to gain merits.
Myanmar's Health Ministry last month eased COVID-19 restrictions, allowing public gatherings of up to 400 people as the daily COVID-19 cases were decreasing in the country.
The Southeast Asian country has registered a total of 612,341 COVID-19 cases with 19,434 deaths as of Sunday. Over 22.2 million people in the country have been fully vaccinated as of Saturday.
Myanmar's State Administration Council was also preparing to celebrate Thingyan, or the traditional water festival, this year after it was suspended in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic.
U Hlan Kyint Man, joint-secretary of Yangon Region Public Transport Committee, said, "Two bus lines from Aung Mingalar Bus Terminal and eight bus lines from Dagon Ayeyar will run daily throughout the New Year holiday."
"I am happy doing good deeds together with my brothers, nephews, nieces and grandchildren while they visit me from Yangon during the holiday," Aye said. ■