Burmese Water Festival Fun By Haythi E.     What is the Burmese Water Festival? During April, Burmese people celebrate the Water Festival. It lasts for a week. It’s also the Burmese new year celebration in Burma. If you don’t know where Burma is, it’s in Asia, and it is the only country which celebrates the Water Festival.     Since many Burmese practice the Buddhist religion, they celebrate the Water Festival. The story of the Water Festival is that the Lord Buddha, who is like a god, came from heaven on the first day and went back on the third day of the celebration.     The main purpose of the Water Festival is that it washes off your badness, miseries, stress, sadness and washes away anything a person had done that was tragic in the past.     There is another story behind the Water Festival. A long time ago, Burmese kings celebrated the New Year in the palace together with their families. They offered flowers, fruits, and foods to the Buddha in the monastery temple since they were Buddhist. They worship and prayed to Buddha and the monks. The king and his families would gently pour and sometimes splash the water on each other on their backs or on their shoulders from a silver bowl. The silver bowl contained perfumed water. Outside the palace, all the people poured water on each other from their buckets or sometimes silver bowls. That’s how it became the Water Festival and also how New Year in Burma is in April.     The Water Festival these days is fun. Today, Burmese people celebrate it in a different way. The older people, elders, go to the monastery (Buddhist temple) and worship and pray to the Lord Buddha and the monks. However, the young ones, teenagers, and some adults go out driving in their Jeeps. The reason they drive in Jeeps is that it’s popular during the Water Festival to splash the people on the street. One fact about the Jeep is that normally the Jeep can carry only 7 people, but during the Water Festival days, it can carry over 25 people. They’re all standing and climbing on all parts of the car, even some people sit on the hood of the engine. Even though they have more than the maximum people in the Jeeps, the police don’t arrest them because it’s the Water Festival.     There are stages put up during the Water Festival. On the stages there are shows by bands, singers, actors, famous people and Burmese dances done by the school girls. Sometimes, they give free food, and put a prank on the food like putting spices into sweet food. It’s sometimes funny.     The Water Festival is very fun and it is a favorite holiday in Burma. *A Special Thanks to Violet Chaw who allowed the use of her stunning photos of Myamar.