Celebrated festivals in Burma

Burma is a cultural country. In the traditional Burmese calendar twelve months are there. In these twelve corresponding months twelve festivals are celebrated. All of these festivals are related to Burmese Buddhism. You can see that in any town or village the local pagoda festival is celebrated with pomp. People enjoy all these festival and most of them are very meaningful to them. They feel all these carry happiness to their life. The well-known festival in Burma is Thingyan. This is a four-day celebration organized in the coming lunar New Year. This festival is usually held previous to the Burmese New Year. This can be mentioned as first day of Tagu i.e. around 17 April. This is similar to other Southeast Asian New Year festivals such as Songkran. In Songkran festival people splash water on one another. But in this aspect I can say that Thingyan has religious significance. This marks the days in which Buddhists are anticipated to observe the Eight Principles of Buddhism.

For the Buddhists in Burma, festivals are a central part. Most of these festivals coincide with full moons of the lunar calendar. Central Burma is the hub where the majority of festivals take place during the month of March, July to September, December and also during Buddhist lent. They do both the things. Usually they either start or finish on the full moon day. Some of the major festivals that can be mentioned include Full Moon Day of Tabaung in March, Water Festival and Myanmar New Year in April, Buddhist Lent in the month of July-August and Light Festival in November.

The official holidays include Independence Day on January 4, Union Day on February 12, Armed Forces Day on March 27 and Martyrs’ Day on July 19. Foreigners authorize Burma as the ‘Golden Land’ for the warmness and fun-loving of the people.