Category: Community

Articles on Burmese community with the following sub sections – Letters, Memory, Portrait, Talks, Experience, Travelogue, Others, Burmese Overseas

A Letter to my Grandmother by Junior Win

    A Letter to my Grandmother   ‘One of the highlights of the season in Rangoon is the Shwedagon Pagoda festival celebrated on the grounds around the hill where stands the great pagoda.’ heard from you, grandma, long ago. Today 2600th anniversary of…

Walking through the Wonderland by Junior Win

 

 

There was MoeKaung Pagoda Festival held from 9t December of 2011 to 17th December of 2011 in Rangoon. People became crowded after 6:00PM, so I chose early time to see the festival. It was held once per year, so it was impossible to miss it!

The Movement of buildOn by Pwintphyu Nandar

  It has been twenty years of building a movement for buildOn. Twenty years of weekends spent doing community service. Twenty years of summers spent in third-world countries helping build schools. That is what twenty years have been like for…

Tanhsungmone and the Medicine Night by Junior Win

Tanhsaungmone and The Medicine Night

Come Tanhsaungmone(Tahsaungtaing), the 8th month of the Burmese calendar, another lights festival even more elaborate with the usual trimming of music, dances, and shows. Tanhsaungmone festival is the lights festival in the month of tanhsaungmone(November). The month is the time for offering special robes and other gifts to the monks.

Khet Mar: Interview with editors, James Byrne & Ko Ko Thet

Bones Will Crow: An Anthology of Burmese Poetry | Sampsonia Way Magazine

James Byrne

James Byrne

James Byrne is an editor and co-founder of The Wolf poetry magazine. He has worked for the Poetry Translation Centre in London and has translated poetry from the Middle-East and the Balkans. For The Wolf he has published the work of Burmese poets Zawgyi, Saw Wai, Hyma Ein, Manorhary and Phone Thet Paing. Byrne recently lived in New York City from 2009-2011, where he was an Extraordinary International Fellow at New York University. His most recent collection is Blood/Sugar, published by Arc in 2009.

SF Burmese Community to Hold 88 23-years Commenmoration Event

 San Francisco Burmese Community, together with 10 sponsors invites you to the 8.8.88 23-year Commenmoration Event. 

 

Event Schedule of August 6, 2011 

[11:00a.m – 12:00p.m.] Alms to monks and Buddhist ceremony in memoriam of the fallen colleagues at and since 8.8.88 

[12:00p.m. – 1:00p.m.]  Refreshments will be served

[1:00p.m. – 4:30p.m.] Performance, Exhibitions, and Presentations

Ko Mya Aye

Thar Gyi (AAPP)

March 14, 2011

Our first meeting was in the union of graduate old students which was born in Rangoon University. Mya Aye was actively involved in 8888 people’s uprising. Then, a place on Maung Htaw Lay street became a rallying point for our association which we called ‘GODSA’. After that, we met again together in cell block 5 of Insein prison in April, 1990.

Burmese in Milwaukee Welcome 21st Century Pin Lon of Burma

MoeMaKa Reporter (Milwaukee)

March 3, 2011

 

 On February 27, as an activity to welcome 21st Pin Lon conference, Karen, Myanmar, Mon, Chin, Rakhine, and other Burmese nationals gathered and held together the second ceremony of ‘Htamane’, the Burmese traditional food, at Pyinnyar Yama monastery in Milwaukee in Wisconsin State. The arrangements of this successful fair include such as ‘lunch for the audience attended’ and ‘listening to the sermon’.

Thee Brothers Teaching Burmese Dance to Displaced Children

MoeMaKa Ywar Saw Gyi

February 24, 2011

Kyal Thee, a comedian of Thee brothers, stated that they started teaching Burmese traditional dancing to displaced Burmese children for free at their home in Chiang Mai. According to their announcement posted on their blog http://theelaytheet4t.blogspot.com, the dancing class would start at 11:00 am on Saturday and it is free of charge. He also added that the course will only last for 2-3 months.

“We believe that Burmese traditional arts, music, and dance will greatly help them to feel happy, and soothe their tired minds and bodies while these stateless Burmese children, who had to cross from their homeland to another country, are both physically and mentally suffering from harshness of life, poverty and pressures of different surroundings. It is also our wish to do so,” said Ko Kyal Thee.

Burmese in Singapore Celebrate Burma Union Day and Birthday of Suu’s Father

MoeMaKa Reporter (Singapore)

February 14, 2011

Yesterday, the admirers and prople of Burma in Singapore gathered and were able to successfully commemorate the Union day of Burma and the 96th birthday of Bogyoke Aung San, the founding-father of Burma’s independence and the father of present NLD leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. It is reported that the organizers had to negotiate repeatedly and faced many obstacles to obtain the permission for the ceremony site in which, to hold the event, hence they could not make it widely known to Burmese in Singapore.

A friend of Moemaka told that this is the first ceremony ever organized in Singapore regarding Burma history. The desired banner for the event “Birthday of Bogyoke Aung San” was not allowed by Singapore authority. So, we had to use the co-banner read “The Union Day and Bogyoke’s Birthday.” The shows of national costumes and music concert of ethnic nationalities brought the celebration alive.

As far as Moemaka could inquire, Singapore government granted the permission for the celebration only at the last minute. “MoeMaKa world-wide readers did not, in advance, learn of the event as being Saturday in Singapore when the invitation was posted in Ywa-Saw-Gyi section of its blog”, said informants from Singapore. It is also seen that few people could manage to attend to the commemoration because the organizers had to urge and invite as much as they could reach in a very short time.

Burmese in NYC With 30 Food Vendors to Raise Fund to Help Burma

MoeMaKa Reporter (New York)

February 15, 2011

It is reported that over 30 food stalls will participate in the charity sale of the Burmese and Asia traditional food, planned to be held in Woodside compound of New York city coming February 23, Sunday. The residents of NYC are collectively hosting this fund-raising and members of Citizen of Burma (CoBA) New York chapter and World Arakanese Organization (WAO) formed by local well-wishers, will volunteer their services to do sundry tasks and chores.

“We will collect donations by selling foods and drinks. We are going to cook and serve favorite dishes of Burmese families such as Mohinga(rice noodles with gravy), Shan noodles, Wet-thar-dote-htoe(well-cooked, sliced meat and entrails of a pig, skewered and served with chilli or tomato sauce),Tofu salad, Phet-htout-gyaw(minced meat, wrapped in dough, fried), Samusa(fried-stuffed pastry) salad, as well as buttered rice with chicken curry, Kyet-thar-kala-thar-hin(rustled up chicken curry) and other varieties of Rakhine traditional food. We will donate what we have earned from this sale,” an organizer explained the arrangements of the fair to MoeMaKa.

Burmese in Singapore to be drafted for Tatmadaw

Reader from Singapore January 22, 2011 Dear MoeMaKa team members, Burmese nationals in Singapore cannot stay away from Burmese embassy. Unavoidably, we have to go there for renewing passports, paying tax, and requesting endorsements, etc. It is now widely rumored…