{"id":385,"date":"2012-03-18T05:05:23","date_gmt":"2012-03-18T05:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moemaka.org\/wp\/?p=385"},"modified":"2012-03-18T05:05:23","modified_gmt":"2012-03-18T05:05:23","slug":"a-letter-to-my-grandmother-by-junior-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/2012\/03\/a-letter-to-my-grandmother-by-junior-win\/","title":{"rendered":"A Letter to my Grandmother by Junior Win"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n

A Letter to my Grandmother\u00a0
\u00a0<\/h1>\n
‘One of the highlights of the season in Rangoon is the Shwedagon\u00a0<\/font>Pagoda festival celebrated on the grounds around the hill where stands\u00a0<\/span>the great pagoda.’ heard from you, grandma, long ago. Today 2600th\u00a0<\/span>anniversary of Shwedagon Pagoda would be held in Rangoon until 7th<\/span><\/div>\n
march of 2012. It was begun its celebration since two weeks ago. I\u00a0<\/font>hoped to see the grounds filled with rows of bamboo and thatch huts\u00a0<\/span>which were marked stalls or show rooms. I also hoped to taste Burmese\u00a0<\/span>foods and I also wanted to window-shop on the products from all over\u00a0<\/span>the country, from the arid plains of central Burma, northern hill\u00a0<\/span>tract, lowlands and the delta areas of the south.<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/font><\/p>\n

You told me, grandma, ‘there were baskets, mats, trays and boxes made\u00a0of cane or bamboo or palm leaves, cotton wool quilts, fillings for\u00a0cushion and mattresses, cotton rugs, bags and handwoven textiles in\u00a0colourful patterns; paper mache dolls, some of them grotesque yet\u00a0attractive: glazed earthern-wares, pots, vases, ash trays;\u00a0lacquer-ware useful as well as beautiful on the every corners of the\u00a0pagoda ground.’ I still heard what you once said to me that ‘it was a\u00a0wonderland where you may wandered and browsed for hours and come away\u00a0finally laden with beautiful things, most of them useless.’ Oh! I\u00a0could not wait for that experience, grandma.<\/font><\/div>\n


<\/font><\/p>\n

I had a little chance since I was born to see such a wonderland,\u00a0grandma. I had only heard from you and my parents how wonderful and\u00a0colorful the Shwedagon Pagoda festival was when we were too young to\u00a0understand. So, the last month of the Burmese calendar falls in March,\u00a0it was a month of Shwedagon pagoda festival. But there had not been\u00a0Shwedagon Pagoda festival for 30 or 40 years. Now 2600th anniversary\u00a0of Shwedagon Pagoda was held this year, it was a very great chance for\u00a0me. I did not want to miss it. Yes, you said ‘it was impossible to\u00a0miss the pagoda festival!’<\/font><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
If you were still with us today, surely you would ask me to buy some\u00a0Burmese foods from the festival for you, isn’t it, grandma? You surely\u00a0asked me to buy some beautiful things all over the country, from the\u00a0arid plains of central Burma, northern hill tract, lowlands and the\u00a0delta areas of the south. I also loved lacquer-wares and\u00a0earthern-wares. I liked to buy some hand-made things as bags, dolls or\u00a0boxes. Surely I would bring them home, grandma. I hoped to wonder and\u00a0browse for hours as you did in your days, grandma.<\/font><\/div>\n


<\/font><\/p>\n

I really hope walking through the never-ending gastronomical paradise,\u00a0I longed to smell the air with heavy aroma of frying, I would love to\u00a0taste grand carnival of crispies and pan-cakes, YES! I remembered you\u00a0said the most popular is the grand crispies! I did not want to miss to\u00a0taste stalls with mountainous heaps of wafers made of glutinous rice\u00a0flour, paper thin and light as air and very brittle. I would love to\u00a0buy them in bunches of fives or tens, strung on bamboo strips. They\u00a0were crunchy and munchable. Surely I would enjoy them ‘showering white\u00a0flakes on myself and my fellow beings as I chew and jostle my way\u00a0through the crowd.’ Oh! What a great chance I have had now!<\/font><\/div>\n


<\/font><\/p>\n

I remembered you told me that ‘there were crispies and snacks were a\u00a0plenty on the festival grounds!’ I was excited to go there, grandma. I\u00a0did not know yet what I would see in the festival ground. I am surely\u00a0to go there, grandma. You said ‘It was impossible to miss the pagoda\u00a0festival’. I do not know yet it is the same wonderland as in your\u00a0days, grandma. It is impossible to miss it, isn’t it, my dear grandma?<\/font><\/div>\n


I promised you, grandma, surely I will go and see\u2026\u2026and\u2026..I will write\u00a0<\/span>an article about it\u2026\u2026.the reader must envy me for my luckiest moment<\/span>
of wandering through the wonderland\u2026..like what you wrote in your\u00a0<\/span>book\u2026.I will write an article about my experience of\u2026.\u2026.like what you\u00a0<\/span>wrote in your article\u2026..grandma\u2026..I promise\u2026.one day\u2026\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

(picture by maungyit, who drew for my grandma(KhinMyoChit)’s book; ‘Flowers and\u00a0Festivals round the Burmese Year, illustrated for Shwedagon Pagoda\u00a0festival of our grandparents’ days.)<\/font><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 A Letter to my Grandmother\u00a0\u00a0 ‘One of the highlights of the season in Rangoon is the Shwedagon\u00a0Pagoda festival celebrated on the grounds around the hill where stands\u00a0the great pagoda.’ heard from you, grandma, long ago. Today 2600th\u00a0anniversary of…<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3RDLm-6d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}