Page 43 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

Festivals and events BASICS 41
censorship, leading to the increasingly wide spread Independent Mon News Agency Wmonnews.org. Focusing on
of newspapers and magazines you’ll see laid out on Mon-related news and issues.
the pavements of Yangon and other cities. Online, The Irrawaddy Wirrawaddy.org. Website of the now defunct
international news and exiled Burmese websites magazine, with a mix of breaking news and op-ed columns on
were unblocked (along with Youtube). national issues.
Following the national league for democracy’s Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N.) Wenglish.panglong
(nld) sweeping electoral victory in 2015, it was .org. Shan-related news and opinion.
widely expected that most remaining press
restraints would be swept away. as it turned out, Television and radio
the nld government did nothing of the sort, but
has retained many of the junta’s old powers and the state-run Myanmar Radio and TV (MRtv)
even ramped up their enforcement, regularly jailing broadcasts in various languages including english
– often on the flimsiest pretexts – those who and is as exciting as you’d expect, as is the state-run,
criticize aung san suu Kyi or other government english-language Myanmar international tv. Many
officials. rooms now come with a tv, although only
upmarket places generally offer international
Newspapers and magazines satellite channels. Radio stations include the
state-run Radio Myanmar and the most populist
there are four state-owned daily newspapers: Yangon City FM (89.0FM).
three in Burmese plus the rather Orwellian english-
language New Light of Myanmar (Wwww.moi.gov
.mm/npe/nlm). the only major privately owned Festivals and
english-language paper is the Myanmar Times
(Wmmtimes.com), founded in 2000 by sonny swe events
and australian Ross dunkley and now published
five times per week. Granted special privilieges Myanmar’s busy festival calendar still
under the military regime, the paper was often criti- revolves almost exclusively around
cized as an upmarket propaganda tool given a religious festivals marking the cycles of
touch of Western-style window-dressing (although the Buddhist calendar (see box, p.42).
this didn’t prevent sonny swe from being sent to Each of the twelve months of the
prison for eight years in 2004). Post-independence, Buddhist lunar calendar has its own
the paper transformed briefly into one of the finest associated festival, although with the
in the region, until a disastrous change of exception of the big three festivals –
management led to nose-diving journalistic Thingyan, Thadingyut and Tazaungdaing
standards, the loss of most of its staff and a great – these are likely to pass largely
deal of shameless kowtowing to assorted vested unnoticed by casual visitors.
interests. Whether it survives this latest setback as well as the major national festivals, many
remains to be seen. towns have their own pagoda festival (paya pwè),
For the time being, Myanmar’s top english- a kind of Burmese equivalent of a country fair, with
language journalism is to be found in the impromptu day and night markets and food stalls
hard-hitting Frontier magazine (published weekly; mushrooming around the pagoda, accompanied
Wfrontiermyanmar.net), established by Myanmar by performances of traditional dance, drama,
times co-founder sonny swe, which has taken up comedy and music. notable pagoda festivals are
the investigative slack left by the collapse of his held at the ananda Paya and shwezigon Pagoda in
former paper and covers a wide range of controver- Bagan; at the shwedagon and Botataung pagodas
sial national issues. in Yangon; at the Mahamuni Pagoda (Mandalay); at
Kyaiktiyo (the Golden Rock); and at the shittaung
NEWS WEBSITES Paya (Mrauk U), shwesandaw Pagoda (twante) and
Burma News International Wbnionline.net. News aggregrator shwemawdaw Pagoda (Bago).
focusing on stories relating to the country’s ethnic minorities. the second major type of traditional Burmese
Burma Times Wburmatimes.net. Online news portal highlighting festival is the nat pwè. this is a more raucous
the plight of the Rakhine Rohingya (see p.121). version of the homely pagoda festival, dedicated to
Democratic Voice of Burma Wenglish.dvb.no. Hard-hitting the country’s revered nat spirits (see p.386) and
coverage of controversial news countrywide. featuring copious drinking, dancing and music, as

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