Thursday, January 21, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The blame game
We are trapped in this blame game. Being an emotional person, I kind of felt really sick of this article and comments when I first received the link from my friend in Singapore.
http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/01/14/myanmar-national-with-poor-command-of-english-working-as-accounts-executive-in-singapore/comment-page-4/#comment-56828
However, Ko Paw's following response helped ease my feeling.
http://kopaw07.blogspot.com/2010/01/blog-post_18.html
This is it's followup post.
http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/01/18/protracted-online-flame-war-between-foreigners-and-locals-on-tr-a-warning-for-future-social-unrest/
Eventually, those who fail to create opportunity domestically for our young people who have to end up their energy and resources there should deserve blame.
http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/01/14/myanmar-national-with-poor-command-of-english-working-as-accounts-executive-in-singapore/comment-page-4/#comment-56828
However, Ko Paw's following response helped ease my feeling.
http://kopaw07.blogspot.com/2010/01/blog-post_18.html
This is it's followup post.
http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/01/18/protracted-online-flame-war-between-foreigners-and-locals-on-tr-a-warning-for-future-social-unrest/
Eventually, those who fail to create opportunity domestically for our young people who have to end up their energy and resources there should deserve blame.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Catching a glimpse (Naked Festival)
Here again is my memorable experience in Okayama, Japan exactly 6 years ago where I had a rare chance to see Men's naked festival. Whenever I recall the memory of that particular night, I can't help myself not to grin. I don't think I can witness this festival next month though I am in Japan. I wish I could.
YOUNG and old men, laughing and waving at the crowd, marched in rows of four as they shouted in unison, “Washoi! Washoi!”
“It’s to raise their spirits,” said my interpreter.
Alongside thousands of Japanese and international tourists, I watched in bewilderment as Saidaiji, a town in Okayama prefecture in Japan, transformed into a hectic party on the eve of Hadaka Matsuri (Naked man’s festival) that falls each year on the third Saturday in February, the coldest month in Japan.
When my Japanese friend invited me to attend, I was ambivalent. Coming from Myanmar, where it is taboo to discuss let alone display nudity, I was overwhelmed with embarrassment. But my curiosity – and fear that I might never again have such an opportunity – got the better of me. I decided to go.
What will they do? Why? Are they wearing nothing? I thought.
My worries diminished only when I found a poster with a photograph of participants clad in a loincloth.
“OK, that isn’t so bad,” I thought. “It is similar to what Sumo wrestlers wear.”
Television crews and domestic and international media representatives collected at the Saidaiji Kannonin Temple, which was choked with the smoke of scented sticks and brightened by candles, on the evening of February 21. In the temple grounds girls played the taiko (Japanese drums).
Traditional food stalls lined either side of a lane leading to the temple’s main entrance. It looked similar to our pagoda festivals where vendors sell various Myanmar foods.
“Washoi. Washoi,” beaming with excitement, I repeated the slogan with the crowd.
Some of the young participants, dressed in loincloth, posed with me when I pulled out my camera. Others shivered in the chilly air dropping to 10 degrees Celsius.
My friend and I entered a hall where the participants were changing their clothes.
Their faces turned red with excitement and sake (Japanese alcoholic beverage of fermented rice).
“They drink a lot of sake to protect themselves against chilly weather and to hide their embarrassment,” my interpreter said.
She also explained that many Japanese believe that those who participate in the festival will have good fortune in the coming year.
The festival is supposed to bring a good harvest, peace and a good spring.
I watched men help their friends tie the ten-metre long piece of white cloth around their waists. The cloth must be tied tight, and some of them cried out in pain.
After the loincloth was correctly positioned they ran to ponds near the temple grounds to purify their bodies.
“It’s to raise their spirits,” said my interpreter.
Alongside thousands of Japanese and international tourists, I watched in bewilderment as Saidaiji, a town in Okayama prefecture in Japan, transformed into a hectic party on the eve of Hadaka Matsuri (Naked man’s festival) that falls each year on the third Saturday in February, the coldest month in Japan.
When my Japanese friend invited me to attend, I was ambivalent. Coming from Myanmar, where it is taboo to discuss let alone display nudity, I was overwhelmed with embarrassment. But my curiosity – and fear that I might never again have such an opportunity – got the better of me. I decided to go.
What will they do? Why? Are they wearing nothing? I thought.
My worries diminished only when I found a poster with a photograph of participants clad in a loincloth.
“OK, that isn’t so bad,” I thought. “It is similar to what Sumo wrestlers wear.”
Television crews and domestic and international media representatives collected at the Saidaiji Kannonin Temple, which was choked with the smoke of scented sticks and brightened by candles, on the evening of February 21. In the temple grounds girls played the taiko (Japanese drums).
Traditional food stalls lined either side of a lane leading to the temple’s main entrance. It looked similar to our pagoda festivals where vendors sell various Myanmar foods.
“Washoi. Washoi,” beaming with excitement, I repeated the slogan with the crowd.
Some of the young participants, dressed in loincloth, posed with me when I pulled out my camera. Others shivered in the chilly air dropping to 10 degrees Celsius.
My friend and I entered a hall where the participants were changing their clothes.
Their faces turned red with excitement and sake (Japanese alcoholic beverage of fermented rice).
“They drink a lot of sake to protect themselves against chilly weather and to hide their embarrassment,” my interpreter said.
She also explained that many Japanese believe that those who participate in the festival will have good fortune in the coming year.
The festival is supposed to bring a good harvest, peace and a good spring.
I watched men help their friends tie the ten-metre long piece of white cloth around their waists. The cloth must be tied tight, and some of them cried out in pain.
After the loincloth was correctly positioned they ran to ponds near the temple grounds to purify their bodies.
A young man who has participated in the festival four times told me that men usually give their used loincloths to their wives for a successful childbirth or their children for good health.
The temple and its compound began to fill with tens of thousands of participants and spectators. It was so congested that it felt like the heat of the bodies was generating smoke in the room.
“If I were not sprinkling enough water, they might get injured because of the friction among them,” said a member of the board of trustees as he tossed cups of water over the crowd.
Security guards told participants to not push each other, but some participants fainted and medical teams carried them out on stretchers.
The light suddenly went out at midnight and everything was dark except the blaze inside the temple. A priest threw two shingi (sacred sticks) from a window of the temple into the melee.
It is believed that the men who successfully clutch the sticks are the lucky men of the year. Their happiness is promised for the whole year.
“I was right in the middle of the temple stuffed with thousands of participants for more than one hour,” said Lars Nicolaysen, a journalist from the German news agency, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, who participated in the event.
“I got separated from my group. It was so crowded that I could not breathe properly and even a drop of water was vital for me.
“When I fell down I had to raise my arms in the air in order to snatch or grab someone near. Otherwise I would have been stepped on.
“I thought I was going to die in the next 10 minutes and just wanted to stop everything.
“I was about to touch a stick when I was hit, and my lip bled,” he said, pointing to his lower lip, which was swollen and bruised.
“As soon as it finished and the participants scattered away, I had a great relief. But my pain had not faded away because of the tight loincloth, which had hampered my breathing.
“It was so great but it was really hard,” he said shrugging his shoulders.
The fierce struggle in the dark was the climax of the festival. Shrewd participants performed clever, premeditated teamwork such as linking arms to keep others out of their circle.
The lucky man of the night was carried on his friends’ shoulders to a room where the media waited for him to erect the sacred sticks in a sand-filled box.
“This is the first time for me to participate in this event. As soon as I got the stick, I hid it from being snatched by others. My team let me go out of the temple,” he said.
It was about 2am when my friend and I left the temple for our hotel.
I never did get to see naked men, but it was a memorable experience nonetheless.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Sumo wrestling up close
http://www.myanmar.gov.mm/myanmartimes/no203/MyanmarTimes11-203/027.htm
IT has always seemed strange to me that people could enjoy watching a sport in which contenders physically harm one another, but last month I somehow found myself at a thrilling sumo wrestling tournament in Tokyo.
The entrance to Kokugikan Stadium was lined with colourful banners bearing the names of the wrestlers and referees. Thousands of spectators collected in the spacious stadium to watch the 13th day of the nearly completed sumo tournament.
I had come with Mr Sasaki, an assistant sports editor at JiJi News Agency in Tokyo, and a knowledgeable sumo fan.
He explained that the spectators, most of them over 40, had come from nearby Tokyo, Yokohama, Chiba and Saitama. Younger Japanese, he said, tend to prefer baseball to sumo wrestling, but foreign interest in the sport is increasing. Some famous sumo wrestlers in Japan are actually from Russia and Mongolia.
Our press seats offered a great view of the dohyo, a two foot high, 18-square-foot clay ring. The bout is confined to an inner circle a little over 15 feet in diameter.
Over the ring, a roof resembling a shrine is suspended from the ceiling by cables.
As the match began, sumo wrestlers in ceremonial aprons came onto the stage and stood in a circle. This is the first time I have seen sumo wrestlers up close, and many are at least twice as big as I am.
Sumo wrestlers wear nothing except a band around their waists, which merely covers the major organ of a man and made me feel a bit funny. Their attire reminded me of our ethnic Naga tribes, who usually wear nothing except a gong that covers the major sexual organs.
Mr Sasaki asked me whether I felt embarrassed to watch them.
“Some foreigners said they feel embarrassed to watch such kinds of matches,” he said. But I love it. It looks unique.
According to Japanese literature, sumo is an ancient sport dating back some 1500 years. Sumo grand tournaments are held in Japan six times in a year, three times in Tokyo and once each in Osaka, Nagoya and Kyushu. Each tournament lasts for 15 days.
During the match, wrestlers are not allowed to punch each other, pull hair or kick the stomachs or chests of their opponents. A sumo wrestler who touches the ground with any part of his body, his knee or even the tip of his finger, loses the match.
Whenever a match ended, a man in traditional costume appeared and announced the names of wrestlers for the next match in a very unique classical voice. People were shouting for the competitors and offering words of encouragement. The sumo wrestlers rinsed their mouths with water and wiped their faces with paper towels.
“It is to purify their mind and body,” said Mr Sasaki.
The wrestlers also scattered salt on their feet in order to purify themselves. TheJapanese believe that salt has a special power for driving away evil.
After rinsing with water, they squatted and faced each other in the centre of the ring, crouching forward and touching their fists to the ground. They proceeded to glare fiercely at one another with their small eyes. It seemed to me as if they were about to pounce on each other like crouching chubby tigers.
The match lasted no more than 30 or 40 seconds. It was so exciting that I could not keep myself from shouting.
It is really hard to see some of the wrestlers being thrown out of the ring, in pain and injured. Dragging their feet, they had to approach again to the stage to bow to the referee. They seemed to leave with mixed feelings of shamefulness and pain.
The final match between the current grand champion Asashoryu, a Mongolian, and a Japanese champion, Kaiyo, is the most exciting. The spectators gave a big hand to Kaiyo rather than Asashoryu, who eventually won the tournament without a single defeat in 15 matches.
People yelled out when the champion raised his foot and stamped the floor to make a sound for the farewell bow dance.
But for me, each short moment was packed with thrills.
IT has always seemed strange to me that people could enjoy watching a sport in which contenders physically harm one another, but last month I somehow found myself at a thrilling sumo wrestling tournament in Tokyo.
The entrance to Kokugikan Stadium was lined with colourful banners bearing the names of the wrestlers and referees. Thousands of spectators collected in the spacious stadium to watch the 13th day of the nearly completed sumo tournament.
I had come with Mr Sasaki, an assistant sports editor at JiJi News Agency in Tokyo, and a knowledgeable sumo fan.
He explained that the spectators, most of them over 40, had come from nearby Tokyo, Yokohama, Chiba and Saitama. Younger Japanese, he said, tend to prefer baseball to sumo wrestling, but foreign interest in the sport is increasing. Some famous sumo wrestlers in Japan are actually from Russia and Mongolia.
Our press seats offered a great view of the dohyo, a two foot high, 18-square-foot clay ring. The bout is confined to an inner circle a little over 15 feet in diameter.
Over the ring, a roof resembling a shrine is suspended from the ceiling by cables.
As the match began, sumo wrestlers in ceremonial aprons came onto the stage and stood in a circle. This is the first time I have seen sumo wrestlers up close, and many are at least twice as big as I am.
Sumo wrestlers wear nothing except a band around their waists, which merely covers the major organ of a man and made me feel a bit funny. Their attire reminded me of our ethnic Naga tribes, who usually wear nothing except a gong that covers the major sexual organs.
Mr Sasaki asked me whether I felt embarrassed to watch them.
“Some foreigners said they feel embarrassed to watch such kinds of matches,” he said. But I love it. It looks unique.
According to Japanese literature, sumo is an ancient sport dating back some 1500 years. Sumo grand tournaments are held in Japan six times in a year, three times in Tokyo and once each in Osaka, Nagoya and Kyushu. Each tournament lasts for 15 days.
During the match, wrestlers are not allowed to punch each other, pull hair or kick the stomachs or chests of their opponents. A sumo wrestler who touches the ground with any part of his body, his knee or even the tip of his finger, loses the match.
Whenever a match ended, a man in traditional costume appeared and announced the names of wrestlers for the next match in a very unique classical voice. People were shouting for the competitors and offering words of encouragement. The sumo wrestlers rinsed their mouths with water and wiped their faces with paper towels.
“It is to purify their mind and body,” said Mr Sasaki.
The wrestlers also scattered salt on their feet in order to purify themselves. TheJapanese believe that salt has a special power for driving away evil.
After rinsing with water, they squatted and faced each other in the centre of the ring, crouching forward and touching their fists to the ground. They proceeded to glare fiercely at one another with their small eyes. It seemed to me as if they were about to pounce on each other like crouching chubby tigers.
The match lasted no more than 30 or 40 seconds. It was so exciting that I could not keep myself from shouting.
It is really hard to see some of the wrestlers being thrown out of the ring, in pain and injured. Dragging their feet, they had to approach again to the stage to bow to the referee. They seemed to leave with mixed feelings of shamefulness and pain.
The final match between the current grand champion Asashoryu, a Mongolian, and a Japanese champion, Kaiyo, is the most exciting. The spectators gave a big hand to Kaiyo rather than Asashoryu, who eventually won the tournament without a single defeat in 15 matches.
People yelled out when the champion raised his foot and stamped the floor to make a sound for the farewell bow dance.
But for me, each short moment was packed with thrills.
Memories of forgetfulness
ALTHOUGH I am in my twenties, I am sometimes so forgetful I could be in my seventies. I feel I must share these stories with you… before I forget them. One day after a class at the University of Foreign Language, where I was specialising in English, I walked to the bus stop to catch a bus back home. While I was waiting, I found that my umbrella was not in the basket, which I took each day with my lunchbox and books in. Supposing that I might have left the umbrella in the classroom, I returned to the school. No sooner had I reached the school gate than I realised that I was holding my umbrella. Whenever I read a book or an English newspaper I like to keep a pen or pencil handy to note down new words and new usages. As I cannot read or study for hours in a sitting position, I usually walk around intermittently to unwind. One Sunday, I was reading Myanmar Times as my mum was busily cooking. She asked me to go and buy an onion at the near-by grocery store, which I reluctantly did. When I sat down again to go on with my reading, I could not find my pencil. So I took another one and then continued reading. A few minutes later, my eldest sister in the bathroom called me to help her with lining some clothes, and then I went back to the living room, picked up another pen, and continued reading. Hardly an hour had passed when my neighbour called me to the phone. I had to run down to the ground floor, and then slowly march back up to my flat on the fifth. Then I, again, threw myself into the chair and snatched the paper, tired and a little disgruntled with the interruptions.
It was then that I realised my third pen had also gone missing. Feeling angry and confused, I shouted at my family to give back the essential, but disappearing, items. My mum came out off the kitchen, looked at me carefully and said, "I have seen animals with two horns, but this is the first time I’ve seen an animal with three."
It was then that I realised my third pen had also gone missing. Feeling angry and confused, I shouted at my family to give back the essential, but disappearing, items. My mum came out off the kitchen, looked at me carefully and said, "I have seen animals with two horns, but this is the first time I’ve seen an animal with three."
If it can go wrong…
Happy to be able to retrieve this piece from google since I no longer have my master file.
http://www.myanmar.gov.mm/myanmartimes/no78/Timeouts/3.htm
A FRIEND of mine worked as an operator at one of the popular cinemas in Yangon. His job involved projecting the national flag prior to the show and switching on the lights when the show finished. One day he fell asleep during the film and missed his cue to turn on the lights when it finished. The audience had to leave the cinema fumbling about in the dark. He was called in to see the manager, and in punishment had a deduction in his salary. Next time, although he should have been more careful to avoid such mistakes, he made a serious mistake in projecting the national flag. The audience were confused as to whether they should laugh or cry. Imagine by yourself what kind of punishment he would receive. Another of my friends, one day, went downtown to attend a computer class. After getting off the bus, she decided to cross the road straight from the bus stop, as the zebra crossing was a little bit far to walk to. As she reached the other side of the road she spotted a traffic control police car in front of her. She instinctively ran the opposite way, in an attempt to escape the scene of the crime. The policeman came after her, but no sooner had she gone about 14 metres at such a fast pace then she realised her longyi was becoming loose. The policeman was gaining on her, as she desperately tried to flee with her clothes slowly unwinding. As soon as the policeman caught up to her, she handed him her books and files and resolved her clothing emergency.
The policeman, politely, held her piles of things before starting his jaywalking lecture. Not so sympathetically, she was later taken to the police station and fined K500. One Saturday during a staff training session, our editor asked all of us whether there were any problems at work. My colleague then started to complain about her poor hearing and how she felt, in general, these days. Apparently, since she had got caught in the rain, she could not hear what others said to her properly, since water had clogged up her ear. Sympathetically, our editor gave her advice and the young reporter nodded her head to in response. At the end our editor said, jokingly, "Don’t worry, you’ll be alright and get a boyfriend." And to our complete amusement, she simply nodded her head.
http://www.myanmar.gov.mm/myanmartimes/no78/Timeouts/3.htm
A FRIEND of mine worked as an operator at one of the popular cinemas in Yangon. His job involved projecting the national flag prior to the show and switching on the lights when the show finished. One day he fell asleep during the film and missed his cue to turn on the lights when it finished. The audience had to leave the cinema fumbling about in the dark. He was called in to see the manager, and in punishment had a deduction in his salary. Next time, although he should have been more careful to avoid such mistakes, he made a serious mistake in projecting the national flag. The audience were confused as to whether they should laugh or cry. Imagine by yourself what kind of punishment he would receive. Another of my friends, one day, went downtown to attend a computer class. After getting off the bus, she decided to cross the road straight from the bus stop, as the zebra crossing was a little bit far to walk to. As she reached the other side of the road she spotted a traffic control police car in front of her. She instinctively ran the opposite way, in an attempt to escape the scene of the crime. The policeman came after her, but no sooner had she gone about 14 metres at such a fast pace then she realised her longyi was becoming loose. The policeman was gaining on her, as she desperately tried to flee with her clothes slowly unwinding. As soon as the policeman caught up to her, she handed him her books and files and resolved her clothing emergency.
The policeman, politely, held her piles of things before starting his jaywalking lecture. Not so sympathetically, she was later taken to the police station and fined K500. One Saturday during a staff training session, our editor asked all of us whether there were any problems at work. My colleague then started to complain about her poor hearing and how she felt, in general, these days. Apparently, since she had got caught in the rain, she could not hear what others said to her properly, since water had clogged up her ear. Sympathetically, our editor gave her advice and the young reporter nodded her head to in response. At the end our editor said, jokingly, "Don’t worry, you’ll be alright and get a boyfriend." And to our complete amusement, she simply nodded her head.