Page 14 - Myanmar Destination Guide - Alluring Asia

Some of the best relief work found in Myanmar is on the large gilded sutra chests, which are used to store the manuscripts of the sacred Buddhist texts. They often carry scenes from the Buddha's life. Most of the monumental remains in Myanmar are religious buildings. Buddhists lavish much of their surplus wealth on the construction and upkeep of stupas and PAGE 3 temples - the surest way of attaining merit. Burmese Population | Time | Visas Insurance | History architecture, which reached great soaring beauty in the temples at Pagan, is now a lost art. PAGE 4-5 History | Language MUSIC PAGE 6 The music of Myanmar has similarities with and is Climate related to many other musical traditions in the region, including Chinese music, Indian music, and Thai PAGE 7 music. Traditional music from Myanmar is melodious, The Land generally without harmony, and usually in 4/4 time, 2/4 PAGE 8 time, or 8/16 time. There are segments combined into People | Safety & Crime patterns, combined into verses, combined into songs PAGE 9 that make Myanmar music a hierarchical system…. The Currency | Credit Cards Musician manipulates the various levels of the Changing Money | Tipping hierarchy to create the song. PAGE 10 Religion | Etiquette DRAMA & DANCE The most popular form of entertainment in Myanmar is PAGE 11 the pwe - an all night extravaganza which combines Communications Health & Vaccinations song, dance and theatre. Slapstick comedy and satirical skits are interlaced with religious and historical plays PAGE 12 (zats). At temple pwes it is quite usual to see dancers in Food| Shopping | Customs trance, possessed by the spirits of local nats. Nat PAGE 13-14 dancers can be men or women. Nat pwes are mainly Culture & The Arts | Religion held by rich villagers who can afford to hire the orchestra and dancers. The nats often make outrageous demands for gifts and different nats have different predilections - some go around asking for money, while others seem to prefer rum and whiskey. Although pwes are intensely spiritual, they can also be extremely entertaining as they are a highly charged frenetic occasions with continuous background din from the orchestra. The popularity of the pwe has been key to the preservation of traditional music, dance, and the theater. Theater is perhaps Myanmar's liveliest art. The classical zat dramas are usually based on the Jataka tales or the Ramayana. A national dance performance in which each ethnic group is represented, is organized each year as a show of Myanmar's unity.