17 February
A traditional festival to celebrate the Myanmar delicacy Htamane began at the Maha Muni Pagoda in Mandalay yesterday, attracting local and foreign travellers.
The Hotels and Tourism Ministry and Myanmar Restaurants Association (Mandalay) jointly hosted the festival, holding competitions for the making of Htamane, which attracted 15 teams.
“We organized this festive activity, in coordination with the 60th Buddha Pujaniya festival of the pagoda, to show our traditional culture to foreigners.
This is an activity to promote tourism,” said U San Yu, Assistant Director of the Mandalay Region Hotels and Tourism.
The four-day festival will end on 19 February.
Pilgrims are offered the charity food of Htamane.
The festival for creating Htamane is also one of the Myanmar New Crop Consuming Festivals, which all Myanmar ethnic nationals celebrate in their villages, in their own traditional manner.
Creating Htamane is a communal activity, in which Myanmar people of all age groups participate.
Both males and females of old age, middle age, and younger ages, including children, are involved. Typically, older people supervise the work and judge whether the delicacy is made according to traditional standards.
Meanwhile, middle age people organize the party, decide on divisions of labour and share the recipe for making the delicacy. They also lend pots, pans and utensils from their our possessions at home, or from area monasteries. —Aung Phyo Kyaw (Translated by Kyaw Zin Lin)
