Wai Yan Hpone

A look into Myanmar’s enduring nat worship—a spirit pantheon born from tragedy, woven into ritual, and thriving alongside Buddhism Statues of nats on Mt Popa (Pic: Paul Arps/flickr) AS in many Asian cultures where the worship of semi-legendary figures is common, Myanmar has its own centuries-old tradition uniquely woven into its Buddhist fabric: the cult of nats. Buddhism may teach self-reliance and the law of causality, but for many in Myanmar, who identify themselves as Buddhists, reason alone may feel insufficient, and so quiet bargains are struck with the unseen. As Yuval Noah Harari notes in Sapiens , humans are storytelling creatures, and it is through stories that shared memories endure. In Myanmar, tales of figures who met tragic ends, often through martyrdom or betrayal, have been etched into the nation’s memory, stirring both sympathy and affection. Devotees carve their statues, bow before them, and offer prayers: pitying the nats for their fates, yet at the same time relying...

Golden crows were crying loud When my dear guest called me out, Crossing mounds to reach my house. Smiled, but it seemed to pretend, Bringing nothing in the hands, And left something in return. Couldn't notice or prevent Something you left in my heart. Is that so called attachment? Rush out to gate when dogs bark, Wishing my guest in the dark. Found none but my broken heart.   #WaiYanHponePoetry

I WAS woken by the morning sunlight pouring through the glass and curtains of my hotel room window. From my third-floor room I could see a busy main road with a heavy flow of self-styled jeeps, rickshaw tricycles and pedestrians. Far to the east, below the rising sun, was a green mountain ridge. This busy main road passes over the Angono River. Above the water was a replica of a house, suspended by ropes from poles erected on the river. The previous night I enjoyed its beauty – the light inside the house pierced its papier-mâché walls and gleamed on the water reflecting the house. A piece of installation art! I was visiting a town called Angono, some 30 kilometres to the east of the Philippine capital Manila, to participate in conference and workshop on public art “as a step towards a creative city development”. This was part of the 6th Neo-Angono Public Art Festival, organised by Neo-Angono, a local movement and organisation founded by artists, and sponsored by the Japan Foundation. ...

WITHIN one or two blinks I realised I had lost my parents. I was alone, among many, many people I didn’t know on the platform of Shwedagon Pagoda – the place Rudyard Kipling described as “a beautiful, winking wonder that blazed in the sun” in From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches – Letters of Travel (1899). Shwedagon’s beauty was lost on me this time, however. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I began to cry out loud. The strangers around me appeared to get even bigger. I could hardly see anything through my tears but felt a man catch hold of me with his giant hands. I struggled to escape but so forceful were his squeezes that all my efforts to escape were in vain. “Hey... don’t be afraid. Where’re your parents?” More people crowded around us and everyone comforted me. The man took me, the child who uttered no word but only cried, to the pagoda trustees office. In front of the office was a pandal being used as a donation counter, inside the office was a lady with glasses inviting well-wishe...

  WEARY of study, I returned to my hotel room, ready for my nap. Then my eye chanced upon a book, lying unopened since friends had pressed it upon me, urging me to read. Idly, I picked it up. At 150 pages it didn’t seem much of a challenge. It said on the back cover that the book had received literary awards. So I opened it. And then I was hooked.   Smaller and Smaller Circles , by Filipino author FH Batacan, is about two Jesuit priests-cum-detectives, who investigate a series of murders of undersized, undernourished teenage boys in a slum suburb of Quezon, the Philippines’ largest city.   The story opens with the discovery of the dead body of a boy dumped in the Payatas area of the city. The body has been mutilated and eviscerated. The two priests, Father Gus and Father Jerome, set about their investigation as the number of the victims rises, eventually to six.    All the victims are killed and mutilated in the same way. I shift my weight on the chair a...

  IN an apartment located in one of Yangon’s quiet suburbs, Prophet Myat Thit – one of the city’s most well-known astrologers – welcomes his customers with a benevolent smile before he begins his duty of giving astrological advice. Next to the office where Prophet Myat Thit hosts his customers is a shrine room set aside for the performance of religious rituals such as chanting prayers and meditating. This is where the astrologer also hones his concentration skills, which he said is one of the most important factors in determining the accuracy of a forecast. “Astrology is a very ancient subject that dates back to an unknown period in human history,” he said. “Because it is, to a certain extent, a reliable technique for the good of humanity, it has survived into the 21 st century.” In the past 40 years Prophet Myat Thit has met countless people from different walks of life who have turned up on his doorstep, many of whom have expected him to save them from...