🇲🇲 The long cheroot that she holds is a typical attribute in studio portraits of Burmese women, whose habit of smoking large cigars was noted with some astonishment by European visitors, who also commented on their relative freedom, beauty and confidence.

The girl wears a striped silk hta-mein (wrap-around skirt) and a close-fitting jacket of fine muslin or cotton known as an ein-gyi. Her hair is adorned with a floral headband and she wears necklaces and earrings.

During the Konbaung Dynasty (1752-1885), rich jewellery, fine fabrics such as silk and garments such as her jacket were reserved for court officials and their wives by sumptuary laws.

x

i love reunion so far but apparently its think critically about your fave media tuesday so!! a while ago i got super excited about the village arc in reunion being filmed in myanmar (because hey - that's my country, and you never see it anywhere!) but then was super disappointed and not surprised with how it was actually portrayed. yes, the "we're in, uhhhhhhh, Unspecified Southeast Asian Village" is pretty fucking funny considering i can see the burmese language posters in the back, and yes hei xiazi running weirdly in a htamein gives me a good laugh (huge mood), but beyond that, reunion falls back on old tropes about myanmar and also tropes which i think apply to a lot of SEA countries in general.

these include a general viewing of burmese (read: lots of SEA countries too) culture as primitive and savage while simultaneously exoticising it for, i don't know, the mysticism factor. persecution of ethnic minorities is already a big big problem in myanmar and this portrayal of what I am assuming is an ethnic minority group (although it doesnt look like any of the actual ethnic minorities we have in myanmar to me) really is not doing any favours -_-.

again, reunion is far from the only piece of media to portray us in this way (see also: anna and the king, from what i can remember) but the issue is that myanmar just does not show up in internationally distributed media at ALL and in the rare, rare, rare occasion it does, it's to be shown like this. when we're not uhhhh (checks notes) uncivilised villagers running arcane rituals and mutilating children, we're (checks more notes) violent thugs under the thumb of a corrupt military?

and yes, unfortunately the military thing DOES sort of apply, especially right now (rest in power Ko Jimmy, Phyo Zayar Thaw, Hla Myo Aung, and Aung Thura Zaw), and it deserves to be drawn attention to - but it's not the only thing!! there are other things!! we are so many of us with our own many cultural practices and cool shit that deserves to be appreciated and not exoticised

also, the little girl from the village - please stop chewing betel leaf!! your teeth are going to be so stained!! you can chew betel leaf when you're older 😭

this is really just a very muddy collection of thoughts and i don't know where i'm going with it other than i'd like to write a thing of the tltr cast just having fun in my hometown. visiting a street food stall! going to a pagoda! getting fucking Obliterated by the loudspeakers on the donations truck that comes around every evening (personal experience)!! etc etc there is so much more to my country and others in SEA than this

(just in case: SEA here is an abbreviation for South East Asia)

honestly if we actually had a closet accurate to how we all wanted to dress there would be spikey punk clothes mixed in with floral maxi skirts mixed in with short shorts mixed in with longyi/htamein mixed in with clothes we've owned for literally a decade at this point

honestly i'm just glad it's mostly up to me what we wear because otherwise if we had to put it to a vote nothing would ever get done

First and foremost, rest in power to those who have to give up their lives to brutality of security forces. (At least 3 fatality) To those who are on the brink of live and dead and injured people, please know that our prayers are with you!

In international women's day, we should be celebrating this day instead we still have to grief again. As for today, we use Htamein (longyi, sarong) to protest against the dictatorship in many cities.

During last month and this, we see heroic women leading, participating and supporting the protests. Most of all, sacrificing their lives for us! Women have been on the front line, we had been brutally hit, unlawfully arrested, cruelly treated and drag out by the security forces but we have never back down. We never once said to the sons and daughters to not go to the protests. We never think twice to sacrifice to save others. We never surrender. We risk our all to fight against injustice. We never hesitate to give away our foods to the protesters. We are the first ones to participate in CDM. We are the ones leading the protests. We are the ones who are open to ideas and suggestions. We are fighting for equality for all and our democracy at the same time. We raised our three fingers when the protests pass-by. We never look away from injustice. As long as we live, the world will be a better place, kinder place, fairer place. We hold the power as much as the man. We are half of our population.

I want to not only honor the women who would be the role models of next generations but also the men who show solidarity and stand together to fight for humanity.

Today we use Htamein (longyi, salong) as our flag, our symbol for equality, to crash the patriarchy, to destroy the taboos! We are stronger together! We are not to be left behind! We are half the population! We play our roles!

I called out to those who believe women are less worthy, less spiritual power (bhone) than men - Shame on you!

No matter the genders, colors and beliefs, We Are Homo Sapiens! Equality for all is everyone's right!

Our Htamein ⚡ Our Flag ⚡ Our Victory

To the men who wear Htamein on their head, to show the people we are equal and Longyi did not make you less bhone (spiritual power) than those of women's. Thank you for showing your solidarity and humanity! Thank you for joining hands in fighting the long rooted patriarchy in our country!

Women and men wearing Htamein (longyi) on their head and body to show solidarity to equality for all!

Photo credit to original posters, friends and news outlets

"The international community must recognise the courage of the women of Myanmar and stand with them in their fight for democracy."

Female power has been on display in Yangon, flapping in the wind yesterday on International Women’s Day.

Women, who have led opposition to the military takeover from the front lines, raised their traditional garments in the ultimate repudiation of the army’s patriarchal power by using its own misogynistic beliefs against it.

“Our Sarong, Our Banner, Our Victory!” they chanted as they hoisted their longyi waistcloths from flagpoles and clotheslines to scare off police and soldiers, who believe going near them will sap their manly mojo.

The idea got a boost last week when police were seen going out of their way to avoid the hanging htameins, as female longyis are called.

Htun Lynn Zaw explained to Coconuts why traditional sexism has imbued the simple cloths with the power to ward off cops.

“As a kid, I remember that whenever we played football in our back yard, there was a corner for the washing line where every boy dreaded to go to when the ball went off in that direction, because it would lessen our Bhone,” Htun Lynn Zaw, 20, said of the notion of spiritual energy.

They also believed it would being bad fortune.

“That corner was reserved solely to dry the htameins of our mother, sisters, aunties, and grandmother,” he added.

Myanmar has seen the rise of numerous female icons taking an active role in its history of revolution. Of course looming largest over the streets today is Aung San Suu Kyi, the state counsellor arrested by the military when it staged its coup on Feb. 1. But there’s also women like Phyoe Phyoe Aung, a student activist and former political prisoner recognized internationally for her courage, and Ei Thinzar Maung, who has been actively involved in human rights issues on behalf of minority groups.

Still, youth are indoctrinated to misogynistic attitudes at the youngest ages, from the gounds of the pagoda to their schools and back yards.

Protesters hope the raising of the htamein as a potent political symbol will help defuse these long held biases and gradually lead to dismantling the entire status quo.

Another demonstrator, 32-year-old Sai Lone, told Coconuts that the power of the garments is in the eye of the beholder.

“It depends on what you believe. For soldiers, they are afraid of it because it makes them vulnerable,” Sai Lone said. “For young protesters, they can wear it as a symbol of luck from their moms when they come out to protest.”

Ma Kyal Sin loved taekwondo, spicy food and a good red lipstick. She adopted the English name Angel, and her father hugged her goodbye when she went out on the streets of Mandalay, in central Myanmar, to join the crowds peacefully protesting the recent seizure of power by the military.

The black T-shirt that Ms. Kyal Sin wore to the protest on Wednesday carried a simple message: “Everything will be OK.”

In the afternoon, Ms. Kyal Sin, 18, was shot in the head by the security forces, who killed at least 30 people nationwide in the single bloodiest day since the Feb. 1 coup, according to the United Nations.

“She is a hero for our country,” said Ma Cho Nwe Oo, one of Ms. Kyal Sin’s close friends, who has also taken part in the daily rallies that have electrified hundreds of cities across Myanmar. “By participating in the revolution, our generation of young women shows that we are no less brave than men.”

Despite the risks, women have stood at the forefront of Myanmar’s protest movement, sending a powerful rebuke to the generals who ousted a female civilian leader and reimposed a patriarchal order that has suppressed women for half a century.

By the hundreds of thousands, the women have gathered for daily marches, representing striking unions of teachers, garment workers and medical workers — all sectors dominated by women. The youngest are often on the front lines, where the security forces appear to have singled them out. Two young women were shot in the head on Wednesday and another near the heart, three bullets ending their lives.

Earlier this week, military television networks announced that the security forces were instructed not to use live ammunition, and that in self-defense they would only shoot at the lower body.

“We might lose some heroes in this revolution,” said Ma Sandar, an assistant general secretary of the Confederation of Trade Unions Myanmar, who has been taking part in the protests. “Our women’s blood is red.”

The violence on Wednesday, which brought the death toll since the coup to at least 54, reflected the brutality of a military accustomed to killing its most innocent people. At least three children have been gunned down over the past month, and the first death of the military’s post-coup crackdown was a 20-year-old woman shot in the head on Feb. 9.

The killings have appalled and outraged rights advocates around the world.

“Myanmar’s military must stop murdering and jailing protesters,” Michelle Bachelet, the top human rights official at the United Nations, said Thursday. “It is utterly abhorrent that security forces are firing live ammunition against peaceful protesters across the country.”

In the weeks since the protests began, groups of female medical volunteers have patrolled the streets, tending to the wounded and dying. Women have added spine to a civil disobedience movement that is crippling the functioning of the state. And they have flouted gender stereotypes in a country where tradition holds that garments covering the lower half of the bodies of the two sexes should not be washed together, lest the female spirit act as a contaminant.

With defiant creativity, people have strung up clotheslines of women’s sarongs, called htamein, to protect protest zones, knowing that some men are loath to walk under them. Others have affixed images of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the army chief who orchestrated the coup, to the hanging htamein, an affront to his virility.

“Young women are now leading the protests because we have a maternal nature and we can’t let the next generation be destroyed,” said Dr. Yin Yin Hnoung, a 28-year-old medical doctor who has dodged bullets in Mandalay. “We don’t care about our lives. We care about our future generations.”

While the military’s inhumanity extends to many of the country’s roughly 55 million people, women have the most to lose from the generals’ resumption of full authority, after five years of sharing power with a civilian government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The Tatmadaw, as the military is known, is deeply conservative, opining in official communications about the importance of modest dress for proper ladies.

There are no women in the Tatmadaw’s senior ranks, and its soldiers have systematically committed gang rape against women from ethnic minorities, according to investigations by the United Nations. In the generals’ worldview, women are often considered weak and impure. Traditional religious hierarchies in this predominantly Buddhist nation also place women at the feet of men.

The prejudices of the military and the monastery are not necessarily shared by Myanmar’s broader society. Women are educated and integral to the economy, particularly in business, manufacturing and the civil service. Increasingly, women have found their political voice. In elections last November, about 20 percent of candidates for the National League for Democracy, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, were women.

The party won in a landslide, trouncing the military-linked and far more male-dominated Union Solidarity and Development Party. The Tatmadaw has dismissed the results as fraudulent.

As the military began devolving some power over the past decade, Myanmar experienced one of the most profound and rapid societal changes in the world. A country that had been cut off from the world by the generals, who first seized power in a 1962 coup, went on Facebook and discovered memes, emojis and global conversations about gender politics.

“Even though these are dark days and my heart breaks with all these images of bloodshed, I’m more optimistic because I see women on the street,” said Dr. Miemie Winn Byrd, a Burmese-American who served as a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army and is now a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. “In this contest, I will put money on the women. They are unarmed, but they are the true warriors.”

That passion has ignited across the country, despite Tatmadaw crackdowns in past decades that have killed hundreds of people.

“Women took the frontier position in the fight against dictatorship because we believe it is our cause,” said Ma Ei Thinzar Maung, a 27-year-old politician and former political prisoner who, along with another woman the same age, led the first anti-coup demonstration in Yangon five days after the putsch.

“Even though these are dark days and my heart breaks with all these images of bloodshed, I’m more optimistic because I see women on the street,” said Dr. Miemie Winn Byrd, a Burmese-American who served as a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army and is now a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. “In this contest, I will put money on the women. They are unarmed, but they are the true warriors.”

That passion has ignited across the country, despite Tatmadaw crackdowns in past decades that have killed hundreds of people.

“Women took the frontier position in the fight against dictatorship because we believe it is our cause,” said Ma Ei Thinzar Maung, a 27-year-old politician and former political prisoner who, along with another woman the same age, led the first anti-coup demonstration in Yangon five days after the putsch.

“That was the time I committed myself to working toward abolishing the military junta,” she said. “Minorities know what it feels like, where discrimination leads. And as a woman, we are still considered as a second sex.”

“That must be one of the reasons why women activists seem more committed to rights issues,” she added.

While the National League for Democracy is led by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, its top ranks are dominated by men. And like the Tatmadaw, the party’s highest echelons have tended to be reserved for members of the country’s ethnic Bamar majority.

On the streets of Myanmar, even as the security forces continue to fire at unarmed protesters, the makeup of the movement has been far more diverse. There are Muslim students, Catholic nuns, Buddhist monks, drag queens and a legion of young women.

“Gen Z are a fearless generation,” said Honey Aung, whose younger sister, Kyawt Nandar Aung, was killed by a bullet to the head on Wednesday in the city of Monywa. “My sister joined the protests every day. She hated dictatorship.”

In a speech that ran in a state propaganda publication earlier this week, General Min Aung Hlaing, the army chief, sniffed at the impropriety of the protesters, with their “indecent clothes contrary to Myanmar culture.” His definition is commonly considered to include women wearing trousers.

Moments before she was shot dead, Ms. Kyal Sin, dressed in sneakers and torn jeans, rallied her fellow peaceful protesters.

As they staggered from the tear gas fired by security forces on Wednesday, Ms. Kyal Sin dispensed water to cleanse their eyes. “We are not going to run,” she yelled, in a video recorded by another protester. “Our people’s blood should not reach the ground.”

“She is the bravest girl I have ever seen in my life,” said Ko Lu Maw, who photographed some of the final images of Ms. Kyal Sin, in an alert, proud pose amid a crowd of prostrate protesters.

Under her T-shirt, Ms. Kyal Sin wore a star-shaped pendant because her name means “pure star” in Burmese.

“She would say, ‘if you see a star, remember, that’s me,’” said Ms. Cho Nwe Oo, her friend. “I will always remember her proudly.”

Ma Kyal Sin loved taekwondo, spicy food and a good red lipstick. She adopted the English name Angel, and her father hugged her goodbye when she went out on the streets of Mandalay, in central Myanmar, to join the crowds peacefully protesting the recent seizure of power by the military.

The black T-shirt that Ms. Kyal Sin wore to the protest on Wednesday carried a simple message: “Everything will be OK.”

In the afternoon, Ms. Kyal Sin, 18, was shot in the head by the security forces, who killed at least 30 people nationwide in the single bloodiest day since the Feb. 1 coup, according to the United Nations.

She is a hero for our country,” said Ma Cho Nwe Oo, one of Ms. Kyal Sin’s close friends, who has also taken part in the daily rallies that have electrified hundreds of cities across Myanmar. “By participating in the revolution, our generation of young women shows that we are no less brave than men.” Despite the risks, women have stood at the forefront of Myanmar’s protest movement, sending a powerful rebuke to the generals who ousted a female civilian leader and reimposed a patriarchal order that has suppressed women for half a century.By the hundreds of thousands, they have gathered for daily marches, representing striking unions of teachers, garment workers and medical workers — all sectors dominated by women. The youngest are often on the front lines, where the security forces appear to have singled them out. Two young women were shot in the head on Wednesday and another near the heart, three bullets ending their lives.

Earlier this week, military television networks announced that the security forces were instructed not to use live ammunition, and that in self-defense they would only shoot at the lower body.

“We might lose some heroes in this revolution,” said Ma Sandar, an assistant general secretary of the Confederation of Trade Unions Myanmar, who has been taking part in the protests. “Our women’s blood is red.”

The violence on Wednesday, which brought the death toll since the coup to at least 54, reflected the brutality of a military accustomed to killing its most innocent people. At least three children have been gunned down over the past month, and the first death of the military’s post-coup crackdown was a 20-year-old woman shot in the head on Feb. 9.

In the weeks since the protests began, groups of female medical volunteers have patrolled the streets, tending to the wounded and dying. Women have added spine to a civil disobedience movement that is crippling the functioning of the state. And they have flouted gender stereotypes in a country where tradition holds that garments covering the lower half of the bodies of the two sexes should not be washed together, lest the female spirit act as a contaminant.

With defiant creativity, people have strung up clotheslines of women’s sarongs, called htamein, to protect protest zones, knowing that some men are loath to walk under them. Others have affixed images of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the army chief who orchestrated the coup, to the hanging htamein, an affront to his virility.

“Young women are now leading the protests because we have a maternal nature and we can’t let the next generation be destroyed,” said Dr. Yin Yin Hnoung, a 28-year-old medical doctor who has dodged bullets in Mandalay. “We don’t care about our lives. We care about our future generations.” While the military’s inhumanity extends to many of the country’s roughly 55 million people, women have the most to lose from the generals’ resumption of full authority, after five years of sharing power with a civilian government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The Tatmadaw, as the military is known, is deeply conservative, opining in official communications about the importance of modest dress for proper ladies.

— typical | sc

pairing: saw paing yoroizuka x reader

fandom: kengan ashura

genre: fluff, crack(ish); lovers!AU

tags/warnings: saw paing being a dumbass, you’re trying your best, like one suggestive comment

word count: 1.0k

synopsis: you love your boyfriend, you do, but sometimes he’s so wreckless you begin to wonder how long you can put up with him...

Saw Paing, while the love of your life, was the most exhausting person in all of Myanmar.

You came to watch a match? “YEAH, BABY!”

You decided to try a new position in bed? “I’M ALL FIRED UP!”

Hell, you put on a dress he thought looked hot on you. “OH MY GOD, WOOHOO!”

The two of you had been together for years, and while you were the perpetually calm, stable one in the relationship, Saw Paing was undoubtedly the fire. Life with him was never boring, and when you got the news that he was participating in the Kengan matches, it got even more interesting.

“Is this seat taken?” Your question was directed at a tan-skinned man, whose eyes were half-lidded. He opened his mouth to reply, but paused as he noticed the clothes your wearing; a traditional Burmese eingyi and htamein.

“No, please go ahead.”

Quietly, you sat down, not taking your eyes off of the match in front of you. In the arena, your boyfriend was screaming, drowning out the sound of the announcer’s voice.

Typical Saw Paing, you smiled to yourself, your eyes filled with pride. “Are you the owner of a company?” Huh?

The brown-eyed man had spoken to you again.

“Oh, no.” Your timidity shined as you stuttered through your answer. In all honesty, you were a little surprised he’d start a conversation with you at all. “Are you a fighter, sir?”

“Yes, under the orders of my leader.” You took in his words while he waited for a reply.

Turning to watch the match that had already started, you whispered to him, not wanting to withdraw your gaze from the fight.

“That’s kind of you.”

“Hm?”

“You’d put your life on the line for your country. It’s a very admirable thing to do—” Glancing at him, your voice went up at the end of your statement, subtly asking him to introduce himself.

“Gaolang Wongsawat, and you?”

“(Y/N) (L/N), it’s a pleasure to meet you.” While you turned your eyes back to the match, Gaolang studied your face.

You were pretty, that much was obvious, with voluminous hair and an award-winning smile, but what he noticed were your eyes.

They were, for lack of a better term, sparkling. Filled with pride, they beamed as you focused solely on the match in front of you. In a sense, he thought, they looked loving. The only thing he couldn’t figure out, despite his above-average ability to observe, was who the love was directed towards.

“You idiot!” Your shouts resonated through the halls, “You’re hurt, Saw Paing! You’re reckless, constantly endangering yourself, with no regard for what the hell it does to other people. You need to go to the hospital.”

“Come on, (Y/N)! It’s no big deal, see—” Wincing, Saw Paing attempted for stand up to prove that he was alright, but as he rose from the floor, all you could hear was the deafening sound of bones cracking, “It’s no big deal.”

“Di-Did all that voluntarily head trauma do something to your brain? No big deal, huh? Well then, I guess it’s ‘no big deal’ that you’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight!”

“But (Y/N)…” Dejection sounded through the quiet hall, “Please?” Sighing, you held your ground.

“Until you go see a doctor, I hope you enjoy sleeping without me.”

Wandering the halls, you aimlessly searched for a place to go, not wanting to go back into yours and Saw Paing’s shared room until you’d cooled off a bit. Looking around, you saw an open set of double doors from the corner of your eye, with the scent of food to follow.

finally, a place to eat! I wonder if they’ll have nangyi thoke or mohinga… Wow, I didn’t even realize how much I missed home—

“Oof,” You involuntarily let out a breath of air as you hit a hard surface in front of you… Albeit, you were pretty confident that walls didn’t have arms to catch you when you fall.

Looking up, brown eyes that had grown familiar stared back at you.

“Gaolang?” He quickly set you back onto your feet.

“Why’re you in such a rush?”

“I-I don’t wanna trouble you…” His brown eyes bore into your own. “Ok, it’s just,” You sighed, composing yourself, “It’s my boyfriend. He keeps hurting himself, and when I try to talk to him about it, he doesn’t even listen! I care about him so much, Gaolang, and I don’t understand how he can’t see it—”

“(Y/N)!” Heaving, you heard someone fall and as you turned around, Saw Paing was getting up off the floor and sprinting towards you as fast as he could manage.

The minute he saw your frame near one of the corner tables in the cafeteria, he was knocking over food trays, tables, and even people.

“Gaolang? What are you—never mind, not important right now. (Y/N), I went to the doctor like you asked… Turns out I have a fractured spine, three broken ribs, a bruised femur, and ADHD, but I went! Will you sleep with me now?”

Mouth gaping, you turned to see Gaolang’s reaction. A look of shock was (rightfully) etched into his face.

Could you have phrased that any worse?

“He’s the boyfriend?” In all the time you’d known him, the way he spoke at that moment was the first time you’d seen Gaolang display any real emotion.

“Hey! What do you mean by that, Gaolang?” Saw Paing pulled you to his side, wrapping his muscular arm around your waist, squeezing it lightly.

“Nothing! It’s just, the two of you are so… different.”

“Hey! You got a problem with that or something?”

“No, Saw Paing, I—”

“(Y/N), let’s get out of here… I’m sleepy.” Not waiting for an answer, he pulled you away, but not before you sent an appreciative smile towards Gaolang, silently thanking him for listening to your rambles.

Typical Saw Paing.

In My Own Write: Burma

Yes, I made a Beatles reference let me cope.

So, as you may know, Burma has been taken over by the military on the 1st of February 2021 and it got a really bad reception, to say the least. Seriously, I’m pretty sure that even Movie 43 was received better.

Anyroad, one of the ways to communicate said reception is to organise peaceful protests, which the fuckers (read: the police and the military) would always try to “disperse” in ways including but not limited to:

Using water cannons

Using tear gas

Using stun grenades

Using air guns

Using rubber bullets

Arbitrarily arresting peaceful protesters

Beating up said protesters

Arbitrarily arresting bystanders

Beating up said bystanders

Breaking into homes

Sending thugs out to create chaos

Shooting into the crowd

Shooting at bystanders

Shooting into homes

Shooting at hospitals

Using live ammunition

Taking headshots

Using snipers

Using machine guns

Using fighter jets

Fun times./s

Therefore, to hinder these fuckers, we have to think outside the box. We improvised barricades of all different sizes. We stuck photos of MAL on the ground because we found out that they daren’t step on his face. And last but not least, we hung up htameins (female longyi, the Burmese traditional skirt) because it’s considered bad luck for men to walk underneath a woman’s garment, especially if it’s supposed to be worn below the waist (i.e., it reduces their power or something, y’know). This introduced a very serious topic into the mainstream — the antiquated concept of hpone (glory/power) and the implicit, and sometimes explicit, misogyny inherent in our society. As such, many people are reexamining their belief systems and changing them when necessary.

This brings me to my next point — the role of ethnic minorities in Burma. We have over 135 ethnic groups here. Normally, that sort of diversity would be celebrated, right? Well, let me introduce you to a process called Burmanisation, where non-full-Burmans are forcibly assimilated into Burmese culture.

Take me, a Sino-Burman, as an example. I am registered as a full Burman to avoid discrimination. My family went to great lengths to ensure that I learn the Burmese language. I went to great lengths to avoid displaying any stereotypes associated with Sino-Burmans. I prevented myself from fully enjoying anything Chinese. Don’t get me wrong; I wasn’t trying to hide who I really am because I can easily tell people my race when asked, but I felt guilty whenever I immersed myself in Chinese culture. All that, just because of the simple fact that it is easier to be a Burman. And I came out relatively unscathed.

Because other ethnic minorities... they have it so much worse. The Rohingya genocide is the most notorious, but for decades, various ethnic minorities have been oppressed by the dominant Burman ethnicity, which makes up over two-thirds of the population in Burma. We have had to survive in a system rigged against us on all fronts. Standardised testing made it more difficult for ethnic minorities to do as well as ethnic Burmans due to language barriers. Non-Burman culture isn’t taught in schools. Ethnic languages aren’t taught in schools. Prominent non-Burmans were only featured if they had an effect on Burman history, and even then, they wouldn’t be covered as much as Burmans. Otherwise, the amount of non-Burman history in textbooks can be summed up as ‘zero, zip, zilch, nada’. This fosters ignorance of the significance and even the existence of other ethnic groups, thereby perpetuating a more subconscious form of racism, y’know; after all, you can’t make an effort to include something if you aren’t even aware of said thing. And more often than not, brute force is used by the military to oppress ethnic minorities, causing mass displacement and yielding countless casualties.

Let me give you a little history lesson. Back in the days of old, Burma was a powerful empire with various dynasties and racial and religious segregation was already a thing (tm). For instance, some kings banned Islamic ritual slaughter. But for some reason, nationalism wasn’t as widespread back then. Then, everything changed when the British attacked. Methinks it awakened some sort of dormant patriotism or something, y’know, because Burman nationalism was initially just directed against the British and those affiliated with the British (it included Indo-Burmans because Burmans believed that Indians migrated to Burma as a result of both India and Burma being British colonies). And then, the British government allied themselves with other ethnic minorities such as the Karen, Kachin, and Chin peoples, who converted to Christianity en masse. This led to a more ethnoreligious form of nationalism, where the dominant idea was not only to establish the dominance of the Burman ethnicity, but also to establish the dominance of Theravada Buddhism, which the majority of Burmans adhered to. As such, further disenfranchisement of ethnic minorities soon followed and now we have the longest-running civil war in history (*whispers* it’s still ongoing).

Then came General Ne Win’s coup and along with it came the Burmese Way to Socialism, a ridiculously isolationist, nationalist, and xenophobic ideology that aimed to whittle down foreign influence to nil. Fulbright? Goodbye. World Bank? No, thanks. Asia Foundation? Well, you get the idea. It actively pursued Burmanisation as a policy. It nationalised almost all industries in Burma, which had an adverse impact on other ethnic minorities like Anglo-, Sino-, and Indo-Burmans who had carved out comfortable niches in the economic sector up to that point. Then, there were the anti-Chinese riots in 1967 that led to expatriates and those of mixed background either fleeing Burma or using Burmese names and passing themselves off as Shan. And ever since then, Burmanisation has thrived both implicitly and explicitly in our society.

That’s not to say that there were no attempts to create a federal republic, because there were. The most famous of these attempts was the Panglong Agreement of 1947, where the idea of a Union of Burma was signed. But General Aung San, the leader of the Burmese interim government and one of the main proponents of the agreement, was assassinated before we achieved independence so there’s that. But even then, the plan wasn’t perfect; for instance, the Karen and Karenni (Kayah) weren’t represented and there was no consideration for the Mon, Rakhine, Pa-O, Palaung, and Wa peoples for various reasons (the Mon and Rakhine states were part of Ministerial Burma at the time, and the Pa-O, Palaung, and Wa were under the umbrella of Shan states).

But now I see lots of Buddhist Burmans realising how privileged they are and apologising to various ethnic minorities for not speaking up for them sooner. I see people reassessing their past behaviour and making amends if necessary. I see people pledging to do better and to fight for the rights of ethnic minorities as well. While there is still a few people who still claim that the general population are all oppressed (which is true to a certain extent because nobody apart from the military junta benefitted from the various coups), there are more who now recognise that the extent of said oppression varies based on ethnicity and religion — the former group is the exception, not the rule.

If there’s one silver lining in the coup, this is it. It has sparked dialogue about topics that were previously taught to be taboo. It has given marginalised communities a chance to have their voices heard. It has led to reassessments of beliefs inculcated in us by decades of religious segregation, class divisions, and racial barriers. This is a turning point in the history of the country, a time of unprecedented unity among people regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender identity, and sexual/romantic orientation. So, it seems as though the so-called Tatmadaw has succeeded in their apparent goal of national unity — they’ve united everyone against them.

In conclusion, we don’t want to go back to the status quo. We don’t want a return to ‘normalcy’. What we want is an inclusive federal democracy and equal rights for all.

Thank you all very much, you’ve got a lucky face.

The end.

Htamein. Shwenyaung, Myanmar 🇲🇲 #gozitravel #textitle #travel #htamein #longyi #burmese #myanmar #pattern (at Nyaung Shwe)

everyday htamein

(via http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/photocoll/b/largeimage60540.html)

Women who [smoked] large sheroots [were] noted with some astonishment by European visitors, who also commented on women's relative freedom, beauty and confidence. This girl wears a striped silk hta-mein (wrap-around skirt) and a close-fitting jacket of fine muslin or cotton known as an ein-gyi.  During the Konbaung Dynasty (1752-1885), rich jewellery, fine fabrics such as silk and garments such as her jacket were reserved for court officials and their wives by sumptuary laws. After the fall of the Burmese monarchy they were worn by the wealthy.

via https://burmesesilver.blogspot.com

watching ep 4 of reunion and the entire scene of black glasses sneaking into the mansion is the most accurate depiction of how ridiculous it feels to run in a htamein

‘We are warriors’: Women join fight against military in Myanmar | Military News

‘We are warriors’: Women join fight against military in Myanmar | Military News

Before taking up arms against the military government in July, Kabya May had never worn trousers. Like many women in Myanmar, the 23-year-old teacher from Sagaing region was accustomed to wearing an ankle-length sarong called a htamein. Now, she is a member of the Myaung Women Warriors, Myanmar’s first publicly announced all-female fighter group. “I joined because I want to root out the dogs,”…

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[Video] The protests in Myanmar resemble warfare, but only one side has guns. Yangon, Myanmar: When the military seized power on February 1, 2021, ending the brief 9-year period of representative democracy rule and plunging Myanmar into chaos, it triggered mass demonstrations against the coup. The demonstrations began with picket signs and chants of slogans by small groups of protesters against the newly imposed military junta of General Min Aung Hlaing. As the regime violence escalated and the demonstrations intensified and multiplied in numbers, protesters began engaging in brief disruptions, like stopping traffic for a few minutes, raising their hands to form the three-finger salute of the Myanmar resistance, while shouting anti-dictatorship slogans, before scattering. Faced with civil disobedience, the frustrated military regime escalated its violence and began attacking people with flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets and baton beatings. But it only strengthened the will of the people and the small demonstrations grew into mass gatherings across the whole country. But on February 28, everything changed. It was early in the morning of that day when during a peaceful protest in Yangon’s “Hledan” neighbourhood, police suddenly opened fire against the demonstrators with live ammunition, killing 2 people. Two others were killed elsewhere in the city. Witnesses testify that there was no warning and no violence from the side of the protesters. The police, who were under the military’s direct control even before the coup, were now increasingly joined by soldiers. At least 18 people were killed on that day all over the country, marking a major turning point. Faced with lethal violence by the military regime, the protesters were forced to change and upscale their tactics. They now carry metal shields, helmets, gas masks, and the occasional bulletproof vest, behind barricades, using fireworks, molotov, giant slingshots and fire extinguishers to confuse snipers. They flee into houses and shops to evade arrest when the armed forces arrive, only to reassemble as soon as they leave the area. The protests in Yangon resemble warfare, but only one side has guns. But the protesters’creativity keeps changing in the most amazing way, like the erection of street barricades with clotheslines of women’s clothes and used sanitary pads, taking advantage of the misogyny and superstition of the armed security forces: Many in the military believe that passing under the female garments will reduce their masculine energy and virility. The junta has responded by outlawing the practice, and security forces have been photographed removing the clotheslines and even burning the female sarongs, known as htamein. As the protests evolve, so does the brutality of the military junta regime. As of today, March 16, 2021, at least 149 people have been killed in Myanmar since the 1 February coup, including 5 people in custody, according to a UN human rights official, as mass funerals were held for dozens of those shot dead by the police and military regime in recent days. 74 protesters were killed on Sunday 14 March and 20 more on the next day. Myanmar was plunged into chaos on February 1, 2021, when the military seized power, ending the short nine-year period parliamentary democracy. The military previously controlled Myanmar, a former British colony, for decades, ie. from 1962 until 2011. The military alleged that the result of the recent country's elections was fraudulent, and detained elected government head Aung San Suu Kyi and her fellow party leaders.

During his time in jail from 1998 and 2004, prominent artist Htein Lin used white prison uniforms as a canvas and turned soap and cigarette lighters into other works of art. He has made plaster molds of the arms of former political prisoners like himself to tell their stories.

Now, for his latest project, the artist is taking on the controversial subject of “htamein,” or women’s sarongs.

In Myanmar, there is a longstanding superstition that the clothes covering a woman’s lower half are “unclean” and cannot mix with men’s garments. The belief holds that women’s clothes, htamein in particular, should never be washed with the clothes of men or be hung in front of the house or higher than men’s garments. Men should never pass under a laundry line of women’s clothes.

Should any of these things come to pass, the thinking goes, the men will lose their “hpone,” their spiritual power or strength. A wife is considered a bad spouse if she washes her clothes together with her husband’s.

Since last month, Htein Lin has been inviting women to take part in his new project by asking them to donate their old sarongs, on which he paints their portraits and the women write down their thoughts on the superstitions surrounding women’s clothes.

Htein Lin said he wanted to find out how prevalent these superstitions still were and whether they were more common among men or women after seeing some of his friends land in trouble with their in-laws and one even be divorced by her husband for breaking the taboos.

The superstitions surrounds htamein are believed to stem from ancient legends in which the male heroes are assassinated after losing their powers because they unwittingly passed under a woman’s sarong.

The country’s most powerful institution appears to be under their spell even today. Htein Lin said the military still takes htamein seriously. He cited the 2015 case of a young woman who was convicted of criminal defamation and sentenced to six months in jail for sharing a Facebook post comparing the color of new military uniforms to the htamein of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

“If it were compared with a shawl or some cloth, it wouldn’t have been a problem for them,” the artist said.

Htein Lin doesn’t believe in the superstitions himself. He does not wash his clothes separately from his wife’s or use a different laundry basket.

He cited the comments on the subject of prominent monk Ashin Nandamalabhivamsa, who said that a man who walks under a laundry line of women’s clothes will lose his strength not because the sarongs wield genuine power but because of his obsession with the fear that they do.

He claimed that the aim of his project, titled “Skirting the Issue,” was not to end the taboo but to stimulate discussion about it.

“It is not a revolutionary idea. It is not a feminist movement. It’s just an art movement. I just want people, through this project, to reconsider” he said.

Since he started work, men and women alike have shared their thoughts on the project on the artist’s Facebook. Some of the women said they don’t believe in the superstitions; others said they do and fear a misstep could put their husband and sons in danger.

A woman from Tanintharyi Region who took part in the project wrote on her sarong that all the women in her village still wash their htamein in a separate, designated spot.

Yangon-based filmmaker Shin Daewe, who also took part, said the project was a chance for her to speak out against the superstitions, something she found hard to do day to day in the face of so much persistent belief. She said her husband shared her thoughts on the issue.

“Htamein is just some cloth to me,” she wrote on her sarong. “It’s ok to wash it together with my husband’s clothes.”

But Shin Daewe said she has received little support from friends and that the project has also made her realize just how prevalent the superstitions remain.

“I hope this project will get people to start rethinking their beliefs,” she said.

As part of the project, Htein Lin also plans to construct a tunnel-like sculpture made from women’s old sarongs, to exhibit along with the paintings. It will be up to the audience — the men especially — whether to pass through.

Hannah Beech

Thu, March 4, 2021

Ma Kyal Sin loved taekwondo, spicy food and a good red lipstick. She adopted the English name Angel, and her father hugged her goodbye when she went out on the streets of Mandalay, in central Myanmar, to join the crowds peacefully protesting the recent seizure of power by the military.

The black T-shirt that Kyal Sin wore to the protest Wednesday carried a simple message: “Everything will be OK.”

In the afternoon, Kyal Sin, 18, was shot in the head by the security forces, who killed at least 30 people nationwide in the single bloodiest day since the Feb. 1 coup, according to the United Nations.

“She is a hero for our country,” said Ma Cho Nwe Oo, one of Kyal Sin’s close friends, who has also taken part in the daily rallies that have electrified hundreds of cities across Myanmar. “By participating in the revolution, our generation of young women shows that we are no less brave than men.”

Despite the risks, women have stood at the forefront of Myanmar’s protest movement, sending a powerful rebuke to the generals who ousted a female civilian leader and reimposed a patriarchal order that has suppressed women for half a century.

By the hundreds of thousands, they have gathered for daily marches, representing striking unions of teachers, garment workers and medical workers — all sectors dominated by women. The youngest are often on the front lines, where the security forces appear to have singled them out. Two young women were shot in the head Wednesday and another near the heart, three bullets ending their lives.

Earlier this week, military television networks announced that the security forces were instructed not to use live ammunition, and that in self-defense they would only shoot at the lower body.

“We might lose some heroes in this revolution,” said Ma Sandar, an assistant general secretary of the Confederation of Trade Unions Myanmar, who has been taking part in the protests. “Our women’s blood is red.”

The violence on Wednesday, which brought the death toll since the coup to at least 54, reflected the brutality of a military accustomed to killing its most innocent people. At least three children have been gunned down over the past month, and the first death of the military’s post-coup crackdown was a 20-year-old woman shot in the head on Feb. 9.

The killings have appalled and outraged rights advocates around the world.

“Myanmar’s military must stop murdering and jailing protesters,” Michelle Bachelet, the top human rights official at the U.N., said Thursday. “It is utterly abhorrent that security forces are firing live ammunition against peaceful protesters across the country.”

In the weeks since the protests began, groups of female medical volunteers have patrolled the streets, tending to the wounded and dying. Women have added spine to a civil disobedience movement that is crippling the functioning of the state. And they have flouted gender stereotypes in a country where tradition holds that garments covering the lower half of the bodies of the two sexes should not be washed together, lest the female spirit act as a contaminant.

With defiant creativity, people have strung up clotheslines of women’s sarongs, called htamein, to protect protest zones, knowing that some men are loath to walk under them. Others have affixed images of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the army chief who orchestrated the coup, to the hanging htamein, an affront to his virility.

“Young women are now leading the protests because we have a maternal nature and we can’t let the next generation be destroyed,” said Dr. Yin Yin Hnoung, a 28-year-old medical doctor who has dodged bullets in Mandalay. “We don’t care about our lives. We care about our future generations.”

While the military’s inhumanity extends to many of the country’s roughly 55 million people, women have the most to lose from the generals’ resumption of full authority, after five years of sharing power with a civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. The Tatmadaw, as the military is known, is deeply conservative, opining in official communications about the importance of modest dress for proper ladies.

There are no women in the Tatmadaw’s senior ranks, and its soldiers have systematically committed gang rape against women from ethnic minorities, according to investigations by the U.N. In the generals’ worldview, women are often considered weak and impure. Traditional religious hierarchies in this predominantly Buddhist nation also place women at the feet of men.

The prejudices of the military and the monastery are not necessarily shared by Myanmar’s broader society. Women are educated and integral to the economy, particularly in business, manufacturing and the civil service. Increasingly, women have found their political voice. In elections last November, about 20% of candidates for the National League for Democracy, Suu Kyi’s party, were women.

The party won in a landslide, trouncing the military-linked and far more male-dominated Union Solidarity and Development Party. The Tatmadaw has dismissed the results as fraudulent.

As the military began devolving some power over the past decade, Myanmar experienced one of the most profound and rapid societal changes in the world. A country that was once forcibly bunkered by the generals, who first seized power in a 1962 coup, went on Facebook and discovered memes, emojis and global conversations about gender politics.

“Even though these are dark days and my heart breaks with all these images of bloodshed, I’m more optimistic because I see women on the street,” said Dr. Miemie Winn Byrd, a Burmese-American who served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and is now a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. “In this contest, I will put money on the women. They are unarmed, but they are the true warriors.”

That passion has ignited across the country, despite Tatmadaw crackdowns in past decades that have killed hundreds of people.

“Women took the frontier position in the fight against dictatorship because we believe it is our cause,” said Ma Ei Thinzar Maung, a 27-year-old politician and former political prisoner who, along with another woman the same age, led the first anti-coup demonstration in Yangon five days after the putsch.

Both Ei Thinzar Maung and her fellow rally leader, Esther Ze Naw, protest by day and hide by night. About 1,500 people have been arrested since the coup, according to a local monitoring group.

The pair were politicized at a young age and spoke up for the rights of ethnic minorities at a time when most people in Myanmar were unwilling to acknowledge the military’s ethnic cleansing campaign against Rohingya Muslims. At least one-third of Myanmar’s population is made up of a constellation of ethnic minorities, some of which are in armed conflict with the military.

When they led their rally on Feb. 6, the two women marched in shirts associated with the Karen ethnic group, whose villages have been overrun by Tatmadaw troops in recent days. Esther Ze Naw is from another minority, the Kachin, and as a 17-year-old she spent time in camps for the tens of thousands of civilians who were uprooted by Tatmadaw offensives. Military jets roared overhead, raining artillery on women and children, she recalled.

“That was the time I committed myself to working toward abolishing the military junta,” she said. “Minorities know what it feels like, where discrimination leads. And as a woman, we are still considered as a second sex.”

“That must be one of the reasons why women activists seem more committed to rights issues,” she added.

While the National League for Democracy is led by Suu Kyi, its top ranks are dominated by men. And like the Tatmadaw, the party’s highest echelons have tended to be reserved for members of the country’s ethnic Bamar majority.

On the streets of Myanmar, even as the security forces continue to fire at unarmed protesters, the makeup of the movement has been far more diverse. There are Muslim students, Catholic nuns, Buddhist monks, drag queens and a legion of young women.

“Gen Z are a fearless generation,” said Honey Aung, whose younger sister, Kyawt Nandar Aung, was killed by a bullet to the head on Wednesday in the city of Monywa. “My sister joined the protests every day. She hated dictatorship.”

In a speech that ran in a state propaganda publication earlier this week, Min Aung Hlaing, the army chief, sniffed at the impropriety of the protesters, with their “indecent clothes contrary to Myanmar culture.” His definition is commonly considered to include women wearing trousers.

Moments before she was shot dead, Kyal Sin, dressed in sneakers and torn jeans, rallied her fellow peaceful protesters.

As they staggered from the tear gas fired by security forces on Wednesday, Kyal Sin dispensed water to cleanse their eyes. “We are not going to run,” she yelled, in a video recorded by another protester. “Our people’s blood should not reach the ground.”

“She is the bravest girl I have ever seen in my life,” said Ko Lu Maw, who photographed some of the final images of Kyal Sin, in an alert, proud pose amid a crowd of prostrate protesters.

Under her T-shirt, Kyal Sin wore a star-shaped pendant because her name means “pure star” in Burmese.

“She would say, ‘if you see a star, remember, that’s me,’” said Cho Nwe Oo, her friend. “I will always remember her proudly.”