To symbolize the washing away of last year's bad luck, students were squirting water guns, going down water slides, and throwing buckets of ice water in celebration of the Water Festival last Thursday.
The festival took place at the CDI and was organized by Senior Yolanda Maung, juniors Mi Jedar and Pyi Theim Kyaw, and sophomore Yutaka Phyo as well as Interfaith Council, which also helped fund the event.
While this New Year celebration has never been celebrated on DePauw’s campus prior to this year, it is a prominent celebration in southeast Asian countries that practice Buddhism.
Phyo said he was excited to give other students at DePauw new insight to his culture. “I was so happy to share my home with the people here, since the students here have been very polite and have been sharing their American traditions with me too,” Phyo said.
The Water Festival allowed students to not only share an important aspect of their lives with their peers, but to also celebrate the festival itself.
For Jedar, who is from Thailand, the Water Festival is a very important holiday. “It [the Water Festival] has a very special place in my heart and being away from home for so long brings about a certain nostalgia and to be able to recreate our holiday here at DePauw is significant,” Jedar said.
The event was open to the public regardless of their knowledge on the meaning behind the festival because part of the purpose of the event was to educate other students on campus about this tradition. “Moreover, I think that it brings about a certain thirst for knowledge for students to be more welcoming of different traditions,” Jedar said.
Since this is traditionally celebrated thousands of miles away, the students who put this event on had to adapt certain aspects of it to utilize the resources available in Greencastle. “All the planning committee had to work things out, think about alternatives and look for supplies at Walmart which we don’t have back in Myanmar, and it wasn’t hard, but I guess we imitated the original as much as we could,” Phyo said
Apart from the water activities, Phyo played guitar and sang a song in Burmese, Maung and Jedar danced. The students who attended were also taught how to say hello and thank you in Burmese. “It [was] amazing to be able to share this with my peers since they had the opportunity to eat new food, watch traditional singing/dancing performances, as well as experience the fun of playing with water,” Maung said.
While the festival was well attended, leading up to it the students who put it on were nervous about how it would be received by others. “I’m glad that my friends and the whole community enjoyed it because Yoyo and I were really nervous to share our [festival at first] since we felt like some people might be repelled by the event we brought from home,” Phyo said, “but everyone helped out and was eager to learn about new traditions.”