By Hu Wo (Cuckoo’s Song)
AS WE know, there are two types of global seasons, the hot season and the cold season, but in some countries such as China and Japan, four sorts of the season are found spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Exceptionally, our golden land Myanmar has three distinct kinds of the season: the dry season, the rainy season, and the wet season. The rains in Myanmar often come in June, which usually coincides with the Nayon month in the Myanmar calendar, as well as taking about four months like the other seasons. Myanmar rain is very much in the foreground of its potential benefits although rain is considered just a climate change between seasons in most countries all around the globe, as far as I know. Accordingly, we are really looking forward to seeing the rain again every year.
Rain is absolutely needed in our natural environment since all plants – trees, shrubs, and herbs – can get abundant water, one of the essential external factors to produce their own nutrients, from the rain. In the rainy season, seasonable flowers like gardenias are in blossom beautifully and the leaves of tall trees, such as those of rain trees, are both green and greenish despite the fact that it tends to be very muddy on the village roads or paths due to the rain. Fruit, for example, guavas, likewise grow well on account of the rain. Vegetables, for instance, convolvulus, grow wild here and there in the fields too. Thus, the rain will be able to create favourable conditions for nature, making it rich in beauty and food for all of us.
I expect that children will also enjoy themselves in the rainy season. I would frequently play together with many friends of all ages merrily in the rain when I was young. We used to play tag on the ground full of a great many raindrops with happiness by the time it was raining cats and dogs. We were amusingly covered from head to toe in mud while playing at times. Sometimes we went out to the fields behind the village and dug up bean sprouts hidden under the heaps of bean wastes soon after the rain had fallen in order that we could get a delicious meal of fried bean sprouts for dinner. Such bean sprouts would be eaten raw as a side dish of fresh vegetables together with fish paste. On occasions we went tender tamarind leave picking for a few handfuls, which are greenish, red or brown, to have a decent soup for our dinner only. This soup is cooked with any kind of fish and it tastes pretty sour in the colour of cow’s milk. Children are, therefore, longing to see rain next time.
Just at the beginning of the rainy season, every kind of school opens at the same time throughout the country as well. The red peacock flowers that are falling here, there and everywhere are the forerunner of the school open season. Certainly, almost all schoolchildren will be on cloud nine to attend school. Their parents, who are actually keen on sending them to school, go to the market to buy school uniforms, bags, books, stationery and other necessary things for students as much as they can do. As always, the teachers who have not been teaching for months may look eager to come back heart and soul to class. That means rain should leave the door open for the next route to children’s education.
No sooner has there been rain in the land than farmers are busy ploughing, tilling, broadcasting and transplanting in the fields. Rice is largely grown in rural areas with the help of cattle or modern farming methods. I feel as if the newly tilled fields give me a deep breath of pleasant ground smells. It is enormously convenient for farmers´ rice cultivation in the rainy season simply because they can get as much water as required for the soil as a gift of nature. After a few months, rice plants in the fields are fluttering like green water waves and then they have turned golden in winter. Farmers are extremely taken up with reaping, nipping off, and winnowing for rice paddies during the harvest. Before the harvest, collecting transparent rainwater virtually overflows the banks of green paddy fields. Countless small fish are swimming too quick in shoals through the quietly flowing rainwater. Several yellow crabs are moving sideways on land with a fear of people too. Some snakes are also crawling so fast as soon as they see people. Whatever words are said, farmers, fish, crabs and snakes like to rely on the rainy season with the aim of their struggle for survival.
All the three-month term of the Buddhist Sabbath is included in the four rainy months – from the middle of the Waso month to that of the Thadingyut month in the Myanmar calendar. During the Lent, Buddhist Myanmars like to keep the Sabbath for eight religious precepts that they shall avoid 1) killing, 2) stealing, 3) having sex, 4) telling a lie, 5) drinking, 6) eating from noon to morning, 7) dancing, singing, playing, watching, listening, or beautifying, and 8) staying in a noble place. Instead of dinner, they can have coffee, tea or a non-alcoholic drink not to break the Sabbath, if they wish. They have to do it one day a week, that is, on the 8th waxing moon day, the full moon day or the 8th waning moon day by the calendar of Myanmar. Within these three months, devout Buddhists enjoy making a generous donation of robes, flowers, candles, money and other offerings to monks, and food or drinks to the people who go to the monastery. The rainy season is consequently the Myanmar Buddhists’ holiest duration in relation to the Sabbath days.
The Taungpyone Festival is annually held in Central Myanmar starting on the 8th-waxing-moonday Wagaung month of the rainy season, even without fail. It can rain heavily in the central tropical region of Myanmar, yet the weather is quite fine but cloudy there during the seven or eight festive days. This traditional Spirit Festival or Nat Pwe has been celebrated in Taungpyone Village, Mattarashire, Mandalay Province since the reign of King Anawratha in the Bagan Age. There is a Myanmar saying, `Spirit Thagyar in the upper, Twin Spirits in the lower´(Ahtetma-bothagyar, Outpyaema-minnappar), which means that Spirit Thagyar would have the most supernatural powers in the celestial abodes and so would Twin Spirits or Shwepyingyi and Shwepyinlay in Myanmar. Of the Myanmar Nat Pwes, that royal festival done by those who believe in the twin spirit brothers in particular is most well-known all over the country and densely crowded with worshippers or devotees of spirits, including head mediums. That is why the rainy season can be said to be the merriest period of 111 Myanmar gods.
The beauty of rain has always been described by lots of poets until now. In the rains, I vividly remember the two rain-depicted poems written by Myanmar poet Min Thu Wun and American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The translated three-stanza poem `The Farm Hut´ of poet laureate Min Thu Wun is as follows.
The Farm Hut (Lesauntare)
The rising silvery rainwater
(Moeyaytatyay-taphwayphway)
Away from the open field far.
(Quenkyal-awayway)
The little long-legged hut on the
farm
(lesauntarelay-chaetanshae)
Lying below the horizon.
(Moegyutoutma-tae)
A few red and white flowers of
lotus
(Kyanitapwint-phyutapwint)
Perfectly matches the farm hut.
(Taenint-panatint)
H.W. Longfellow portrayed the rainy beauty in his poem `How Beautiful is the Rain! ´ in the following: -
How it clatters along the roofs.
Like the tramp of hoofs!
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!
Like poets, composers have expressed their different feelings about the rain with various pieces of music. I like best the song `Cloud Envoy´ (Tane-taman) written by Maung Maung Latt and sung by Sandara Hla Htut. There are, in addition, other songs I enjoy most: Nat Shin Naung by Myoma Nyein by Myo Myint Lay, Long Drum Beat (Bonegyithan) by Gita Hla Aye by Than Tun Lay, Come Back to the Road Besides Neem Trees (Tamalanko- pyankhepa) by Ko Soe Win by Cho Pyone, To Whom It May Concern (Thetsyinethu-thoe) by Bogalay Tint Aung by May Sweet, and Tomorrow or Whenever (Natphyanthomahote- belthawkha) by Ko Lay Nyunt by Ni Ni Win Shwe.
Frankly, I always disliked the rainy season in my childhood; the main reason was nothing but that I couldn’t only bear the thought of getting wet anywhere. However, I am unconcerned by it now not because I love the rainy season most but because I can stay home alone in my leisure time in a wet climate, reading with a hot coffee or whatever. Also, it is nice to get into bed and take a nap while the rain is pouring down. More importantly, rain contributes an adequate water supply for the ones who need it, drought victims included.
There are still a lot of things which can spoil the beauty of rain to a certain extent. Because of torrential rain, the streets of villages are so mud-covered that villagers themselves may not even go out there.
Among those things, being struck by lightning is the most terrible for a person in comparison with other natural disasters from my own viewpoint and therefore every phone user should take good care of thunder and lightning while it is pouring with rain. Lightning conductors must be put on the roofs of their houses for safety first as soon as possible. The danger of floods, storms, snakebites or fevers is found to break out during the rainy season every now and then. We had better keep our natural environment green and clean to prevent that danger as hard as we can afford it. Only if so, will we make our whole environment pleasant every rainy season in the future. I hope that we all look forward to the beautiful rain with the frogs’ sweet song of `Eunoun´ in years to come.
