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Thali

Next: 13 to 16 Apr 2027

Thingyan

Burmese New Year: neighbours gather to boil rice balls filled with palm sugar, one with a chilli inside.

The painting of Thingyan festival by Pagan era artists
Photo: Pagan era painter(s), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

What is eaten for Thingyan

Thingyan is the Burmese water festival that leads into the New Year in mid April. Neighbours sit together to make mont lone yay baw, balls of sticky rice dough with a piece of palm sugar inside, boiled until they float and rolled in grated coconut. A few are filled with a hot chilli as a joke. Thingyan rice is served in cool water scented with beeswax smoke, with salted fish and sour mango salad. Food is given away freely to passers-by as an act of merit.

The dishes

Thingyan riceRice in scented water with dried fish and mango salad.

Also part of it, and being written: Mont lone yay baw (Boiled rice balls with palm sugar, made together and given away.), Shwe yin aye (Cold coconut milk dessert with sago and jelly.).

About this page

Written by the Thali desk with AI assistance. Background: "Thingyan" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from family to family and place to place. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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