Traditions of Mandalay
The last royal capital of Burma, a city of monasteries, gold-beaters, puppets and marble carving.
Mandalay was founded in 1857 as the royal capital and remains the centre of Burmese Buddhist learning and crafts. Many of the country's monks study here. Gold-leaf making, marble carving, and marionette theatre, yoke thé, are artisan traditions in the city's workshops.
Crafts and monks
Workers beat gold into leaf thinner than paper, to be pressed on Buddha images by worshippers. At dawn, thousands of monks queue for a meal at Maha Ganayon monastery. The Thingyan water festival and the Waso robe offering in the rainy season are important events. Marionettes act out scenes from the Jataka tales.
At the table
Mandalay specialities include meeshay, a noodle dish with pork and pickled mustard greens, and nan gyi thoke, a thick rice noodle salad with chicken curry. Monks eat only before noon, and lay people give food each morning. Sweet tea, laphet yay, is drunk with milk.
Signature traditions of Mandalay
Also part of it, and being written: Nan gyi thoke (A noodle salad of Mandalay.), Alms-giving (Morning food offerings to monks.).
A trail idea for Mandalay
- Mahamuni Pagoda Join the dawn washing of the Buddha's face.
- Gold leaf workshops Watch the pounding by hand.
- Mandalay Hill Climb the covered stairway at sunset.
Written by the EveryParampara desk with AI assistance. Opening hours, markets and festival dates change; check locally before travelling. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
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Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Māgha Pūjā: myself, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Thingyan: Pagan era painter(s), Public domain, source
- Nat worship: Emily Khine, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Yoke thé: Uthantofburma ( talk ) 05:15, 30 November 2010 (UTC), CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Sand pagoda: Chainwit., CC BY 4.0, source