The medium spins around in a frenzy of red and gold while glugging from a bottle of whisky, part of an age old ritual to honour Myanmar's spirit guardian of drunkards and gamblers.

Every year thousands of people pour into a small village southwest of Mandalay for a two-week festival, many packed into boats clutching bags of food and bedding or pulling up on rickety old bullock carts.

The event honours Ko Gyi Kyaw, one of Myanmar's best-loved 37 "Nat" spirits and is known for his penchant for booze, dancing and cockfights.

"He is the unrivalled Nat and the king of Nats, the master of Nats," said prominent medium San Hlaing Tun, his huge diamond and ruby rings glinting.

Most people in Myanmar are piously Buddhist, but many in this hugely superstitious nation turn to mischievous local deities for help with everything from business deals to car engines.

Each day of the two-week festival worshippers hold different events to honour Ko Gyi Kyaw, from bathing and gilding his statue to raucous cockfights.

Beggars dressed up as Nats and clutching wooden bowls line the road seeking donations from the devotees.

Dozens of stalls sell his favourite food -- roast chicken -- to help sober up followers who over-indulged in their whisky-fuelled worship.

Others flock to small pop-up shrines dotted around the village to make offerings of flowers and bananas, while the rich throw handfuls of money into the air.

Inside one small hut medium Naing Naing sits dressed as Ko Gyi Kyaw in a sparkling red and gold outfit, including a headdress bedecked with pink orchids.

"I came here from Yangon to pay respects to the Nat and it was an arduous journey to get here," he said, his face caked with lipstick and eyeliner.

"I really love the Nat and I pay my respects to the Nat with all that I am. Anyone who loves and believes in the Nat will surely be looked after."

Moments later he leaves his flower-filled grotto to begin the ritual.

Standing at the centre of the crowd in one of the shrines he begins to dance clutching Ko Gyi Kyaw's symbols: a statue of a chicken and a bowl that symbolises a gambling pot.

Soon they are discarded in favour of a bottle of whisky, which he glugs and pours into the mouths of his gleeful followers who tuck cash into his hat.

But for true believers the festival is about more than just fun and debauchery -- it is a chance to improve your fortunes for the future by making merit.

"This is our culture and custom," said Tin Hlaing, 73, who has come to the festival every year since she was six. "He (Ko Gyi Kyaw) always takes care of us."

© AFP

Skidding and screeching across the concrete the young bikers perform a carefully choreographed dance of gravity-defying stunts, a dazzling display of Myanmar's thriving youth culture on the streets of its biggest city.

Every week dozens of them gather near Yangon's golden Shwedagon pagoda to practise tricks under the night sky, one of many sports gaining popularity as the country opens up after decades of junta rule.

Kabyar Oo, who set up the group two years ago, said there are more than 100 riders around the country, around half of them in Yangon and the rest in the central city of Mandalay.

Some are in their 20s, but most are school students who dream of going pro.

"There are no (formal) competitions here," Kabyar Oo told AFP on a recent steamy night as other riders took turns to jump over upside down bikes -- and each other.

"If we had the chance, we would all want to compete. That's the dream of all the riders."

Many save for months to afford a BMX bike, which can cost between $250 and $2,500 -- an astronomical sum in a country where the daily minimum wage is 3,600 kyat ($2.65).

Others spend all their cash keeping their ride in good condition or adding extra features.

"When I get my salary at the end of the month, all my money goes into it," said Htet Aung, 24, who works in a currency exchange office. "I feel like that is my savings."

The group, known as Myanmar BMX Riders, are now in talks with Yangon authorities to get their own space to practise with proper ramps and props.

But despite their dedication, many face pressure from relatives to stop.

"They forbid me after I had an accident which left a bad wound on my face, but I went to practise without telling them," said 14-year-old student Sai Aung Zaw Myint, grinning.

Htet Wai Yan Oo, 23, who came from Mandalay to ride with the group, added: "My parents are not supportive. I had to save my school allowance for six months to buy my first (bike)."

But others say the sport helps keep bored young people away from crime and drugs at a time when youth unemployment is triple the broader population.

Drug addiction rates have soared in recent years as more and more of the caffeine-laced meth tablets known as "yaba" churned out in Myanmar's lawless borderlands are being sold inside the country.

"I help the young people as much as I can to keep them interested in sport and to stop them from going in the wrong direction in life," said Phone Myat Tun, who sells the riders gear at cost from his shop.

"The challenge for them is social pressure."

© AFP

Barbet Schroeder spent months with Ugandan dictator Idi Amin at the height of his power, when corpses would wash up every morning on the shores of Lake Victoria and Kampala was rife with rumours that he was eating his opponents.

But in his decades of documenting evil, the veteran Swiss filmmaker says he has never been as scared by anyone as he was by a Burmese Buddhist monk named Wirathu.

"I am afraid to call him Wirathu because even his name scares me," the highly-acclaimed director told AFP. "I just call him W."

"The Venerable W", his chilling portrait of the monk who has been accused of preaching hate and inciting attacks on Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority, has been hailed by critics at the Cannes film festival as a "stirring documentary about ethnic cleansing in action".

What dismays Schroeder is that Wirathu, whom Time magazine dubbed "The face of Buddhist terror" in a 2013 cover, is utterly unfazed by the chaos and suffering he has unleashed.

Buddhism is supposed to be the philosophy of peace, enlightenment and understanding, he thought.

It helped centre Schroeder's own life when he made a pilgrimage to India to follow on the path of the Buddha 50 years ago to "cure myself of my jealousy".

But the hate speech and fake news that Wirathu spreads from his Mandalay monastery, accusing Muslims -- barely four percent of the country's population -- of trying to outbreed the majority Burmese, made Schroeder's head spin.

- 'Devilishly clever' -

"He is much more intelligent and in control of himself that I thought, devilishly clever in fact," said Schroeder, who shot his film secretly in Myanmar until he attracted the attention of the secret police.

"It was like being faced by a good Jesuit or some very clever communist leader back in the day," he said.

Rather than "question him like a journalist", Schroeder just let the monk talk as he did with the other subjects of his "Trilogy of Evil", which began with "General Idi Amin Dada" in 1974 and includes his 2007 film "Terror's Advocate" about the French lawyer Jacques Verges, who defended Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

"If you wait long enough, slowly the truth would come out," Schroeder said. "That is what I did with Idi Amin and Jacques Verges."

"When he lied, I'd say, 'Tell me more, how interesting... So, the Rohingya burn their own houses so they can get money from the United Nations...'"

"For me one of the most shocking moments is when he says they destroy their own houses, and then you see a crowd of maybe 3,000 people fleeing their burning homes. It's nightmarish."

In another telling scene Wirathu, leader of the Buddhist nationalist 969 movement, is shown watching Muslims being beaten to death in Meiktila near Mandalay in 2013, a month after he gave an anti-Muslim speech there.

- Hate speech 'escalating' -

Schroeder said the monk had returned "all peace and love" to the town to call for calm, "but he was at least indirectly responsible for what was happening."

"Wirathu said all this happened because a monk was killed by the Muslims. But I read the pamphlet that sparked the riots and it sounded very much like his speeches and that he could have written it."

This month, Wirathu -- who has been called the Buddhist Bin Laden -- stirred tension by touring Muslim areas in troubled Rakhine State despite Myanmar's top Buddhist body banning him from preaching in March.

Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims died in 2012 when sectarian violence ripped the state apart, and tens of thousands still languish in fetid displacement camps.

More than 70,000 have fled into neighbouring Bangladesh since October after the military launched a months-long crackdown that UN investigators say cost the lives of hundreds of the persecuted minority and may amount to crimes against humanity.

Last week a UN envoy criticised the government of Aung San Suu Kyi for not clamping down on "hate speech and incitement to discrimination" which she claimed "appear to be drastically escalating".

In the film Schroeder, 75, seems to trace Wirathu's Islamophobia to the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by a Muslim in his hometown of Kyaukse.

But in person he is not so sure. "Another theory is that his mother left his father and married a Muslim, or because his monastery was burned when he was 14. But every time I checked I was never sure.

"Why was Hitler like he was? We will never know how this garbage collected in his mind."

© AFP

With Myanmar emerging as a manufacturing hub for mass-produced clothes, a crop of young designers are using home-grown fashion to preserve the country's sartorial heritage and reshape the sweatshop model.

Inside her boutique in downtown Yangon, Pyone Thet Thet Kyaw crafts her own designs using traditional patterns and fabrics, many from ethnic minority groups, to make A-line skirts, dresses and tops.

On another she adds the high-collared neckline of the inngyi -- a tight top usually worn by Myanmar women along with a fitted, sarong-like skirt -- to a flirty pleated dress.

"We Burmese really care about our own ethnic and traditional clothes," she told AFP in the shop, over the whir of sewing machines.

"When you modernise the traditional patterned clothes you have to be careful they're not too flashy -- or too modern."

Myanmar is fiercely proud of its traditional garb, which was largely protected from the influx of homogenous Western fashion now ubiquitous across Southeast Asia by the former military junta.

For 50 years they shut the country off to foreign influences and tightly controlled what was worn in all official media.

Designer Ma Pont said she was not allowed to show even a flash of shoulder or armpit when she used to make clothes for military-controlled TV channels in the 1990s.

"We were not really free," she said.

Fashion was particularly politically charged in that era, when many women would secretly ask their tailors for designs that imitated the distinctive style of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Local media reported the purple outfit she wore the day she was released from almost two decades of house arrest soon became a popular sight on Yangon's streets.

- Changing tastes -

Today the democracy icon, who last year became the de facto leader of Myanmar's first civilian government in generations, is still widely admired for the elegant Burmese outfits she wears at public appearances.

But while many still prefer traditional clothes, especially the sarong-like longyi worn by both men and women, fashions are starting to change.

Shopping malls aimed at Yangon's growing middle class are sprouting up around the city, while on its fringes factories are churning out clothes for international brands drawn to its pool of young, cheap labour.

It is a flip-side of the industry which boutique designer Pyone Thet Thet Kyaw has seen first-hand.

As a teenager she spent months toiling in garment factories on the outskirts of the commercial capital -- a job that earned her 2,000 kyat a week (now worth $1.46).

The experience made her determined to open her own boutique and train young women in the art of clothes-making to make sure they never suffer the same fate.

"I started to see things, like how you could only spend 10 minutes for your lunch or you could not go to the toilet whenever you wanted because it would disrupt their production line," she said.

"If fast fashion and unethical fashion continues, then we're the ones to be suffering."

- Fashion slaves -

Impoverished but emerging Myanmar is swiftly becoming a new hub for massive garment factories making cheap clothes as quickly as possible for fashion giants like H&M and Primark.

Exports more than doubled to $1.65 billion last financial year, according to official data, and are expected to surge after the US ended sanctions in October.

But while the sector is helping to drive rapid economic growth, critics say few benefits are trickling down to workers who earn some of the lowest wages in Asia and have little legal protections.

A recent report by multinational watchdog SOMO warned of "significant risks of labour rights violations being committed in Myanmar's garment industry that need to be addressed as a matter of urgency".

Other local designers, like Mo Hom, are working to save Myanmar's centuries-old traditional fabric industry from the influx of cheap imported clothes from Thailand and China.

Her boutique in Yangon is filled with colourful designs in cotton and silks sourced from Chin and Shan states, where they can take months to weave by hand using traditional wooden looms.

Many are dyed with natural substances like green tea and strawberries to give subtle colours, which she mixes with traditional ethnic patterns and silhouettes.

"Local mills are actually dying because there is no market demand any more," said Mo Hom, who trained and worked as a designer in New York before moving back to Myanmar in 2012.

"A lot of the mills are actually closing down."

© AFP

Paralysed on one side by a stroke and barely able to speak, Tin Hlaing was left to die at the side of a road -- by her own children.

The 75-year-old only survived because a stranger took pity on her as she lay in the street and brought her to the "Twilight Villa" nursing home on the edge of Yangon.

Her story has become increasingly familiar as impoverished Myanmar struggles to cope with a rapidly aging population that is piling pressure on its already anaemic health system.

Twilight Villa's vice chairwoman Khin Ma Ma said many of the residents, like Tin Hlaing, arrive bewildered and sick after being abandoned by their families.

"She was in a terrible state -- disorientated, dehydrated and above all very angry," Khin Ma Ma told AFP. "It was impossible to communicate with her."

Set up in 2010, the retirement home already cares for 120 people over the age of 70 and has more than 100 people on its waiting list.

The wards are crowded with beds, all just a few centimetres apart, filled with elderly people who sit quietly staring into space or lie huddled under blankets.

On one, a frail old lady whispered into the ear of a smiling plastic doll, her only companion since she moved to the facility from the shed she used to occupy in her family's back yard.

Khin Ma Ma remembers another woman who was thrown out of a car next to a rubbish dump, where she was found covered in cuts and bite marks from rats. She made it to the nursing home but survived for only a few months.

"Sometimes we find only a small note in their pockets with their name and age. That's all. When we ask them questions, they can't even respond," she said.

"Old people should not be treated like that in a civilised society and those who abandon them should be prosecuted."

- 'Here to die' -

Decades of misrule by a brutal junta, stringent sanctions and ethnic conflict have reduced Myanmar to one of the poorest countries in the world. 

Now it is facing a demographic crisis that is already squeezing the life out of Asia's former tiger economies.

The UN estimates some nine percent of the population is currently over 65 but that will surge to a quarter by 2050, outstripping the number of under-15s.

"Economic realities oblige many people to continue heavy manual labour into old age to survive," said Janet Jackson, the UNFPA's Myanmar representative.

"This underlines the need for adequate social services and policies that serve the aged."

Already in tatters after 50 years of underinvestment by the former junta, Myanmar's health system is struggling to cope.

Since taking office last year, the new civilian government has set up only one new care facility, exclusively for the over 90s, which receives just 10,000 kyat a month in funding -- around $7.

Traditionally most seniors are cared for by their families, but the pressures of poverty, double-digit inflation and rapid urbanisation mean more and more people are abandoning their relatives.

"We have nowhere to go. We have come here to wait to die," said HlaHlaShwe, who has lived in another facility in Yangon run by monks for the past three years. 

"Here we feel less alone and people feed us, thanks to the donations," the 85-year-old added.

- 'Good old days' -

But to the east of Myanmar's commercial capital, one group of actresses is finding solace together in their twilight years.

Set up by former screen queen Nwet Nwet San on a donated piece of land, "Mother's Villa" has become a refuge for more than 20 aging film stars.

"The later years can maybe be very difficult, even for former actresses," the 77-year-old founder told AFP.

"I saw some people die in terrible conditions, so I decided to set up this place."

Inside the building the shelves are littered with awards and film memorabilia, while fading photos of the women dressed in glamorous outfits from their heydays line the walls.

Today they often dress up in the same outfits and makeup for fun, and they have even set up a dance troupe which performs each year at Myanmar's water festival celebrations.

"I had nowhere to go (but) here I am happy with my friends," said resident Moe Thida Moe, 73, who recently suffered a stroke.

"It reminds me of the good old days."

© Agence France-Presse

Gasps echo across the hall as the Myanmar school kids trial virtual reality goggles, marvelling at a device that allows some of Asia's poorest people to walk on the moon or dive beneath the waves.

"In Myanmar we can't afford much to bring students to the real world experience," beamed Hla Hla Win, a teacher and tech entrepreneur taking virtual reality into the classroom.

"If they're learning about animals we can't take them to the zoo... 99 percent of parents don't have time, don't have money, don't have the means," she added.

Few countries in the world have experienced such rapid discovery of technology than Myanmar which has leapfrogged from the analogue to the digital era in just a few years.

During the decades of outright junta rule, which ended in 2011, it was one of the world's most isolated nations, a place where a mobile phone sim card could cost up to $3,000.

For half a century, its paranoid generals cut off the country, restricting sales of computers, heavily censoring the Internet and blocking access to foreign media reports.

But today phone towers are springing up around the country and almost 80 percent of the population have access to the Internet through smartphones, according to telecoms giant Telenor.

- Budding startups -

Tech startups are emerging around the commercial capital Yangon, many seeking to improve the lives of rural people, most of whom still live without paved roads or electricity.

"The increase in activity from last year till now -- new startups, more people determined to become entrepreneurs and working in the tech sector in general -- is significant," said Jes Kaliebe Peterson, CEO of community hub Phandeeyar.

Virtual reality is the latest advance to cause a stir, with a handful of entrepreneurs embracing tech for projects including preserving ancient temple sites to shaping young minds of the future.

The Phandeeyar incubator works with more than 140 startups. Among them Hla Hla Win's virtual reality social enterprise 360ed which is using affordable cardboard VR goggles attached to smartphones to break down barriers in Myanmar's classrooms.

She founded the non-profit last year after 17 years working in the woefully underfunded education system in a bid to bring learning to life.

"I see it as an empathy machine where we can teleport ourselves to another place right away," she told AFP.

And it's not just school children who benefit from stepping into places they could only ever dream of visiting.

360ed has used virtual reality to help Myanmar teachers attend training courses in Japan and Finland and is working on setting up deals with schools in India, Pakistan, China and Bangladesh.

"With VR there's no divider, there's no distance," Hla Hla Win said.

- Mapping the past -

While 360ed is thinking about the future, Nyi Lin Seck is obsessed with the past.

Some 600 kilometres (372 miles) north of Yangon, the budding tech entrepreneur and founder of 3xvivr Virtual Reality Production launches a large drone into the skies above Bagan, one of Myanmar's most famous tourist sites.

The drone, which carries a 360-camera, circles one of the many ninth-to-thirteenth century temples that dot the landscape of what was once a sprawling ancient city.

The data it records allows those with virtual reality headsets to explore the temples, their crumbling centuries-old walls so close it feels like you can touch them.

A former head of the local TV station, Nyi Lin Seck says he makes most of his money providing virtual reality footage for hotels and luxury apartments.

But after an earthquake damaged the Bagan site last year, he vowed to use the tech to preserve a digital replica of Myanmar's archaeological treasures.

"A lot of artworks on the pagodas collapsed and were lost. Using this technology, we can record up to 99 percent of the ancient art," he says.

© AFP

Strand Road, Yangon comes alive at night with market stalls selling all sorts of food ranging from Chinese to local bites such as montdi, mohinga, ngaphee, bean curds, several salads and avariety of barbecues. 

However,customers have to be careful as some of these foods could contain formalin while salads may be dressed with sweetening agent. Every day, the well-being of local people is endangered by the invisible threat in the foods they eat. Urban people still frequently depend on these street stalls because it is time saving, cheap and readily available.

Some street vendors take measures to guarantee the safety of their products. As personal hygiene of food handlers is important, they said that they wear gloves while they prepare and serve their products. While the freshness of the food ensures its safety for consumption, they try to sell all prepared food before it gets spoiled. They keep all food covered and free from dust and flies.

“We have to ensure the cleanliness of the food preparation area. As this place is already customer- friendly, we do not want to shift our stalls to another space,”one vendor who sells mohinga at upper Pazundaung said.

She also stated that FDA is carrying out surprise checks on the quality of street food and its raw ingredients ensuring those products meet their basic hygiene standard.

Formalin has been found in some foods such as red bean blood chunks, rice noodles, bean curd, ngapi (fish paste) and there was also illegal dyes found ( caused Aflatoxin B) in chilli powder. Among those products, formalin is mostly found in rice noodles and bean curds.

Formalin, also commonly known as formaldehyde, is a naturally occurring organic compound with the formula CH2O and can be used by vendors and manufacturers to preserve the shelf life of their product. However, its use is regarded as posing a significant danger to human health. It is a clear and colourless solution, so it is hard to identify and mostly used for dressing foods, meats, fish, fruits and milk products.

Bean curd is one of Myanmar’s favourite street food ingredients and formalin was also discovered in this product in 2005. Then the government launched a project titled “Formaldehyde – Free” in 2006. During the project, it was discovered that red bean blood, mostly used in preparing salad and curry, contained formalin of up to 95 percent.

“If the substance is present in food samples, at once, we seize the products from the stall as those are not suitable for public health. Then we ask vendors about the manufacturer or factory of that product. Some vendors didn’t want to answer but some did. When we received data about manufacturers and retailers, we took action accordingly, if necessary, we shut down those food business,”said by Dr.Pyae Phyo, officer in charge of Food and Drug Administration. 

When FDA conducted surprise check and inspection on foods across divisions and states of Myanmar in July, it was found out that ngapi (the fish-paste) sold at Maguay Division was dressed with illegal dyes  and red bean curds containing formalin were discovered in Yangon, Mandalay and Pa Tein.

On July 12, when the FDA Yangon branch conducted a surprise check at Thirimingalar market in Hlaing Township, they found and destroyed about 7,000 red bean cakes that contained formalin. 

After that case, the FDA reported the data to Yangon Region Government and FDA Naypyaydaw Branch. Then Yangon region government announced that formalin should be banned.

“100 manufacturers were summoned by Yangon Region Court and warned that the government will take serious action against anyone who used formalin in food production and even vendors who sell the products will face investigation,” Dr.Khin Saw Hla from FDA said. 

“Though we worry about the quality of the food, we still always have to depend on street stalls as it is affordable,” said one of the local company employees. But he also said that eating some foods can cause stomach pain and diarrhoea.

According to FDA, the department is planning to establish specific food legislation that will allow vendors to sell their food only after they get a certificate on food safety.

In a traditional Chin family, either the oldest or youngest son receives the hereditament when the father passes away. If there is no son, the family will look for male relatives in the clan. Daughters can inherit - if and only if the family cannot find any suitable men, according to a research paper launched last month by a Myanmar women’s group called Ninu, also known as the Women in Action Group.

Though the well-known culture of tattooing their faces may be fading gradually for Chin women, who reside mostly in Chin State in western Myanmar, the patriarchal customs are still chained to the clan system, the laws deeply engraved in the hearts of many Chin people. Because of that, the female victims of violence and rape are silenced.

According to the research, old traditions remain entrenched, traditions that can have a negative effect on women and girls. As a 62-year-old retired village headman said, “My daughter was raped by a man from another village. I informed the police and tried to take the case to court.” He said could not forgive the offender when his family asked for forgiveness. The police then advised him to solve it according to Chin customs. Yet, he refused and wanted to bring the case to the district level.

“But later my older brother interfered, telling me that I should accept their apology as this was our custom. At last, I gave up and accepted their compensation of ten thousand kyat.”

Ten thousand Myanmar kyats – the equivalent of slightly more than $7, the cost of a Chin woman’s dignity.

This case and others prompted Mai Len Nei Cer, a Chin woman herself, together with six women field researchers from Ninu, to conduct research into the social injustices encountered by Chin women in the course of half a year covering 19 tribes in nine townships in Chin State, involving 126 male and 167 female participants aged between 16 and 89.

Their names of the participants are not included in the report. “We keep their names and village names secret in order to protect their privacy. We promised them to do so, so that they would be able to speak freely,” said Mai Len Nei Cer.

This research is also a reaction to the Chin Special Division Act, a law that was enacted in 1948. Article 15 (a) especially deals with the customs of Chin people.

The inheritance practices and the division of property are stated clearly in the Chin Special Division Act. Ninu has been fighting for open discussion about amending the act for three years and is currently waiting for a reply from the Chin State Hluttaw, the house of representatives.

The law also suggests that if a wife dies first, all will be owned by the husband. Yet, if a husband dies first, the properties have to be divided among sons, daughters and the widow. Daughters will get half of their brother’s share, the mother will only get half of her daughter’s.

“We need to understand both the written Chin Act and unwritten customary practices in order to find ways to advocate for positive change,” said Mai Len Nei Cer.

Among Chin people, the objectification of women is deep-rooted. When a man proposes to a woman, the bride’s family will demand a bride price. There are different words to refer to bride price but most of the words mean ‘price’, as it is a buying and selling business.

This disparaging perception towards Chin women also appears in a lot of the traditional sayings. An example would be “a drum and wives are there to be beaten” as referenced by Ninu’s research, identifying wives as objects to be casually hit. 

Traditions are seldom challenged. Today, Chin men still believe women are their property, especially with the bride price system. According to Ninu’s research, a 35-year-old woman from Paletwa Township called to mind incidents of couples quarrelling and said, “A husband would say to his wife: I have paid that much for you, so you have to work hard [for me]!” 

If a woman initiates a divorce, her parents and relatives must return the bride price they received at the time of the marriage. But if they are not willing or cannot afford to repay, women cannot divorce their husbands. In the midst of all these discussions and procedures, however, women have no say - all decisions are made by her parents and relatives. They are not allowed to decide on their own divorce.

A 57-year-old widow from Hakha Township recalled her cousin’s experience of being in an arranged marriage when she was young. “As she couldn’t love her husband, they had problems every night. Around 10 or 11 pm, my father was often summoned to their house to talk to her. She wanted a divorce, but her parents said they wouldn’t be able to return the bride price. So she had to endure. After having five children, she still couldn’t love her husband and ran away to Phakant.” 

From the imbalanced decision-making on the discussion table between clans to the unequal treatment at home around the dinner table, women are often either subdued, or neglected. Husbands are more noteworthy than wives; and sons are more preferred than daughters.

In Chin culture, sons are the hosts. They are the people who sustain the clan from generation to generation. However, daughters are simply guests. As they are expected to get married and soon they will belong to other clans.

According to the research, many married women live in a constant fear that their husbands will marry another wife, or divorce them if they cannot bear a son.

Most women do not get the education and resources that they desire, too, according to the research. “My father sent my brothers to study abroad. But when I requested him to let me attend training in Yangon, he said he did not want me to have a hard life outside. After I requested him again and again, he got angry and told me that a woman’s place is at home,” said a 24-year-old woman from Matupi Township.

Not all women, though having a place at home, feel safe. When domestic violence happens in Chin households, when men beat their wives - alcohol is blamed. Apart from that, according to the research, some Chin people believe women deserve to be beaten if they talk back and complain. Just like the old saying, Chin women are no different than drums.

When rapes happen in the community, elderly male relatives of the perpetrator will go to the survivor’s family to apologize. In most cases, their apology would be accepted. Yet, all decision makers are men and the survivors are not consulted. Women, once again, are hurt, and left voiceless. 

Mai Len Nei Cer says there are two main stumbling blocks for women’s access to justice, according to the research. 

Firstly, there is the exclusion of women from all the decision-making processes. From getting married to filing a divorce, from being beaten to raped - they don’t have any authority over their life decisions.

Secondly, the hindrance is the Chin Special Division Act that separates them from the outside laws and circumscribes their issues at the community level. Though the customary law is already the most accessible law to Chin women, it is also one of the biggest impediments to justice them – as it restrains them to accept Chin traditions, including the unfair treatment.

“We still have a lot to do, a lot of advocacy work to empower women. It is a very difficult task and may take very long. But if we push a little bit by bit, there will be changes,” said Mai Len Nei Cer.

Along with her team at Ninu, Mei Lam Nei Cer is currently travelling around Myanmar offer the findings of her group’s research. She aspires to educate people and let them know that Chin women have had enough of being objectified, abused and belittled.

The Thingyan holiday provides a good chance for families to cook up some special food. But are people eating the right thing when it comes to a nutritious diet?

Mizzima asked Dr Hsu Nwe Zaw, Nestlé Nutrition, Health and Wellness Manager for her views on healthy eating during the festival.

People in Myanmar tend to consume a lot of traditional food and drinks during Thingyan. Which one is your favourite?

Thingyan marks the most important festive season in Myanmar, and it’s definitely the best occasion for people to enjoy a feast full of our traditional dishes.

My favourite traditional Thingyan snacks include the “Mont Lone Yay Paw”, or floating sweet dumpling made from glutinous and ordinary rice, toddy palm juice, and coconut slices; as well as the “Mont Let Saung”, which is also rice-based and uses the same ingredients as “Mont Lone Yay Paw”. Since both dishes are rice-based snacks that contain carbohydrates, they are healthy and can provide us energy.

Many people like to eat vegetarian food during Thingyan. Are this good enough for us to stay healthy?

As many of our traditional dishes for Thingyan are rice and fruits-based, the majority of food consumed during this period is vegetarian. This also means that people will have a higher intake of carbohydrates and sugar and a lower intake of protein, iron, calcium and fat as compared to their everyday diet.

Maintaining a healthy and balanced diet is very important for us to stay healthy and nutrient-sufficient during the festive period. Therefore, while enjoying Myanmar’s traditional delicacies, everyone should also remember to have a balanced diet during Thingyan. Some options include:

Calcium-rich food such as tofu, soymilk, turnip and bok choy; Iron-rich food including whole grain bread, green leafy vegetables (such as watercress and curly kale), raisins, beans, nuts, apricots and prunes.

It’s also important to note that there are some foods which may prevent the absorption of healthy nutrients such as iron – including tea, coffee and the Burmese favourite, tea leaf salad.

During festive occasions such as Thingyan, most of people in Myanmar travel extensively and our level of physical activity increases, so people tend to get tired or get sick easily. What is your advice for us to avoid that from happening?

While we spend time on the road travelling to other cities, most of us may forget to eat healthy. Given that nutritious food becomes less accessible in some areas of the country, people also tend to get tired or get sick easily.

So if you feel fatigued, fall sick easily due to a low immune system or lack concentration, these are symptoms of a possible deficiency of an essential nutrient that your body needs – Iron.

Iron is needed for our red blood cells to transport oxygen and is an important mineral for brain function and is critical in anyone’s daily performance. Because iron is essential during times of rapid growth and development, pregnant women and young children may need even more iron-rich foods in their diet. Yet, most people in Myanmar are not aware of the importance of iron in their bodies.

Although not all iron deficiencies are caused by dietary reasons, low intake and low bioavailability of dietary iron is indeed one of the major causes of iron deficiency and iron deficiency anaemia (IDA). Eating a well-balanced diet that includes iron-rich foods including green leafy vegetables, raisins and nuts may help you prevent iron deficiency, develop a strong body and better brain functions.

What other advice can you share on maintaining a healthy diet and nutrition intake during Thingyan, or in general?

Nutrition is a very important issue in Myanmar that deserves much more attention than what it has today. In order to build a strong nation together, we not only need a stronger economy and stronger business, but also a stronger population with stronger families – and this starts with a strong body and strong brain.

There are important nutrients needed for us to stay healthy and strong, such as vitamins, water and carbohydrates, which can all be easily obtained through our daily meals. While people in Myanmar have consume a sufficient amount of water and carbohydrates, we tend to overlook the need for minerals and vitamins when planning our daily diet.

Minerals that come from our daily food are important for many of our body functions. For example, iron is needed for our red blood cells to transport oxygen, while calcium and magnesium are important for our bone structure. Minerals are best obtained through a varied diet rather than supplements.

Vitamins help to regulate chemical reactions in the body. There are 13 different types of vitamins, including vitamins A, B complex, C, D, E, and K. Because most vitamins cannot be made in the body, we must obtain them through our diet.

While many of us today live a very busy lifestyle, it is good to form a habit of planning our meals in advance to ensure adequate nutrition intake on a daily basis.

How is nutrient deficiency affecting people in Myanmar, and what has Nestlé being doing in addressing this issue in Myanmar?

Myanmar has the third largest group of younger generation population with high micronutrient deficiency in Southeast Asia.

In Myanmar, approximately one out of three children under five years of age is lacking in Vitamin A intake, and one out of five school-aged children has Iodine deficiency. Meanwhile, about 30 per cent of our children are suffering from stunting (falling below in height for age), which is the most prevalent form of under-nutrition.

Moreover, roughly six out of 10 school-going children, seven out of 10 pregnant women and one out of two child-bearing women is suffering from iron deficiency, which means that for a family of five, one of them could possibly be iron deficient.

At Nestlé Bear Brand Myanmar, we have been actively raising awareness around iron deficiency since last year, which is a very prevalent health issue that has been neglected.

To date, our social movement campaign which raises awareness on iron and family health has reached out to the majority of the population in Myanmar through a series of television infomercials, leaflet distribution in public areas, informative articles in newspapers, health journals and Facebook communication.

This is just the beginning of Nestlé’s journey and there is much more to accomplish. We are committed to helping families in Myanmar fight against nutrition deficiencies, and strengthening emerging families in Myanmar for a better life.

A two-week jungle trek followed by a sheer climb up avalanche-prone slopes to a jagged ridge of icy pinnacles awaits three Myanmar mountaineers planning to take on Hkakabo Razi, a peak so treacherous it has been conquered only once.

Believed to be the highest in Southeast Asia, the mountain stands at an estimated 5,881 metres (19,294 feet) in the northern tip of Myanmar near the border with China and India, a Himalayan cap of the largely tropical nation.

The formidable route to the top starts with a gruelling 240-kilometre (150-mile) slog by foot through Kachin state's dense jungle, filled with venomous snakes and bloodsucking leeches.

But it is the challenging climb itself that has thwarted nearly all of the handful of attempts to reach the summit, one of which resulted in a deadly rescue attempt.

"The difficulty level of the mountain is extreme," Zaw Zin Khine, 32, told AFP during a break from a training session on a limestone karst cliff in eastern Karen state.

The team will have to negotiate precipitous faces of loose scree, frequent avalanches and a choice between ridges spiked with towers of rock and shrouded in snow and ice.

"There is a risk we won’t come back alive," the climber added.

He and his two partners Pyae Phyo Aung, 36, and Aung Khaing Myint, 32, aspire to make history as the first all-Myanmar team to summit the mountain.

They also hope to settle a decades-long dispute over whether Hkakabo Razi or the nearby Gamlang Razi -- also in Myanmar -- claims the honour as the region’s highest.

- 'Makes Everest look easy' -

The three climbers, now waiting for the right window in the weather to start their expedition, have been in intensive training for months, including a trip to Nepal and sessions in a Yangon gym, wearing masks to simulate low-oxygen levels at altitude.

Team member Pyae Phyo Aung is one of only two people from Myanmar to have summited Mount Everest but he says Hkakabo Razi's isolation and lack of infrastructure makes it far more perilous.

"Even if you're 70 years old, you can get to the top of Everest if you have the money to pay people to pull you up," he says.

"They maintain the routes from the base camp to the summit, have lots of porters and it's easy to find people by air if they're missing. That's not the case on Hkakabo Razi."

The first known attempt to scale the mountain was by British explorer and botanist Frank Kingdon-Ward in 1936.

In his book "Burma’s Icy Mountains", he describes how the peak "utterly defeated" him, forcing him to turn back a vertical kilometre below the top.

It took another 60 years before Japanese mountaineer Takashi Ozaki and his Myanmar climbing partner Nyima Gyaltsen prevailed on their third attempt.

Ozaki, the first-ever climber to successfully tackle Mount Everest's north face, reportedly described the peak as "one of the most difficult and dangerous mountains in the world".

Two separate expeditions in 2014 both met with costly failure.

One local Myanmar team never returned, a tragedy magnified when a rescue helicopter crashed, killing one pilot.

The other ill-fated ascent is the subject of a National Geographic documentary.

The expedition ground to an icy halt on what team member Emily Harrington remembers as a "nightmare ridge" that dropped off for hundreds of feet on either side, leaving them "depleted on all fronts".

"We kinda assumed it would be like Nepal and Pakistan where the culture is centred around the mountains," the 31-year-old told AFP from California.

"But it's not. They’re not used to people coming here to trek so we had to take more on ourselves."

- 'Listen to the mountain' -

This year’s expedition organisers are preparing for anything.

Tycoon Tay Za, who was behind both the 2014 Myanmar team’s failed attempt and the successful ascent of Everest, is also bankrolling this venture, which is expected to take around two months.

The three climbers will have a five-member support team and some 70 porters to help -— compared to 25 last time -- as well as several rescue helicopters on stand-by.

"If we complete this, we can be proud Myanmar citizens," Zaw Zin Khine said.

"We plan to plant the nation's flag with our own hands at the summit."

He also hopes they will inspire more climbers in a country that only boasts a few dozen enthusiasts.

But Harrington warns that reaching the summit is not everything and advises the team to "listen to the mountain".

"If it’s telling you not to go for it then don’t go for it. In my head the only thing that matters is that you come back alive."

© AFP