In any visit to a country, it is offering of culture is not to be missed. Traveling to Myanmar, you may go to a Ramayana dance-drama, a traditional zat pwe, a marionette show, a variety of dances or the popular anyein.
Be punctual
It is best to be in your seat on time for the show. It is bothersome arriving after the lights have dimmed. As you grope your way toward your seat you may step on people’s feet or obscure their view at the least. You will miss the preliminary announcement and will be unable to read the program notes. With all the fluster it takes a while before you settle down to enjoy the show. Be on time.
Be appreciative
When you visit a show it may not be like what you think it should be. The music is too noisy, the movements apparently repetitious, the plot surely involved, and the show certainly too long, especially when you don’t understand the language.
Yet, there is so much in a Myanmar show to appreciate if you will. The varieties of musical instruments, the exotic costumes, the graceful dances, the natural beauty of the dancers, the rolling rhythms of the cadences even if you don’t understand.
Be appreciative and you will find so much to value.
Laugh but not talk
There are four things you can do at a show talk, laugh, and weep. The fourth one, we will come to in the next paragraph. Talk with its conceptual content tends to disturb people within earshot. Because of the conceptual content, the message in the talk, their attention is caught whether they like it or not. This distracts from what is happening or being said on the stage. But laughter has no content. It is just noise. When the music is playing loud your laughter can scarcely be heard. So laugh but don’t talk. When the hero is being mistreated or the heroine lost in the forest you may listen to her lamentation and weep with her. But it would be silent tears. There is no rule against that. Have a nice cry.
Try not to snore
It is understandable, even forgivable, that after a long day’s sightseeing in the sun, you come into the cool auditorium to watch a show whose plot you don’t know, in a language you don’t understand, and that you feel drowsy and occasionally fall off to sleep. Sleep you may, but try not to snore.