My name is Thi Thi Han, I am from Myanmar, once called Burma. Most of the people do not have an idea of where it is. Well let me introduce it. My country is located in Southeast Asia, surrounded by India, China, Bangladesh, Laos and Thailand. It’s also named the Golden Land because of its many pagodas and temples.

Myanmar has more than a hundred minorities, most well known are Kachin, Kayah, Karean, Chin, Mon, Burma, Rakine, and Shan. But about 80 percent of population in Myanmar is Burma. In my native language we called ourselves Burma rather than Burmese. Because of its minorities, it has many dialogues and literatures. Their cultures are similar but have differences between them. Myanmar has seven states and seven divisions. States are named by the ethic group I mentioned above (eg. Kachin state) excluding Burma.

Myanmar people have been able to preserve their own lifestyle. They still wear their own traditional clothes including longyi, relish their own food, pray in their own way, play in their own games, and celebrate their own festivals.

I would like to say come and visit Myanmar in April. We celebrate our New Year festival at that time. The way we celebrate is very strange; everyone throwing water on other for 4-5 days. Throwing water means we clean our bad luck and dirty mind from the last year and bring good luck to new year.

As my country is Theravada Buddhism country, most of the places foreigners come and visit are pagodas and temples, like Shwedagon in Yagon, Maharmyatmuni in Mandalay, Bagan(an ancient city with thousands of temples and pagodas) and so on.

This is my first year in Kutztown University and I am a freshmen. My major is Business Administration/core. I came from a big family; I have two brothers and two sisters. I have unique background that I am Chinese but born and live in Burma, so I am a Burmese Chinese. I came here for my better education. I like it here, it’s a quiet place to study, and everything is fine except there is no Myanmar traditional food.