We spent our Saturday afternoon, watching the Burmese Boxing semi-finals at a stadium in Yangon. Neither Andrew or I had been to a boxing match before so it was an interesting event. We got ringside seats for $4 with some of the other teachers from our school and their Burmese friend Christina.
The boxers themselves were short and small with very well-defined muscles. They don't wear boxing gloves but they do wrap up their hands. The matches go until one of the boxers is knocked out for a count of ten. The best part of the whole experience is the live band that plays as the boxers box. There is a pounding drum, some sort of xyplone instrument, some sort a string instrument, and a very-excited announcer who says "Hi-ya!" everytime a punch is thrown.
The other best part of the boxing match is the fact that they don't allow you to bring in plastic waterbottles. This is to discourage fans from throwing bottles at the players. So if you want to bring in any type of liquid, they will pour it into a plastic bag and insert a straw. Voila!-enjoy your bag of liquid.
Our friend Pete was at a soccer match in Thailand and did not know about this rule. He and his friends had packed a backpack with cokes and a bottle of whiskey. When they got to the security gate, they were not allowed to bring in actual containers, so the guards did the next best thing. They double bagged two plastic grocery bags and then poured the entire bottle of whiskey and all of the cokes into the bag with the addition of 4 drinking straws. Pete said as he walked to his seat, his whiskey and coke concoction sloshed from side to side, hitting innocent bystanders. Luckily there was still plenty of plastic bag cocktail to enjoy once they arrived at their seats.
1 comment:
this post is hilarious!
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