• Genre: Material Lore – food, Customary Lore – celebration, ancestor worship ritual
• Language: Burmese with some English
• Country of Origin: China/Myanmar
• Informant: S.C.
• Date Collected: November 7, 2020

Informant Data:

• S.C. was born in Yangon, Myanmar in 1963 where she was the youngest of 7 siblings. Her father was a tax collector for the government and her mother was a homemaker. While S.C. is Burmese, her ancestry comes from the Fujian region of China, so she experienced ample amounts of both Chinese and Burmese culture. In terms of religion, her family follows Theravada Buddhism. She would celebrate Chinese New Year with her family both in Myanmar and in the US.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: Noodles are a very common food both in Chinese and Burmese culture. In both cultures, they can be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Also, they can be made of many different ingredients, such as rice, flour, egg, etc, and can come in a variety of shapes and sizes.
• Social Context: During Chinese New Year’s Eve in Myanmar, it is customary for families to attend a Chinese temple to participate in many activities to pay respect to ancestors. At night, they hold a large dinner gathering with an assortment of foods.

Item:

• Kyauk Swe Kyaw is a typical food that is eaten for Chinese New Year in Myanmar. In English, Kyauk Swe Kyaw translated to fried noodles. In addition to stir fried noodles as the name implies, other ingredients include ground chicken or pork, shredded carrots, and some cabbage. This food is typically eaten in the family feast that takes place the night before Chinese New Year. First, the fried noodles along with the rest of the dishes are offered to ancestors. The family flips a coin and if it lands on heads, the ancestors have finished their meal, allowing the family to eat. If it lands on tails, the ancestors have not finished yet and the family must wait and flip the coin again until it lands on heads. Noodles are chosen as part of the Chinese New Year feast because they are said to grant long lives to those who eat them as noodles are long strands.

Transcript of Interview Clip (translated from Burmese):

C.C. (collector): What is a typical food that you would eat for Chinese New Year and is there any significance behind it?

S.C. (informant): On the night before Chinese New Year, my family would have a feast at night and my family was very big, so we had a lot of food to eat. One food that we always ate was Kyauk Swe Kyaw (fried noodles), because it was simple to make and good to eat. It has stir fried noodles, chicken or pork, carrots, and cabbage, so we didn’t have to go out to buy anything to make it because we would already have all of these ingredients at home. The noodles also have a significance as the long strands of noodles represent a long life. We eat the noodles in hopes of having long, prosperous lives. These noodles along with the rest of the food, however, cannot be eaten right away. Our ancestors must eat the food first, so we have all the food  on one table and we place small red pieces of paper on each dish. We pray to our ancestors, and then flip a coin. If the coin lands on heads, the ancestors finished eating, and then we can eat the food. However, if the coin lands on tails, the ancestors have not finished eating, so we must keep flipping the coin until we get a heads. This all happens on the day before Chinese New Year. On the day itself, we mainly visit pagodas like Shwedagon Pagoda to pray for a good new year, and we try to do many good deeds so that we have good fortune in the future.

Informant’s Comments:

• Since these noodles are so easy to prepare and don’t require many ingredients, she prepares this dish fairly often for normal meals aside from Chinese New Year feasts. Also, sometimes her family will add sriracha to the noodles, but this doesn’t have any meaning behind it.

Collector’s Comments:

• When I celebrate Chinese New Year, I do not have a big feast on the night before, but rather for lunch on the day of. Also, while I do offer the food to my ancestors before eating it myself, I do not have to flip a coin to see if they finish the meal. Instead, my family finishing our praying indicates that the ancestors have finished eating.

Collector’s Name: Chris Chao

Tags/Keywords:

• Chinese New Year
• Material Lore
• Customary Lore
• Food
• Entrée

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