Okay, not really Miss Thingyan. These are photos from the annual ThinGyan New Year's Water Festival celebrated by the Burmese community in New York City down on Henry Street on the Lower East Side. Great noodles. Deliciously cold iced orchid tea. And lots of water from super soakers and silver bowls splashed around for good luck in the new year. There was also entertainment — traditional dance troupes and singers from the more than 30 different ethnic groups that make up the Burmese nation. And while most of the men were in those sexy sarongs called longyi, this young man had to endure the heat, and dance, in this traditional fashion statement. 
There was also a fund raiser raffle to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Nargis. The day turned out to be a GLYNY Again mini-mini reunion, since I went to the festival with John Chiafalo, the 4th Chair of Gay Youth in the early 70s, and Mark K., who is the GLYNY Again archivist (which is not so different from the position he held in GLYNY in the mid 80s).
Afterward we were good and soaked...well just a little sprinkled...we headed uptown for another ethnic celebration by an exotic culture. Yes, it was the Bastille Day celebration on East 60th Street, where there were many delicious desserts, including this handsome young fellow in a balloon version of a revolutionary tricorner:
Ah, New York City. Why would one want to live anywhere else in the world?
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