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Gold for Buddha - Gold Leaf Making in Myanmar by Mario Weigt
Mandalay, Myet Pa Yup quarter. It is sticky hot. Stuffy air, full of smell of sweat and sweetish fragrance of glowing incense sticks, fills the windowless room in the house 108 in the 36th street. The sound of thudding, hard beats in the dimly neon light announce brute force.
Aung Kyaw Moe firmly holds the sledgehammer. Unerringly, the hammer lands on the corded buckskin package - at full tilt, three kilograms, forty hard blows a minute. His oliv-green checked longyi, the traditional wraparound skrit, hangs close-fitting on the slim hips, sweat runs like water the bare upper body down. The 31-year-old's sinewy feet seem to have grown into the ground and don't even budge an inch as he pounds the hammer onto the suede packet filled with pure gold.
Aung Kyaw Moe is gold beater at the Gold Leaf Workshop "Gold Rose" and practises a most sought-after trade in Burma. Not only sought-after because of the wage of converted four euros a day but also the gold pounders improve with every blow on the precious metal their karma (a kind of account for meritorious deeds). Only those who do good deeds in the here and now will gather credits. They will be rewarded with a better life in their next reincarnation cycle. Essentially for the Buddhist faith. Not only the contemplative prayer and the donation for Buddha help to improve the karma but also the production of devotional objects for the religion founder. If the offerings are made from gold, it is particular merit.
