For Burmese, part of the aim of Thingyan, a five-day water festival that commemorates the coming of the New Year, is to cool down during the hottest time of the year and celebrate their cultural and religious heritage.

Astrologers, including the state-sponsored Myanmar Calendar Advisory Members, have given blessings this year in the annual Thingyan-sa, an almanac broadsheet that predicts what to expect in the coming year. This year’s edition claims that Burma will be “a country of happy people, particularly young citizens.”

On the streets of Rangoon, the country’s youth will be hanging off the back of pickup trucks in bumper-to-bumper traffic and drenching other vehicles and the city’s pedestrians with squirt guns, super soakers, pipes, water balloons, and even fire hoses. Rangoon’s well-known University Avenue—where Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest—will resound with the thumping of hip-hop music. “Young girls dance all the time, even without the music,” said one Rangoon resident.

But Thingyan is not just for the young. Burma’s “old man” Than Shwe, the junta chief, and his aging gang also seem quite happy. At the end of April, their official salaries will rise ten-fold. Some reports suggest that the general’s paycheck will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,200,000 kyat (US $890).

The government-subsidized water festival has in past years brought the capital of Rangoon alive in a way that doesn’t happen at any other time of the year. Ethnic dance performances and concerts by popular singers are only a few of the many events held during the festival. In light of the government’s costly move to Naypyidaw, skeptics are saying that the junta will reduce spending on this year’s event to recoup the enormous cost of building Naypyidaw.

According to Burmese Buddhist tradition, the Celestial King—Thagyamin—descends to Earth when the New Year festival begins to reward people according to their deeds during the past year. Burmese believe Thagyamin keeps two books—one made of dog skin for those who do evil, and the other embossed in gold for those who commit good deeds.

A running joke spreading widely in Rangoon is that Thagyamin may cancel his trip this year after learning that the junta has arranged to buy Russian-made air defense systems.

Thingyan is a national and religious holiday, during which Burmese take time out to have fun, perform acts that will earn them merit, and relax from the cares of their daily lives. It is also a time for citizens to reflect on the future of their country and the hopes they hold dear for themselves and their children.

This year’s festival holds a greater significance. In an unprecedented attempt to reach out to Burma’s military government, the opposition party National League for Democracy proposed reconvening the people’s parliament—comprising winners of the aborted 1990 elections—in return for acknowledging the junta as Burma’s de jure government. The NLD requested a response by the beginning of the New Year.

So far, the junta has officially remained silent.

We are entering a New Year this week…but with the same old regime firmly entrenched. Hope will be hard to come by, but many hold tight to the belief that brighter days are ahead.