The Tazaungdaing Festival, also known as the Festival of Lights , held on the full moon day of Tazaungmon, the eighth month of the Burmese calendar, is celebrated as a national holiday in Myanmar. It marks not only at the end of the rainy season but also at the end of the Kathina (Kahtein in Burmese) season, during which monks are offered new robes and alms. Among the twelve festivals of Myanmar, Tazaungmone month is very especial as people celebrate many notable festivals like Tazaungdaing festival, Kathina festival, Matho thingan festival(မသိုးသင်္ကန်း ယက်လုပ်ပူဇော်ပွဲတော်), Kyi ma noe festiva(ကျီးမနိုးပွဲတော်), Senna salad festival and Tarmanyaphala festival(သာမညဖလသုတ်တော်) in this month.
Full moon day of Tazaungmone is a special day like Thadinggyut for Buddhists since the Tazaungdaing festival ,which is celebrated on full moon day of Tazaungmon, is the festival to pray with light to Buddha as well as it is also the last day for kathina festival, which people donate robes (သင်္ကန်းthingans in burmese), the cotton clothes that monks wear, alms, medicine and some useful accessories to monks and nuns. The origin of Taunggyi's hot-air balloons contest dates back to 1894, when the British first held hot air balloon competitions in Taunggyi, soon after the annexation of Upper Burma. That day is the exceptional day that Buddha preached the Tarmanyaphala suttas(သာမညဖလသုတ်တော်) that descibes about the actions, effects and benefits that is become from the actions to people including Azar Tasat.
In many parts of Myanmar, hot air balloons lit with candles, are released to celebrate the full moon day. The balloons are released as an offering to the Sulamani cetiya in Tavitisma, a heaven in Buddhist cosmology and home of the devas, or as a way to drive away evil spirits. Among Tazaungdaing festivals, Taunggyi's hot-air balloons and firework-launching competition is the most prominent festival. For the Katain festival(ကထိန်ပွဲ), burmese people celebrate by donating money and some helpful things for monks and people also make some wooden trees to connect those money and other things that everyone donated. Then we go to the monasteries and donate them even there are many monasteries so that we donate by village or by school. And we also make some huge toys(like – elephants, buffalos and Bo Aung Tin) which some people get in them to dance and entertain. Robe-weaving competitions to weave special yellow monk robes called matho thingan (မသိုးသင်္ကန်း) are also held throughout the country. In this way robes weaving contests are celebrated all over Myanmar. During these competitions, contestants work nonstop from night until dawn to weave these garments. The contests stop at 10 P.M, the team which can finish earliest and which can weave the best quality is chosen by judges as the winner and are given the prizes. This ceremony is not only portraying good deeds of Myanmar people but also encourage the act of traditional weaving.
