The picture has been taken at the shwedagon Pagoda, the most sacred temple among pagodas in Myanmar   located in the central Yangon,Myanmar. About 2000 people visit there in oneday and 700 thousand people visit there in one year.

 

At first site I was surprised with the big escalator in the middle at the west gate.Because I’ve never seen those kind of big escalators at any of temples in Japan and other countries and also I didn’t expect that the highly respected place since 2600 years ago are accepting such technological facility.

 

Surprisingly the escalators was installed in 2012 by Japanese company, Mitsubishi electric corporation. And the reason why that company was chosen was its proven record of elevator and escalator performance at international airports serving major cities and other key facilities in Myanmar. Even more significant is reliability.When I found that fact I was proud of Japanese technology which bringing happiness to the community. This escalators make it possible for more people to visit the pagoda especially disable people, elderly people and kids. And it carry about 2000 visitors to the inside of the pagoda.I wish more Japanese temple and shrine would have escalator since some of those have more than 3000 stages.

 

Secondly, I felt religious piety of Burmurse by experiencing to ride on the escalator with barefoot for the first time. I thought that somehow dangerous to be on the escalator with barefoot but this experience tell us the burmurse’s precious buddhism culture. As same buddhism temple, we don’t rarely take off our socks when we get in the temple in Japan.

 

This big escalator on the west approach leading to the precincts gave me two new values. The sacred historical place stays there as it is but it will adjust with modern technology as time changes. And, the Burmurse’s high respectation to the Buddhism.