Mohinga? Mohinga. Ah yes, a classic Burmese dish of fish broth and peanut oil-soaked rice vermicelli. Like most things Burma, it has been both bastardized and gentrified to fit the lifestyles of the lower and upper classes. For most Burmese people, old habits die hard—whether you’re nouveau riche or just a guy looking for a bowl of sloppy fish juice, we all eat mohinga.
A lot of people have been inspired by mohinga—both the name and the dish itself. For example, Bouhinga (bourgeois mohinga in a Marxist context) is a musical collective inspired by Yangon restaurant Sharky’s Golden Salmon Mohinga, a dish that makes me want to hug my knees and cry, a bit like when Vito Corleone grieves over his son’s corpse: “Look how they massacred my boy.”
A typical bowl, naturally, has fish (catfish or something ludicrous like salmon), cilantro, banana stem, and—if you’re into it—some fried pea fritters. The debate on cilantro being in food is as controversial as pineapple on pizza, but let’s face it: no one likes cilantro in their food.
Mind you, this isn’t about food. As you might’ve figured out by now, your author tends to make any topic quite horrific to read, let alone understand. We’re talking memes, memes, memes.
In June a group of teenagers made a group called Myanmar Mohingaposting which predicates itself on “shitposting,” or posting large amounts of content repetitively to an online forum or social network as some sort of aggressive spam. Obviously, in this case, the focus is on mohinga.
But that wasn’t the only fare considered, as one of its founding members who declined to be named told me: “I was like ‘what about ngapi [fish paste]? Let’s go with that.’
“But then we were like screw it, let’s just do mohinga.”
The following month, mohinga ascended through Myanmar’s memetic rankings, becoming a meme icon. History was made, folks, and here it is recorded.
Compared to old school icons like Thar Sis and Ba Sai, mohinga memes are the new kids on the block, with most of their humour deriving from a shared hatred of cilantro and typical scenarios we face when eating outside.
In this image, we have two NBA players, with one playing the role of a mohinga vendor lady, who despite hearing the explicit warning of “NO NAN NAN PIN” (cilantro), decides to sprinkle on some in the last minute. The other player is obviously the protagonist (you), utterly miserable at having the demon plant in your meal.
The contentious issue is also incorporated in old school templates such as the "drunk guy meme" below. The caption says, “One order of nan nan pin, skip the mohinga please.” That one got me chuckling a little.
Seventeen years into my mohinga-infested life, I’m confident that I will never enjoy cilantro in my bowl and anyone who does so should be considered unfit for society. Just joking of course. Oh, and if you see downtown bar Marco’s Cellar’s take on mohinga (pizza, wah??) please stay calm.
From overpriced buthee kyaw (deep-fried gourd in batter) to other takes on traditional Burmese food, some Yangonites will dismiss high-end eateries trying to present the idea of ‘something new’—which to many, looks like a sad heap of fusion gone wrong. But maybe this is exactly the kind of creativity needed to elevate Burmese food to the international stage. Either way, it gives us nourishing, wholesome memes.
