Flowers in their hair: Shan boys ordained into Buddhist monkhood

Monks in a ritual shaved more than 40 boys’ heads with razors, tufts of hair falling onto lotus leaves. -- PHOTO: AFP

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (AFP): Dressed in flowers, finery and makeup, scores of boys were paraded around a temple in Thailand after having their heads shaved -- a symbolic start to a centuries-old Shan monkhood ordination.

The Buddhist celebration is unique to the Shan people of northeastern Myanmar, hundreds of thousands of whom have moved to Thailand during their country's decades of dictatorship and turmoil.