The Buddhist celebration is unique to the Shan people of northeastern Myanmar ... Monks ritually shaved more than 40 boys' heads with razors, tufts of hair falling onto lotus leaves.

Dressed in flowers, finery and makeup, scores of boys were paraded around a temple in Thailand before 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.