Macquarie Island
47-square-mile, sub-Antarctic, Australian island in the state of Tasmania. Macquarie Island is the breeding grounds for 100,000 king penguins as well as sea mammals, royal penguins, and birds. The royal penguin is endemic to Macquarie Island that is located in the Southern Ocean. A UNESCO World Heritage site, Macquarie Island is the exposed crest of the undersea Macquarie Ridge and where the Indo-Australian tectonic plate meets the Pacific plate. Macquarie Island is the only place on earth where rocks from the earth's mantle are being actively exposed above sea level.

Marionette
Type of puppet; a small-scale wooden figure moved from above by strings or threads that lead from the jointed limbs to a crutch held by the puppeteer. Folk or traditional plays for popular entertainment used marionettes dressed in costume. The art of the marionette, at its height between 1830 and 1885, demanded a high degree of skill and expertise. The Myanmar marionettes’ play incorporates many elements found in Myanmar classical drama. Buddhist texts suggest that marionettes were used in the 5th c., and a 15th c. pagoda inscription lists the earliest known professional puppeteers (ah-yoke-the).

Myanmar
(Burma) Country 678, 033 sq. km, with a population of more than 48 million people and 135 different ethnic groups, is bounded by Bangladesh, India, China, Laos, and Thailand. Myanmar is predominantly a Buddhist country (85 per cent of the population) that traces its civilization back to the 5th c. to the first Myanmar Kingdom of Bagan. In 1044, King Anawrahta established Burman supremacy over the Ayeyarwady delta and over Thaton, capital of the Mon Kingdom. Anawrahta adopted Theravada Buddhism from the Mons. His capital, Pagan, was the seat of his dynasty until it was conquered by Kublai Khan in 1287. The official language of Myanmar is Burmese.