American Buddhist Net

Extract from Know Buddhism: Buddhist Monk
Buddhism has become woven into the texture of social life of Buddhist countries. In Burma, for example, every Buddhist boy becomes a monk for some period in his life ; it may be for a year or two, for a rainy season, for a few days or perhaps a lifetime. There are reckoned to be 60,000 monks in Burma, out of a population of nineteen million. The land is dotted with white pagodas ; in every big village there is a monastery, and perhaps, still, a monastery school for the boys. You see the yellow robe everywhere. Read the full story here:

....The following is a vivid description of the great occasion when a son of a Burmese family enters the Sangha or Order of Buddhist Monks. It is taken from The Religion of Burma by Ananda Metteya (Allan Bennett 1872-1923), who was one of the first Englishmen to become a Buddhist Monk < read the full story here.