Most street restaurants in Yangon use the same kid-sized plastic chairs for both their affordability and portability. Sidewalk-based restauranteurs must insure their establishment is mobile so they can transport it home with them each day – unless they live on the sidewalk along with their restaurants (which costs extra, of course). During a particularly intense downpour, these chairs have evolved to serve at least two purposes:

1) Preventing the rain from creating as large a splash radius when it hits the sidewalk, as this pot is positioned under the natural drainage point off of the tarp overhead.

2) Harvesting the rainwater itself, as being a mobile restaurant means that clean(-ish) water for cooking, dishwashing, tea-brewing, etc., is a scarce resource. Most daytime street restaurants find ways to get negotiate around the fact that they have no running water or electricity, or, as in this case, find clever ways of generating their own.