Some Final Thoughts on Myanmar

Holy Thursday, March 20:

We are home now. After Myanmar, we spent two days in Bangkok, two days in Dubai, and then flew to Ireland where we spent eleven days mostly in the pouring rain. But more about that later--there were many redeeming factors--even in the rain. My computer, brand new, died around the third day in Ireland and I am now writing this on yet another brand new computer. A plug for MicroCenter: they replaced the faulty one today with no hassle and in fact didn’t even try to find the source of the original problem, which I still think had to do with all the different settings necessary to connect in the different countries and not with the computer itself. But who am I to kick a gift horse in the teeth?

A few final thoughts on Myanmar before we move on:

Would I recommend it as a destination? Probably not, unless expectations are realistic. Did we love being there and are we thrilled that we had the opportunity to go? Definitely. The most important thing we have learned in our travels is that everywhere on the planet has something to offer and it is never a waste of time to try to discover what that is. Myanmar is like a forgotten relic of the past, unloved in many ways even by its own people, but the spirit and even the joy that you see everywhere is reason enough to go. I can’t remember a single unpleasant encounter and even though the poverty is shocking to us who have so much, the people never seem overwhelmed or even unhappy. And they welcomed us joyously and never, ever acted like they were envious of us. They asked for money, some even begged touching their lips in a gesture of hunger, but even then they never seemed resentful of their own situation and envious of ours. Maybe they are the lucky ones in some ways. And the ingenuity, the sheer pluckiness of the people is a joy to behold. The ways they manage to eke out a living, from selling birds to be set free (not so admirable) to cooking, packaging and selling tantalizing food under the windows of trains or building islands in the middle of a lake (highly admirable), they show a national ethos that will not be squashed by hardship or oppression.

So kudos and high marks to the people.

What about the land? As I said earlier, I don’t think it is as naturally beautiful as some of the other Asian countries we’ve visited. The areas that are restricted to us remain unexplored, but those that we saw, with a few exceptions, are about average in the landscape department. The monuments, though, rank high on the scale of ancient and valuable antiquities. The problem is, at least as I saw it, is that no one is taking care of them--for the most part. The Shwe Dagon Pagoda in Yangon, the holiest of places, is well cared for--in fact, everyone had to get out of the way for a line of women with straw brooms sweeping the place with great ceremony while we were there. So is the Ananda Pagoda in Bagan. But many other places, like the Teak Monastery in Mandalay and many of the pagodas, are literally falling down. Maybe it is just too overwhelming a task to restore so many ancient buildings. And if that isn’t bad enough, the trash problem is so severe that one can imagine that in a very few years, the whole country will be buried under the ubiquitous plastic bag. This is the fault of the current totalitarian government whose members enrich themselves at the expense not only of their people but of their irreplaceable treasures. People could be employed by the government to clean up, but that would mean less money in the pockets of the leaders. Why they don’t take the initiative and do it on their own is a mystery. Clearly it’s all a matter of training. The weird thing is that you walk through a village littered on both sides of the street with plastic and Styrofoam and yet you wouldn’t think of throwing down your own used Kleenex or whatever. But trash cans are practically non-existent, so you stuff it in your purse until later. This attitude was not observed in Myanmar’s own people.

If government is good for anything it is to maintain the infrastructure and the natural resources, but the waterways are dirty as well, another government travesty. The people depend on the rivers and lakes for everything from bathing to eating to livelihood and I guess an immunity builds up because they seem healthy enough. It goes without saying that there is very little indoor plumbing at Inle Lake except in the hotels and restaurants and other tourist destinations, and even there I personally witnessed a toilet that flushed right into the lake. Our three new friends in Yangon with their Thirst Aid project are fighting the problem of water pollution one person at a time.

And finally, what are we to make of the government? Frankly, we learned very little about it because people don’t say much--speaking up is not worth risking possible prison time. We did find out that self-professed journalists and missionaries are flatly not allowed into the country, although clearly such types come anyway and simply call themselves tourists. A recent book I read is called Finding George Orwell in Burma, and is written under the pseudonym Emma Larkin, an American who grew up in Southeast Asia. She pretended to be an academic researching the period when the British writer George Orwell lived in Burma in the 20’s and later wrote two of his most important books, Animal Farm and 1984, which some say were based on his experiences there. According to Larkin, he is known as The Prophet by some Burmese since today’s repression is reminiscent of Big Brother in the novel 1984. Her actual purpose, though, was not so much to study Orwell but to travel Orwell’s route through Myanmar and talk to the people about what is going on there today. Larkin does not advertise her whereabouts or her real name even though she is no longer in Burma.

Some say foreigners should not travel to Myanmar as a protest against the government. Others say traveling there helps the people by exposing their plight to the outside world. I looked at both points of view before we went, and I’m now of the opinion that to isolate these people does no one any good. We asked Nu Nu what we could do. She just shook her head and said, “Go home and tell people what you have seen here.” It seems like such an insignificant thing and not of much help at all to me, but she seemed to be saying that if enough people (read Americans) come to Myanmar and talk about their experiences, eventually there will be a world-wide protest against this repressive government. Please understand that she did not say that directly. Right now, although there are pockets of people who care very deeply about what happens to the Burmese people, for the most part not many people do. Myanmar is a mere bleep on the world’s radar of poverty and oppression.

The people are oppressed in a number of ways. The military, which numbers 400,000 in a country with no outside enemies, will squelch any display of defiance as they did last September when the monks protested in the streets of Yangon. I think the newspapers said that 30 were killed, but many, many more lost their lives according to some people we talked to. The top ranking official in the country is not a president or a king, but a general. Myanmar has been under this military rule since 1962 and occasional efforts to oppose it have been squelched. The military leadership allowed an election in 1990 and the people overwhelmingly voted for democracy. But the leadership ignored the election results and continued their repressive ways. The security force that suppressed the election is called SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council), but as one writer I read quipped, the very word SLORC sounds like the bad guy out of a James Bond movie.

Another form of oppression by the military leadership is to provide the people with ZERO facilities. There are very few jobs, so the people are mostly self-sustaining which means they work the land, or the lake, or the river, to grow their own food and/or to manufacture some product that can be sold. I didn’t tell you about one enterprising family which illustrates just one method that has been developed to provide a livelihood. This family produces a product called “jaggery” which is palm sugar made from the sap of the “toddy” palm and then turned into a mild wine, a delicious sweet and finally a potent liquor. We stopped at their “factory” along the way to somewhere and were given an explanation of the process. I hesitate to describe it here because I probably will not be accurate, but my point is to illustrate how the people become self-sustaining. First we saw a young agile boy shimmy up a tall “toddy palm” carrying two black pots which he attached to the top of the tree. Up there he collected two more pots that had been hanging there collecting the sap which drains into the pots. He shimmied down the tree to the ground carrying the filled pots where the contents, a thick sweet syrup, undergoes a variety of treatments. Inside a tin roofed structure without walls, several women were busily transforming the toddy sap into saleable products. One was a mild wine which we were given a taste of. Not bad. Another of the women was stirring a large pot of the syrup until it turned a dark caramel color about the consistency of fudge which she then pulled out of the pot and deftly cut into pieces while another woman packaged the pieces to sell as sweets. Finally--and here I can’t begin to describe the process--the sap was somehow distilled into a potent brandy-like liquor which would definitely put the hurt on the over-indulgent. We had a taste of it too. Each family member was involved and there were men and women working side by side producing the various products.

I hardly know how to end our story in Myanmar. We were blessed with the very best guide we could have hoped for. Nu Nu is knowledgeable, funny and energetic beyond belief. She was tirelessly responsive to any small or large request any of us had. I can't imagine being in better hands. And she loves Myanmar so much. I know it breaks her heart to see the oppression all around her. She herself grew up the daughter of a newspaper editor, so she had a few more advantages than most of her compatriots. She is university educated and has been a "First Grade" certified guide for fourteen years. If only I could convey to you a small portion of the information she gave to us. Like the many rules and tenets of Buddhism, endlessly fascinating but difficult to remember. For example, she explained how Buddhists are very aware of the day of the week on which they were born and much of their lives revolve around this. Wednesday born should not marry a Friday born, etc. and countless other interesting beliefs. Several times she actually choked up when talking about her teachers--how hard working and underpaid they were--and I already told you how she bowed low before the old woman in the small village and before the head monk in the monastery. She taught us a few words of the Burmese language, like Mingalabar!!! (Hello, how're ya doin'), La De' (means "beautiful" and goes a long way with the people she said); and gezu ba' (Thank you--always a good phrase to know). We must have used those three words a thousand times during the course of the tour. La de'! I would say to a child, who would then grin from ear to ear; Mingalabar! we would all greet our driver every morning; and Gezu ba', gezu ba', gezu ba', Burma, for all you have given us.