Buses Upgraded

One place the NLD government can claim a measure of success is in public transportation. Major changes were made to the bus system in Yangon, starting about three months ago. Most of the buses are now new enough that you can't see the road through the holes in the floor anymore. Very few remain with wrong-side steering wheels.

In theory, routes, timetables, and salaries are now fixed. Profits are now shared across the system, instead of depending on the number of round trips completed. Drivers no longer have incentives to speed or take short cuts.

I've been riding buses more and more often lately, rather than sweat it out on my bike or paying taxi fare. When they're going where I'm going, they're better than both. Also, it’s hard to beat the local flavor. I especially like the conductor's horizontal water bottle, resting on an above-window grab bar, waiting patiently for him to come by now and then and take a swig.

Yesterday I took one of the new yellow Chinese buses. Replacing the conductor was a little plastic basket, taped on a pole next to the driver, into which you drop your 200 kyat (make your own change... honor system). The seats had lots of legroom, the aircon was really strong. Not to worry: this one still had some classic Burmese touches. Jasmine flowers and stuffed bears hung from the rear-view mirror, and Buddha stickers were mixed with long lists of rules about whoknowswhat.

ASSK, One Year On

Many commentators last month noted the one-year anniversary of Aung San Suu Kyi’s ascension to the country’s top job. She continues to enjoy nearly complete admiration from the majority of people.

Yet in spite of that good will, Myanmar has not become any easier to govern than it was a year ago. In fact, this government is arguably still military-led. By order of the constitution, the most important ministries remain controlled by the generals, who also have the right to appoint 25% of parliament and to decide their own budget.

Those same generals maybe even prefer the current arrangement to when they held all of the cards. Now, they’re allowed to pull most of the strings economically and militarily, while ASSK and her party get to struggle with a long list of political headaches and then take the blame when they turn out to be unsolvable.

Ethnic groups, for example, seem no closer to winning any concessions on the issues they consider most important: revenue sharing, some degree of political autonomy, and local language promotion. The day when peace accords get signed appears not to be any closer than it was a year ago.

Chinese influence in Myanmar has only grown during the year that ASSK has been in office, while simultaneously the international community’s interest in democracy promotion here has diminished during that same time.

No wonder, then, that The Lady’s recent speeches have sounded less responsive to the needs of the people than her campaign rhetoric did. She now urges communities and individuals to find "courage" and "self-confidence." As if the people of Myanmar haven't been self-reliant enough during the many years of military-led governments.

To give her the benefit of the doubt, it would be nice to think that ASSK and the NLD will spend the next four years working with civil society to expand opportunities for the country's poorest, least educated, and least powerful people. 

Yet polls (no telling how scientific or trustworthy) suggest that a growing number of citizens believe Myanmar is headed in the wrong direction. The NLD may be starting to squander the body politic's trust. High hopes for civilian leadership can't last if its actions remind people too much of the previous military government. Stay tuned.

The F Word, or On the Assassination of U Ko Ni

Federalism, or governing both centrally and through local administrations, struggles as a concept here in Myanmar. Sharing power has been discussed on and off for decades. In practice, control and returns from natural resources have never been well distributed between the union and state governments.

Chief ministers for each state and region are appointed from a distance rather than elected by local populations. Taxes, to the extent they are collected transparently at all, must be deposited at the union level before being reallocated. Services such as education and health have rarely been funded or administered locally. As a result, in many areas of the country governance and revenues are contested by people who back their claims with weapons.

Regional and ethnic leaders, as part of peace discussions, have proposed constitutional changes. They see federalism as an opportunity to create a unified country with diverse parts. The central government’s military perceives that federalism would erode both its sovereignty and its profits.

Amidst these challenges and conversations came a political assassination this past Sunday. The death of U Ko Ni, a lawyer who pushed for constitutional reform, is a blow to anyone aiming to create a Myanmar where benefits are shared fairly and where local cultures and histories are maintained. He argued frequently for peaceful protest, against hate speech, and in a spirit of people’s participation.

At the time he was gunned down, U Ko Ni had been serving the new government as its most important legal mind on questions related to religion and race. His own father was a Muslim from India, while his mother was a Burmese Buddhist. He held many views considered threatening to the powers that be. Specifically, he believed that the country’s constitution should be replaced, in part because under it federalism could never truly take root.

The 2008 Constitution, which the military leaders of the country designed and treasure, falls far short of what international observers consider a reasonable standard for collaborative governance. Critics accuse the document, among many other flaws, of failing to grant equal rights to all races and religions. The news of U Ko Ni’s death has thus stirred not only debate about constitutional reform and self-determination but also religious freedom.

There are many federalisms around the globe. I’m not clear which of them, if any, are right for Myanmar’s situation. What I am clear about is that this murder was heartbreaking. One commentator said that the bullet that killed U Ko Ni also “hit the constitution.”

Snakebit

Earlier this week, a snake bit Jip’s mom as she waved goodbye to a visitor in front of her house. Snakebites aren’t always dangerous—she’s had dozens in her life—so she shrugged it off… until early the next morning when she woke up to pee, found that her ankle was a bit more swollen than usual, and apparently fainted, banging her head hard on the way down. No fun. She never did know what she hit.

I was already scheduled to show up in Ban Krud later that day. The plan had been for me to visit Chao’s house in Bangkok the night before and then to head south from there on my own to the village. But that morning we got the news about the snakebite from a neighbor who had taken her to the hospital. We decided to drive down together.

As it happened the whole country was a bit topsy turvy at that moment. The new king was due to be crowned the next day. Or maybe not crowned, maybe just installed. (He had said on the day after his dad died that he needed a year to mourn before taking the throne. That would mean he wouldn’t be king until September 2017.) Nobody was really sure, and to be honest he might have been about the only one who was really all that excited about the prospect, no matter when it was supposed to happen.

Chao and I arrived at the hospital. Mom didn’t look too good. Chao handed her a little gift he had brought along—a memorial necklace with the old king’s picture on the pendant. Watching her don it was a lovely moment. Despite the bruised head, black eyes, and puffy leg, her wonderfully expressive and vital face shone. She suddenly appeared peaceful and satisfied.

Myanmar Wealth

The Burmese economy mystifies, as has been mentioned often in these pages. It is sometimes said that the country’s development needs could be met overnight if only the lucrative domestic jade business was taxed fairly.

One in four people lives below the poverty line. In rural areas it’s one in two; in conflict-affected areas near borders, it’s nearly everyone.

Official reports about what generates wealth here discuss natural resources and agriculture. Unofficial accounts mention trafficking of drugs and humans, theft of timber, smuggling of gems, and other such “dark” sources of money.

Estimates about how much of the economy is underground range as high as half. One report estimated tax losses at 122-172% of health expenditures and 48-73% of education spending from 1960-2013.

How else to explain the growing availability of luxury goods? One BMW and one Mercedes dealership can now be found on the road to the airport. Shops dedicated to Swiss watches are now inside the airport itself and in fancy hotels.

Many times, I have nearly lost faith in Myanmar’s ability to repair the damage done by greed. Finishing up at the ATM on a recent rainy day, I felt a tap on my wrist from a very little person. He was holding a rumpled bill worth about 1500 times less than the stack I had just pulled out of the machine. His face wasn’t exactly pleading. It just looked confused, as if he wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to be asking. 

Flu Season

Here in Southeast Asia influenza cases spike during the wettest time of the year—usually July through September. In Thailand people sometimes talked about getting flu shots during May and June as prevention. I haven’t noticed anyone in Myanmar having those discussions.

The talk instead is of traditional ways to avoid the disease. Some people mention umbrellas to keep the head dry. Logical enough. Others suggest dietary changes: no deep-fried foods or sticky rice. One of my local friends has a very specific four-step prevention plan:

• Avoid showers for one week
• Clean only the body’s nine orifices
• Rub feet and armpits with damp cloths
• Spread Tiger Balm inside ears, under arms, and around bellybutton

So far, so good.

Seen in a Stream

Several men fish in a countryside canal. Some string nets across the entire stream. Others use electric probes that stun anything with gills. (The electrofishing method isn’t legal but alas also isn’t rare.)

I watch for a while and I wonder how this body of water still contains any fish. They don’t seem to stand a chance.

Down the steps toward the water come two women carrying a bucket full of…
…fish to release for good luck.

This country both charms and discourages me.

Unsnug Plugs

The most unexpected difficulty of rural travel in Myanmar? Coaxing electric plugs to remain inserted into sockets.

When we arrive from other places we take for granted that we’ll be able to charge computers, phones, cameras and so on. It might occur to us to bring along a power pack or extra batteries to tide us over through the many, many spots in the country where electricity has yet to arrive. Once we do find a socket, we assume the little prongs will stay put. Wrong.

Sometimes the slots turn out to be too wide. Other times everything’s angled toward the floor and gravity works against us. Often the wall plate has gone missing, which means the heavy adaptor that we world travelers cannot live without drops to the ground because it has nothing to lean against.

So we miss our bus because our alarm didn’t go off because the outlet let go of the plug during the night. Or we never get the text that our friends sent about the meetup time because the connection got loose and the phone battery went bye-bye.

Traveling with duct tape might help us get a grip. But even that universal cure doesn’t always do the trick if the socket is too old and tired. Welcome to Myanmar!

Overland

Normally a journey to Myanmar starts at an airport. This time I chose to begin at a bus station in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. Not far from there is a border checkpoint that has been open to foreigners for about two and a half years. The twisty gravel road from the checkpoint ends at a sleepy southern Myanmar town called Dawei. When you figure in the cost of time and onward travel to Yangon, the overland crossing isn’t faster or cheaper than going by air. But it’s varied and pretty and unpredictable—in other words, all the reasons we travel.

Vans to the border leave Kanchanaburi every 90 minutes starting at 9am. I picked the first one because I wanted to be in Dawei before dark. We reached the checkpoint at 10:30, including time for stopping on a lovely Thai side road to buy a few bamboo tubes of sticky rice from the van driver’s auntie.

Leaving Thailand went smoothly, just like at any airport. From the checkpoint I walked about 100 yards to a little courtyard where I could book transport to Dawei or buy breakfast. They took my passport and 800 baht. In a few minutes they gave me back my passport, a ticket, and a photocopy of my visa for Myanmar Immigration. A shuttle drove me and a few other travelers the five or so miles through what I guess is a no-man’s-land.

The shuttle turned around in Htee Kee, a Karen town with a Burmese name. People there speak Karen, Thai, Mon, Burmese, and a little English. The immigration office felt a little rougher than the Thai counterpart I had just left but it got the job done. The staff seemed grateful for the photocopy.

Next up in the transportation chain: the dispatcher. He arranges full vehicles for passengers from both directions. Anybody who’s ever traveled in Asia knows that times like these are good times to go get a coffee and open a book. In this case the wait turned out not to be too long, maybe 30 minutes. Probably some days it’s two minutes and other days two hours, all depending on who else is going.

The dispatcher came and went several times before pointing to a Toyota hatchback. The driver and the only other traveler both hailed from Dawei. They had plenty to talk about so they took the front seats and I got to stretch out in back, with a seat belt even. Communication was easy because they spoke Thai.

For the next three hours we saw no more than 20-30 other vehicles. A few motorcycles carried people who looked like they would be stopping often to work in the sparse forest. There were no trucks other than a convoy of five Thai double-tractor-trailers that rumbled our way just as we formally entered Myanmar. The trucks looked too clean and formal to have traveled very far. I wondered if they had crossed from Thailand earlier in the day to pick up an unofficial shipment of something that Customs would wave through uninspected.

The terrain started out hilly, gradually giving way to jungly, and then cultivated. Finally we encountered a bit of extraction, though it was hard to tell exactly which minerals were being carved out of the hillsides and sluiced out of the river. We made a steady 30km/hour, slowing for clouds of dust and one-lane-only bridges. No pavement, no cement electric poles, almost no settlements. The scattered houses were made only of bamboo and thatch. Whenever we passed a building of any size, it flew the flag of the Karen National Union.

Shortly before 3pm we stopped at a roadside office with no markings. The driver disappeared with my passport for much longer than the “official” immigration people in Htee Kee had needed to look at it. After that point it seemed we had entered our third country of the day. Busier and busier villages, more and more rubber or plantations of this and that, and finally tea shops and electronics displays.

Downtown Dawei is full of old lattice and lace houses that have been kept up nicely. The people charmed me too. The next morning I asked the guest house owner about where to find good mohinga. She described the directions and then added, “Bring me some back, will you?” A friendly welcome to Myanmar.

Open Wind

In the massage shop at Bangkok’s southern bus station, making use of a gift hour resulting from my first-choice bus being sold out, I told the masseuse about a crick in the neck caused perhaps by sleeping the wrong way. She began with the feet, as they do, and after about five minutes said something about “bpeurt lom,” meaning to “open the wind.” At first I figured she was referring to an electric fan as the room was a little bit warm. I said fine, for me it’s OK either way.

But then she didn’t stand up or move toward any switches, and it occurred to me that she might not be talking about fans at all. The word for wind in Thai can also refer to the life force… not exactly the same as “chi,” but in that category. Maybe she was referring to the beginning stage of any massage, giving me a kind of description of what she was doing? Something along the lines of “With these humble hands of mine I will now unblock your essential energy.” Which she then proceeded to do.

She got a big tip. The massage had so many nice results. My neck really did feel better the next day. Almost as nice was the feeling I got after figuring out the second possible translation. It’s satisfying to have lived in a region long enough to realize there’s more than one option. In Thailand I have a chance of understanding unexpected or deadpan remarks. In Myanmar my language skills are still a long way from that place.

A Thing to Think About

An elephant is a thing to think about. Its many parts are somehow larger than life: the bristly hairs as long as pine needles, the squishy feet as baggy as bell-bottom pants. Even on its knees, an elephant impresses. In its genuflection there is no submission. An elephant kneeling may be the wisest and bravest of all, we concluded while contemplating elephants up close this week.

Six of us traveled to the forested mountains west of Taunggoo, where we arranged to ride and watch working pachyderms. Their job that day was pulling felled tree trunks from where they had been cut to where they could be turned into planks. Our job, not that we had given it any thought, was to stay out of their way.

Three “carrying elephants” knelt as we approached them. That way, pairs of wooden seats that had been laid across their broad tops became low enough for us to climb into. The seats faced sideways. After two of us sat back to back on each elephant, the mahouts leapt up on the elephants’ necks and signaled that it was OK for the animals to stand up.

Three more “pulling elephants,” each with a mahout but no other passengers, then led us along a quiet ridge. We could hear the wooden jangle of the elephant bells over the sound of a light wind. Our parade consisted of six elephants, six mahouts, and six tourists. We had left behind the city, the highway, even the village. All was right with the world.

Then we plunged into the jungle down a steep hillside trail. We realized we would simply have to hold on tight. There were no seatbelts. After about 20 minutes of jouncing we reached a clearing. A few loggers stood waiting for us, holding the ends of three chains they had wrapped around three tree trunks. The logs, lying on the ground, were about half as long as telephone poles. I guessed each one weighed about 500 pounds.

It emerged that the elephants knew their business. Generally, they were willing to take orders from their mahouts, but sometimes they judged that the easiest way would be blazing their own trail instead of following the one we had ridden in on. From our three carrying elephants we watched with both awe and dread when the three others headed off cross-country. The huge loads behind them scoured the tilted landscape.

The logger boss mostly paid attention to the youngest-looking mahout. The kid tried not to look nervous but he gave himself away by the rough way he used his elephant hook. Or perhaps he and his elephant were still getting acquainted. All we knew for sure was that the mahouts on the other two pulling elephants managed to communicate with their voices rather than by prodding.

Then the elephant under the kid mahout misread the terrain. Its log began to roll downhill. The kid shouted and thrashed wildly as the elephant dropped to its knees, grunting and crawling forward. Our elephants steered clear as we stared with train-wreck fascination. The log lurched. Five seconds felt like fifty. Finally, the pulling elephant snorted and straightened, the cargo under control.

The boss told us later that two or three times in 20 years, he had seen a log drag an elephant. Once, a leg broke.

Half an hour later, back on the ridge, we all breathed normally again. “It never occurred to me when we set out that we would be eight feet away from a working elephant,” said one of my friends, who is roughly the same age as I am. His teenaged son’s comment was “Dope AF,” which I gather is high praise and maybe best left abbreviated.

Star Power

Myanmar struggles with the idea of women as decision makers, particularly when the woman holds a public role. Yet the recent election saw a jump in the number of female office holders. Their representation in legislatures nearly tripled, from 5% to over 13%. That number still lags behind the country’s neighbors, and is far lower than the target of 30% that the UN claims is needed for parliaments to represent women's concerns.

Both health and education policy stand to gain in Myanmar because of the improved gender balance among legislators. Also, in this country there is one woman whose presence counts as several.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s victory helps build an alternate reality for Burmese women. She combines Eastern and Western, establishment and outsider, politician and activist, prisoner and freebird.

She even claims a certain military legacy, as her father, a general, is considered the founder of the modern armed forces in Myanmar. He remains an idol throughout the country, despite having been assassinated 68 years ago, when his daughter was just a toddler. It’s fair to say that nobody will ever again hold a pedigree like hers.

Plus, what villages, states, and institutions of all kinds in Myanmar always wait for is a hero. Ordinary people don’t think of success as coming through teamwork, but rather from following an inspiring leader.

Therefore the Lady’s years as leader of a majority party will be critical for making change here. Concerning the peace process in particular, she may have a unique set of attributes. Her father gets credit for a 1947 agreement, never implemented, that would have given ethnic groups a degree of autonomy that they have never truly possessed under a central government here.  

It’s unlikely the new political chapter now beginning here will lead to anything resembling what the West considers “women’s rights.” In past statements, “Mother Suu” has made clear she doesn’t consider herself a feminist. Even if she had such an agenda, the country’s general culture, and the military’s specific culture, might not be receptive. Yet simply by continuing to be at the front of the parade, she can’t help but ensure that a long line of women marches behind her.

Election Wrapup

Seven days ago people here slipped out early to polling stations and then came straight home. Many families even stocked up on food in case things went badly.

Despite the event being worthy of celebration, the powers-that-be managed to make it feel scary. The small group of leaders in Myanmar were allowing a more inclusive system to emerge, yet guaranteeing their right to clamp down if that system became unstable. 

By evening on election day, fear of violence slowly dissolved, replaced by excitement and confidence. Here in Yangon, streets that had been empty in the morning began to fill up. It became clear that citizens hadn’t paid a price to participate. Two days later, on a bus traveling to Naypyidaw, I noticed people proudly displaying their purple left pinkies: proof that they had voted.

The country savored that election delight throughout the week as reports grew of an absolute majority for the party whose slogan is “Time for Change.” The National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, clearly has repeated its rout of 1990. Back then, the government refused to honor the outcome and instead arrested The Lady, as Suu Kyi is commonly known. This time, it appears the vote will be allowed to stand.

Which of course presents a whole new set of problems. The stunning results don’t instantly erase the countless challenges here. As one member of the ruling party was quoted as saying, “Our USDP lost completely. The NLD has won. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has to take responsibility now.” Among the headaches she inherits are tense relationships with ethnic armed groups, an out-of-balance economy, environmental damage, and pressures from neighboring countries.

The former junta has protected itself well by creating a complex political system that allows it to claim quasi-civilian status.

The Constitution provides its members a quarter of Parliament’s seats without having to run for them, plus control of key ministries and many other perks. The military can be embarrassed but never really lose. Some people suggest that despite the election outcome, real authority in the country remains with a few generals and a few wealthy families.

Aung San Suu Kyi and her party find themselves with all the responsibility but not enough power to create their “time for change.” Indeed, they’re in the weird position of needing to continue behaving as the minority opposition party, despite superiority in numbers. There can’t be too many places in the world where that’s the case.

The election season’s biggest losers may be Muslims. For the first time, they’re not represented in Parliament at all. Large numbers of them were prevented from voting, and parties that tried to run Muslim candidates often had their candidates rejected by the national election commission. Many say they feel less welcome in Myanmar than ever. Last month Yale Law School’s human rights clinic added its voice to other groups that claim genocide is being committed against the largest Muslim minority group in western Myanmar. Tragically, many people here aren’t shy about their anti-Muslim feelings. If the NLD were to take an inter-faith harmony stance, it might get a backlash.

Election observers throughout the country breathed easier this past week. Their biggest fear going into last Sunday had been some significant group refusing to accept the outcome. Advance voting wasn’t smooth, and on election day many townships were denied the chance to vote on questionable grounds. Yet the NLD, having won enough seats to pass bills and elect the president (a complicated process from which Aung San Suu Kyi is constitutionally excluded), was not likely to quibble with any irregularities reported. Military rulers this time showed no signs of repeating their 1990 annulment of the results.

Despite the many obstacles faced by Myanmar as it reforms the past several decades’ worth of mis-government, it’s still a wonderful time for the country. Lots of people worked very hard to carry out an election that for its peaceful nature alone can be thought of as a victory in itself.

Minbya Misfortune

Big flooding in late July and early August left its mark on many parts of Myanmar. The poorest regions of course suffer most. A British NGO sent me to check on one such region this week. Specifically, they want to know how well markets are functioning and what has happened to prices since the floods in Rakhine State’s Minbya Township.

Minbya was ranked by earlier flood assessments as among the most severely affected townships in the country. In many spots here, the water rose over 10 feet. Although Rakhine State is well-known for long and heavy monsoon seasons, nobody alive today can recall as extensive a flood in this region.

The NGO may decide to respond with a Cash-for-Rebuilding scheme, depending on what we learn about whether or not beneficiaries would have anywhere to spend the cash. So far it appears that the markets are open for business, that prices are up and sales are down.

This kind of assignment humbles me. The interviews we’re conducting with shopkeepers are nearly always cheerful, despite their descriptions of high water levels and stock losses. Yesterday we went by boat to an elbow in the Lemro River that is home to a market known as Pan Mrauk Gyi. Its location high on the river’s edge was a mixed blessing during July and August.

Shopkeepers in Pan Mrauk Gyi told us that flood depth and stock loss were generally lower for them than for sellers in the towns of Mrauk U and Minbya... except for the nearly one-third of shops that were swept away when the land slid at the center of the riverbend.

We interviewed one grandma whose wares were spread on the ground next to the new cliff edge. A makeshift green tarp above her kept the sun off. She said her shop formerly sat about 20 meters behind her, on the part of the riverbank that had crumbled into the deluge.

All of us became a little teary as she described what she had lost. There is no such thing as flood insurance here.