Oral Exam

The church nearest our apartment here in Yangon did a brisk business for Christmas. There were three separate services—in English, Chin, and Kachin. I happened past during the changeover from Chin to Kachin. Folks of all ages in their finest traditional attire came and went. They paused every few steps to admire and greet. Good tidings of great joy. Peace, good will toward men. People urged me to come inside but I wasn’t dressed right. Also, I don’t know a word of Kachin.

Then today a friend and I stumbled upon a gathering that also happens only once a year. We hadn’t been searching for anything particularly seasonal or spiritual. Mostly our outing was touristical. The Buddhist temple that we visited appears in most travelers guides to Yangon.

Before we explored it, all I really knew about the place was that its name is hard to pronounce. I had failed several times to say "Kaba Aye" (World Peace) correctly to taxi drivers when heading to other destinations along the major thoroughfare that is named after the temple. My friend and I arrived on foot, sparing us from mangling the name yet again.

We trudged along a twisting entranceway. I looked for spires and gold and the usual bits of Buddhist architecture. Instead, up loomed a cave. The tall lump of rock seemed alien on so many levels. None of it fit with the province’s flat terrain, the city’s cement landscape, or the right angles of the nearby pagoda’s outbuildings.

Sure enough, a sign out front explained that this cave hadn’t always been there. It was built 60 years ago, modeled on a real one in India where the first Buddhist Council was held in 543 BCE. The replica grotto here looks genuine enough from the outside, but after you enter it’s clear that this ain’t the Buddha’s cave. It makes a first impression similar to a high school gymnasium. On either side of the cave’s brightly lit interior are rows of bleachers. Scoreboards twinkle in the corners. There is space for 10,000 people. Back in 1954, at the sixth Buddhist Council—evidently they don’t happen too regularly—2,500 monks from all over the region gathered in the newly inaugurated cave.

On this day, the cave housed about 200 Myanmar monks and their entourages. The monks recited several lengthy Buddhist texts from memory. It was the ultimate oral exam. Three mistakes and you’re out of the competition. The scoreboards kept track.

A large support crew accompanied each examinee. One senior monk listened, a junior followed along in the multiple books covered by the exam, and a collection of lay volunteers provided moral and nutritional support. Red Bull seemed to be a sponsor.

My friend and I sat out of the way, tucking our feet behind us as one does in the presence of Asian monks. We took up about 10 square feet of floor space. Which left approximately 29,990 for the monks, if the dimensions on the sign out front were to be believed.

Their sound certainly filled the room. For a while I thought the reverberations might bring down the artificial roof. The process called for twenty minutes of recitation, followed by ten minutes of rest. We watched and listened throughout two and a half cycles. A volunteer came to sit with us during the breaks. He explained that the monks would be at it for three days, eight hours a day. The last monk standing, as it were (in fact all of them were sitting cross-legged on individual platforms), would successfully have memorized more than eight volumes of dharma, chanting their contents with fewer than three errors. The volunteer, who said he was 64 years old, claimed to know three of the volumes by heart himself.

We emerged from the cave mighty impressed. I wondered about the longest string of anything that I had ever successfully memorized. For sure it wasn’t the lyrics to a song—I’m notoriously hopeless in that department. My phone number, perhaps? Pi, calculated to about six digits?

SEA Regional Stage

Myanmar watchers looking for signs that the country is serious about returning to the regional stage now have two new yardsticks.

Here in Southeast Asia, where image is everything, countries can score special points when their turns come around as chair of ASEAN, the regional bloc, and as host of the SEA Games, the neighborhood athletic contest. This month and next, in a rare overlap, Myanmar will take on both roles.

Beginning January 1st, it will lead ASEAN. The country has never before held the annually rotating chair, despite joining this 10-member association 17 years ago. The last time Myanmar’s chance came around, in 2006, it opted out, bowing to strong pressure from the rest of the community because of its lousy human right record.

The SEA Games, which Myanmar has hosted twice before, but not since 1969, got underway a few days ago in several cities around the country. During the run-up to the competition, people debated Myanmar’s preparations: Is the infrastructure up to the challenge? Who came up with that weird slogan (“Green, Clean, and Friendship”)? Will anyone show up to watch?

Banners brandishing the slogan hang from lampposts all over town. Many hotels feature signs welcoming the athletes. But I haven’t sensed much enthusiasm on the ground for the sports themselves. Until last Saturday night, that is. The men’s soccer match between Myanmar and Thailand captivated the whole country. Awakening a rivalry that goes back centuries, the two teams scrapped to a draw in front of a Yangon crowd that had queued up all day to get into the stadium.

This week SEA Games t-shirts are everywhere. When Indonesia eliminated the men’s team three days ago, flashes of hooligan/patriot-ism erupted in parts of the city. Last night, I again heard cheers ring out all over the neighborhood. Tracking down a TV, I realized it was the Myanmar soccer women’s turn to play Thailand. The game turned out to be chock full of highlights.

Both teams played remarkably even for 90 minutes. Although the Thais led most of that time, it was hard to say which side was better. Myanmar tied the game just before the ref whistled, adding a 30-minute overtime. Again the Thais went ahead, and again Team Myanmar answered with only seconds to spare.

Which took the contest to penalty kicks—never a satisfying way to finish, but a necessary evil if you want to award a medal. The Myanmar goalie stopped the fourth Thai shot but the fifth Myanmar shooter hit the bar, meaning another round of five. From that point every kick went in until the very last. So frustrating for the poor 10th Myanmar player to watch her ball bounce off the hands of the Thai keeper!

Impressive performances like those of the soccer teams may have converted many folks who appeared earlier this month not to care about the SEA Games. And high medal tallies—only Thailand has more at this stage—whittle away at Myanmar’s well-earned black sheep reputation in the neighborhood. Those numbers also downplay the muttering that Myanmar couldn’t have done it alone (China contributed over $30 million toward the cost of putting on the events).

Most likely it won’t be 44 years until the games are hosted here again. The sporting success maybe even bodes well for Myanmar’s confidence as it wades into managing the thousands of meetings that come along with chairing ASEAN in 2014.

Shaking the Bowl

What’s up with the ceremonies in the street? The question arises often after ten weeks here in Myanmar. Each time I go out it seems there’s another new Buddhist celebration.

At first this country struck me as having a comparatively genuine devotion to the religion. Monks on their alms rounds looked like they were doing more than going through the motions. Their eyes were lowered in a way that suggested seriousness and purpose, as though they were truly trying to reconcile yesterday’s teachings with today’s realities.

Opportunities to practice faith appeared to be built in to daily routines. Most homes feature altars in a prominent niche that practically calls out for people to stop and pray. In many neighborhoods and towns, a loudspeaker chants mantras in an endless loop. Pairs or trios of pink-robed, shaven-headed nuns circulate through neighborhoods. They stop outside small businesses, whose owners drop either money or uncooked rice into the nuns’ bowls. Think trick or treat, 365 days a year.

For about a week last month, the nearby street market transformed itself at night into a religious revival meeting. Posters advertising talks by well-known monks generated a huge turnout of people who sat on a five-block-long string of carpets that replaced vendors’ stands every evening. Projectors and screens set up at frequent intervals ensured that the entire river of listeners could see the monks’ faces as they preached from a stage at the head of the street.

And now this week clusters of smiling faithful have emerged everywhere, soliciting contributions from passersby. The silver bowls they shake contain not just donations but also a few beads or pebbles to generate sounds that Myanmar’s all-paper currency cannot. I’m reminded of my youth in Chicago, when volunteers for the Salvation Army rang bells outside shopping areas.

Yet lately I hear an undercurrent of hostility in the Buddhist speechifying and fundraising. The monks’ sermons last month sounded to my uncomprehending ear more like halftime peptalks than dharma lessons. The clatter of the pebbles in the bowls seems to say, “Donate or else.”  I may be imagining or exaggerating this tone, but there is no denying that the dominant faith in Myanmar has a paranoia problem. Many of its adherents feel that Buddhism is under threat.

Population estimates suggest that this perception doesn’t make logical sense—most guesses put the percentage of Buddhists at close to 90. But in a multi-ethnic country where good information is hard to get, it doesn’t take much stoking to ignite followers. Rumors, hate speech, and growing social media usage have all led to interreligious violence this past year. Hundreds of people have been killed here, most of them Muslim.

At bottom, the issue probably isn’t really about religion, but rather about power, fear, immigration, land ownership, and similar quagmires. Western governments wish the whole problem would go away, preferring instead to cheer for the country’s positive political changes as they look for reasons to encourage investment.

Aung San Suu Kyi also dodges the subject at every opportunity, falling back on vague references to “rule of law,” which everyone knows are a cover for “Don’t make me commit on this hot topic while I’m running for office.”

Unfortunately, this conflict will stick around for a while. Though it was less obvious when the government was more repressive, these passions have simmered longer than anyone can remember. Moderates are few and far between. Solutions will first require progress on many other fronts—cronyism, citizenship, poverty, and press freedom, for starters.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to smile at the fundraisers on the street, and hope that they smile back.

New Digs

Long-term Yangon residents say, when I describe the building in which I began sharing an apartment last month, “Oh, you mean where the great tea shop used to be.” Clearly the new seven-story condominium was not a welcome change for many people in the neighborhood.

I don’t take it personally. The whole city is gentrifying. High demand will mean lots more disruptions of this kind. Nearly every block has two or three projects under construction. Former tea shops, old full-of-character pharmacies, and wooden houses on stilts are everywhere giving way to car dealerships, restaurants, and glitzy towers.

From our balcony I look out on a fascinating mix of modern and traditional. About 15 meters away is a slightly older building. Measured by the amount of mold on the outside walls, I’d say it was built about five years ago. Its open windows reveal kids reading out loud from their textbooks at lightning speed, moms singing, and dads spitting betel.

Between us and them is a filthy creek full of way too much wash- and waste-water from way too many of the neighborhood’s residents. Behind homes is a maze of tangled electrical wiring and blue plastic pipes, many no longer leading anywhere. A street market, looking like markets have always looked in this country, sends up scents and sounds from a few hundred meters away. If I walk just beyond the market’s boundaries, I encounter a department store. These are slowly popping up around Yangon and Myanmar’s bigger cities, the first to appear in the country since colonial-era Burma.

I’m starting to understand the neighborhood’s rhythms: bustling early and late, nearly empty in the middle of the day. Most mornings I wake up to ululations of various kinds that I cannot trace. Sometimes I think they’re coming from the floor above, but when I walk up there for a better listen, the chanting sounds ventriloquize across the creek.

The source of cooking aromas, on the other hand, is easy to determine. The kitchen in the apartment next door is separated from ours by a weird three-foot gap that’s probably designed to give fumes somewhere to escape. We both look out onto this dark space through windows that are coated with something that makes them two-way mirrors. Whenever I walk in there without turning on the lights, I’m startled by what appears to be a stranger cooking Burmese curries in our kitchen.

In fact my flat-mate is an American guy. At work the office contains lots of Burmese, a few Norwegians, a Cambodian, and an Irish. Last night I celebrated Thanksgiving with people born in Austria, Bangladesh, Colombia, France, Germany, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. Little wonder that the city is changing to meet the tastes of outsiders.

Strolling the Streets

Pedicab bells chime throughout the small alleys where most Yangon residents live. There’s not enough room for four-wheeled traffic, so these three-wheel “sidecars” (aka bicycle taxis) provide the transportation for anyone with heavy packages or worn-out legs. The riders swerve but don’t stop. You have to keep your ears open to avoid being run over.

Usually a few sidecars look for passengers at the street market. They wait next to the spot on the corner where all the vendors agree to pile up their fruit peelings and crumpled packaging throughout the day. You pass dozens of such spots in the evenings. By morning they’ve all disappeared.

Minstrel salespeople also pack the lanes, shouting or singing to advertise their wares. The law prevents electric amplification of sales pitches. Slowly you become able to match what’s on offer to individual sounds: the cry of the recycling man, the gong that goes with the pickled plum cart, and the tune of the lady who carries something long and fried in a ceramic bowl atop her head.

Customers call down to the street from an upper floor window or balcony when they want the attention of one of these vendors. The transaction then happens via a long cord with a clip attached to the bottom end. Why climb the stairs? These personal ropes can hoist nearly anything— breakfast, a newspaper, payment for last month’s electricity, younameit. Some buildings have half a dozen such “mailboxes” hanging out front, the longest stretching 6 or 7 stories high.

Myanmar’s not a convenience store country. If you want a snack, you have to buy your apples from a street market and slice them yourself. In spots where Thailand would likely have a mini-mart, here you’re more likely to find a temple. Sometimes the neighborhood holy place is just an altar or a tree whose trunk has been painted gold. Shrines are everywhere, outnumbered lately only by shops selling mobile phones or perhaps by corner newsstands.

Carrying around store-bought food, with its bright packaging, makes you feel a little self-conscious. Most people put home-made lunches of rice and chilies in a steel tiffin. Men carry these tiffins by the handle. Women seem to prefer placing them in a pastel plastic tote basket, a second handbag. It’s part of a uniform look that’s unlike what women wear in other lands.

You feel scruffy by comparison. They’re just about always dressed up. At bottom is their traditional skirt, which they combine fearlessly with countless top types, sometimes contradictory, often flattering, always appropriate. You suspect that they discuss new color combinations and designs during long evenings at home or at the beauty “saloon” (who’s to say that the American spelling of “salon” is the right one?). It doesn’t matter how they come up with so many ways to be attractive. As long as they keep doing it, strolling the streets will remain a pleasure.

Turning Off the Tap

Nearly every week here in Myanmar, a new expo or summit or forum happens, highlighting some until-recently-dominated-by-domestic-firms business sector. Last month you could have attended the Myanmar Agribusiness Forum, or the Into Myanmar Telecoms and IT Summit, or BuildCon Myanmar. The idea, I presume, is to stimulate foreign investment now that the government has declared such a thing both possible and desirable. 

This past week featured Myanfood, the first-ever international food, drinks, and hospitality exhibition. Among the many sponsors of the event was a high-end wine importer whose Canadian manager sometimes joins the same group of Friday-night bicyclists that I do.

When he showed up last Friday, he was enraged. “I told my wife that I needed to get out of the house… I gotta try and forget this day!” It seems his exhibit at the expo had been closed and cordoned off by the government. Same with his warehouses on the edge of town.

“I’m standing there under a huge banner, looking up at my company’s name as a lead sponsor of the event, and some goon is basically telling me that I don’t exist. No notice. Just ‘go home, seeya later, your stuff belongs to us now.’ For two years I work 14-hour days to build this business, and as of today I am finished. I really need this bike ride!”

None of us listening to his rant had a clue what to say. We could tell that he wasn’t looking for solutions anyway. Best for us to just keep nodding. It emerged that much of the problem revolved around inconsistent enforcement of an import law that restricts foreign alcohol sales to hotels. Evidently this guy brings in his wine on behalf of hotels, but also sells some of it through his own channels… just as most supermarkets and other liquor stores here do.

The old-timers in the group began whispering. “Obviously he’s gotten too big, and somebody in the government wants a piece of his action.” They muttered to themselves that his major mistake was not hiring staff who have friends in high places. “With the right people on board, issues can be avoided,” they said.

As it turns out, the old-timers may be in for a surprise. Already newspapers are reporting that many bigger wine importers, even those locally owned, are saying they will stop all sales voluntarily until the government clarifies the rules. Nobody else wants to get shut down without warning because of an arbitrary or even vindictive decision by a bureaucrat. Historically, who-you-know has trumped what-the-rules-say in this country. Will this episode be a small victory for transparency?

Pavement Problems

In Myanmar, and probably in lots of similar places, a sidewalk has a couple of purposes. It’s simultaneously something to walk on top of, and a lid for sewage drains that run below it. Where I come from these two concepts are pretty much unrelated. One’s above ground, the other’s underground, and never the twain shall meet, or at least not till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat.

Here, the whole concept of not stepping on the cracks, which occupied perhaps the majority of my waking hours in childhood, has taken on an entirely new meaning. Before, I was just practicing the kiddy equivalent of what in adulthood I have come to call “mindfulness.” I knew pretty certainly that no true permanent harm would ever come to me if I ever messed up and put my foot on one of those little buffer zones between pavement panels.

But now, walking around the biggest city of a state that seemingly hasn’t devoted much attention to infrastructure maintenance since about the time Churchill was prime minister, I really have to watch my step. One false stride and I’m in the soup, as it were. In lots of spots around Yangon, the holes in the sidewalk are large enough to swallow a dog.

This town’s many ancient, gorgeous trees further complicate the situation. Do I look up or down?

Back Briefly in Thailand

Thailand looks different now. I’m back briefly to renew the Myanmar visa.

It’s stunning to see the elevated highways here. They go on for miles and miles. Probably they cost millions and millions. Somehow I can’t imagine the Myanmar government ever providing such infrastructure. Currently Myanmar people must be self-reliant in so many ways. Often they pay directly for generators to offset power cuts, for improvements in the roads that pass in front of their homes, for education, and even for defense if they are not the majority race, Bamar, or the majority religion, Buddhist.

Like lots of Westerners, Thais seem to have their heads buried in their devices. That day will probably come soon for Myanmar, but at the moment you can still look into people’s eyes and see a smile rather than the reflection of a screen. And speaking of Westerners, they’re everywhere in Thailand. After a month next door I’d gotten used to being a rare species.

Thailand feels constant. Having lived here a total of more than ten years, I usually know how to navigate and negotiate. It will take a while to get used to the Burmese, who tend to be more direct, and less likely to say what the outsider wants to hear. I’m also slightly less on my guard in Thailand. While the days of being very cautious about what you say in public places and in email messages are on their way out in Myanmar, there’s still a bit of unease in the air, especially since some weird recent reports of explosions. Nobody has claimed responsibility—were they trying to unsettle the government on the eve of its 2013 showcase event, the SE Asian Games? Sending a message about Myanmar taking over the chairmanship of the Association of SE Asian Nations? Or an ornery loner?

Two Yangons

People in Myanmar occupy less space than in other places I’ve lived. They squeeze into and on top of buses. Markets and sidewalks are rarely wide enough for everybody.

My days in Yangon begin in a narrow room at the BikeWorld guest house. The single bed takes up most of the room’s footprint. It’s tight, but I’m not complaining. Most folks in Yangon have many fewer square feet to call their own. Space is expensive here. Three-bedroom apartments downtown rarely go for less than $2,000/month. Office space commands higher rents than in Bangkok and Singapore. At the end of a contract, landlords often raise prices by as much as a third. The tight supply is expected to last a few more years. Wealthy Myanmar people use real estate in place of a bank—everyone thinks investing in land or buildings is a no-brainer.

This situation partly explains why overall contentment in the city isn’t rising. Academics who measure this stuff report that gross national happiness has dropped in Myanmar since the country began to open up. Most citizens haven’t seen much benefit. Way too many people remain poor. The construction worker building the new wing at BikeWorld still makes about $3/day, and considers himself lucky to have a job, but now he fights traffic on the way home. The rooms in the new wing will be about the same size as the one I’m in now, and at $60/night will be some of the most reasonably priced in town.

When I return from a quick visa update in Thailand next week, I’ll begin sharing a place in a new building on the northern edge of town. My American flatmate has been living there alone since July, when he signed a lease that is common in this crazy environment—the entire year’s rent upfront in Myanmar currency. Having parted with sacks full of kyat worth $14,400 for his own bedroom, another room he uses as an office, and a guest room, he soon realized that he wasn’t hosting many guests. That’s where I come in, at $500/month.

Unbroken Circle

This story is too good not to share. It’s about an American friend of mine and a Burmese guy she ran into while both were living in New York, around 1990.

First, you have to know that 25 years ago things got pretty bad in Burma. The so-called “Four Eights” protests on 8/8/88 ended with a government crackdown; thousands were massacred; many student activists fled the country.

One of those exiles—call him Myat—met my friend—call her Tina—in Central Park. He was lonely, missing his wife and baby back in Burma. She was struggling, a single mom whose ex-marriage to a Thai husband had not much to show for it besides a two-year-old. The two of them became good friends. Myat babysat. Tina helped him navigate the process for bringing his family to the U.S.

Six years later, when Tina was back in Bangkok with an American husband who had formally adopted her daughter, now-green-card-holding Myat learned that his immigration petition had been approved. Just one snag: Burmese women weren't being allowed passports by the junta. This prohibition was their when-you-got-a-hammer-everything-looks-like-a-nail response to the embarrassing revelation that a few Burmese female sex workers had turned up in Japan.

Myat’s wife, Su, left anyway. She and her son crossed over to Thailand with a day worker's pass and hid out in a small Thai town. Somehow Tina tracked her down, despite having no language in common. Together they went to Bangkok's airport with legal U.S. immigration papers and fake passport. A Thai official spotted the fake immediately, but Tina argued for an hour that he should look the other way, given that America was essentially solving his problem. Amazingly, she convinced him. Su and her young son got on the plane, speaking neither English nor Thai, and soon were reunited with Myat. The family managed to do just fine in the States for nearly 20 years.

Then their outlook changed, as outlooks tend to do. Myat had heard about other ’88-generation students beginning to return. He and Su realized that the U.S. wasn't the country where they hoped to finish out their lives.

Eleven months on, they are pleased with their decision to come back to Myanmar (their son stayed on in New York, where he has a good job). They have purchased a house in the town where they both grew up, and are beginning to contribute to their community in countless ways. Recently it occurred to them that the person who would most appreciate what they’re trying to do with this life chapter was Tina.

They invited her, along with her now-24-year-old daughter, to visit them for the first time on Burmese soil. I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, so I came along this past Wednesday for the overnight. What a reunion! What a swirling mix of emotions!

Though Tina, Myat, and Su have never lost touch, and their children have sometimes flown across the U.S. to spend time together, during this meetup it felt as if they hadn’t seen each other since New York. They told story after story about the first days of their friendship. We ate and joked and ate and walked and ate and admired the distinctive light of Myanmar’s delta region. Myat eventually hopes to start up a newspaper there; in the meantime he is volunteering with various groups and teaching English. He proudly introduced us to a few of his students.

He also explained that to support education in the nearby villages, he and Su have turned the second floor of their home into a kind of hostel for kids who come into town to take certain exams. On the night we were there, nearly 50 people were staying under the same roof, almost all of them teenage girls.

What Myat didn’t mention was that the neighborhood teenage boys have figured out this arrangement. Groups of four or five of them turn up in front most nights. With their guitars and fine voices, they serenade the girls from the street.

So the fun reunion just kept getting better and better. The boys’ harmonies lulled us into hopeful dreams about the past and future.

Sticking My Tongue Out

Burmese language isn’t like Thai. It has a sing-song rhythm that generally makes the end of a sentence obvious. Verbs always come at the end, so that’s another clue. Puffs of air appear where I’m not used to hearing them, and it’s OK to stick out your tongue when pronouncing “th,” something the Thais never do. (Think of the UN Secretary-General during the ’60s, U Thant, whose name sounded roughly the same as the final syllable in the English word “marathon.”)

In my three jampacked weeks here, people have been very patient with my attempts to talk. They don’t interrupt me as I struggle with the new sounds, but neither do they usually understand much of what I try to say. The intensive course I took in Chiang Mai last month serves me very well for reading and numbers. Unfortunately, the risk with learning intensively is that it goes downhill just as intensively if you don’t maintain it. I’ll have to carve out time for that amid the whirlwind of all the other newness here in Yangon. Others graduates of the course have been talking about studying together. I’ll need that motivation, considering that earlier this week I signed a contract for a short-term writing job with a NGO funded by the Norwegian government. The group is involved with democracy promotion and livelihood assistance. I’m learning lots here about more than just language.

Early Days

The first few days in a new place are always fascinating and frustrating. Your ability to communicate is so limited that any tiny success in that department feels like a huge triumph. At this stage, getting on the wrong bus isn’t a big deal, because you’re not usually rushing to get somewhere, and something you discover while getting lost will likely come in handy next time. Even catching the eye of the waiter—a somehow more difficult task in these parts than where I was born—seems especially satisfying.



Mostly I spend my time networking and looking for paying work. Every night during my first week I had dinner with somebody new. I try to act as if I know what I’m doing, all the while sensing that I’m just a little bit off target most of the time. Everybody admires the effort, but they can see I don’t really get it yet. Happily, I am middle-aged and mature. Situations like these don’t intimidate me in the way they might have in my 20s. With a little luck I’ll be drawing a salary before the month is out.

Last weekend I took a wee break from the job search and popped up north to walk in the Inle watershed. Here’s a writeup about that trip, which was another confirmation that moving to Myanmar was the right move.

Change is the Only Constant

What’s Myanmar like? On the surface, the country is changing quickly enough that there’s a fresh answer to the question every day.

Included on the long list of things that are common elsewhere but were very rare here until this year are ATMs, opposition-party congresses, buildings over ten stories tall, and marathons. 

You want to start a good argument? Ask people how much of the change is real. Or permanent.

For the moment you can make a case for many futures. Nobody really understands the country’s economy. The laws are either hopelessly out of date or so new that people can’t believe they really mean what they say. Fashions and freedoms and the forces of capitalism are pouring in at a great rate.

One day I rode a bicycle through a shuttered branch of Yangon University that is near my guest house. I passed the sorriest-looking facilities imaginable. Just as I was beginning to shake my head about the neglect, a gleaming IT and computer center emerged in a corner of the former campus. Later I learned that the semi-private IT hub, MICT Park, was launched over ten years ago, making the contrast between the two sets of buildings even more remarkable. In many parts of Yangon, it appears, a fresh coat of paint has not been a priority for a long time. Mold is a common color here; the primary hues I saw at MICT Park appear only rarely.

Back at the guest house, Internet speeds vary widely, according to no pattern. But, in early 2011, when I first visited this country, going online was so painfully slow that I abandoned the idea almost immediately.

While Myanmar is clearly testing out directions that it hasn’t tried before, it isn’t likely to move too fast. The status quo serves most of the people in power.

I feel lucky to be surrounded by all this swirling. I’m not too late to participate in a very exciting process.

Betel in BurMyanmar

In the West when you want a buzz you maybe go for a double shot of espresso. Here, and across many parts of Asia, you go for areca, commonly known as betel.

It’s chewed, not swallowed. Along with chopped-up pieces of the nut, the plug in your mouth may contain regular tobacco, honey, and limestone ground into a paste. The blood-red juice leaves your teeth and gums looking like you just got in a fight. After you’ve savored the taste for a while, and your lips and tongue have become a little numb, you spit the juice out onto the street.

You needn’t look far to find a hit. Sidewalks and curbs in Yangon feature plenty of visual clues about where this ever-present product gets bought and used. Near traffic lights you also find brown stains on the road that suggest drivers are frequent betel chewers.

How Can I Keep From Singing?

People in Burmyanmar sing often. At construction sites, in offices, on buses, everybody seems to be carrying a tune. If you don’t hear a song, or a snatch of hummed melody, then frequently a loudspeaker nearby is spouting a chant. The cheerful sounds make it seem as though the people don’t notice that the wealth in their country gets distributed very poorly. Of course they really do know better, but for about half a century the vast majority of them haven’t been able to speak out on that subject without dire personal consequences. Maybe singing substitutes for protesting?

Welcome to BurMyanmar

Here at the northern edge of Yangon, I took a walk on my first night. The road was very dark. Suddenly I found myself escorted by a monk. He said he was afraid I might get lost without him.

His English was much better than my Burmese, but we settled into a comfortable mixture of both. Our occasional silence also felt right, given his “dayjob.”

We strolled for several blocks, passing homes, shops, and dozens of small stands where people sold areca nuts wrapped in betel leaves. In preparing these “betel nuts,” the seller slathers the leaves with lime paste, which to my nose has a lovely, timeless smell. Even in the dark, I could always tell when we were approaching another betel nut stand.

The mood felt simultaneously timeless and brand new. The other people in the road were doing what they have probably done forever: gossiping, bargaining, sweeping, playing. Compared to my first trip here thirty-two months ago, nothing seemed furtive, or cautious. Change really is in the air. People read newspapers that have been publishing for only during the few months since five decades of censorship ended. Despite what is reportedly the lowest cell phone penetration in the world, places selling handsets nearly outnumbered places selling betel nut.

We reached an intersection where the monk felt comfortable pointing me the rest of the way. I thanked him. He said, "It is both our fortunes."

Time to Move Along

Chiang Mai is delightful and lovely and low stress. But it’s not paradise. Or maybe that’s the problem.

I hang around with perfectly nice people, but like me many of them have lots of time on their hands. There’s very little urgency.

When a new insight or revelation about Thailand hits me, I no longer kick it around with a big group of Thais until it blossoms into a fully formed thought. Last year, at my office in Bangkok, that kind of all-hands conversation happened easily in the hallways or at lunch. Here I mostly talk to people one-on-one or in small groups.

Next door, in Myanmar, things aren’t always delightful or lovely or low stress, but they’re very interesting. This month I’ve been studying Burmese (I can read!) and reading more than usual about issues there. The other day it hit me that there’s no time like the present.

So it’s time to move along. I bought a plane ticket. Starting October 2nd I’ll be living in Yangon and looking for ways to be of use.

Group Tour Buddhism

They handed us each a trowel and a bucket of cement. My friend Moey and I smiled. Masonry seemed an appropriate activity for the volunteer project she had invited me to at a Thai Buddhist temple. After all, spreading cement and meditation aren’t so different. They both require emptying, grace, strength, persistence, and a concentration on the middle distance.

The sun had just come up on Saturday morning. We hadn’t slept much, driving through the night to Wat Phrasonkaew in Petchaboon from our respective cities, Bangkok and Chiang Mai. The temple (“wat” in Thai) was about halfway between the two.

At first my work looked wobbly compared to Moey’s. I wanted to blame the cement but I knew better. I focused on my breath and gradually found a rhythm. My arms stopped wondering when it would be time for a nap. I thought to myself, “We’re applying the Buddha’s teachings to daily life. Practicing dharma by practicing a trade.”

Religious observance varies in Thailand, as everywhere. Some people here practice dharma routinely, through daily offerings, prayers, or meditation. Others get around to it when they need to. Some do it when their friends are doing it.

When we took a break for lunch, it struck me that this temple was packed with friends. Surrounding us in the large common eating area were groups of youngish, urban, middle-class women, chatting excitedly about the mosaics and gardens that have put Wat Phrasonkaew on the map. Its artistic exterior and beautiful natural surroundings have made it a “destination temple.”

Destination wats compete for clients, and so it helps to have a hook—a stunning physical plant, for instance, or a rock-star abbot. Wat Phrasonkaew has both. Part Ludwig’s Castle, part Chagall installation, it has generated several glowing articles in slick women’s magazines, as well as soap-opera episodes filmed on location. The head monk projects an air closer to a starting quarterback than a religious leader. I watched him give guided tours of the grounds, carrying himself like a man who expects to have groupies. His second-in-command regularly stopped by our construction site, but the abbot himself never showed up there. He seemed to understand that spreading himself too thin would undermine his appeal.

Moey had been to Wat Phrasonkaew before. She explained that the small volunteer group that she and I were part of was only a small fraction of the weekend population. Most of the people staying the night had come for a retreat of some kind. Those following “the course,” a series of mindfulness and chanting exercises, would spend three or four days there. People with a bit more time chose the “tudong”—a comparatively wilderness experience that takes full advantage of the national park bordering the temple.

Since the time a few years ago when the wat’s many unique buildings first began to blossom in Petchaboon, Moey was attracted to the area. She had tried both flavors of retreat. This trip, she was content to simply help with construction. We were staying just a day and a half before returning to our homes.

After lunch we went back to spreading cement. Our group worked inside the most striking of Wat Phrasonkaew’s iconic structures: five successively smaller Buddha images, sitting as if in each others’ laps, lined up on a spectacular ridge. About fifty feet tall at the highest point, the group of images can be seen from miles away.

Our cement reinforced and smoothed the inner walls. Soon it was hard to tell which sections were mine and which were Moey’s. I felt at peace. My arms didn’t hurt anymore and my head was clear.

By mid-afternoon everyone was ready for a break. We trudged up a long staircase in the dormitory for a shower and a rest. About 200 other people would be joining us in sleeping on mats in the building that night. There were three floors for women, one for men. My roommates, three men from Bangkok, told me that they and their pals took these “medita-vacations” two or three times per year. They weren’t the only ones. I looked out the window and counted 22 silver vans lined up in the parking lot.

No dinner was served. The retreat schedule called for two meals before noon each day, mimicking the way Thai monks eat. They told those of us who were there to work that the kitchen held a supply of ramen noodles for anyone really desperate after dark. Moey and I passed up that offer, but we did sit in on the before-bedtime and before-sunrise chanting.

These sessions, at 7pm and 5am, primarily involved recitation. Sitting cross-legged in a large conference hall, everyone was handed a prayer book written in Pali, the ancient language of the Buddha. We all pronounced the sound of the words, thanks to the transcription using Thai characters. I knew that basic Pali was taught in some Thai schools, but I suspected few of the people in the room really understood much of the chants’ meaning.

After breakfast on Sunday morning, we listened to a dharma talk given by the abbot. When he finished, many of the devotees, dressed all in white, lined up to have their picture taken near him.

Devotion, however, didn’t feel to me like the prevailing sentiment. What I saw during my time at the temple was more break-from-reality than search-for-insight. The people I talked to appeared to be looking for an ideal world where climate change has been halted, family strife healed, and the boyfriend found and fully trained.

Granted, in Thailand I’m an outsider who rarely understands more than half of what’s going on. I could have misinterpreted the motivations of these logo-sporting, group-tour Buddhists. Perhaps when they get back to their offices in the city, they’ll share with colleagues profound insights that came to them on retreat. Or, these members of Thailand’s first digital generation will tell others how liberating it felt to unplug for a few days.

But I suspect that more often, the souvenirs of the trip to Petchaboon will be the t-shirts or the tote bags they brought back. The lifestyle approach to religion isn’t about making merit so much as it’s about taking a holiday.

As for Moey and myself, we were happy to have helped beautify a Buddha.

Better than Good Enough

Several months back, an unusual dinner invitation left me scratching my head. This week, a return visit to the same home touched my heart.

In January, a woman I hardly knew, Da, practically demanded that I and my four American houseguests come to her house for dinner with a handful of other Thais and her Canadian husband. At the time I had no idea what prompted her to do that. All I knew about her, come to think of it, was her name and her speedy way of speaking.

The evening had been pleasant enough. Once or twice since then, Da and I have attended the same events and said hello. A mutual friend, Tik, has even suggested a reasonable explanation for why I was summoned back then: Da was considering a business venture that might have benefited from my experience. If Tik’s guess is correct, I must have said the wrong thing early on that night, because Da never raised the subject with me.

In any case, it was a pleasant surprise last week to get another call from Da, asking if I was free to come over again. Unlike the first time, she didn’t insist. Instead, she just explained that she was planning an informal meal on Thai Mother’s Day for a few people who like herself didn’t have kids in town. I already knew most of them.

As before, the food was delicious and the banter casual. The vegetables had been picked that morning. Traditional northern Thai dishes dominated the offerings. We joked in one language about politics, then switched to another to complain about the weather. For me there was none of the mystery and self-consciousness of the evening in January, when I kept expecting every comment to reveal the reason I was there, but none of them ever did.

I had called my mother-in-law earlier in the day. The idea of setting aside a special day to celebrate mothers doesn’t go back too far in this country. I wasn’t sure how many of the others at the table would have made a special effort to talk to their moms or their kids that day.

Da herself hardly ever sat down. Her hostessing style reminded me of a hummingbird: darting, hovering, suddenly buzzing off again to check something on the stove. Somehow she managed to stay part of all the conversations going on at the table, often initiating two or three simultaneously. Finally, as we were enjoying some fruit after the main meal, she took a breather and appeared ready to stay put with us for a while.

That’s when her mobile phone rang. She checked the screen and smiled. Her mom was calling. “Mom is 87 years old—she probably doesn’t remember that we already chatted today,” laughed Da, who remained at the table to take the call.

The rest of us kept talking, though a bit more quietly so Da could hear her mother on the phone. Their exchange had the tone that sometimes arises when the parent-child roles have reversed. We could sense that Mom knew what day it was, but had forgotten receiving Da’s call earlier. Da chose not to remind her, pretending they hadn’t already spoken, and cheerfully asking who else Mom had talked to that day.

As the two of them babbled on, I felt a little surprised that Da didn’t move away from the group. Suddenly she started singing into the phone. It caught me off guard at first, but after a few seconds I realized she was wishing her mom good night with a lullaby.

Then it hit me that the language wasn’t Thai. It had to be a prayer, I thought. Da was probably singing in Pali, the ancient language of the Buddha’s day that nobody uses anymore except when chanting at the temple.

We all stopped to listen. Da’s voice was beautiful. Even the neighborhood dogs quit their barking. I had no idea what the words meant, but it occurred to me that maybe Da had even learned them from her mom, once upon a time. Her eyes were closed. Our own eyes were all a little bit misty. I imagined we were each thinking about our own mom.

When she finished singing and signed off, we sat there smiling and feeling grateful for a moment. Then somebody grinned and the evening carried on.

Stand Your Ground

Several times during the past few years, old acquaintances of mine from the U.S. have written to ask about Thailand’s safety. A typical email sounds something like this:

Can you tell me anything about the safety situation there so I can be sure my daughter will be OK in Thailand?

She just got a job teaching English there this fall. I’m nervous. She’s my only one. I wish I knew how I could protect her.

Would you mind if I share your contacts with her? Although I know she is 22 years old, I still would feel better if she had some adult person she can get in touch with "just in case."

In replying to these folks I always say that Thailand is much safer than America. In most places foreigners go, people can walk down the street at any hour and not worry. Generally Thais avoid situations that cause them to meet force with force. “Standing your ground” isn’t a strong concept here.

This week, with gun laws again making headlines in the U.S., it feels to me as though most places in the world are safer than America.

No doubt statistics could be trotted out that would prove the opposite. And I know that the U.S. is such a big place that you can find evidence for nearly anything you say about it.

Just the same, I wouldn’t feel safest in a country where large numbers of people not only own guns but also want legal protection in case they end up using those guns. To me, the old saying about the best defense being a good offense works better with team sports than with individual security.

Here in Thailand, the best defense is generally a friend. People rarely go places alone.

The U.S. seems to me bound to see an increase in confrontations like the one between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin. Given the choice, I prefer Thai-style conflict avoidance.

No Exit

The bus from Yangon to Naypyidaw, along Myanmar’s best road, passes no village larger than about 100 households. It takes more than five hours to reach this newish capital city in the jungle, but my ticket on this VIP coach costs only 9,000 kyat, or just under ten bucks. (Even that small amount is the foreigner price. The printed receipt said 7,000. When I inquire, the agent simply smiles and draws a new number on the receipt with her pen.)

Nearly every structure along the way is built of bamboo and thatch, except for the occasional temple or shrine on a hilltop. Soldiers are posted randomly the whole length of the divided highway, presumably to be sure nobody leaves the road. Which wouldn’t be too easy to do even if there were a town to turn towards, as there are no off-ramps. Small roadside markers designate the distance traveled, measured in tenths of a mile. (Myanmar is one of only four countries that still put miles on their road signs, rather than kilometers. The other three are Liberia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.)

There is no trash, no petrol, and no commerce of any kind, except for a large rest area at roughly the halfway point, where travelers can fuel up and have a meal. The parking lot outside the sprinkling of restaurants is surrounded by a semi-circle of 19 billboards, virtually the only advertising signage along the entire highway. Five of the ads promote construction supplies; three tout colas (Pepsi, Star, and Sunkist). All are in English.

Eventually a toll booth and a large archway loom up, proclaiming the first true highway exit since leaving Yangon. We have arrived at what the government calls “the center of nation-building activities.” Built from scratch in the midst of rice and sugar-cane fields between 2002–2005, Naypyidaw managed to remain a secret, even from many of its neighbors. Now, the city almost goes as far as to welcome visitors, showcasing itself this past week as host of the South Asia World Economic Forum, and later this year, the Southeast Asian Games.

Suddenly, the skeleton of an urban metropolis makes an appearance. Bamboo and thatch give way to brick and cement, golden temples are replaced by pastel housing developments. None of the buildings has the communal feel found in the rest of the country. The bus rumbles past the Capital Hypermarket and the Junction Center Mall, both of which look strangely empty. I get down at the station. Motorcycle taxi drivers offer to take me to my hotel for 7,000 kyat. What a long, strange trip it’s been.

Return to Cambodia

Exploring Angkorian temples never gets tiresome. Every December for the past seven years, I’ve spent at least four days running around and crawling over Angkor Wat and its hundreds of neighboring ruins. Each time something new hits me about this spectacular complex. It’s endlessly fascinating.

An invitation came my way to return for an eighth trip. Yet I hesitated. We would go in May. It’s damn hot outside in May. As I understood the itinerary, we would spend more time in the nearby town, Siem Reap, than at the temples themselves.

Of course in the end I went. And to my surprise, the highlight this time didn’t date from 1,000 years ago.

We visited a place on the western edge of Siem Reap that goes by many names. It owes its existence and design to a wonderful Australian nun who worked alongside me nearly 25 years ago in Site 2 refugee camp. When the camps closed, Sr. Denise followed the refugees back to Cambodia. She has been there ever since.

One name for this inspiring place is “Mondol Metta Karuna,” which translates as the Center for Mercy and Kindness. Some call it The Reflection Center. Taxi drivers know it as “the landmine place,” because of Sr. Denise’s leadership in Cambodia’s branch of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.

Whatever you call it, this interfaith center encourages visitors to think about the challenges of Cambodia through the eyes of the poor. When Sr. Denise toured us around, she explained that the center’s founders first sat with nearby villagers to trade thoughts about what makes a successful community. That list wasn’t too hard to generate, and soon they had agreed on seven characteristics.

The discussion got more interesting when they turned to the seven things Cambodian villages find most difficult. In the end they decided the new center ought to focus on these:

• Developing so that everyone is enriched
• Educating so that everyone’s potential is realized
• Caring for the environment
• Promoting peace and reconciliation after Cambodia’s genocide
• Coping with displacement—of the home and the heart
• Disarming
• Governing ethically

Each of these challenges (which of course are also the world’s challenges) have been represented in sculpture and other artworks that are integrated into the center’s landscaping. As residents and visitors pass by, say, the lovely statue of a woman at a well, they may stop to draw water with a traditional bucket and reflect on development for all. Or practice walking meditation around the center’s winding labyrinth. Or working meditation at the wheelchair shop. One can’t avoid contemplation here.

The symbols are all repeated inside a moving multi-faith common room that sits alongside a reflection pond. The center’s layout inspires in countless ways. Mondol Metta Karuna hasn’t made my itinerary during past trips to Siem Reap, but it surely rates a place for future visits.

An interesting side note:

Westerners who leave home for long breaks or retirement often choose Thailand. Plenty of them cross my path as I go around Chiang Mai. When I ask where else they considered, I commonly hear the same places listed: Mexico, Spain, Costa Rica, and several other Spanish-speaking countries. Now and then people mention Croatia. They never say Cambodia.

So I was surprised on this trip to run into a 40-something Dutch couple living in Siem Reap who say it’s their dream town. She volunteers and advises non-profits. He commutes back and forth from Singapore. They settled here after an extensive search for a home base that satisfied their many criteria, including being able to live alongside people in need and to educate their kids in an authentic setting.

So many ways to be inspired in this area!

Walkabout

They say it’s often better not to return to those special places where you did something significant for the first time. You’ll have changed, they say. Or the spot won’t look the way you want to remember it.

Last week, I ignored that advice and retraced Scotland’s West Highland Way, which had been my first several-day solo hike.

Thirty years ago, most everything about the 95-mile journey was new to me: countryside, culture, challenge. The Way became my own little rite of passage.

This time, I had nothing to prove, no goals other than to follow up on a few notes I had scribbled long ago in the margins of a Scottish National Trust guidebook:

If you do it again:

1. Carry less weight (fewer clothes)
2. Go in May, when no bugs
3. Bring an extra days’ food, just in case
4. Climb Ben Lomond, Stob Gobbler, and other nearby peaks
5. Otherwise, don’t change anything – a wonderful walk

Three friends joined me for this repeat trek.  They hadn’t been to Scotland before. We had plenty of company on the walk, which in the meantime has become well-known among hikers from all over Europe. One fellow in particular, a 20-something German on his own, particularly intrigued me.

He told us he chose this long-distance path because “It’s so nice and empty up here compared to back home.” He was allowing several days more than most walkers take to finish the Way: “I might make some side climbs.” The peaks he named were the same ones I had scrawled in my guidebook 30 years before.

We asked where else he had walked. He said that the previous year, he and his brother had completed a long leg of El Camino de Santiago in Spain. They weren’t religious pilgrims, but they were open to the lessons that such pilgrimages can teach. They dubbed these new insights “The Way of the Camino.”

I recalled feeling a growing confidence each day on my previous trip. I would wake up under a tent fly each morning, looking forward to another chance to exhaust myself. Long days—sunset can be 10pm in the Scottish summer—meant that I could go until I was spent, take a break to read if I could find shade, and then go again, fueled mostly by adrenalin.

My provisions back then came from small shops in the handful of tiny villages along the Way. At one of them, I ran into a childhood pal from Chicago. He and I laughed over the chances of a lone hiker crossing paths with a round-the-world bicyclist in the middle of nowhere.

Without the margin notes in the old guidebook, I might not even have remembered the name of that village. When we reached it last week, I thought at first that the grocery had been replaced by a petrol station. Just to be sure, I told my story to a local. He pointed down the only road and told me I’d find “Brodie’s” just around the bend. The sign out front was new but otherwise the shop was instantly recognizable. I posed for a photo to send to my bicyclist pal, who, remarkably, rode past me twenty years later in a Seattle park—the first time I had seen him since Scotland.

The German guy kept cropping up. His enthusiasm was refreshing. During each of the three or four times we encountered him during the week, he had a story. One time he described his previous night’s campsite: “I walked to a place that my guidebook described as very pleasant. But when I reached it, after a very long day, I learned that it wasn’t a campsite anymore. Some local teenagers had been going there and playing rock ’n roll music very loudly. The campsite owners decided a few months ago to close it for everyone. I had to keep walking for an extra two kilometers. Finally I found a beach with large pebbles that made a perfect place to set up my tent. It had a beautiful view and the sound of the waves was very pleasant. I was so grateful to those teenagers and their rock ’n roll!”

Buried memories surfaced of waiting until it was nearly dark to choose a place to string up my fly. On my first time over the Way, at around 10:30 one night, a farmer was surprised to find me still walking. He suggested I hop a fence and camp near a pleasant brook on his neighbor’s land. I knew that Scottish law allows what’s known as “freedom to roam,” but I hesitated about freedom to sleep. “G’on, then,” said the farmer, “Archie’ll never see ya’ there.” The sounds of jumping trout kept me company all night.

The last time we saw our German friend, he was rubbing sore shoulders while standing next to an overweight backpack. We joked that The Way of the Camino hadn’t taught him any lessons about how to lighten his load. He cheerfully explained that he had no choice but to carry several days’ extra food: his mother, who worried, sent him off with dozens of homemade treats.

Was I changed since the first time? Certainly. Yet the view of my former self, mirrored by a young German, looked just about the way I wanted to remember it. A wonderful walk.

A Traditional But Not Your Everyday Clinic Visit

Lek, one of Jip’s nursing school classmates, lives near me. I check in with her now and then because she has the same disease Jip had, which is quite rare in Thailand. Recently Lek asked if I would accompany her to the traditional medicine clinic in the neighboring district of Saraphi.

Many such clinics, built and run with Ministry of Public Health funds, are attached to public hospitals in this country. Government officials recognize that for most people here the first line of defense against illness is Thai traditional medicine. Western treatment often gets used a last resort, only after herbs, massage, and spiritual techniques haven’t worked.

The two of us drove in circles through beautiful fruit orchards until we finally found the cozy little building. We didn’t have an appointment but didn’t need one. The clinic sees about 20 patients a day, most on a walk-in basis. Lek wanted to know what its staff would say about her symptoms. She expected the massage therapists would be helpful.

In the large open reception area, Lek registered and went through the clinic’s initial exam. First, a nurse asked if Lek could clasp her hands together near her shoulder blades. Later I heard that in yoga circles this maneuver is called the Cow Face Pose. You raise one arm, then bend it so your elbow points towards the ceiling and your hand drops behind your upper back. The other arm’s bent elbow points at the ground while its hand comes up near the shoulder blades. Lek couldn’t do it.

All the conversations at the clinic between patients and nurses were public. There was no curtain. After giving up on the Cow Face Pose, Lek laughed. The rest of us in the room joined in.

Even after living here for many years, I’m not always sure how to interpret laughter in Thailand. Sometimes it means exactly what it means in the West. Other times, Thais laugh because they’re embarrassed. Or angry. Or because the situation is so uncomfortable that they don’t know what else to do.

The spirit of laughter at this clinic seemed to be, “What did you expect? People come here because they want to get better, not because they can already do everything healthy people can do.” A few of the staff had unusual health conditions, but nobody acted shy about it.

The next measurement concerned Lek’s “wind.” I pricked up my ears. Jip’s grandmother used to battle wind problems.  For Grandma it was a catchall complaint about breathing difficulties, occasionally involving dizziness, chest pain, stomach gas, or fever. Both fainting and sunstroke could also fall into her definition of wind illness. Its causes varied widely: from bad odors to stress to karma. Sometimes Grandma would suddenly develop what everyone learned to call a “wind attack,” which left her weak, dizzy, and needing immediate attention.

At the Saraphi clinic, they check wind by tapping on the abdomen in four places while the patient is lying down. Lek’s nurse shouted a wind score across the room so that everybody could hear it. Again we all laughed. I didn’t know what criteria they used to assign a number, or what they considered average or acceptable, but I learned low scores were better than high ones. Partly based on Lek’s wind number, they recommended she receive a specific kind of herbal massage. That was the whole of her exam. No blood pressure cuff, no bathroom scale, no thermometer.

When Jip worked as a health researcher with refugee women in Seattle, many Western docs asked her to explain “wind illness” in detail. They were confused by the wide spectrum of symptoms that their immigrant patients assigned to this term. Newly arrived from Asia or sometimes East Africa, very few of the women could speak English. Their translators didn’t offer a more precise English phrase for wind, maybe because like Jip they had grown up hearing about it from many of their older relatives. Jip eventually did a study on it, and published the results.

I ended up getting a massage too. My first plan had been to happily sit with a book and wait for Lek. But she said, “As long as we’re here…,” and I thought, Who needs a reason to get a massage? Besides, the others in the room looked like they wanted to watch the foreigner do the Cow Face Pose and to know my wind score.  Soon they led me off to see the chiropractor for “general maintenance.”

My session finished first. I returned to the lobby and saw the staff had set up a screen and projector. It looked like they were expecting a big audience. I guessed it was some kind of community event. A bus pulled up in front. Out poured a dozen foreigners on a study tour—Americans, Europeans, and Mexicans—accompanied by a professor from Chiang Mai University. The head nurse welcomed them with a short history of the clinic, while the professor translated. I stayed in the back row and waited for Lek.

One visitor asked why Saraphi staff didn’t wear uniforms. The nurse’s answer suggested that everyone at the clinic felt more comfortable without them. The professor said in English that no uniforms made the patients more relaxed. I whispered “and staff, too” to the visitor, remembering how Jip disliked wearing a white outfit and a starched hat. The professor noticed my whisper—she laughed and asked if I wanted to help translate. I was pretty sure she was just joking, so I only smiled. I didn’t want to make her mad. Anyway, her English was much better than my Thai.

A few minutes later, the questions turned to the clinic’s initial exam. The nurse demonstrated the Cow Face Pose and explained about the wind check. The visitors looked confused. When the professor struggled to clarify wind illness in English, I smiled again—of all the topics they could have raised, it was the only one I felt qualified to talk about!

So I slowly raised my hand and volunteered to say a little more, based on the information I remembered from Jip’s study. This time the professor seemed genuinely grateful for my extra words. Perhaps now many of the study tour participants will expect to encounter it in their Asian patients when they return home.

Lek showed up just before my words got me in too much trouble. She and I gracefully exited before anyone asked either of us to do any more translating. We both felt great.

Power Cut

The lights went out this evening in the southern Thai village where Jip grew up. I was visiting her mother. We had been putting our feet up, watching a bit of TV. Mom suggested that I walk across the main room and check out the front window to see if other houses had power. They didn’t.

As I groped my way back across the room, it dawned on me that the phone in my pocket can become a flashlight. The beam revealed a large scorpion crawling slowly across the floor where I’d just walked.

Mom reacted casually. I froze in my tracks. She said, “I’ll fetch a kitchen knife.” Evidently she planned to cut the scorpion in half. Somehow the scorpion figured out her plan. It scampered.

When Mom returned from the kitchen she saw she was too late. Then she looked at my spooked expression. “Don’t worry,” she comforted, “It’s only the tiny ones that can kill you.”

Retrace

On the outside of an old letter I found the address of the Chiang Mai house where Jip stayed briefly as a researcher 23 years ago. Recently I passed though that neighborhood, a rabbit warren of little sois where house numbers have no rhyme or reason.

I walked around the ancient community, armed only with an envelope that read “7/1, Soi 2, Thippanet Rd.” Lots of helpful people scratched their chins and pointed, saying it might be “around that corner” and so on.

In one dead-end soi I met a woman who had never seen a Soi 2, but said she would ask the postman the next time she saw him. She took my phone number. That kind offer happened about 45 minutes into the search.

I re-traced my steps, planning to head home. It was getting dark. Expecting a shortcut, I headed down a soi I had passed earlier but not entered because it was labeled as “Soi 6, Wualai Rd.” A grandma swept her driveway behind a gate. Two noisy dogs told me to go away, but on a hunch I decided to ask anyway.

She motioned for me to come closer and I shouted my question. “Twenty years ago?” she smiled. She waved her neighbor over.  The two of them talked. The neighbor looked doubtful but agreed to be my chaperone on an expedition to look for “Auntie.”

After two twisty turns, we found Auntie on her porch. She hollered down to us that her address was “7/2, Soi 2, Thippanet Rd.” I knew from experience that 7/1 isn’t always next door to 7/2. Auntie encouraged me to take a look anyway—though she couldn’t understand why I didn’t just phone for directions. The chaperone wished me luck and headed back to her own place.

I carried on a few more steps around yet another corner, and there it was. As the crow flies, the weathered old wooden structure sits only about 300 meters from the house of the woman who said she could ask the postman. It had taken me about 15 more minutes of walking to get there.

Even before I saw the blue plastic sign displaying the numbers “7/1,” I had no doubt I had arrived at the right spot. For anyone else it might have been unremarkable. To me it looked astonishingly like the classic two-story Thai house in the South where Jip grew up.

Conundrum – a book review

In 21st century Thailand gender switching isn’t rare. Per capita, more Thais than Westerners identify as something other than what they were born. Pop culture here validates the numbers: TV and movies are full of transgenders. And many many foreigners come to Thailand for sex re-assignment, making this country number one in the world for this kind of surgery.

Gender identity has made headlines here recently because a candidate for Bangkok governor courted the “third-sex” vote. Also, Thai universities have been debating whether or not to allow ladyboys to dress normally—in other words, as women—when receiving their diplomas. Until now, Thai graduates who were born as men have had to line up with men, wear male clothing, and accept a sheepskin printed with their male name. Universities have come down on different sides of the question over the past few months.

A singer on “Thailand’s Got Talent” created a stir two years ago with a dramatic change in voice register midway through a song. Part of what’s fascinating about the clip is the enthusiastic reaction of the crowd. As the vocalist reveals her deep baritone, audience members instantly back her (him?), swaying along with the melody, and merrily flashing the thumbs-up sign.

These news items swirled around in my head as I read an old title by one of my favorite writers, Jan Morris, who was born as James. She transitioned in England during the 1960s and published Conundrum in 1974.

Her written account describes her confidently achieving what she calls the “fulfillment of my life’s desire.” She never doubts that she has always been female. Even though she had succeeded as a British man—serving in the military, fathering five children, achieving a fair degree of fame as a journalist—she nonetheless felt trapped in the wrong body.

Thus she began, at age 35, “one of the most drastic of all human changes, unknown until our times, and even now experienced by very few: but it seemed only natural to me, and I embarked on it only with a sense of thankfulness, like a lost traveler finding the right road at last.”

Reading the book forty years after it was written, I wondered how many of the Thai transgender I encounter feel a similar confidence.

It’s certainly unfair of me, with no personal experience in these matters, to question people I don’t know from Adam. When they cross my path here in Chiang Mai it’s usually because they are working behind counters in places where I shop. The impression given by many of these striking young specimens is one of play, or at least experimentation. They seem to share Morris’ delight in her identity, but lack the thoughtfulness that lies behind it. It’s difficult to imagine most of them ever saying of their decision what Morris says of hers in the opening chapter:

I believe it to have some higher origin or meaning. I equate it with the idea of soul, or self, and I think of it not just as a sexual enigma, but as a quest for unity… a dilemma neither of the body nor of the brain, but of the spirit.

Of course countless factors play into how people see and present themselves. I don’t pretend to understand others’ journeys. I won’t even try to touch here on the questions asked by Thai women who transition to become men. I also don’t know how to think about Thai men who dress and act as women but prefer to associate with gay men.

Just the same, fresh from finishing Conundrum, I can’t help pondering the Thai take on transgenderism. According to one Thai friend, it’s seen here less as an existential dilemma than a financial one—those hormone treatments aren’t cheap, and they’re not covered by the national health scheme. Somebody else suggested to me that the importance placed in Asia on external appearance motivates many transgender. In other words, they’re fascinated as much by beauty as by identity. And peer groups play a large role—one study found that over half of all ladyboys named friends as their primary influence. Evidently the increased attention and improved self-concept that result from a gender switch justify the tough stuff: risk of rejection by family, hassles at the hands of officialdom, and physical suffering for those who go the whole distance and acquire a new set of genitals.

Despite the many struggles they face, it’s safe to say transgenders in Thailand are well tolerated, perhaps due to a common belief that all of us have shared those orientations during past lives, and will do so again in the future. Yet tolerance isn’t the same as acceptance. Some Thais privately feel that past-life sexual sins explain being born transgender or gay.

Some anthropologists note that in Thailand people see men and women as being more similar than most other cultures do. Positive social attitudes towards the feminine have traditionally been expressed in language and rituals. As transgender numbers increase, so will general approval.

Writing in Conundrum, Morris herself appears to feel satisfied, or at least amused, by the many different cultural reactions to her transition:

I found response of English gentlemen ever more agreeable, enlivened always by that instant flicker of amused attraction which every woman knows and no man can quite imagine. Frenchmen were curious, and tended to engage me in inquisitive conversation, nearly skirting the issues with small talk until the moment came for a swift oblique dart to the heart of things—“You are married, yes? Where is your—er—your wife—your husband, is it?” Italians, frankly unable to conceive the meaning of such a phenomenon, simply stared boorishly, or nudged each other in piazzas. Greeks were vastly entertained. Arabs asked me to go for walks with them. Scots looked shocked. Germans looked worried. Japanese did not notice.

Government Official

One night during our bicycle trip through Myanmar, an educated, English-speaking Burmese woman joined us for dinner. I’ll call her Thiri. She is around 30 years old, fluent in English, and well-acquainted with the region.

Her fiancé is a captain in the Burmese Army. He is based in Karen State, and sometimes is involved in patrols that end up in armed conflict with Karen soldiers. This conflict has lasted longer than any other ongoing war in the world.

Thiri introduced us to her fiancé as a “government official.” Even without using the words “Army captain,” she seemed embarrassed about his status, as if worried that we would judge her for being involved with him.

He comes from central Burma, where his family wasn’t among the well-off. His parents saw an opportunity to improve their lot when their son became of an age, in 2001, to join the military. Soon he was chosen in a competitive program that sent him abroad for four years of special study—one of language and three more of computer science.

The two of them are what Thiri termed “lovers via Facebook.” They have rarely been together alone, they see each other as few as a handful of times per year, and when they part each time they simply wave goodbye. She told us they have never considered physical contact, not even a handshake.

The captain speaks English much less fluently than Thiri does, and at first appears shy. He and I sat next to each other at dinner. Eventually we had some limited conversation. What he chose to talk about was landmines.

“This is where the mines are,” he told me, pointing to a smartphone that displayed a map with place names in English. He zoomed in with his fingers to a spot close to the Thai border. I didn’t recognize the names, which probably were smallish, even temporary, villages. The number of internally displaced in that part of Karen State has historically been very high.

“This is where they shoot at us,” he continued. Had his English been better, he might have been saying what his body language was saying: “I’m at risk when I go to these places of being killed in any number of ways, for the reason that my country is fighting against a group that has never wanted to be part of it.”

It seemed clear that he didn’t feel his was a cause worth dying for. He may have been hoping that some among our group could suggest a way that he could get out of his commitment to the military. He has now been part of the Army for about a dozen years. Because he was given special training requiring payback, he owes another 30 years.

Thiri later told us about a male cousin of hers who hopes to escape his military commitment through a drastic scheme. The cousin and his girlfriend agreed that she would tell the police a false story about him refusing to marry her after they had sex in a hotel. They paid a friend of theirs to testify as a “witness.” The cousin is now serving two years in jail, after which he hopes he’ll be dishonorably discharged. To him this outcome is better than remaining a soldier for the rest of his working life.

Thiri said that she and her fiancé would never resort to anything so extreme. She even suggested that the military is likely to change along with the country, and that he might help to ensure that the change takes the right direction. He made no comment.

Return Trip

My first journey to Myanmar took place almost exactly two years ago, not too many months before the government began making noises about opening up the country. It was fun to compare the before and after.

This time we didn’t see any of the harsh propaganda posters that in the past occasionally appeared on billboards. Commercial advertising seems to have picked up. Traffic has thickened, allowing passengers plenty of time to study the roadside ads.

In teashops and other public places we now saw plenty of photos of Aung San Suu Kyi. Two years ago they were hidden inside people’s homes. Often now she is pictured alongside her father, a hero to the Burmese. He was assassinated when she was a toddler.

In Yangon we heard lots of talk about high prices, especially for lodging. The walls surrounding many private residences had sprouted coils of razor wire since my first visit. The inn where we stayed early in 2011 now goes for three times the price, and has no vacancies until 2014.

ATMs are now sprinkled around, international banks are becoming well represented, and the ultimate symbol of easy consumerism—the 7-11 store—is due to open several branches very soon. Meanwhile, in many small shops operating out of the front of family homes, shelves are full of goods from Thailand.

Outside the capital, the country seemed almost underpopulated. In areas where I would have expected to see more people—along the seaside, for example—we passed endless agriculture. In one two-hour stretch I don’t think we passed a single tree that wasn’t a rubber tree.

Some things hadn’t changed. The country’s time zone, like India’s, remains a goofy 30 minutes behind Thailand’s. Two-wheeled traffic is still prohibited in the capital. And Shwedagon Pagoda is of course as lovely as ever.