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.