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."