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.