Study Tour on Two Wheels

Here is our daily routine on a wonderful tour with Partners Asia of pastoral bicycle routes and bootstrap community-based organizations (CBOs) in southeastern Myanmar/Burma:

Wake up early, breakfast at the hotel, bike alongside rivers and among rice fields until noon, lunch at roadside restaurants, meet with inspirational community leaders about the kinds of work they’ve been doing without any outside help, rest, repeat. Pretty ideal schedule!

Our visits to CBOs in Hpa-an, Karen State, strive to create relationships built on common understanding. We discuss issues of concern to Myanmar people, and how those issues can best be addressed. None of the CBOs has met with Partners Asia before; they may not even have existed six months ago. We likely couldn’t have arranged permission to get together openly until the very recent past.

The first stop we make is at a converted three-story shop house that has become home to a group I’ll call the “Direction” Charity (not its real name; in this still very repressive country, it’s not clear whether talking to outsiders may be harmful to CBOs). Direction is a mutual assistance organization that has taken on several diverse challenges since its beginnings.

Initially Direction’s charter centered on providing money for respectful funerals. Collections were taken up to ensure that everyone, regardless of family circumstances, would be given a proper cremation. This effort funded even the construction of a new crematorium.

Later the organization tackled the lack of a local blood bank. Rather than store refrigerated supplies for possible transfusions, the group arranges so-called “live donations”—a donor’s blood is used immediately. Such a system bypasses the problems of cold chain, transportation, and storage. The CBO created an accurate and constantly updated database containing willing donors, their blood types and HIV status, and reliable contact information.

Direction proved effective with both initiatives. It then moved on to the education arena, where the community had identified a problem affecting a substantial majority of its children: dropping out of school and/or failing to pass the final, all-important high school exam.

Particularly in Karen State, which borders Thailand, many young people leave the country in search of opportunity. (The major crossing point is about 100 miles by road from Hpa-an.)  Myanmar’s failure to educate the next generation may compromise the success of the country’s current opening-up. Direction began offering free after-school enrichment classes for final-year students.

We watched two groups of 50 kids each sit in classrooms at the shop house. Written on the whiteboards were complicated arithmetic problems. Our visit was the first time foreigners had dropped by the CBO. The volunteer teachers stepped aside as we fielded questions from the students.

The next day we met a few of the Direction leaders, along with several other Hpa-an educators and a handful of businesspeople, who had banded together in late 2013 to form a CBO focused on improving educational facilities. This group funds improvements at area schools lacking such basics as tables, blackboards, and bathrooms. In three months it has outfitted seven schools, using donations collected locally. Direction gets its funding in a similar way—essentially door-to-door campaigning, appealing to neighbors’ sense of their duty to share with those in need.

Will Partners Asia ever make grants to either of these organizations, or to a large monastery school we visited, where the head monk appeared to be one of the region’s major power brokers? Right now it’s hard to say. Trust would need to be built up. Both the grantee and Partners would need to understand better why the other exists.

What’s clear is that any connection going forward between Partners and the CBOs of Hpa-an will revolve around local people who are leading projects that already have a successful track record. Partners’ support only furthers ongoing work; it never initiates. CBOs that have concrete plans and know what they need to achieve their goals stand a better chance of collaborating with Partners than do groups that wait for the government or international aid outfits to propose an idea or a project.

Good Enough

This is a story about one of those days when I mostly had no idea what was going on. In Thailand I have lots of those days. At first they used to bother me. I became angry at the country and its people because I wasn’t completely in control. Gradually I learned that I don’t have to understand 100% of what’s happening here. About 20% is usually good enough.

The story begins at a restaurant on the edge of town, where I joined a few Thai friends one evening. These folks go way back with me—they had all studied in Seattle during the early ’90s. Now and then we get together here to chat. We switch back and forth between languages. When I don’t laugh right away at their punch lines, they patiently tell the whole joke again.

This time one of them brought along a friend, Da. I had never met her before. She sat at the other end of the table and spoke very fast Thai. I hardly followed anything she said, but I didn’t ask her to repeat anything because I didn’t think she was really talking to me. At the end of the evening, I wasn’t sure she even knew my name.

Later I got a call from another old friend, Tik. Tik hadn’t been at the dinner, but she knows Da. She was calling to say that Da had invited me to her house for a meal on Monday. I was a little surprised that Da didn’t call me directly, but I knew she didn’t have my number, so it made sense that she would ask Tik to do it. I said I’d be glad to come.

On Monday I called Tik to ask directions to Da’s house. Tik said the dinner was on Tuesday. I didn’t say, “But you told me Monday!” because I know that plans sometimes change. It was even possible that I had heard the date wrong, but I was pretty sure I hadn’t. Instead I just said that Tuesday wouldn’t work for me, because I had guests arriving from the States. Tik said, “Oh, no! How can I tell Da?”

To me this problem wasn’t too difficult—just tell her. Yet I sensed Tik was worried about informing Da that I couldn’t join the meal. I knew that Da was slightly older than Tik, and I guessed that Da’s social status was slightly higher. In Thailand these things matter. No doubt the situation involved potential face loss, that most delicate and puzzling aspect of Thai decorum.

I said I would tell Da myself—just give me the phone number. Tik did. Before I had a chance to call, my phone rang. It was Da. She must have gotten my number from Tik. She said I really had to come over. I said I had guests. She said I should bring them. I said there would be five people altogether. She said no problem. I said we didn’t have a car. She said she would pick us up.

The whole thing was starting to seem pretty strange to me. I couldn’t figure out why a woman who hadn’t really even said two words to me in my life was now insisting that I and four non-Thai-speaking strangers should join her for a meal. The only thing I could guess was that I had something she needed. I had no hint what that something might be.

All five of us went to her place. It turned out she had invited many other people. We all sat down together at a long table. Delicious home-style food was already beautifully arranged. At one end sat my guests, next to a few Thais who could speak pretty good English. I sat at the other end, wondering when someone would provide a clue about why we were there.

The clue never came. It wasn’t a matchmaking event—everyone but me was already paired. A request to tutor somebody’s nephew? Nope. The conversation stuck to food and travel and the usual complaints about increasing Chiang Mai traffic. Even after we rotated seats for dessert, nothing emerged that qualified as an excuse for our presence.

My guests were pleased. “You sure know some nice people,” they said after we returned home. That was the confusing part—before we arrived, I hadn’t known those people any better than my guests did. I know them now. Or at least I know them about 20%. Which I suppose is good enough.

More on Chiang Mai's Charms

Nice to live in a place where

Sunflowers stand tall in the middle of town

Library entrance evokes botanic gardens

Rice fields flourish on the edge of town

Weird "Buddha's Hand" fruit grows alongside the hiking trail

Classic Celebration in the South

Once upon a time there lived seven half-bird, half-woman creatures known as kinnaree. Because they were gorgeous, and excelled at cheery singing and dancing, they became tempting targets for hunters. These hunters prowled the forests in search of wives suitable for handsome princes. Ordinarily the harmonized movements of the kinnaree kept them safe from capture, but Pran Boon, the most famous hunter of all, was able to lasso one of the kinnaree with a magic noose he borrowed from the Naga of Chompoo Chit.

So begins the story behind a traditional southern Thai classical dance known as the Manora. People sponsoring events in the South sometimes hire a troupe of young flexible dancers to bend, leap, and twist their way through a performance. This morning in Thung Song district, Nakhon Si Thammarat province, a merit-making ceremony in memory of two parents provided the excuse to put on the Manora. The parents in question were the father- and mother-in-law of Jip’s older brother. I went along to the ceremony—as is so often the case here—honored to be invited but without many clues about what would happen.

My first surprise was the size of the gathering. I knew that many neighbors would be going to the temple in the morning anyway, because the family had decided to hold this rite on the same day as a Buddhist holiday. What I didn’t expect was a standing-room-only crowd, including several local politicians, at 7 in the morning. It seems that the parents had been well known, having had some success with the two major local products, rubber and fruit.

The performance was also a big draw. People had arrived early to get a good seat. I was told that the dancers came from quite a distance away. Their reputation for discipline and professionalism preceded them. Carrying their impressive costumes from a pickup truck to a makeshift dressing room behind the temple, they looked casual and a little detached, in the way that teenagers will when they know they are good at something.

A trio of musicians began warming up. The steady backbeat of conversation among the spectators faded to nearly nothing, replaced by the sound of cymbal and drum. Suddenly, a solo spurted from an oboe-like instrument, silencing the crowd completely. Out of a small door at the back of the open-air wat, seven kinnaree swooped into the room. We all stared first at their wings, which appeared to be weighty enough to pull them over backward.

As if anticipating our fears, the creatures arched into rainbows, gymnastically pointing their bellies at the ceiling while both their tails and the tips of their pointed headdresses rested lightly on the floor of the temple. They held these poses for several moments. Then they somehow straightened up again without using their hands, which were tipped with curved fingernails several centimeters long.

Manora, the captured kinnaree, married Prince Suthon. Her wings were taken from her. The couple lived happily until the day the prince was called into battle. Jealous court advisers told the prince’s father that to ensure victory, it would be necessary to sacrifice his daughter-in-law to the gods. Manora agreed to the idea, requesting only that she be allowed to perform a final dance for her husband’s parents, wearing her full costume. She performed gracefully for a few minutes, but then took a few running steps, unfolded her wings, and flew back to the land of her sisters.

We all applauded. I thought the show was over. But soon the hunter reappeared on stage, flanked by two other men in sparkly attire, each holding a microphone. This ensemble, accompanied brilliantly by the oboe, set about teasing the VIPs in the front row. I quickly understood that the only way for a targeted politician to stop the good-natured ridicule was to stand, smile, and slip a large bill into a pocket of the hunter’s outfit. The audience, knowing the drill well, hooted each time.

Food, photo opportunities, and more laughter concluded the morning. An elderly aunt represented the parents’ generation with suitable seriousness. Everything ended happily, just as in the story of Manora, who was reunited with her loyal prince after his long quest to find the land of the bird people… a dance for another day.

Road Trip

Aung San Suu Kyi just wrapped up her first trip outside Myanmar in 24 years. For most of that time she was under house arrest; when she wasn’t, she worried that she wouldn’t be let back in if she left. For her latest look at the outside world she traveled next door to Thailand. The bulk of her six-day journey was spent visiting Burmese refugees and migrant workers here. Most estimates suggest that the number of paperless people from Burma living in Thailand is over two million.

At a Bangkok forum on the economics of the region, she stole the show with a frank assessment of the investment prospects in Myanmar. She was wise and graceful, generating lots of goodwill, even as she bluntly told investors that for now her pariah country needs education and institutions lots more than it needs business.

Reform in Myanmar remains quite delicate, as democratization is bound to be anywhere people are used to solving disputes by pulling rank. Add in a ton of ethnic diversity, and a tidal wave of new outside experts who are suddenly swamping the country with their advice, and you get a spicy stew. As The Lady noted, “I sometimes feel that people are too optimistic about the scene in Burma. You have to remember that the democratization process in Burma is not irreversible.”

ASSK travels again on June 13. Among other places in Europe, she heads to Oslo, where she’ll formally accept the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded in 1991.

Hiking on the Edge of Town

About the only thing better than having nature on the doorstep here in Chiang Mai is having a hiking club to enjoy it with. So far I’ve taken four outings with a revolving group of nice folks who enjoy perspiring up the many steep trails on the edge of town.

The people who come out early in the morning for half-day treks on Wednesdays and Sundays generally were born outside Thailand, or at least in other parts of the country. A few qualify as Chiang Mai veterans—twenty years or more.

They bring interesting stories with them. “I’m here to train Muay Thai” [Thai kick boxing] said both an Indian-American from New Jersey and an Irish dude, on separate occasions. “I fly helicopters for Shell Oil out of Borneo,” explained another guy. “I work six weeks on, six weeks off. Chiang Mai is the closest nice place to build myself a house.”

We saunter past colors and critters that are new to most of us—mushrooms, millipedes, berries, anthills, and orchids. Now and then somebody takes a stab at identification, but mostly we just enjoy the open forests and the occasional views back toward the city. Along one section of trail the route is marked by cloth that might once have been orange monks’ robes. Are we being told that the path leads to a temple? That we’re passing through a meditation zone? Nobody is sure.

Sometimes several tree trunks end up growing together into goofy shapes that would be equally at home in an amusement park. We half expect to hear Jack coming down the beanstalk. In that spirit, we notice monstrous snails everywhere. Somebody said they’re native to Africa—in Thailand thanks to yet another pest-control scheme gone badly wrong.

We arrive back at the parking lot before lunch, giving us plenty of time to fritter away the afternoon on the Internet.

Seeing Anew

Someone who knows what she’s talking about happened to cross my path, and together we visited a gorgeous old wooden temple near my place on the outskirts of Chiang Mai. It was empty. Yellow petals had fallen from a large flowering tree and covered the parking lot like snow.

My friend pointed out the unusual layout of the wat, and indeed once she said it, the arrangement of the various buildings did strike me as a little different. I might not have noticed otherwise. It struck me that I had a chance to move beyond my usual seen-one-seen-’em-all approach to temple touring.

I determined to be extra observant, in hopes that just maybe I would learn to tell my viharn from my ubosot. We started inside the main structure, pausing to admire carving meant to mimic the shape of the Buddha’s eyebrows (who knew?). I stared at the sloping ceilings as if I’d never been inside a wat before. Do the multiple tiers always telescope that way? I wasn’t sure.

There was still nobody else around. My friend seemed to be x-raying the eaves and gables, concentrating on how well the 20-year-old restoration was holding up. I tried to soften my eyes and pretend I was looking at a song or tasting a massage. Slowly the red lacquered columns holding up the roof began to glow brighter than I thought the limited interior light would allow.

Back outside, we circled a handsome open-sided preaching hall laid out in the shape of a cross. She explained that a sala is normally rectangular. Somehow I knew that before she said it. Perhaps adopting a new worldview isn’t so hard after all.

Every Day a New Insight

Here’s the Chiang Mai routine: Run, think, eat, write, think, read, eat, think, study, think, write, think, eat, sleep. The best parts of the day are the stare-off-into-space moments.

I’m talking about those little instances between activities when I get to see what my brain was doing while I wasn’t paying attention. Usually they only last two or three minutes.

While skyping with a friend in the States recently, I mentioned this luxury of daydreaming about nothing in particular. He replied, “that’s what most people here do when they’re driving.”

But I think he and I are really talking about two different things. These days I don’t space out in the same way as people who have a regular job, or people who take care of kids and parents.

Those folks’ minds are likely to wander toward to-do lists. Not only are they aware that they’re spacing out, but they end up jolted back to the here-and-now by some have-to.

My life in Chiang Mai is remarkably free of have-to’s. As a result I get gifted with insights that wouldn’t have come my way if I was working full-time.

Take yesterday for example. After I finished breakfast I just stayed at the table for a while, looking out the window at the neighbor’s tree. Or at least that’s what an observer would have said I was doing. In fact I was contemplating a new idea for a chapter in Jip’s book—a problem that had vexed me the day before.

Maybe the most valuable by-products of this sabbatical will be these big-picture ideas after breakfast. You all have my permission to slap me around if you sense that I’m taking them for granted.

Songkran in the South

Rumor had it that Chiang Mai’s way of celebrating Thai New Year would get pretty wet. So I fled to the South for a traditional Songkran with Jip’s mom. In her village the three-day holiday revolves more around monks, blessings, and family than around throwing water. You can get as wet as you want to, but if you say you don’t want to play, people respect that and let you pass without a splash.

Life there is lived in the open air. Most jobs in Ban Krud take place outdoors, most transportation happens by cycle, and the beach exerts a strong pull on locals and visitors alike. Even though it’s the hottest time of the year (temperatures have been around 40C/100F), we spent our days sitting out front of the house to see who was passing by, or cooking in the outdoor kitchen—you can’t have a ceremony in the village without a feast afterwards.

Downsize

Chiang Mai’s population is between 5-10% as large as Bangkok’s, depending if you count the whole metropolitan area. The tallest buildings are under 20 stories high, and those are rare. The skyline resembles Rapid City’s.

Not everything here is on a scale smaller than the capital’s. The city sits in a valley between mountains. These peaks are high enough to have much lower temperatures at the top than at the bottom. Looking down at Chiang Mai from Doi Suthep, the tallest one, you see many, many more temples than malls. They’re so plentiful that yesterday with a friend I toured nine wats in a single afternoon. All of them were within three city blocks of each other.

It’s lovely to have nature and relative serenity so close by. I can be at the trailhead for many of Doi Suthep’s hikes in just a few minutes by taxi (actually a roaming, shared pickup truck—private taxis are uncommon). Recently I went out for a run in the foothills and within 20 minutes of leaving my place had seen a dozen deer.

This northern sabbatical will be a nice chapter.

How Was I Supposed to Know That Closing Time Was 8pm?

Or maybe the masseuse had a fight with her boyfriend this morning and was still mad?

Whatever the cause, the shortened, brutal quality of tonight’s massage caught me off guard. I mean, I know I’m basically a wimp, and I know that Thai massage is supposed to hurt now and then. But it’s not supposed to leave bruises. Or maybe that’s just how they do things up here in Chiang Mai?

This week I find myself asking often “Is it me or them?” Such moments were common in 2005 when we first returned to Thailand. But in this case I didn't expect to feel confused. In Bangkok I averaged a couple of massages a month.

At the shop tonight they could have told me up front that we’d have to stop early. She could have eased up when she saw me grimacing. A few more signals could have been flashed to let me know that we were through (it’s the only time I can ever remember when the session didn’t wrap up with a light clap-clap-clapping of the hands together on the spine).

But as I say, maybe they do things differently up here in Chiang Mai. Lots to learn.

Up North

Being newly arrived (two days ago) in Chiang Mai brings to mind that great long sentence from Stuart Little, which describes a drive in the countryside where “the back yards were bushy and worth finding out about, where the streets sloped down to the stream and the stream flowed quietly under the bridge, where the lawns ended in orchards and the orchards ended in fields and the fields ended in pastures and the pastures climbed the hill and disappeared over the top toward the wonderful wide sky.”

Cows are wandering around in what might as well be my back yard—fields just a few hundred meters down the road. People are speaking a dialect I can’t catch—until I ask a question, when they answer in central Thai. Even though it’s the hottest month of the year, I don’t feel as sweaty as I usually do down by sea level.

But this season the weather in the north has a downside. Dust in the air blows in from areas nearby that practice slash-and-burn farming. I don’t notice any breathing problems, but going barefoot inside the house tells the story—even though I sweep the floors every day, the bottoms of my feet are black in just a few hours of walking around.

Traffic rarely crawls in Chiang Mai, and sometimes moves quite fast. Trying to cross a road at one point, I spotted a gap in the cars coming from my right, as they always do in Thailand. As I began quickly making my way to the other side, I surprised a family on a motorcycle that was putt-putting along in the wrong direction. They honked, just in time. I felt the breeze their passing made as we missed colliding by millimeters. Lots to get used to here.

Perhaps I should ask the chickens how and why they cross the road?

What Do You Call What’s Happening in Myanmar?

Some kind of something has been moving forward with increasing momentum during the past several months in Myanmar, but it’s hard to know exactly what to call it.

Some would say it was “progress” when both Thein Sein, who has been country’s president for about a year, and Aung San Suu Kyi, who last month was elected to Parliament, met with Hilary Clinton on December 1st. Others use the word “transformation” to describe the recent steps toward democratic rule, even though when Suu Kyi was asked a few days ago to rate Myanmar’s democracy on a scale of one to ten, she said, “On the way to one.”

The Economist quoted one of the “reform”-minded ministers as saying, “There are 60 decision-makers in this country: 20 have seen the light, 20 are asleep, and 20 are waiting to see which way to jump.”

An especially big hurdle in the way of “real change” is a constitution that makes sure the military dominates Parliament. Maybe the most realistic moniker for what’s going on is “new era”—a time when lots of work will need doing so that the elections of last month aren’t just a tactic to convince Western nations to lift the years of economic sanctions.

Call it “movement”? Call it “makeover”? Whatever you call it, everything new over the past year could disappear in a heartbeat.

Northbound

Ever since returning to Thailand to live in 2005, I’ve had Chiang Mai on my mind. Thailand’s second city has called to me for its manageable size and its mountains. At least once a year I’ve made forays there to stay in touch with old friends and to keep my ears open for ways relocating could work.

Next week that vision becomes real. My last day at CDC is this Friday. I decided not to extend the contract for another year. Even though I’ve enjoyed the work more than ever during the past few months, it’s a good time to move on. The combination I now enjoy—good health, financial security, and a total lack of responsibilities—is too rare to ignore.

So I’ll take a sabbatical in Chiang Mai. At least for the rest of this year, I don’t plan to work for money. Instead the plan is to finish the book that Jip began. I’ll also make time to volunteer, read, hike, and who knows what else.

Between now and 2013, I’ll figure out what kind of work to do next. Most people don’t allow themselves, or aren't lucky enough, to take plenty of reflection time between jobs.