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."