The Animal Farm post 1984
Trip Start
May 19, 2009
1
66
74
Trip End
Dec 31, 2009
Yangon (Rangoon),
Myanmar
Friday, November 6, 2009
My first and lasting impression of Yangon, the biggest and richest city of Burma, is how poor and rundown it is. The city is full of dirty and dilapidated buildings; the dirty sidewalks are cramped with desperate people who set up small stands – sometimes just a piece of tarp on the ground – to sell whatever they have: raw meats, fruits, snacks, old books, pirated DVDs, clothes, wrapped betel seeds, molded microscopes that are useless; the streets are filled by old and beat-up cars and buses, and no motorcycle – because the ruling generals don't want the people to be too mobile
one of the dirty and dilapidated buildings
.Burma is isolated and ostracized by the international community. Inside it you’ll feel that you have traveled back in time, and this country is so different from the rest of the world, it’s in a world of its own. Here most of the big buildings were built in the 1930s during the British colonial years; the tallest building is merely 20 stories high; the city is mostly dark at night, unlike most modern cities. There are so many of Indians in the city – came when the country was a British colony – that sometimes you feel like you are in India. People here don’t have family names – the first word of their name is the day of the week when they were born (I verified this fact many times, apparently it’s true). The men and women alike wear the bi-sexual wraparound garment called longyi, chew the betel and spit out blood red saliva to the ground; the teachers make 30 USD a month while a family needs $100 a month to live on; the only decent looking residential houses are almost all behind high walls topped by barbwire; the only kind of buildings who are sure to be clean and shinny are the giant pagodas, which are covered with tons of gold leaves when a normal person on the street would be hard-pressed to make enough to live on.
I spent two days here and that’s more than enough, for the city really has nothing to show besides a few pagodas
crowded bus
. You see one and you have seen them all, for they are all alike. Besides, their entrance fees for foreigners are way too high. In fact everything the foreign travelers pay here are high – the hotels, the foods, the bus tickets, all of them. The two-tiers pricing must be working very well here because there’s no way a local with normal income can afford them. The fact that the country is poor and has relatively much less visitor actually makes the cost of traveling in it higher. For example, the only reliable transportation for us from point A to B inside the city is by taxi. Without a native to guide you, there is no way a foreigner can negotiate the chaotic bus system here.Luckily I met a few natives here and enjoyed the experience. One was thru the Couchsurfing network; but the system works a little bit differently here: the locals are not allowed to have foreigners stay in their houses; and they are too poor to take you around; so we could only meet for drinks and I paid for all the expenses. I also met a few students who were very eager to practice their English (so that they can work in Singapore – unemployment seems to be very high here) inside the Shwedagon Paya compound, which, with a 2500 years old paya (a religious monument) that is covered by not only by 53 tons of gold, but also 5000 diamonds and 2000 other stones, is the main temple of the city
roadside merchants
. And then when I walked along the streets in the China Town’s temples, I ran into a few older Chinese who still speak and read Chinese (all Chinese schools are closed in 1964 by the military government) and eager to chat. I was surprised by how freely and openly they criticized the government and praised Aung San Suu Kyi. When asked, they told me it’s ok as long as they don’t do it in front of the police. So, it is not quite 1984 – yet. Some of them expressed hope that change will happen in the foreseeable future (election is scheduled to be held in next year, but whether it will actually happen is anybody’s guess), saying that the US government is putting pressure on the government; but I am not that optimistic, since I know with the backing of the Chinese and Indian governments, the generals can more or less ignore the outside world’s actions towards them.So, I don’t like the city but I will remember the experience for a long time. I am leaving the city tonight and catching a night bus to the east; I afraid the condition in the bus would not be too comfortable, but hope that I will be pleasantly surprised.
