Mingalaba, according to one
video we watched, translates as "may you have auspiciousness."
In practice it is a sort of hybrid of "hello" and "bless
you." It was one of the few words we mastered fairly quickly.
Luckily Yangon (Rangoon under the British), despite being a large
congested city with areas of severe poverty, and ruled for years by
an erratic and brutal military dictatorship, turned out to be one of
the friendliest cities in the world.
Burmese people tend to be beautiful,
with easy smiles and open faces. The culture is conservative but
decidedly un-macho, so many women as well as men are gregarious and
look you in the eye. Most everyone seems to welcome foreigners and
many speak at least a little English as Burma was once a British
colony. A mingalaba and a smile will almost always be returned
and will often lead to conversation. In the few days we had in
Yangon before Mike Grafton joined us, we had a lot of time to wander
the city and meet people.
At the Shwedagon Pagoda (on which there
will be a separate post) we met Varasami, a monk from the World
Buddhist Meditation Institute where he studies meditation, Pali (the
Indian language of Buddhist scripture) and English. We spent two
hours talking with him and he explained many of the mysterious
statues and altars at the site. We were surprised that he, like many
people we met, talked boldly about politics. He expressed his disdain for the previous military government and his admiration,
even reverence for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. He said that he was one of
the monks that marched against the government in 2007, many of whom
were beaten, jailed, even killed.
Varasami invited us to visit his
monastery which we did at the end of our trip. We met many of his
friends who are studying English as well. Hilary is now Facebook
friends with a monk named Issariya and I have been exchanging emails
with Varasami who hopes to visit New York next year.
Outside a tea shop near our guesthouse,
we met U Tin Win (U and Daw are honorifics, basically
on par with Señor and Señora but literally translating to "Uncle"
and "Auntie") who invited us to tea. We were trying to
catch a train so we had to decline. He gave us his address and told
us if there was anything we needed we should be sure to come and see
him. The morning Mike arrived we visited U Tin Win at home and took
him to lunch at a simple (on the sidewalk, no walls, a tarp for a
roof, pots heated by fire) but delicious Burmese restaurant that he
recommended.
U Tin Win had been a lawyer, at one
time for Aung San Suu Kyi ("She is our hope," he said) but
has now retired due to health problems. He spends his time reading
books in English. When we stopped by he was reading a giant volume of
Dostoyevsky containing The Idiot,
The Brothers Karamazov, and
Crime and Punishment. He was also a fan of John Steinbeck and
Jane Austen. He said that there are some good Burmese writers but
they are "like frogs singing in a well." He showed us
pictures of his wife, an ethnic Shan beauty who had died a number of
years before. They have several children and many grandchildren. He
is a lovely man.
On our train out to the northern
suburbs to see a pagoda with a giant marble buddha and some white
elephants we met a sweet young woman named Win Win Aun. She spoke no
English but she and Hilary managed to carry on a 45 minute
conversation by flipping back and forth through our Lonely Planet
Burmese phrasebook.
Waiting for the bus back from the
suburbs we met Nyan Lin. He worked for a car dealership and a
building company. He was one of the few people we met who had a smart
phone. Most people don't have cellphones at all, let alone smart
phones. SIM cards until recently cost thousands of dollars and still
cost hundreds and many people live on two or three dollars a day.
Nyan Lin not only told us which bus to take and talked with us, but
insisted on paying our bus fares. As we rode along he proudly pointed
out the stone bus shelters his company had built for the city free of
charge.
While poking our heads into St. Mary's,
the grand and elaborate brick catholic cathedral in central Yangon,
we met Raymond who seemed to be a deacon. He is Burmese but looks to
be of Indian or Bengali decent. He teaches English to the local youth
and wanted us to try to find some workbooks and CDs to use in his
class (suggestions welcome). He told of his dream to build a school
for the orphans of the city. He played beautiful melancholy hymns on
an electric organ as we padded around in the empty expanse.
At our guest house, the Motherland (2),
we were well taken care of by the friendly staff who kept track of
everything with paper receipts and carbon paper. They sent a group of
young men in longyis (the usually plaid sarong-like garment that most
Burmese men wear) to fetch us from the airport.
One person I will never forget is the
taxi driver who drove us to our overnight bus to Mandalay. I don't
even know his name. When he arrived to pick us up a horrific
thunderstorm had just let loose. The kind of storm that happens in
the tropics (especially in the monsoon season) where you are almost
afraid to go outside for fear of drowning. He only realized that he
was taking us to the main bus station, an hour outside the city,
after driving to a small bus stop 20 minutes in the wrong direction;
when he found out he barely changed expression. He calmly piloted his
jalopy of a cab with its barely functioning headlights and windshield
wipers through the worst snarl of third world traffic I have ever
seen, fording temporary rivers and occasionally restarting the
wheezing engine. I would have been driven insane with fear and frustration, but
our taxi driver was the picture of concentration and equanimity. I
was in awe. He made me want to become a Buddhist.
Here are a few more pictures from Yangon:
Here are a few more pictures from Yangon:
