Moon, our Yangon guide
She's fabulous -- If you're interested, her email is:
thawdaraungkyi@googlemail.com
There were monks at our hotel too!
Best hotel and location in Yangon.
Fish ball soup for breakfast.
Burmese Mohingya Soup for breakfast -- Our favorite soup in ALL of Asia, which says a lot
Sule Pagoda
In center of Yangon
In Myanmar, everyone is named after the day of the week they were born on.
And, at the temple they wash and pray at the animal assigned to their day of the week.
Abraham washed every animal, including his own.
He had a spiritual high from all the washing he did.
Uh oh, I caught Sticky Fingers Abraham trying to slip his
still-fat baby fingers down into the collection box at the Sule Pagoda.
The clear plastic money box was too tempting for this four-year-old,
willing to risk the wrath of Buddha.
Boom's collection boxes,
er, I mean, Buddha's
Abraham not only washed all the animals but
also kindly washed all the Buddhas
As we exited Sule Pagoda, the pushy sparrow saleslady quickly slipped live sparrows
into our children's hands who excitedly released them, unable to hold them more than a second
The sparrow lady then insisted on our paying for 5 sparrows as she continued to
aggressively stuff them into our bewildered children's hands.
Alice asked Moon why they would release sparrows at a temple
Moon explained that in Burma, God would protect you from going to jail,
if you released the sparrows at the temple.
I thought that was very telling about the helpless nature of life in a military state,
where the only control you felt over avoiding jail was releasing sparrows.
Griffin uncomfortable, holding the sparrow for a second before it flew off.
Alice and I watched a sparrow fly to freedom, representing freedom from incarceration.
Then, a huge crow, waiting on the roof, flew down, snatched it away, and ate it.
Another symbolic moment regarding the military junta.
My animal, for my day of birth, the Guinea Pig
Everyone ate streetfood sitting at these little chairs and tables, just like in Vietnam
Babies do not wear diapers in Burma.
So, they are used to bottomless babies and use it in their advertisements,
without the taboo we'd feel about it in the US.
All of Yangon is run-down, deteriorating colonial beauties like this one.
Even plants were growing on some old colonial buildings
A Burmese man insisted on shaking Abraham's hand.
Everyone was very friendly to us, in an authentic, really warm way.
Usually, equally adorned with spiritual and cultural anointings on their faces
Ah, the famous Burmese red teeth come from this betelnut roll sold all over the Burmese streets
Some sort of chestnuts, I think, sold in the Yangon streets.
Note the "Thanakha" on her face
It is ground from a tree and turned into a lotion
that's believed to protect them from the sun and preserve their youthful skin
In general, the Burmese women were gorgeous and
took great care with their beauty, unlike the Chinese or Malaysian women.
Tired Boom at the street market
Wild dogs are ALL over Asia
We woke them up.
After Ken got bit on the calf by a wild dog in Penang, Malaysia, while running on the beach,
Port Authority building, next to the Yangon river
Ferries are very popular all over Asia,
bypassing the infrequent bridges and allowing people to come over with their motorbikes.
As an aside, we couldn't put our finger on why Yangon seemed relatively empty and quiet
Then, our guide informed us that the military junta prohibited motorbikes in Yangon.
Only the military can ride motorbikes. Turns out the Chinese government does the same in Beijing.
As a westerner, you may think this is no big deal.
But, it's actually a HUGE deal for poor Asians, especially the mostly very poor Burmese,
who cannot afford cars because the military junta deliberately keeps them out of Burma,
so the price of a car is $20,000, which is prohibitive for nearly all Burmese.
The Burmese usually carry their entire business on their motorbike, driving it into town
early every morning for their livelihood. But, they can't do it in Yangon.
The junta also keeps the price of cellphones at $900, which is outrageous in Asia
where cellphones cost less than $100.
The military junta often uses this strategy of keeping the people down
by either restricting access to the outside world or making resources ridiculously unaffordable.
Most famous colonial hotel in Yangon,
with excellent tea service.
Ken and my favorite of the thousands of Buddha and his followers for sale
A painting of the Burmese nuns, always in pink.
I was fascinated by the nuns.
Yes, that's Barbie, Ken, and friends all having tea at the Strand gift shop,
adorned in traditional Burmese clothing.
Aung Su Barbie
Strand ice cream
Strand tea time
It's important you take many tea breaks and rest times in Yangon,
it's a dusty, tiring city, although fascinating too
Strand tea
High on tea caffeine in Yangon streets
Our guide, Moon, would tell us about each temple or city monument,
then she'd patiently explain it to the kids, translating it to kid-friendly language
In Burma, the kids started carrying around journals with blank pages,
drawing pictures of each site and competing over how many pages of notes each could accumulate on Burma.
Griffin was crushed when I lost his journal at a Bagan temple -- we returned to the temple
twice in vain hope someone would find it and save it for us, it became priceless to us.
Jasmine flowers distributed at every temple.
The Burmese temples could give you a heady high inhaling all the incense and jasmine.
Buddha's sacred hair relic at another Yangon
Burma and other Asian countries all claim to have pieces of Buddha,
known as Buddha "relics," at temples
It's questionable whether it really is a piece of Buddha, like his hair or hip bone
And, Burma, filled with precious gems, likes to cover their Buddhist temples with jewels
Elephants, seen as sacred, at the Yangon temples
The Burmese writing, a graceful, round print
practiced by all Burmese in school, incessantly, from an early age.
Grandma Mary gushes about Burmese writing, her favorite in Asia.
These baby owls were found under one of the many HUGE, glorious trees in Yangon,
some of the remaining trees after Cyclone Nargis turned Yangon from a formerly green city to a dusty, sun-drenched city.
The restauranteurs found the baby owls, caged them, and fed them their favorite, hamburger.
They say that the mother owl came for a while to drop food down through the top of the cage to them. And, they say they let the baby owls out every afternoon to stretch their wings and practice flying, while keeping an eye up above for any predatory birds (damn, aggressive crows!).
The restauranteurs say they'll release the baby owls once they can fly on their own.
We stared at them for a long time
The restaurant host spoke to them in owl-ese.
No shoes allowed in the many temples.
Only wear flip flops in Burma, since you'll visit temples daily.
A friendly nun was willing to pose
Buddha feet
One of the biggest reclining Buddhas in the world, a real point of pride
for this Yangon neighborhood
Alice's rendition of the overly-made-up reclining Buddha
Assuming the Buddha lotus position,
which Boom calls "criss-cross applesauce" from nursery school
The glorious Shwedagon temple in Yangon
Parents ADORE their children in Burma
When we trained Burmese teachers in Kuala Lumpur how to manage behavior by "selective ignoring," one of the Burmese teacher gave written feedback that "children should never be ignored." I later read that Burmese parents do, in fact, never ignore their children.
Shaved head and spiritual face paint adornment for this delectable babe.
Boom washing the Buddha, his new favorite Burmese pasttime.
Boom will reach enlightenment sooner than most.
Washing the rat, his animal for the day he was born.
Boom's rat
Base of Shwedagon pagoda
Click HERE for a video of the kids ringing the bell at Shwedagon Temple.
This old, worn bell has a story.
The huge bell was stolen away by the British, who tried to take it back to England.
But, it was so heavy the boat sank and they could not take it away by river.
So the British abandoned the bell in the river and told the Burmese they'd have to bring it back somehow. The Burmese painted many pictures elevating the hundreds in the community who pulled on a long rope to drag the bell back out of the river, returning it to its rightful place in the Burmese Shwedagon temple.
The recovered bell
The masses praying at twilight under the Shwedagon Pagoda.
I prayed there too.
The pagoda emanates a spiritual feeling, and being there with
the Burmese community filled me with light.
Click HERE to see and hear what it felt like at the pagoda.
Alice in front of the Shwedagon Pagoda
Shwedagon Pagoda in early sunset
Mid-sunset
Twilight
June 6, 2011
It sure was a shaky airplane ride the closer we got to Yangon, Burma, from KL. I thought it might be symbolic of how the earth must feel like it shifts under your feet in Burma sometimes, with the military junta government raising the ripple effects of its oppressive policies higher and higher on the richter scale. Truth is, the earth actually does shake in Burma. There was a huge earthquake in 1975 that ruined many of the famous Bagan Buddhist temples from 890 AD. And, Cyclone Nargis hit Burma a couple years ago, causing great damage to the fragile homes most Burmese live in, without much help from their government, leaving much worse devestation, death, and injuries than there would have been if the government had allowed outside aid agencies in their borders to help. And, Cyclone Nargis made Yangon, the former capital of Burma, lose its former title of the “garden city of the east.”
Why did we come to Burma? I’d become fascinated with Burma after working with so many Burmese refugees as part of my Fulbright Scholar Award in Kuala Lumpur. Almost 85% of refugees in Kuala Lumpur are from Burma. And, they just have such a different way of speaking and relating – a bit more pensive, warm, careful with others, joyful singers, spiritual, and carrying rich cultural and spiritual traditions with them, like textile patterns worn. And, I wondered what their life was like in Burma, compared to KL, especially how their education environment was different.
We know that in KL the Burmese refugees are not allowed to go to government schools, so over 70 informal "learning centres" have cropped up as a result in KL. In Burma, most students can only get educated to age 12, and in the more oppressed states, like the Chin and Karen (Kayin) states, the government does not provide an education past age 8. If you have money, you can send your child to middle and upper school in Yangon. Most Burmese families cannot afford middle or upper school for their children.
The Burmese teachers who came to my classroom behavior management teacher training consistently talked about the way they were taught back in Burma – much more didactic, teacher-centered, and authoritarian, compared to the more “modern” way of teaching outside of Burma – more child-centered. I think it was a difficult adjustment for the Burmese teachers who fled to Malaysia to make towards a more child-centered teaching style that UNHCR was training them to use in KL.
What is teaching like in Burmese schools? How are children’s lives different in Burma compared to Burmese children’s lives in KL? I wanted to answer these questions by our trip to Burma. I applied and got a Fulbright ASEAN travel grant, like the one I got to visit the Karen Burmese schools in Thailand, just off the border of Burma. Now, how exciting, that I get to go into Burma! And, take the kids and Ken with me!
But, how to do travel in the military state of Burma safely? Well, first, the more oppressed states (where the Burmese refugees I know in KL are from) are restricted for tourist travel, although you can get special permission to visit certain, limited areas of the restricted states. I asked numerous US embassy and Fulbright students for advice on where to travel in Burma so that I could get close to but not go into restricted states, like the Chin and Karen states with people who flee as refugees to KL. None of the embassy or Fulbrighters were much help on that score. But, our guide, Myo, in Bagan, Burma knew of a town called Hpa-An in the Karen state that is unrestricted and said she could take us to Karen schools there. And, in Bagan we could see a school. I was surprised and elated! Having a richer picture of the Burmese ethnic socialization in their schools might be helpful to Burmese refugee students displaced all over the world, but especially in KL and Thailand. Such ethnic knowledge would really help me design mental health and classroom management systems that were more culturally appropriate for Burmese refugee children.
Another family of ISKL teachers convinced me we could travel safely to Burma with children. And, they did it without a guide, which is rare. Also, tour guides are known outside of Burma as working for the military -- funneling information about tourists to the junta, like spies. The ISKL family loved their 3 week trip to Burma – the beautiful mountains, lakes, beaches, ancient Buddhist temple civilizations, and people. And, it was all less over-touristed than the rest of Southeast Asia. So, that clinched the deal and we committed to going to Burma, thinking if that family could travel safely in a military, deeply third-world state with kids, then so could we.
As our plane took off for Burma, Ken told me, “I would not have chosen to come to Burma.” He was not excited about this trip. As the plane shook and made us think it might spiral at moments, Ken’s head dropped due to his deep-seated fear of plane crashes. I grabbed Abraham’s arm, with him asking me “What’s wrong Mommy?” We were landing in Monsoon clouds, the rainy season in Burma, which also gave us pause to travel here when it was supposed to be so rainy. We couldn’t even travel to the famous beaches due to the monsoon or hike far in the mountains since it was so muddy. By the time we landed, went through the clearly government spy and military-filled airport, and toured our first couple Buddhist pagodas topped off by cheap, delish meals in Yangon, Ken was a convert, saying Burma was “fascinating” and it reminded him of all he liked about Thailand – warm, open people, interesting cultural sites, cheap travel, good service, and great food. We nearly forgot all about the junta.
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