At this time I have only written a factual report which I posted to soc.culture.burma on 31 Dec 1999. I hope to have more later, but in the mean time, here's the report:
These are some observations taken during my trip to Yangon (briefly), Heho, Inle Lake, Taunggyi, and Kyaing Tong (Keng Tung). As badly as I wanted to go, time did not allow me to take the road from Kyaing Tong to Tachilek, a back woods corridor of Shan State which is approved for foreigners. I have many, many more memories and impressions of my trip than these observations, but they are probably not in the scope of soc.culture.burma.
It should be noted that NO traveler can witness the non-existance of human rights abuses, violence, etc. A traveler may witness these and conclude that they exist, of course. But if he doesn't witness them he may NOT conclude that they do not exist.
Before visiting Burma I thought that almost everybody resists the name "Myanmar," that "Myanmar" represents the current military rule. But after listening to local people talk among themselves, in Burmese, I conclude that "Myanmar" is not a dirty word to them, and is in fact their favored term for the country. (I don't speak Burmese at any level, but I could pick out these two words in speech and know the subject by context.) Though I didn't hear any Shan people use either term among themselves, I wouldn't be surprised if they refer to the country as "Burma" since their language is a Thai dialect and the Thais call it "Burma." But this has no more political implication than the Burmese reference to Thailand as "Ayodhya," which derives from an old capital in Thailand.
The same applies to "Yangon" vs. "Rangoon," as far as I could tell, however I spent little time in that city.
They are not totally closed, as I had thought before visiting. They are closed during the week, but open during weekends for "distant students." This allows people to get career educations while preventing the formation of student political groups because students cannot easily associate through a shared campus life.
I met many students who go to the university in Taunggyi. Their classes were variously chemistry, biology, accounting, etc. I did not meet any student taking history, political science, art, or anything else that would be considered part of a liberal education.
I saw many more primary schools than I expected. In other countries they are somehow less visible, but in Burma I stumbled upon many, and heard the children reciting their lessons quite vocally.
Somewhere between Heho and Nyaungshwe, closer to the latter, I saw from my taxi about 30 people clearing brush from the side of the road. A man wearing a military uniform, a villager's hat, and an ornamental sword was standing by, apparently overseeing of the operation. The workers were dressed in normal civilian clothes. Of course I have no way of knowing whether the people were to be paid for their labor, but from what I've read about Myanmar I'm guessing that they weren't. Before my trip I had visions of barely clothed, under-nourished people being whipped or beaten while laboriously draining cesspools or struggling with some other horrifying task. I don't mean to excuse the apparent forced labor that I witnessed -- any and all forced labor is wrong and categorically unacceptable -- but it's not the hellish scene that I had expected.
On another occasion I saw five people clearing brush and generally cleaning up a reinforced portion of a mountain road near Heho. A boy of about eight years old was whitewashing the rock and cement wall. Everyone was working, none were supervising. The location was far from any village, so I guess these people were dropped off and were to be picked up later.
While riding a bicycle in Nyaungshwe I saw about 200 people cleaning up the land between a big monastery and the adjoining roads. I tried but failed to identify a leader or man in charge, but I did encounter a local guy whom I had talked to previously, and I asked him what was going on. He told me that a well known monk was coming to this monastery and the people wanted to prepare the place for his anxiously anticipated arrival. I asked who was organizing this work. He said that nobody was actually organizing it, that the monastery had simply requested people help clear the land on this particular day. I specifically asked if there was government involvement, and if the work was totally voluntary. His answers were negative and affirmative, respectively. My point here is that it would be easy to draw a false conclusion from a cursory view of this scene.
Before I went to Burma I imagined that the Burmese people were acutely aware of the national politics and the actions of their government. But most people seem to be not all that interested in politics, just like the populations of most countries. Perhaps it just *seems* that way to me because they don't want to risk talking politics with a foreigner, but I think more likely it's just not effective and thus not interesting, similar to the feelings of many other peoples I've met. Impotence breeds apathy. (Chinese people seem to be much more politically aware, if not active, but again, this could be merely my personal perspective derived from a small sample population.) While I never tried to strike up political conversations directly, it was fairly clear to me that politics were not on their minds because issues tangent to politics, such as applying for a permit to be a trekking guide, almost never drifted into a political discussion. Again, this is not significantly different than in other countries.
I did, however, meet a man with whom I talked politics in detail, on his initiative, not mine. He thinks, of course, that the current regime is bad and he wants to see a democracy. He thinks Aung San Suu Kyi has all the background necessary to be a great leader of the country, but he doesn't want her to take power. I expected him to say that she would be too autocratic, even if less so than the current regime. But that wasn't his reason for not wanting her. He was afraid that her rise to power would establish a democratic dynasty (my words, not his) that would eventually result in a leader who is not pure Burmese, that leader being her half-English offspring. I was quite surprised by this. In a democracy the people aren't forced to elect somebody's son or daughter; they *choose* to. Sometimes I think that Asian people actually *want* some amount of paternalism in their governments.
He also told me that, while it is highly unlikely that the Burmese government would know about our political conversation, if we were discovered he would be beaten and thrown in jail, probably for a few months.
I met a man whose name, which I have since forgotten, is something close to Ne Win. When he told me his name I said, "Oh, like Ne Win?" He laughed and said, "You Americans know a lot about Myanmar politics." We didn't discuss politics because we already knew where we each stood.
The people in Taunggyi treated me with a little suspicion, something I did not feel elsewhere. I saw no other Westerner during my short stay in Taunggyi, but this is no explanation because I was the only Westerner in all of Kyaing Tong as well, as far as I could tell, and I felt nothing but curiosity and delight in novelty from the people of Kyaing Tong. Perhaps the suspicion comes from the stronger military presence in Taunggyi than elsewhere, though its presence in Kyaing Tong comes close. The Indian neighborhood that I walked through seemed particularly wary of me. It helped when I bought some roses and placed them conspicuously in my knapsack. In fact, in the center of Taunggyi an Indian girl saw me across the street, gave me a big smile and blew me a kiss. I walked across the street and thoroughly embarrassed her by giving her a rose from my knapsack while everyone watched. But I digress.
After reading the Lonely Planet guide I was expecting to be watched and searched at every opportunity, if not followed. My experience was not like this. Entering the country was not much different than entering any other country (with the proper visa), and nobody took much notice of me. However, each hotel and guest house at which I stayed recorded, upon arrival, the city from which I had come and, upon check out, my next destination. Every night a government official collects lists of guests from every hotel. And a detailed manifest is written for every airline flight. Somewhere in the bowels of the Myanmar government there is now a highly detailed paper trail -- yes, literally on paper -- of my movements, but nobody actually followed me. Or perhaps they were very good shadows. :-)
A European man (I won't be more specific) who stayed at the same guest house as I did wanted very badly to spend the night at a monastery outside of town, even though everyone told him that it was "not possible." He tried anyway, and without checking out of the guest house he rode a rented bicycle for an hour or two to the monastery. The guest house manager stayed up until 1:00AM waiting for his return, and worried frightfully that the government would discover that a guest on his roster had not actually stayed at the guest house. I heard later that the European man indeed could not spend the night at the monastery, but while hanging out in that area was invited to spend the night at the house of a local family. The guest house manager told me that the man had endangered not only himself but also the family and the manager. Though he was an annoyance, he would not have been a threat to anyone if not for the government's desire to keep track of him.
The citizens receive more attention from the government than the foreigners, at least in Shan State. I was very quickly patted down before boarding airplanes, but the locals were searched to extremes that I have never witnessed. Their bags were inspected and everything they carried on their bodies was investigated, even so far as to make certain that small cigarette lighters were really only cigarette lighters. I should add that the one flight I took that originated outside of Shan State (from Yangon) was not like this, so perhaps only Shan State residents are subjected to this.
I had the good fortune to be in Kyaing Tong for the Shan people's New Year celebrations, which went on for several days and spectacularly concluded on the night of 8 December. That night in the stadium I wandered around and sampled the food stalls, watched people play unique forms of bingo and roulette, and watched fashion shows and musical groups on the main stage. During my four days in the city I relied heavily on the little bit of Thai I speak because very, very few people in Kyaing Tong speak English, and again, as far as I could tell I was the only Westerner in the entire city. As I watched the stage a police officer and two military men approached, stood next to me for a while, and then struck up friendly conversation. You can tell the native language of people in Kyaing Tong by their facial features, and the officer and military men were definitely Burmese, not Shan. Our conversation, in English, was simple and not really about anything in particular. One of the military men offered me a can of beer which he had had somewhere in his uniform. I wondered how many more cans he had. I was more uneasy *not* accepting the beer than accepting it. Still feeling uncomfortable after about 15 minutes, and wondering what the locals thought about me chatting with the police, I excused myself when the conversation waned to go watch people launch some really interesting and beautiful hot-air balloons. But I was only alone for about 5 minutes when the three uniformed men appeared next to me again, very friendly and not at all threatening. They stayed near me until about 20 minutes after midnight, after the fireworks had died down, at which time the policeman said something like, "Are you going to your hotel to go to sleep now?" I accepted it as advice, not as a question, so I did as suggested. I'm not one to fight the authorities; I only observe when I can. From my room I could hear the festival going on until about 12:45. I don't know how it finally ended.
In Shan State the only newspaper is _The New Light of Myanmar_ (the government's paper), and it is three days old. Nobody reads it. People listen to Voice of America and the BBC for news.
As I was having dinner in Kyaing Tong with a couple of Shan girls I thought about the rain that hadn't let up for more than a few hours since I arrived, and I thought about finding a weather report in a newspaper. But there are no newspapers in Kyaing Tong; I didn't even see a _New Light_. I thought maybe the girls had seen a weather report somewhere, so I asked (in Thai), "Is it going to rain tomorrow?" They thought it was the silliest question they had ever heard. They obviously hadn't seen a weather report, and perhaps never have.
In Yangon I saw one other newspaper, in Burmese. I don't remember how I can be sure that it wasn't _New Light_ in Burmese, but something in me insists that it wasn't. I didn't get a chance to actively search for other newspapers, so they may indeed exist, however they're certainly not at one's fingertips as papers are in other countries.
It appears to be easy for a visitor to avoid direct financial support of the regime. The only state-owned hotel I came across was the Kyaing Tong Hotel. I stayed instead at the Princess Hotel in Kyaing Tong, which, according to the hotel operators, is not government run. (I'd like verification of this, if anyone can offer it.) In other places I visited it would have been difficult to *find* a government hotel. A private hotel operator told me that the government collects a very small amount from my room, on the order of 2%. That's too paltry to believe.
I avoided Bagan altogether because I'm interested in the Burmese people and not so much the monuments. So perhaps it was easier for me than others to avoid all those fees that are collected by the government at every tourist site. As I understand it, the fees add up substantially. As recommended in the Lonely Planet guide I visited Shwedagon Paya in Yangon well before 7:00AM in an attempt to dodge the US$5 fee, but the collector is unavoidable and I had to pay my $5. If you look like a foreigner, you will pay, no matter what time you are there.
For me air travel within the country was almost necessary given my time contraints, but I believe the three airlines are no longer owned by the government.
As far as I know, the state got only $8 from me (directly) during my entire trip: $5 for Shwedagon Paya and $3 for entering Inle Lake. Oh, and the visa fee, which was around $40. I understand why DASSK and the NLD have requested a tourist boycott, but I also think that "tourist" is a term that is much too broad. I honestly don't think that they had people like me in mind.
The officially unrecognized 15-, 45-, and 90-kyat notes, which say "Union of Burma Bank," are still treated as valid currency by the ordinary people.
Longshoremen on Inle Lake make 900 to 1000 kyat (about US$3) per day. They move vegetables in wicker backets from small boats onto trucks.
While most everyone lives in deep poverty, everyone appeared to have sufficient food, to be in good physical shape, and to be housed in some reasonable fashion. I did see, however, two women with goiters, a simple Iodine deficiency if I recall correctly. The good general health in Shan State may be an exception because the area is agriculturally quite productive, especially around Inle Lake.
Theingyi Ze is the only place I know of in Yangon -- in all of Myanmar for that matter -- where one may find a disco, so I checked it out. Lined up along the edges of the steps leading up to the clubs are girls in cute, somewhat suggestive uniforms who invite the passersby. Some people on soc.culture.burma have claimed that the girls are prostitutes, but they are not. I would have been a very obvious potential client, yet none of them offered themselves to me or even asked for a drink. Inside the night club a very cute girl, not in uniform, sat next to me at the bar and we talked and danced together for an hour or more. She eventually offered sex for money. She is likely a freelance prostitute, not associated with the night club. So while there are indeed a small number of prostitutes in the discos, the girls standing on the stairs are not to be counted among them. They are simply there as ornaments. (To conclude the story, I gave the girl several hundred kyat for wasting her time on me.)
These are only the observations which I thought would be of interest to the readers of soc.culture.burma. Overall, I had a truly fascinating trip and met many, many wonderful people, some of whom I have sent letters to since my return. I want to return again to Burma some day soon, hopefully to witness a renewed society which is as strong democratically and economically as it is spiritually.