Tag: Myanmar

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Photography Society Travels

[2721] A way of life as a product of tourism

I am at that stage when I am way too lazy to blog serious stuff. I blame it on Twitter.

So, more pictures. Let us hope with this one, I am less careless with the grammar. I have re-read some of the recent entries, and oh my god, embarrassing. Still…

I present to you, the Shwedagon pagoda.

20131216Rangoon (168)

Shwedagon is big and it is impressive but I think multiple writings exaggerate how it dominates Rangoon’s skyline. It might have in the old days, but you will not see it from downtown Rangoon. Nor at night, the lights reflected from Shwedagon’s golden stupa would fill the night sky (okay, maybe it did a little bit). This is just not the Empire State Building or the Petronas Twin Towers where you can spot it miles away. Those writers just have too much poetic license.

The approach to Shwedagon is great nevertheless. I walked from the downtown to Shwedagon, which was probably 4km-5km apart. At first I saw nothing. Just houses and barracks and trees. After awhile, a huge golden structure appeared at the end of that long road I was on.

I spent about 3 to 4 hours there. Not that it takes that much time to go explore the pagoda. This is not Angkor Wat or even Borobodur. It lacks details. You see them and you walk to the next thing. There is not Churning of the Milky Ocean kind of thing.

It was just that the human behavior was so interesting. It provided me with countless opportunities for photography. I wished I had a tripod with me since it got more interesting after sundown.

At some point while watching tourists snapping pictures of monks and praying Buddhists, a thought came to me: has Buddhism become a touristic attraction itself?

I mean, visitors just go round and round, coming in none stop, taking pictures of devotees and monks. While it is nice to have the religion being so friendly and open to tourists and outsiders, I do feel, somehow, the religion has been… commercialized, becoming a subject of camera shots.

A way of life becomes nothing but a product of tourism.

I remember in Mandalay, as monks walked across the Amarapura bridge, a tourist with his big camera probably worth thousands of dollars, with lens so big, you would need a stand to support it, pointing it to a monk, almost to the face, if I can have that poetic license to myself. The monk was miffed. Such disrespect, I would think he said. The monk made a gesture, telling him no.

A revolt from commercialization, maybe?

Categories
Photography Politics & government Society Travels

[2720] Aung San Suu Kyi and cultish reverence

As a libertarian, I have a strong dislike for the cultish reverence towards a person, where one puts a picture of a political leader everywhere almost to the point of worshiping them. It is not the excessive putting of portraits really. It is the attitude of revering too much. It is the worldview that that person is a god’s representative on this earth (even that, on its own, is against everything that I believe in).

That happens in Malaysia in government buildings and sometimes elsewhere too. Recently, the Malaysian education ministry sent out circulars to display portraits of Malaysian government leaders (read Barisan Nasional leaders) in classroom to encourage patriotism. We all know what that means. Starting them young is the best way to manufacture obedient robots. And it is not limited to Barisan Nasional either. And the picture of the Agong is another thing although the practice of rotating the seat every five years among so many of Malaysian sultans, rajas and a Yamtuan Besar does make it less ominous.

Thailand has too many pictures of their king. When I was in Bangkok, I was told I was not supposed to put banknotes in my wallet, because I would sit on my wallet. I do not if that was a make-believe but that is to me, cultish. I have never been to North Korea but through my readings, I would think the North Korean government would like their citizens to worship Kim Jong-un. To some extent, I do have trouble with teenagers worshiping some popstars but let us not get there.

One person that keeps popping in my travels in Burma was Aung San Suu Kyi. I completely understand why she stands out. In a country where the military rules without democratic legitimacy, she is the symbol of opposition to that dictatorship.

When I was buying a book in the streets of Rangoon, the shopkeeper pointed his finger to the wall  and said, “That’s Aung San Suu Kyi, our leader. Do you know her?”

At that point I really had no problem with her popularity. After all, she has done so much and for that, she deserves the respect.

So, things get a little bit disturbing for me when I spotted this calendar somewhere 20-30 minutes south of Mandalay:

Aung San Suu Kyi as a calendar model

The calendar, is somewhere to me, a sign of, in my own neologism, cultish reverence.

I have that skepticism because I always fear power and in a democratic society, popularity and power come in the same sentence. A person with so much power, especially in a illiberal democracy where the liberal safeguards are weak or simply does not exist, that popularity means the popular leader can do no wrong to the eyes of the majority. That means tyranny of the majority.

But this is Burma under military dictatorship and she has only limited power within the limited and guided democracy that the country has. Maybe I should cut her some slack.

Categories
Photography Travels

[2719] Bogyoke Market, Rangoon

This is right in the middle of Rangoon. The market is formerly called Scott’s Market but like all good post-colonial governments, they renamed it to get rid of the colonial legacy. Bogyoke Aung San, the person which the market is named after, was responsible for the independence of Burma. He was also the father of Aung San Suu Kyi

Bogyoke Market

Categories
Photography Society Travels

[2718] The train to Mandalay

I spent about 3 weeks in Burma recently, traveling roughly 2,000 km in Burma by trains, buses, cars, trucks and bikes. I began in Rangoon, went up north to Mandalay, west to Bagan, east to Inle and then back to Rangoon for the new year’s eve celebration. I love Burma. The people there are nice. You can just feel it all around you.

There are so many things to write, but I will just leave this picture here for now. It was somewhere north of Rangoon and far south from Naypyidaw, Burma’s own Putrajaya. It was about 2 or 3 hours into the journey to Mandalay.

Or maybe, I should share this as well: Burma does not appear to be a poor country. Neither does it appear to be a country under economic sanction or under military dictatorship. There is poverty and I saw it in many places, but it does appear Burma is farther along the development curve than, say, Cambodia. I had expected Burma to be as poor as Cambodia but I was wrong. To me, Rangoon specifically, felt modern. There were many new cars on the roads and the streets were paved and smooth. Not as modern as Kuala Lumpur but Rangoon is not a capital of a too poor a country. Upon landing in Rangoon and leaving the airport behind, those facts immediately struck me. My expectation of Rangoon was quite simply off-target.

Maybe what I saw was only the superficial stuff. After all, a foreigner, maybe, would be impressed with Malaysia but if you peeled the onion layers one by one, something would not feel right. The same with Burma I’d suppose. One has to live there, and more importantly, study the Burmese society to know its nuance. And as a foreigner, I may have had certain freedom that the locals may not have.

But maybe, all the modern looks are the liberalization dividend. Several years ago, I was told, things were very different. And there was definitely fewer tourists.

And Aung San Suu Kyi is popular there. No doubt about that. I bought a book from one of the sidewalks in Rangoon and the shopkeeper pointed his finger to a picture of Aung San Suu Kyi on the wall of his makeshift store. He said, “that is our leader.”

Categories
ASEAN Liberty

[2056] Of not much of an incentive

Trivia: How does Southeast Asia treat its first and only winner of the Nobel Prize?

Answer: The home country throws her into prison (okay, it was commuted to home arrest…) and others in the region do nothing.

BANGKOK — Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader, was sentenced Tuesday to three years of hard labor for violating the terms of her house arrest, but her sentence was quickly commuted to a new term of house arrest of up to 18 months. [Pro-Democracy Leader in Myanmar Is Convicted. Seth Mydans. New York Times. August 11 2009]

Not much of an incentive to win a Nobel Prize, eh?