There is an old wooden Buddhist monastery in Inwa. And inside it is a library-school.
The sun was setting and I was late. I was the only foreigner on the boat crossing the river from Inwa to the other side. As I was making myself comfortable on the boat, a local came on with his bicycle.
I thought, the man and his bicycle would make a nice photo. This turned out to be one of my favorite photographs from my trip to Burma.
Inwa or Ava used to be the capital of various competing Burma kingdoms but in 1839, an earthquake struck the region. Inwa was abandoned for Amarapura soon after and now, it is a sleepy village. Judging by the surrounding, the main economic activities are agriculture and tourism. There is not much else there.
Two kids somewhere south of Mandalay. They were following me around and they were more than happy to pose for a photo when I pointed my camera at them.
Notice that they are smiling but the monk child in maroon has his right foot bandaged. And look at the feet of the kid at the front, and his clothing too. Yet, they are smiling.
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.
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?
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:
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.