Yangon

I couldn’t see the ground until we were right on top of it. Above one thousand feet, a milky gauze obscured everything below, turning the sky into a world of total contrasts: the plane’s wing, and everything else. As we descended through the smog, I let out an audible gasp. It was unlike anything I had ever seen from the air. Verdant fields broadcast themselves between the purplish dead looking squares of empty farmland. It was all framed and criss-crossed by desolate roads that looked like straight, pink arteries. Then a set of bushy trees would erupt from within the patchwork, surrounding an immense pagoda, polished and stately, shining golden warm light through the haze. As we got closer to Yangon, the suburbs began to appear. Blue roofed condo compounds were interrupted by an occasional longhouse that squatted over a spread of brown, hairy water.

Yangon is unique among Southeast Asian cities for the prominence of its colonialism. Enormous stone buildings with grand arches and ornate carved facades and scalloped balconies pop up on every street. They are all bedraggled by grime. The decades old paint has chipped away in huge blotchy swaths; the buildings looked naked and dirty. Most had black and green mold creeping along every possible lateral surface, and mediocre graffiti sprayed on ground level. They hovered over the streets like broken, unusable grandfathers, shadowy and dripping. Heaping piles of wires stretched overhead. The streets were claustrophobic despite the colonial width. The sidewalks that once covered the sewers are long gone. In the trenches flanking each street, plastic bags and malnourished turds swam through rivers of recently vacated piss.  Piles of garbage clogged up in the stringent shit water, sending overflows into the street. Between these malodorous buffer zones, bright green plastic stools would be set up. The miniature outdoor teashops left just enough room for a single car to pass through.

One block from the next could look entirely different. Inexplicably, I would turn the corner and find satellite dishes hooked up to every window on the block, casting weird, oblong shadows against the buildings. One street had barbed wire along every house, but the buildings looked just as run down and poverty stricken as the ones on the last block. And always there was trash. Pulpy garbage everywhere. With it came a lingering smell of burning hair. It became the scent of Yangon. Whenever I walked by a hair studio, I started to gag on. eau d’Yangon. The city was determinedly cluttered and grimy. There was also a lot of yelling in the streets. Deep throated hollers, shouts with no linguistic inflection. Just bellowing. It lent a sense of lunacy to a simple stroll through town.

But I couldn’t walk anywhere without being approached. Everyone seemed curious, and not in an avaricious way. People were just genuinely interested in engaging with a foreigner. My first morning in the city, a potbellied man wearing a grimy white tank top and sarong walked down the street towards me, balancing a platter of cakes and candy on top of his head. “Hello, sweets?” is all he said to me, pointing at his face and smiling.

“No thank you.”

“Where you from, my friend?”

“USA”

“Ahhh. America. The sweets here are sweeter.” He took the platter off his head and handed me a chunk of orange candy.

“Oranges, from my brother’s farm. Free for you.”

“Thank you so much.”

“No. Thank you. You are a guest here. Thank you for coming to Yangon.” With that he rebalanced the platter and strode off.

I was given free ice cream, a free head massage, free beers and free bottles of water. I would insist on paying but people kept referring to my status as a guest and thanking me for my visit. It was shocking. Myanmar is one of the poorest places in the world, and the urban landscape was one of the dirtiest, poorest looking places I’d ever been. People all seemed to be working extraordinarily hard at everything they did. There was none of the lazy lounging that I had seen in Laos and Cambodia. Every child seemed to be employed. Little girls manned the cash registers at convenience stores. Most of my waiters were eight-year olds. Most construction crews seemed to consist of preteen boys shouldering steel beams, laying bricks and mixing cement. These people were poverty-stricken not because they didn’t work hard, but because they were so obviously oppressed.

Since 1988, when the international community implemented economic sanctions in an effort to condemn the military government’s crackdown on democratic movements, there has been almost no foreign trade with Myanmar. The government’s only friends and benefactors were its immediate neighbors, most notably China, which has supported the military government since its inception. The result is that everything not Chinese made is old and crumbling. The cars were ancient sputtering death machines. Most of them still have the steering wheel mounted on the right side of the car, thanks to the customs of the British colonizers. But people also drive on the right side of the road. It means that passing someone requires moving the entire car into the other lane just to see if there’s enough clear space. I would close my eyes whenever I got into a cab and just hope. The entire automobile scene in Myanmar has a retrograde spirit. Ancient models like the Nissan Sunny and the Toyota Publica populated the streets. Most are from an age when side view mirrors were still mounted on the hood and manual shifters were built into the steering column. But people made the best of what there is to offer; every driver was also a repairman. On most long rides I took in the country, there would be at least one mechanical breakdown or overheated engine. At every pit stop, the driver would get out and spend fifteen minutes dumping buckets of water on the engine – which was more often than not left open to the elements even when driving, belching exhaust in the driver’s face in an attempt to cool off under the baking sun.

Everything in Myanmar has a slightly bootlegged feel. The simplest tasks would require the most extraordinary planning. Making a photocopy meant firing up the diesel generator outside. If you don’t have a cell phone (and in Myanmar, many people do not), calling someone requires finding the appropriate woman on a street corner, where she sits under an umbrella with three or four old fashioned phones crowded onto a wooden table, all surrounded in a hodgepodge of wires that eventually find themselves snaking up a tree branch and plugging into a metal relay box attached to the nearby telephone pole. Instead of public toilets, there were little metal shacks set up on the sidewalk near City Hall called Public Mobile Urination Rooms. The Dunkin Donuts rip off is called Tokyo Donuts, and they sold avocado juice.

The first night, I walked around the downtown neighborhood surrounding The Sule Pagoda A young man in a sarong walked up to me and asked if I was lost. I told him that I wasn’t lost, just hungry.

“You should go to Chinatown,” he told me. “It’s where all the locals eat. I can show you the way.”

His name was Tun Tun, and he was twenty-two years old. He walked with me down the busy boulevard (in Myanmar, the only way to walk is in the street), and told me a bit about himself. He was studying English at college, and had lived in Yangon his entire life. When we got to the restaurant, I asked if he was hungry and offered to buy him dinner. After a day of getting everything free, I was determined to give something to someone. 

A few months before I came to Myanmar, the country made international headlines with a transfer of power in the government. Than Shwe, who had been chief of state for nineteen years, stepped down as head of the military to form a political party. His handpicked successor, Thien Sein had made it apparent that he was open to reform, and a new constitution was drafted and signed. He had reached out to the leader of the National League for Democracy, Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, and there had been general international applause for the reforms. Hilary Clinton made the first Secretary of State visit to the country since 1955. Sanctions had been lifted and the name Myanmar had suddenly become something that people didn’t cringe to hear. From outside it looked wonderful. Part of the reason I decided to visit was I wanted to know if people inside felt the same way. I asked Tun Tun about what it was like now that so many more tourists were visiting Yangon.

 “I am Myanmar. You are tourist. My government treat you better than me. That has not changed You can do anything here if you have the money. We do not have that option.”

“That’s what makes me sad about visiting,” I said. “I don’t want to support that with my money. Are people scared of the government?”

“Sometimes, yes. But we have hope. Elections are one week away. 80% of people in Myanmar support Aung San Suu Kyi.”

“What about the new president? They are working together, right? Have things been getting better in the past few months?”

“I like the new president. Some things are better, but some things have not changed. It is still the same government, just with a new face, you know? It is army government still. I hate the army. Everyone hates army people. They are not real people. They get everything and we get nothing.” The firmness in his voice was sobering.

“But now many more people visit, and that is good. Myanmar people will see foreigners and maybe learn more about the outside world. Like this. You and me. Now you are my brother. You not my friend. But brother. I call you brother Dan. OK?

“Yeah. Wow, Tun. I’m honored.”

“We order food now. I show you how to call waiter in Myanmar. Watch.”

He pursed his lips together and made two loud kissing noises. The nearest white shirted waiter dropped the rag he was using to clean a table and ran over to us.

“You want drink Brother Dan? You want Myanmar Beer?”

“Sure, I…”

But he was already speaking rapid Burmese to the waiter, who nodded.

“Do you drink whisky?”

“I love whisky, if it’s good.”

“What about relable?”

“Sorry, I couldn’t understand what you said.”

“REHh Label.”

“Oh, Red Label. Sure. You want to get some, lets split a bottle.”

The drinks came, and then the food. Barbecued chicken and beef, fried lotus root and a green vegetable called ladyfinger, plus a whole grilled fish rubbed in salt.

“Cheers,” I said, raising my glass.

“Chiya. To my brother.”

“To my brother.” We drank. “So Brother Tun,” I asked, “What do you want to do once you get your degree in English?”

“I will leave this place; I cannot live here anymore. I will go to Dubai. It is easy for me to get a job in Dubai because my family Muslim. So once I can get a passport and I have money for ticket, I will fly there. I will try to become waiter. If you know English, it is good money.”

“I bet. So how much longer do you have in school?”

“Two more years. But now I have to live with family the whole time. We all stay together. My mother and father, brothers, my older sister and her husband, and my niece and nephew. It is difficult to see my girlfriend.”

“Where do you guys live? Nearby where you found me?”

“Yes we can go there after. Hey, Brother Dan. Do you like to dance?”

“Not really. Maybe once in a while if I’ve had enough to drink.”

“I know what we can do to celebrate. It is Saturday. There is a big party tonight. Good DJ. You and me, we dance and drink tonight Brother Dan. My favorite song is J-Lo. You know? Dance on the Floor.” He started singing the song’s chorus “ ‘Brazil, Morocco, London to Ibiza / Straight to LA, New York, Vegas to Africa / Dance the night away / Live your life and stay young on the floor / Dance the night away / Grab somebody, drink a little more.’ Also, Justin Bieber, you know?”

“I’ve heard of him.”

“He is also my favorite. Come. You meet my family then we go dance on the floor.”

We hailed a taxi outside the restaurant. It had the same collapsing visage that I had seen on every car in the city so far. It slogged its way for a few blocks before stopping in front of a closed up movie theater.

“Is this where you live Tun?”

“Yes, you will see.” He rapped his knuckles on the glass, and a big, bearded man came to the door and the two of them spoke in Burmese for a few seconds before the chain was unlatched and the door slid open.

“Brother Dan, this my father.” I shook his hand and said hello, but the man didn’t speak any English. He just smiled and led me into his home. Tun Tun’s father is the night watchman for the movie theater. The entire family lives in a single back room, all nine of them sleeping on the same raised wooden platform, which was about as big as two queen size beds pushed together. I could only imagine how it felt for the son-in-law to sleep with his wife while her father was snoring a few feet away.

“Brother Dan, do you have small money for my mother?” The mom looked up at me. I looked at her, sitting on the bed.

“Sure, yeah, here all I have is this.” It was a 5000 kyat note. A lot of money. The mother and father spoke together in Burmese, then nodded in unison.

“Will you please kiss my niece?” asked Tun Tun. He reached down and placed the naked toddler on my lap. She was far too cute for her own good. I bounced her on my knee a little and kissed the top of her head.

“Ok, now we go dance,” said Tun Tun. I gave the baby back to his sister and said shook everyone’s hand. We hailed another cab to go to the club. I was anxious to see what a club in Myanmar would be like. What sort of dark apocalyptic scene would that be?

As soon as we walked in the door, I knew we had made a mistake. “Is this a normal club in Yangon?” I asked.

“No, this is the nicest. Best club.”

The tiles were falling out of the ceiling. Trash and cigarette butts covered the ground. There was an undeniable scent of burning hair throughout the entire building. And I was far too sober to “dance on the floor.” But Tun Tun was already off. He sprang through the crowd and sidled straight up to a girl’s side. She was an unfortunate looking girl, but I held my tongue because the two of them started dancing sensuously and then started kissing. This must be his girlfriend.

“You dance with her, Brother Dan,” and he pointed to her friend. She was a stick-like girl with a face that looked like it was undergoing a methamphetamine binge. Her cheekbones stuck out like daggers and when she smiled there looked to be black sludge oozing from between her teeth. A baseball cap made it impossible to see her eyes, but I knew that they would have the foggy look of someone lost to their own mind.

“Ummm…” I said. “Tun, I think I’m going to go find the bar and…” but she was on me. The meth girl had clawed onto my triceps and was looking into my face. I tried to look away but her ghastliness made it impossible, so I tried to smile at her. This was a bad idea. She began rubbing her stomach into my belt and reached around my waist with her other hand, pressing my body into hers. Oh god.

“Sorry, I have to go to the bathroom,” I shouted into her face. I disentangled myself from her talons and sprinted to the bathroom. I splashed some water in my face and tried to rid my mind of what I had just seen.

“Brother Dan, what’s wrong?” Tun Tun had come jogging in after me.

“I’m sorry man, but I can’t dance with that girl. I hope I didn’t hurt her or your girlfriend’s feelings.”

“That’s not my girlfriend, Brother Dan,” and he started laughing.

“Oh. But I thought I saw you two kissing.”

“That just my club girlfriend. Everyone has club girlfriend. Come, we find you club girlfriend.”

“I’d rather not Tun. I’m not much into the dancing tonight. Not after that run-in with Methy.”

Outside, while Tun Tun tried to hail me a taxi back to my hotel, hawkers approached from every direction, shoving boxes of condoms and cigarettes in my face.

“My friend, smoke?”

“You want sex tonight my friend?”

“My friend you want Viagra?” I disappeared into the cab and was whisked away through the empty streets. The entirety of rank Yangon seemed to be asleep, and in a matter of minutes, so was I.