Yangon

For an interesting piece in the New York Times about Burma, go here.

The best part of our trip to Burma was being able to hang out with the Burmese students who go to a private school in Yangon, the same school I've mentioned before, where Seth Lin used to attend and now teaches.

The most surprising thing was how normal these kids seemed. They are teenagers, most of them between the ages of 17 and 20, and they seem just like teenagers you would meet in America. They are fun and friendly; they think about girlfriends and prospects for college and work; they complain about school; they are thinking about religion (most of them are doubting it); they are beginning to form stronger opinions about their country and the world; and they speak with surprising frankness about how they feel about their own government.

Their English is impeccable, and I was surprised to find that for their latest school assignment they had been reading Tocqueville. I have to say, "Democracy in America" was the last thing I expected to encounter in the Union of Myanmar. But there it was, an excerpt from the book written out on a worksheet for the students, who were doing projects on volunteerism in America. I had come to learn about their country, and suddenly I found myself fielding questions from them about my experience with the Boy Scouts and the Church's Bishop's Storehouse.

The school in general caters to a more progressive mentality, but among the students there is a spectrum of thought. I was surprised, when asking one of the students how he felt about his country's politics, to hear him say: "I'm not sure Myanmar is ready for freedom."

The fact is, most people who live in Burma seem pretty resigned to how things are. No one really likes the government, but there is also no sense that change is coming anytime soon, and people aren't pushing very hard for it. In the West we have a romantic notion of revolution and the power of a sudden and dramatic unshackling of the bands of tryanny, but for the Burmese the common wisdom seems to be that if there will be any change it will come slowly. Very few people think revolution would be either effective or worthwhile.

Meanwhile Burma remains trapped in time. There is very little growth. Most of the cars on the road were made in the 50's or 60's. The sidewalks are full of potholes. The government cannot be counted on for electricity, roads, running water. People don't complain much--they jsut make do. One night when I went out to dinner with Zach and Seth (whose name in Burma is Nyantha), we were walking through a crowded street of bars and food vendors and at one point all of the lights went out on the entire street--and everyone laughed and cheered, and then kept on talking until all the privately-owned generators kicked in about 30 seconds later. Public utilities are quite literally a joke. When I ask Burmese friends (discretely and not in public) about politics, they often reference events that happened in the early 60's, or in 1988, the last times in history that anything of political significance happened in this country. Contrast this to the United States, where every news cycle has brings something significant and new to talk about. In Myanmar there is no news, and there is very little that is new.


Next stop: Vietnam.