Moist

Rainy in Rangoon.

Hey folks. Happy fourth. Silly me, this morning I took a stroll over to the US embassy (they do have one here even though it's a rather ungentle place) and the guards out front told me, "Come back tomorrow." And I said, "How come?" And they said, "It's independence day." I said, "Whose? Myanmar?" They said, "No, yours." Uh... Ok so I lose track of stuff like dates sometimes. Not that I have anyone to celebrate it with, since there are absolutely no foreigners here. None. I had a beer with three Bamar sailors who all had fond memories of Bourbon Street, but that's the closest I got. Yesterday, visiting three of the biggest tourist attractions in Myanmar, I saw a total of ten foreigners. All day today, not even one. And I was out all day. I guess the guys with epaulets aren't really doing their country's tourism industry any favors.

Terms like that are the way you talk about current affairs with locals. Or that's what they do when they're talking to me. Makes sense. Gestures like brushing one's hands at one's shoulders or pointing upwards get the point across quite well. I'm operating through a proxy server, but nonetheless, I'm going to euphemize about any loaded topics since the deleter-guys are probably using search engines to sort through all of the incoming and outgoing traffic looking for specific hot-button words.

One of the sailors actually said her name out loud(quietly) in the bar this afternoon. The others and I urged him to shush.

Everyone hates them. Everyone. Hates. Them. Despite the law and the real danger to them, people are eager to talk to me about the topic. It only happens in a car or inside an apartment, in safe places.

Don't worry, I'm just chatting, not joining any kind of movement. I'm very careful to avoid attracting any kind of attention from anyone with anything like a uniform.

I've heard of the first, second, and third worlds. I think I might be in the fourth. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but I've never been any place like this. Parts of rural Mexico were desperately poor, Morocco wasn't super-rich, some villages in rural Laos were pretty far down the ladder, but this is the downtown of the first city of the nation that I'm talking about. Squalid, decaying, mouldering, crumbling, those words all work well. People are kind of okay though. They're really nice. I instinctively trust them so much more than I do the Thais, never mind the Moroccans or Mexicans. They're nicer. The folks in Laos were similar, but they're developing really quickly. Exposure to the idea that You Can Get Really Rich and Buy All this Stuff!! Egads! Stuff! I'm not saying economic development is bad, and folks here would love to get a taste of it, but there are drawbacks. And I will say that greed is categorically bad. Pollutes your priorities. Some of the young Thais closely attached to the tourist industry, like the gangsters at the Drop In in Haad Rin, have done very well financially, but they're so hard. Like New Yorkers? One salient element is that this country is heavily Buddhist. As you all probably know, one of the core elements of Buddhism is that much of the suffering in life comes from material desire, and that all material things are transitory and impermanent. If this is one of the beliefs that you and everyone around you has been brought up with, perhaps you're less inclined to get worked up about the new car that the Joneses bought that you don't have. Be that as it may, there is still such thing as Not Enough Stuff. Like when you're hungry and cold and wet and your kids are crying and there's nothing you can do about it. (Not speaking from personal experience)

Anyway blah blah blah. I think I'm just in the mood to chat and think out loud. Not many opportunities for a frank chat here. I'm starting to understand better some of the aspects of the colonial mindset that I've read about. I'm not agreeing with the nasty racism and exceptionalism of those years, but I understand some of the feeling that could move in those directions. In "Burmese Days" by George Orwell, an important part of the protagonist's personality was a feeling of isolation and loneliness, feeling cut off from all that is familiar and comfortable. As a result, he spent a fair amount of time at the European Club with men he hated, just for lack of anywhere else to go. I'm even considering watching a World Cup game. Flory spoke Burmese, and knew lots of people, but there is a certain ache for what you grew up with. It's been over a month since I've met an American, I'm pretty sure. Canadians and Brits have stood in a bit for that spot in my brain, as well as numerous other Europeans. Homesick is a strong word, but I do find myself looking for the familiar where I can. Like I wrote the other day, I couldn't help myself but watch when "Sex in the City" came on TV on the bus the other day.

I don't think the epaulets are very good Buddhists.

A quote from a Buddhist text:
"Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression,
I am committed to cultivating loving kindness and learning ways to work for the well-being
of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I will practice generosity by sharing my time,
energy, and material resources with those who are in real need. I am determined not to
steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others. I will respect the property
of others, but I will prevent others from profiting from human suffering or the suffering
of other species on Earth."

Mom, if you ever come here, I found a bookshop that you'd love. It was like a mouldering cave filled with stacks of books bundled in twine, dirty glass cabinets of old periodicals, worm-eaten textbooks, and five little old men. The owner, Pho Thin Naing, erally loves books. He's a collector of old english-language texts from all sorts of provenances. It was like being in a wizard's laboratory, opening book after book, finding the wierdest stuff. It felt like a cabinet of secrets. I even found an original copy of book I read last week, but the copy I read was homemade with a photocopier and then bound, but this one was an original printing, and the pages were riddled with little holes from some kind of burrowing insect, dare I suggest 'bookworms'? There was a manual for running Burmese jails, archaeological scholarly texts from the fifties about the ruins in Bagan, agricultural training manuals, books on the observation of occult phenomena, lots of buddhist stuff, "the Glass Palace" by Amitav Ghosh (an author who is on my Ipod), and I don't even know what else. One of the gentlemen, U San Lwin, spoke nearly perfect English. Shocking to discover he had never been outside the borders of Myanmar(Burma in his youth), given his excellent grammar and accent. He runs someplace called the English Language institute when he's not at the Book Cave.

Everything is always damp. It is indeed the rainy season. It rains all the time. Almost. I smell. I can't make all the smells go away at the same time. It's a little bit of a drag. But some of you snarks out there have been telling me I smell my whole life. Well piss off. I'm doing the best I can, being quite hygienic, but when nothing really dries ever, what can you do?

Ok I'm going to do some translation now for a friend. Reading his French friend's travel diary, but she alas wrote it in French.