G.E Wallpaper Grafitti

Arriving at the new Yangon airport, I was impressed. 30 minutes ago while staring at Myanmar landscape from the sky, I had expected otherwise. I had thought of something much worser than this. From the window of the airplane, it seems that the land is just acres of paddy fields with the occasional wooden house appearing. Nearing the airport though, I saw lines of wooden houses depicting "kampong" scenery. What the hell. Where’s the Yangon city?

This is Myanmar, a country which I’ve never heard anyone wants to go to for tourist visit. I am quite perturbed to come here due to the military governance that is similar to communist sort of governance. Control of society and lack of freedom is the adopted ideology as apposed to the ones claimed by the democracy ideology. The US and EU have economic sanctions on this country prohibiting direct US or EU countries investments. I had expected military personnel wearing fearsome looks at the immigration counter. I am pleasantly surprised as the "immigration officers" are actually lovely young girls who always wear smiling faces. I didn’t expect this.

Because of the Kampong houses I saw earlier, I expected a crappy airport but instead the newly built airport (completed last May 07), looks great and moderately modern. It is a little bit quiet in the airport as there aren’t too many visitors here. On the plane beforehand, there were many seats being vacant. Only a few airplanes are allowed to land here and most of them are from the ASEAN countries although all of them are only small planes.

After getting our luggage, we went out to the arrival hall. Well, well, well, this is my day indeed. One lovely girl is waiting for us outside holding a placard bearing our names. Her name is Gi Khai or something sounded like that. She can speak accomplished English, and for me it is quite an achievement due to the backwardness of this land. She explained, the name of the nation is Burma and the people are called Burmese. However, the country name is Myanmar and she can’t explain why the military government changed the name. I knew scarcely from conversations with local people and Malaysians who reside here that Burma used to be the modern nation of South East Asia. They built the first airport in South East Asia. They got the independence around the same era as Malaysia. Astonishing as it sounds, the country seems to be frozen in time.

The first thing a foreign visitor would quickly notice is that 99.9% of the Burmese male adult wears sarong. I mean in the airport, at hotel, in the streets, everywhere. From the manager to the bell boy, all are clad in sarong. It seems that it is their national costume. They even without a tinge of shame would loosen their sarong a bit and to tighten their sarong again in the streets as if they’re inside their home.

After freshening up at the hotel, we went downstairs to have a walk a bit at the Yangon town. How do I describe the Yangon city? It is quite hard. There are buildings around but not so much crammed as Bangkok or KL. It is a rather small city planted with buildings at a lesser size and short in height. A series of old British bungalows at the roadside can be seen as well as shop houses which resembled a small town in Perak or something like that. There are a lot of wooden shops around. The currency in Myanmar is worthless outside the country. I tried to change some but none of the money changers in KL has that currency. It is not allowed to be traded outside of the country. Even after I traded some US dollars for Kyats (Myanmar currency) in an old wooden shop in Yangon, I am not allowed to change back to USD by their law. I have to spend all my Kyats as they’re worthless piece of paper back home. The guy who drove us to the client office only earns a meager sum of USD 40/month. He told us his salary and we were stunned to hear the sum. The payment for house rent is USD 30/month. We asked him back, how can he survive with USD 10? How can he eat? Luckily for him, he said his company provides lunch, so he can barely scrape through. This is just to portray the kind of hardship these people have to endure in their life. We have to be thankful.

I am dismayed to see the economic state of the people. There were children coming like a swarm of bees towards me. They are homeless and poor children as I see it. I can understand from their sign language (hand) and their sad wailing indicated that they’re hungry. Earlier, our manager bought each of us one mango ready to be eaten.  I had to give them the mango as I am totally heart broken inside to see their state. Not wearing any shoes or slippers of any sorts, their clothes is so dirty as if it has not been cleaned ever. Their faces and physical outlook depicts uncleanliness and they may not take a bath in quite a while. This situation evokes certain feelings inside of me, a feeling of pity and sadness for these children. They’re denied the chance for an education and for a good life. What are to become of them?

When a country lacked foreign investment from rich nations, this is what happens to the people. Who do we blame? The western countries for the sanctions or the government? I thought the latter is more of a guilty party. There are foreign investments but very much limited to countries like Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, etc. There is no handphone roaming here as the government blocked foreign telecommunications companies here. No Maxis international roaming line here. And I have to mention in order to get a handphone you would have to pay an enormous amount of money, something in the region of US dollars 2,000 (+/-RM 7,000) and added to that one year waiting list. Bloody hell. New car is NOT allowed to be sold in the country. So, my 1985 Toyota Corona would be a lavish form of transportation to the Burmese. A crappy car would cost at cheapest USD10,000 (probably 30 years old of age or more). The old fashioned Pajero I rode cost around USD 70,000. I can buy a brand new Volvo in Malaysia with that kind of money.

Internet connection is also very much limited. No hotmails and yahoo mails can be used. I think the internet provider is not using US made technology and that’s why we cannot access the said sites mentioned above. The only email that would work is the gmail. All said, I was very much disconnected to the outside world. No handphones and no internet. None of my family members know of my hotel; and even if I can be contacted at the hotel, most of my time is spent outside of my hotel room. My point is that this country is so backward, to better describe it: it is like like Malaysia 40 or 50 years ago. The whole environment of this place to be summarised upon: the sarong they wear, the buildings (or the lacked of it), the kampong village, the hungry children at the street pestering you for food, the old fashioned cars, no connections with the outside world (neither handphone line nor internet), and the scarcity of all that modern stuff. The lacked of pace of the people here and quiet background is a refreshing moment for me to cherish these few days before coming back home to hectic KL.

I am back home now at the comfort of my living room writing this. I have no conclusion to this article I write. I just hope to share my experience and for you to reflect something on this. Having the knowledge by reading my article is different from actually experiencing it. I just hope you guys can empathise and imagined a bit on the conditions of some unfortunate people living somewhere on this planet. Cheers.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 29th, 2007 at 7:07 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.