Burma--Part Two

In The New York Times obituary of mystery novelist H.R.F. Keating, bookstore owner Otto Penzler describes Keating as a kind, sweet man who "carried himself like a Buddhist monk almost." The popular image of monks as serene, contemplative fellows floating through the rough world as on a cloud isn't inaccurate, it just doesn't cover all Buddhist monks. Take U Tay Zaw Ba Ta. That's the real name of the sayadow (abbot) at the Seindon Monastery in Mawlamyine (formerly Moulmein), in moist, green southern Burma. It's hard to distinguish U Tay Zaw Ba Ta from Abe Seckler of Canarsie. The fierce-eyed little seventy-nine-year-old charges around his crumbling teak monastery trailing cheroot ashes, ranting against the government, and yelling imprecations against the police, who help thieves steal architectural details from the nineteenth century building and fence them with antique dealers in Bangkok. The sayadow, ethnically Burmese, is also bitter about the ethnic-Mon building supply dealers who he says cheat him when he purchases wood and concrete to repair the wing of the monastery damaged by Cyclone Nargis in 2009. (The Burmese King Anawrahta of Bagan crushed a centuries-old Mon dynasty in the year 1057, and hard feelings continue.)

The sayadow is not too worked up, however, not to order up tea and fruit for visitors, and to sit down with us---he on a low seat, we on the floor---and to accept a cash offering to help save the monastery. Monks may not touch money, so we presented the donation in an envelope from our room at the Ngwe Moe Hotel. We all grasped the envelope in midair while a lengthy prayer was recited in Pali. My arm was getting tired, and the prayer ended just in time. After the ritual of the offering, the sayadow went on to complain some more about the junta. Monks were instrumental in the 2008 uprising that was brutally put down by the government, and now, the sayadow told us, "fake monks" have been placed in monasteries to spy on the real monks. (Was there a government agent in this monastery? The sayadow didn't say.) Joe spent the afternoon taking pictures in the monastery. (Which was built by Queen Seindon of Mandalay after King Mindon Min died and Burma's next and final king, Thibaw, ascended the throne. Taking no chances, Thibaw's wife saw to it that rivals to the crown and their families were murdered, so Seindon fled south. When Britain completed its conquest of Burma in 1885, Thibaw was shipped off to India to live out his life there with his homicidal consort.)

On our third day in Mawlamyine, we returned to the monastery to say goodbye for another year---this was our fifth visit---and the sayadow pounded us on the back while he prayed in Pali that we enjoyed good fortune and long lives. On the way out, the sayadow pointed out some rebar and cement that an earlier donation of Joe's had helped pay for.

A milder-mannered sayadow is U Thone, at the Badda Myar monastery in Thar Ma Nya, on the way back to Yangon. We had also met this man before---in fact we had twice slept over at the monastery---and were happy to see that his health had improved since we last saw him two years earlier. Though only in his forties, this slender man with an easy way about him and a ready smile, had suffered a number of maladies, possibly made worse by Myanmar's wretched-to-nonexistent health care facilities. (A well-known anti-junta statistic is that then-President Than Shwe's daughter's wedding gifts totaled $35 million, more than the country's health-care budget.)

U Thone, whose politics are about what you'd expect them to be, lives in the shadow of his predecessor, a famous anti-regime figure named U Winaya. This man was so revered when he died several years ago that a shrine was constructed near the monastery and his corpse put on permanent display in a tastefully lighted gold-colored glass box. Not long after we last visited the shrine, however, the body of U Winaya was stolen. Heavily armed men in military gear arrived in two SUVs, tied up the guards, smashed the glass case, and made off with the dead sayadow. The corpse was never recovered. There are a number of theories as to what happened. One is, the government regarded U Winaya as too potent a symbol of resistance and decided to have him get lost. Another is, an anti-regime group, possibly the Keren Liberation Army, took the body, hoping some of its magic could be put to use by them for political purposes. Additionally, some people believe the corpse's magical properties might be good for the thieves' health and stamina, sexual and otherwise. The keepers of the shrine have left it as it was after the theft. Now, through the broken glass of the case, a photographic portrait of U Winaya is visible. Joe took a picture of it. (I used the U Winaya theft as a minor plot point in The 38 Million Dollar Smile.)

On Thursday, the Myanmar military government officially ceased to exist. A parliament chosen in last October's phony election took over. (We met one man who said officials came to his house before the election to make sure he was registered and would vote. At the polling site, officials checked his ballot to make sure he had voted correctly.) President Than Shwe retired on Thursday, and parliament elected Thein Sein, a former general, president. Opinion is divided over what any of this means. Many say that it's just the same crew in mostly civilian garb (25% of seats are still reserved for military officers), with a token minority of reformers who will be unable to accomplish anything. Optimists think a semblance of democracy might somehow lead eventually to actual democracy.
The Aung San Suu Kyi-led opposition has fractured, with some progressives favoring the lifting of Western sanctions and others opposed. Daw Suu Kyi seems to be moving toward ending the country's partial economic isolation (which China and Myanmar's other neighbors ignore), but she hasn't said anything definitive. (A superb book on old and modern Burma is Thant Myint-U's The River of Lost Footsteps: a Personal History of Burma. The author is the grandson of former UN Secretary General U Thant. He makes a good case for ending the sanctions that he sees as pointless. Myint-U is also very good at showing the historical roots of the present nationalistic dictatorship. Among those roots are the military and ideological training of a generation of anti-colonial patriots---including General Aung San, Aung San Suu Kwi's beloved father---in the early 1940s in Imperial Japan. Myint-U says that in some ways, World War II never ended in Burma.)

Several reasons why things need to change in Burma:

Item: a woman we know attended a government conference on why the level of Inle Lake has dropped three feet, threatening the commercial lives of the ethnic Intha lake dwellers. She pointed out that water was just running off the surrounding mountains whenever it rained and wasn't being saved. Officials told her, "Those people must take care of their trees!" She had to explain that there WERE no trees; they had been cut down by cronies of government officials. (Recent deadly mudslides in flooded southern Thailand were also caused by illegal logging.)

Item: A writer in Yangon has had dozens of stories accepted for publication in magazines and newspapers, but none has appeared in print. The government censors intervened and rejected them all. One droll true story told of how 30 poor people from his neighborhood often show up at the writer's house to watch television, leaving behind fleas and other insects he's had to get rid of. The censors said, no, showing 30 people who lacked their own TVs reflected poorly on the nation. They said the story was both implausible and unpatriotic.

Item: Burma has over 2,000 political prisoners. We heard of one who was made to sleep in cold water. Many people believe that the political detainees at Insein prison, outside Yangon, are made to drink water laced with lead to destroy their brains.

Item: A young man went out to buy medicine for his sister, who was ill. He was grabbed by soldiers and forced into the military. When he ran away, he was caught and tortured.

Item: After Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest after the election, some people we know went to her house where thousands had gathered to hear "the lady" speak. When she said she hoped for change but counseled patience, a man shouted back, "I've been patient for twenty years!"

Sometimes people have asked Joe and me if we could think of anything to give them hope. For a while, I gave a little speech about how surprising history could be, and how situations that seemed hopeless suddenly got better. I mentioned South Africa, with Mandela in prison for decades, and Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union, and more recently Egypt, a corrupt police state suddenly becoming a messy but far freer emerging democracy. People listened to this, but apparently it seemed awfully remote to them, and not at all relevant to what they see when they get up in the morning. So I stopped saying this stuff. It felt cheap and easy, and it didn't help.

What does help a little is showing up. Show the Burmese they are not forgotten. Spend a little money, donate to a monastery, over-tip. Even Aung San Suu Kyi is now against the tourism boycott. If anybody wants to go, we can put you in touch with the right people there. If you can't go---a trip to Burma is not practical for most people we know---lobby to end the U.S. sanctions, which, thanks mainly to China, have no effect. Engagement can only help, and it's what most Burmese want.

By the time I post this, Joe will be back in Bangkok. He'll have ten thousand more pictures from the saddest, most beautiful place on earth, so keep an eye out.