Senses Assaulted

20 January 2019

[Above photo: Preparing for the evening entertainment on Sint O Tan Street, where I live.]

Except for touch, my sensory organs are on high alert. The smells of this town are largely food-related: cooking food, fresh fruits, rotting food, and digested food, with lesser associated fragrances of flowers, bodies, cigarettes, car exhaust. They can come in swift succession, so the mind switches from pleasure and yearning to repugnance in a stride.  Taste is generally controllable. Proprioception is activated by the crowded, uneven, and hole-pocked sidewalks and aggressive drivers, causing me to jump, lean, bend, and switch rapidly from moving forward to quick stops to stepping aside to leaping off or onto the curb. The sun is bright every day and at night the number, positioning, and colors of lights are infinite. Finally, the ever-changing but ever-present sounds. A muezzin calling to prayer, a monk reciting or advising, a megaphone advertising, music blaring on massive speakers—I recall a time when my JBL 15’ whoofer was outsized—, ambulances’ claxons, random car and bus sounds, lots of automobile horns, especially at the end of the day. The roar of portable mosquito abatement machines belching noxious fumes into the drainage canals beneath the sidewalk, the fumes floating up through the sidewalk cracks like sulfurous emissions from the netherworld. The person in the apartment underneath me who, inexplicably, begins hammering on something at 5:30AM an average of one in three mornings. I’m screwing up my courage to visit: knock on the door, point at my watch, and make hammering motions while expressing exasperation on my face.

That much Burmese is beyond my dreams. I can say, “Hello”, “Thank you”. “Excuse me” although the grocery store clerk didn’t get it so maybe my pronunciation is far off, “Do you have any…?” and “Where is the…?” although I cannot yet fill in the nouns so they are not of much use. Anyway, having tea on my deck this morning it seemed much noisier than ever and I wonder if I’ve washed some wax out of my ears or am I in the premonitory stage of a psychotic break. Young schizophrenics, before overtly psychotic, may experience noises as too loud, vehicle speeds as terrifyingly fast, etc. An autistic child in my office once shifted attention rapidly, turning his head. Puzzled, I realized that someone at a distance in the building had flushed a toilet. It does make sense to me, in the case of schizophrenia, that as your focus moves from the external world to the preeminence of your own thoughts, the ability to assess the outside becomes compromised and startling, if not threatening.

As to the language, I’ll start Burmese/Myanmar lessons tomorrow at 10:15AM in my apartment with Pwint Phue Wai. I’ll do it 3x per week as after classes start I’ll be pressed for time and perhaps only do it 1x/week. I’m not intimidated any longer by the fact that, like Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese, it is a tonal language. I’ve just finished the Ken Burns “Vietnam” series and watching Robert McNamara repeatedly chanting what he thought was “We’ll win” over and over before a crowd when he actually was saying “The little yellow man slips away” or something to that effect should give me pause. The crowd was captured on film laughing. But I’m not at war, I’ll be humble, and people love it when you try their language, even if it is butchered.

The Goethe Institute is a German culture export all over the world. Astrid Kraft was a neighbor and friend in Berkeley who works at the Goethe Institute in San Francisco. The Institute in Yangon is a major hub of culture here, including a wonderful performance space, gallery, and café, housed separately in a colonial mansion and two new, modern buildings, respectively. I attended a piano recital there by a Japanese concert pianist and, more recently, went to an evening of exploring “Dialogue” as a means of conflict resolution. The panelists were Burmese: a leading punk rocker, a documentary filmmaker, a performance artist, a university student in political science, a newspaper editor, and a survivor of 20 years in prison for his role in the 1988 uprising (He has started a new political party. Hard to keep a good man down!). The moderator was a German scholar. We all wore little headphones and if the moderator spoke in English, the headphones produced Burmese. If the panelists spoke in Burmese, the headphones reproduced English. The Burmese were a bit hesitant, the moderator too forceful, and the translator not so good. Pulling headphones on and off was exercise. They never really managed to get a dialogue going themselves, let alone explore the general dimensions of dialogue. However, the evening was saved as I sat next to a friendly couple from Norway, Stein and Eva. He directs the PRIO Peace Institute in Oslo and she is Country Director for RAFT which is an organization promoting peace here. Moreover, I found out online that he researched and wrote a much-lauded book on the beginning of the Vietnam War, the crucial period being in 1946. And I had just completed the Burns’ series. Anyway, Eva has a book group at their home on Monday and he and I shall have a meal at a local French restaurant. And wine and talk.  Company!

Yesterday the parked cars all left my street —Sint O Tan Street—and a firetruck with lots of sweepers moved down my block, hosing and sweeping it.  Then mats were put down covering the entire street for the length of the block. A shrine, complete with a throne, roof, lights, and many huge bouquets of flowers was erected at one end of the street. Orange lanterns were strung over the entire street. At 8PM a monk entered the shrine, sat on the throne, and spoke over a PA system to the many who had assembled, removed their shoes, and sat on the mats facing him. Local entertainment at considerable effort.

This is a very religious society and Yangon is no exception with many Buddhist temples, mosques, Hindu temples, an old synagogue with the founder’s ancient son as the only congregant, Anglican churches, Baptist churches, Methodist churches, Catholic churches, and doubtless more. Some broadcast their music;  many don’t but all will have some. The contrast of the beautiful spire of the Anglican church next to the ultramodern Pan Pacific Hotel (and co-occurring mall, Junction City) juxtaposes the sacred and the profane. Buddhists seems to blend it better; neon and gold all over the hundreds of little temples at the Shwedagon, emphasizing the beauty and value of Lord Buddha.

I am in the final throes of completing my Curriculum for the course. I want to finish it before I begin taking weekends to tour about. But yesterday afternoon I went to a large SE Asian regional art exhibit. It was housed in the Secretariat, the immense and beautiful  government building complex designed by the British and built with forced labor. After the British left, it was used as the seat of the Burmese government. General Bogyoke Aung San, Daw Aung San Su Kyi’s father and the liberator and first president of the new republic was assassinated here. It has been abandoned and closed to the public since the capitol was moved to Naypyitaw in 2005.  It is a magnificent building of grand conception with  40 foot ceilings, beautiful ironwork, and stunning masonry.

The exhibit was 65 installations of conceptual art and less than interesting for me. I find that for me conceptual art often reveals more the idiosyncrasies of the artist than a universal truth, a comprehensible or coherent statement, remarkable skill or technique, or a trigger for my self-reflection. The most enjoyable installation was sitting, sipping tea, and chatting with others as we picked and cleaned mung beans from a huge pile in the middle of the table. It actually was brilliant in its simplicity and so engaging, a little recreation of village life

The sun was slipping down when I left the exhibit so I decided to ride the ferry across the Yangon River to Dalah ($2.65 RT) and back. I always love water doings and water traffic and it was a great way to enjoy the end of daylight.  Every culture has their own shape and style of boat; Burmese rivercraft have long overhangs and slice easily through the water. When travelling in SE Asia on previous trips I have wondered how I could purchase a local watercraft and get it home for use on the Island.  It would be a bit of exotica in Penobscot Bay, for sure. Next weekend I’ll take the ferry to Dalah and rent a motorbike to visit the numerous temples, including one with snakes, and a pottery in nearby Twante.

Tomorrow at midnight I will have been here 4 weeks. All said, it’s going OK although I am tired of suppers alone.

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