[Above photo: Boats on the Thanlwin River at Hpa An. ]
10 March 2019
30 minutes into the first day of teaching my class, I paused to drink from a bottle of water I brought. I had topped-up a partially-full one, using a chilled bottle from the fridge. I had forgotten that Cecily, before she left Myanmar, gave me the remainder of her gin in two of these. Well, the first few deep draughts went down easily. Then I slowed and tasted a strong chemical flavor. At first I thought the water had been in the plastic bottle too long. Then I realized what I’d done. We all had a good laugh as I described it to my class. The day went by pleasantly and without a hitch. Should I try it again? I mean, one of our topics was Ethics, as in the Ethics of teachers’ conduct.
I remember Perry Miller, an irascible, brilliant Early American scholar at Harvard, drunkenly slurring his words as he told the lecture hall full of undergraduates at 10AM that we would/could never understand Jonathon Edwards, the fiery Connecticut River Valley preacher and his unforgiving doctrine. We were all walking on rotten boards beneath which the flames of hell licked and all of our good deeds made no difference whether we would plunge through or ascend to enjoy eternal celestial glory. He also was overheard complaining at “tea” to the housemaster of Leverett House how much he hated his office hours, that undergraduates would “suck you dry”. I think I did better than Perry Miller today, not insulting the students, and I didn’t slur. Happily, I was introduced to the Rector of the University in the classroom prior to my impromptu cocktail. I can hear it now. “He had gin on his breath at 10 in the morning.”
Thinking of college, I recall a lewd story, likely apocryphal, about Howard Mumford Jones, who was an accomplished poet and cultural scholar, when they tried to remove him from his quarters in Eliot House. I will not repeat the story, not knowing its veracity and not wanting to falsely sully our memory of him. Two quotes I saw when looking him up caught my eye: “Ours is the age which is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to.” Also, “While it is true in this nation that we remain free to be idiotic, it does not necessarily follow that we must be idiotic to remain free.”
As an aside, I’ve wondered why when I ask for tea to drink in a restaurant they look at me quizzically. Tea—lepay yay—is pronounced a bit differently than fish paste—lepee yee. Their kindness in not taking me at my words surpasses understanding!
I asked the students on Tuesday, in an exercise to increase their skills of observation, to write for 10 minutes about something they noticed, inside themselves or in the environment, on their way to class. They generally did well, with a good bit of self-revelation. I was stunned to learn that some arise at 5:30AM for our 9:30 class, having to prepare food for children and ride a bus 2 ½ hours to class. And the same going home in the evening. As faculty psychiatrists, they are paid $200/month by the government and at any time may be posted to a different part of the country, dragging, or not, their families along. One woman from a small hill town was recently posted to Mandalay. She moved there just before moving again, with her 10yo daughter, to Yangon for the course. Her husband is career military and lives in a totally different area. How they manage to keep going I don’t know.
I always participate in the writing exercises; then we read them aloud. I took this idea from Linda, who did it regularly with her midwifery students in Malawi. Here is my bit, capturing some of my walk to work.
I threaded my way among all the fish, pork, poultry, fruit, and vegetable sellers lining the sidewalks. And the women with various cooked foods in stainless steel trays setting up for the day. I saw some children, little ones. One was being bathed by his mother on the sidewalk. Three were playing a game, tossing their sandals to land on a chosen spot. One little girl was with a man who I assumed to be her father. She was wearing a pretty, clean flowered dress and had thanaka paste on her cheeks. She was crying. I wondered about her mother. Was she working somewhere else? Was she ill? Were they separated? Was she dead? Would the little girl eventually go to school? Was she doomed to become a street vendor? I felt sad for her as it appears to be an extremely hard life.
In addition, on my walk to work, I cross at the corner of Bogyoke and Lanmidaw Streets. Both are 6 lanes. Both are two-way streets. It is like Pamplona and the running of the bulls. I walk halfway across Bogyoke and wait patiently for a break in the two lines turning left from Lanmidaw. I see an opening and move briskly but there is a cabby who has also seen light ahead and accelerated so fast that I completely underestimate his speed. I startle, jump, skip, run, and dash out of his way. Crossing is always a risk. Then I stroll through the main gate at the entrance to University of Medicine 1, passing the central fountain which is capped with a caduceus and 4 plaques on which are written: Morality, Perseverence, Concentration, and Wisdom before I enter the immense 90 year old building. It is very lovely with marble floors and a large formal garden in the center. I head for Amphitheater 6 to set up. My day begins.
One day this week I was 20 minutes early to class, as were 7 of the students, so I showed them a slide show of our trip to Namibia, Botswana, and Zambia last summer. They were enthralled.
I became exhausted by the end of each day. Thursday I ran a few errands, ate a piece of papaya, and went to bed without supper at 7PM, sleeping soundly for 12 hours. Part of it is nervous exhaustion, with correspondingly light sleep, from the uncertainty of the first week. Part is having to prepare, de novo, 5 hours of lecture or exercises for each day, since the bulk of my teaching in Malawi was in Adult Psychiatry. But a large part is constantly straining to understand what they are saying through the filters and distortions of my lessened auditory acuity, their poor British English with a heavy Myanmar accent, and my life-long auditory discrimination difficulties. The latter prevented me from grasping many popular song lyrics when I was a kid. For years I could not understand “The night they tore old Dixie down” and a host of other songs. I’m hopeless with rap but probably have many age-mate companions with that disability.
The students are sweet and funny and generous. They make sure someone herds me to the cafeteria and helps me to buy lunch, which assistance I don’t need. Someone regularly walks me most of the way home because “I am going that way.” I love the company but, in truth, I have been happily cruising all over Yangon on my own, unsupervised, for 2+ months. In Malawi I was go-go, grandpa. Here I am “Professor” rather than apo (grandpa). They are very respectful. They often buy me a coffee or buy an extra dish to share, putting it right next to me at the table so I’ll eat some.
One of my errands after class Thursday was to get some business cards made. I went to a printing shop nearby and was directed upstairs. The ceiling was so low that all the beams were wrapped in foam because even I at 5′ 7″ would bang my head. It was wild and chaotic but after 3 people attempted with my flash drive Word document, they were able to make 100 sweet little cards with my info and flags of both Myanmar and the US on it. “You want color?”, the woman asked gravely. Casting caution aside, I replied, “Sure”. $4 for 100 on good stock (“British card”) with rounded corners in a little plastic box. It is such fun doing these things!
I’ll have some young (30’s) friends over for beer and guacamole (I know I’ve seen cilantro somewhere.) on my deck this evening. When we get hungry, we can drop down to Ju Fu Yuan 25 steps from my building entrance and order Chinese take-out. I wasn’t going to prepare an entire meal. Even though I have only a hot plate and a rice steamer, I could whip up something tasty but I’m busy enough as is. It’s my way of getting together with them. Being young, they like to go to bars and noisy restaurants. I hate the cigarette smoke and have to strain over all the racket to catch 10% of what they are saying in rapid-fire, witty British English. I anticipate it will be fun. I need more limes, avocados, and chips.
Tomorrow we’ll interview our first child, an outpatient referral carrying a diagnosis of ADHD. We’ll see about the diagnosis. I’m an ADHD skeptic; it exists, I believe, but in the US it is so over-diagnosed and -treated with medication to the exclusion of really understanding what is making the child impulsive, distractible, and hyperactive. It’ll be a chance for the students to see a child evaluated. They’ll be doing it themselves the remainder of the week.
A Psychiatrist in Myanmar 