Re-settling

[Above photo: I bought this painting within a month of arriving. I like its evocation of the ruined glory of ancient Bagan seen through the painter’s vision, distorted by the grid/fence of tyranny, and the gradual emergence of people into a world of color.

19 January 2020

I am very pleased with my new apartment. It feels a bit silly to be so absorbed by it but it is my home and shall be for the foreseeable future. It is light and airy and spacious. The single mosquito that visited me every other night for the first 10 days may still live in my bedroom but I erected my mosquito net and now sleep without fear of getting dengue or chikungunya.

In preparation for my first cocktail party I wanted to get snacks and make a signature drink. I had a bottle of champagne so thought of Old Cubanos. I last made them15 years ago when Poki asked her new boss over for supper at the house she was renting in Santa Cruz. The drinks were a hit and Rama was tossing them down at a rate that alarmed us.

Now I needed rum, limes, mint, simple syrup, and a cocktail shaker and shot glass. The ingredients were easy to find, although I made a mint tea infused simple syrup, in lieu of having enough mint to crush. I did have enough mint for a garnish. I looked for a shaker and a shot glass everywhere to no avail. Then I thought I should try on Lanmidaw Street, which has restaurant supplies. Bingo, a shaker and a shot glass.

I’d been making ice for days so that was set. The limes are so tiny that I had to squeeze 35 of them to get enough juice. All ingredients, and glasses, chilled in the fridge.  I bought flowers and arranged them in 2 vases. Now for the snacks.

I found a variety of chips and nuts and cheese and crackers. I splurged and bought egg yolk coated, fried salted fish skins, expensive but intriguing. They were the surprise smash hit. And fresh strawberries and grapes. Then fried, spicy sticky rice cakes, also addictive.

The long and the short is that 8 of us sat on my deck over the river in the evening glow, listened to the murmur of river traffic, ate like locusts, drank like fish, and chatted until 11:30 PM. We had planned to go to Green Gallery for Thai but never left the balcony.  The party was a great success and the Old Cubanos, if labor intensive, were welcomed. Kelly drank 3 and left sober as a preacher.

I had my teeth cleaned, an important event in anyone’s life. I went to Evergreen Dentistry—-Green teeth? Unclear on concept.—which is a terrific group of dentists led by a Burmese whose father practices in California. This man apprenticed with his father, took the dental licensing exam here and passed, and has started the go-to dental care clinic in Myanmar. Never went to dental school. One of the Brits described cracking a tooth. She went in for care and the female dentist measured her for a (?) crown and said it would take some time. “Two or three weeks?” “30 minutes.” She watched it being built on their 3-D printer. It fits perfectly.

My last tooth cleaning was in Malawi, at a place the Peace Corps uses in Lilongwe. The dentist was rough and did a poor job. My standards are high, as my go-to-gal in Berkeley was Natalie who was smart as a whip, careful, and obsessive, just what you want in a dental hygienist. When I had a cleaning in Bar Harbor before leaving for Malawi, the dentist said I had bone resorption beneath my front incisors and should have implants right away or my teeth might fall out unexpectedly.  3 ½ years later, all are holding fast. I think business might have been slow.

I was able to connect with a webinar at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis on “The Erotic Field in Adolescent Treatment”. The paper and discussion were both excellent, addressing the lack of literature on the subject and the anxious retreat of therapists in the face of adolescent sexuality. A lost therapeutic opportunity.  The audience questions, as often happens at SFCP, were of variable quality, often serving more as a grandstand for the questioner than to advance the discussion.  There previously was a lot of neurotic posing and preening at the Scientific Meetings, I recall. The audio and video signals were perfect, however, and if the timing works out, it is a cheap, easy, and quality source of learning for me in the future.

I was running errands on Wednesday, getting my weekly allowable from the Embassy ($3000/week in order to accumulate $18,000 for the year’s rent in advance), collecting a box of books I sent through the  “diplomatic pouch”, picking up my exquisitely-tailored suit and shirt from Sein Shwe ($170 for the suit!), and finding a bamboo or palm-leaf mat to put under my coffee table.

As I was walking on the street a few days earlier, a scruffy guy approached me and struck up a conversation. He suggested I might find said desired mat in the main market. Then he asked if I liked men. Not sexually; I like women. Oh, I’m not gay, he said. I just like men sometimes. I’m not sure what signal I was emitting to attract him but my subsequent signal was pretty clear. Not infrequently I am asked, if walking alone to my apartment at 10 or 11PM, if I want a “girlie massage”. My only interest in their inquiry would be their story: what brought them to pimp and what story of struggle, poverty, and defeat has brought the girls to sell themselves?  As to the sex, it seems devoid of meaning and repugnant. Or perhaps the meaning is too clear and troubling.

At any rate, on Wednesday I turned toward Zay Bo Gyoke, the enormous, old clothing, textile, and jewelry market in the center of downtown. I was also trying to find more paintings by the guy, Ko Thet, who did mine (above), as I admire his unconscious.  I was led around for awhile and eventually was taken to a basket shop. When I explained what I wanted, the enterprising woman send her son off. He came back shortly with a 7’x6’ split bamboo mat, finished with a cloth border. It was perfect, if used and right off the floor of someone else’s shop. Suits me and I’m sure I paid too much but it completes the room.

On Thursday I had lunch with Professor Tin Oo and the newly graduated psychiatry residents at the Golden Inya, a modest (but excellent food) spot on Inya Lake. Tables were set outside, in the shadow of the Yangon Canoe, Kayak, and Rowing Club boat shed, facing the lake. It was very pleasant, although no one made a speech, which I found curious.  “We did that at the graduation ceremony.” There were many of the requisite group photos.

After lunch, Professor Tin Oo and I met with the Rector of University of Medicine 1, Rector Professor Zaw Wai Soe.  He wanted to chat with me a bit, to understand my intentions. He let on that he wanted, eventually, to establish a professorship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. I wonder now if he wanted an endowment for that. Perhaps he just wanted to confirm his intent of supporting our work. He seems like a man with vision and who is a benevolent but canny strategist. He suggested that I should meet the Ministers of Health and Sport and of Education and that he would facilitate the meeting. When I bemoaned my lack of Burmese, he laughed. “Now is not the age to be learning a new language.”

Staying in a place for a while, not just a year or two, is the only way to effect lasting change, I’m convinced. If you invest, others will invest in you. My decision to remain is further reinforced.

On with the hijinks at home. Where is Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin when we need him? Perhaps we should use a rack or a breaking wheel? I’m almost ready for our own Reign of Terror, starting with the mouthy guy from Ohio, the deceitful ranking Republican on the House Ethics Committee, tyrannical Addison Mitchell McConnell, and moving upward. I want to put our VP in a room full of naked, sex-starved nubiles and watch his circuits light up and smoke while “Mother” looks on disapprovingly from a large flat panel screen.  Then DT could be given a massive Still Face experiment, where no one responds to him in any way, not even punitively. It all goes to show that we neglect a significant portion of our population at our own peril—and theirs, of course—, since they will be vulnerable to demagoguery. While we, the elite, degrade ourselves by developing cruel fantasies.