Final Thoughts on Burma

3/15/2012 9:14 PM

As a few people know, my laptop has not been working for the past few days. I was hoping in these days I would be able to figure out what to write about Burma; be able to come to some conclusion about it, but the fact of the matter is, is that it is overwhelming. I don’t know where to start, for there is no real beginning, there are only wonderful memories, chance encounters, and interesting conversations that I remember as to what Burma is; two weeks is not enough, things just fly by you and leave you in a blur wondering what just happened. I returned to Bangkok last night but a moment has not gone by where I have not thought about Burma and its people. I have been having ups and downs both about this country and having to write about it; both utterly depressing yet entirely optimistic.  The Burmese make Burma what it is. Everything about this country is about the people. I truly am at a loss for words, generally I am able to get a pretty good grasp of a place within a few days and put pen to paper… so to speak. But Burma is different. It’s different. It’s a different place unlike anything seen before. 

It’s a country that has been untouched by western thought and ideology; uninfluenced by the outside world; uncorrupted by western ideologies. I met so many people while I was there, so many wonderfully happy and courageous people; people that have kept going; who have kept pushing forward despite every card that has been stacked against them. For the most part, the local’s view of the outside world comes from censored news broadcasts or Hollywood. The Burmese do no travel, and when I say travel, I don’t mean international, I don’t even mean visiting neighboring Thailand. I mean people die where they are born.  One day in Bagan, my driver asked me “Is Myanmar poor?”. I simply did not know what to reply; Myanmar is poor, but it is poor for the wrong reasons – it’s lands are rich with wealth.

Myanmar is one of the poorest countries in the world, and by far the poorest in SE Asia, and with Cyclone Nagis that hit in 2005 killing 185 000 people, it is currently surviving a time of hardship. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Whether the locals know it or not. Aung Sun Su ki has been released from jail, she is being allowed to campaign for office, talks with countries who still imposed huge sanctions on Myanmar are underway, locals do not seem to fear the government as much and at time you will hear them openly talking politics… which was once a surefire way to end up in jail.

Myanmar is changing. I hope to say for the better. The Myanmar I saw – the one I instantly fell in love with when I fearfully stepped off the plane – is changing. I still have few answers in my mind to quell my feelings about this. What brought me to Myanmar was the unknown, the mysteriousness, the appeal of a country off the beaten track that few have gone to. I realized the moment I stepped off the plan that I had come to the right place. What I both fear and regret is that this country will turn into another Vietnam or Thailand… that it will become just another stop for backpackers travelling SE Asia. The Burmese will change into the money-hungry postcard vendors of Vietnam or the tuk-tuk drivers of Thailand that simply look at you as a dollar bill; that they will stop viewing foreigners as friends and newcomers and begin to look at them as a source of income. You can begin to understand why I have such mixed feelings about this country. I want it to remain the same, I want it to be kept uncorrupted by the west, but at the same time I want it to succeed; I want it to succeed more than anything and via tourism, this will happen. However, my concern, which is inevitable, is that with tourism comes people, and influences, and backpackers, and 7/11s and MacDonalds and KFC and everything else that has, to some extent, made the Orient, no longer the orient. 

When I arrived in Asia a few months ago, I was hoping to find a place unexplored… to find a place that few had been to. When I arrived in Hanoi and woke up that first morning, I realized that I was about 100 million people to late. What I came to SE Asia for I found a few months later in Burma. 

Burma is a different place, truly a strange place but in the best possible way; I don’t, however, believe it will remain that way much longer.