- Text and /or Photography by Nathalie Farigu / Magnesium
To me, the name Burma always conjured up images from George Orwell’s Burmese Days or Rudyard Kipling’s poem Mandalay. While in the 1920s, Orwell spent five years as a police officer in Burma when it was still part of the British Empire, Kipling never actually made it to Mandalay. Though I had no desire to spend five years in South East Asia’s poorest and most corrupt nation, I sure was determined to make it to Mandalay.
First stop: Yangon, the former capital. As soon as I left the airport, I knew Burma would be very different from what I had experienced in Viet Nam, Laos or Cambodia. Outside, the taxi drivers were eager to get me into their battered and beaten up taxis, happily showing off their betelnut stained smiles and wearing longyi, a traditional Burmese long skirt-like garment, similar to a sarong. One of the first things I noticed, besides the many and very large potholes in the road, was the lack of motorbikes. As it turns out the military junta had prohibited them, together with trishaws and bicycles, some twenty years ago.
The city itself wasn’t unlike many of the Asian towns and cities I had visited already. Bustling with activity, smoggy, humid and stifling hot. When the government supply of electricity gets cut off, which happens frequently and seemingly totally random, the private shop generators start up, almost in unison. The sound is deafening. At night at around 9 o’clock, the restaurants close, the lights go out and the city turns almost black and very quiet.
After a few days Yangon, I gathered the courage to take the overnight bus to Mandalay, a thirteen hour ride through the middle of nowhere and a pretty dangerous one. There are no street lights, the roads are in bad condition and a lot of vehicles, not surprisingly, drive without lights. As a matter of fact, the only well-lit places along the way appeared to be the well-guarded prisons. After a long and bumpy ride I found myself at a dusty parking lot at five AM where I quickly hopped into the back of an old Mazda pick-up.
Like Yangon, I noticed that Mandalay also had its fair share of broken up dusty roads, but none of the charming yet crumbling colonial architecture of Burma’s former capital. Though the view from Mandalay Hill definitely made up for the city’s general lack of character. Despite the presence of motorbikes and bicycles- which are still allowed in Mandalay- the city felt more like a small town. I ended up spending two days with Mr. Htoo, a trishaw driver, who energetically pedaled me all over town. I visited temple after temple, which were undeniably beautiful, but what I enjoyed most was our conversations at the teashops. While sitting on tiny little plastic stools, sipping tea and eating deep-fried Indian snacks, we talked about his family, life in Burma, his hopes and dreams as well as his losses.
Those losses are obvious, after having been colonised by the British for many years, occupied by the Japanese during WWII, the Union of Burma gained independence in 1948 and never had the chance to rebuild and stabilise itself as a democracy when in 1962 General Ne Win led a military coup d’etat. The Burmese have lived under this military junta ever since, and have been denied basic human rights. Human trafficking, child labour as well as forced labour are rampant. There is no freedom of speech and an estimated thirty to fifty percent of the Burmese live below the poverty line of roughly a dollar a day as a direct result of the ruling military junta.
As for hopes and dreams, general elections are scheduled to take place this year, though an exact date has still not been confirmed. Burma last held an election in 1990, when the National League for Democracy’s Aung San Suu Kyi was set to become prime minister. However, the ruling generals led by Than Shwe dismissed the results and have remained in power ever since.
Aung San Suu Kyi has spent fourteen of the last twenty years under house arrest and it’s highly unlikely she will be allowed to play a role in the upcoming elections. Though currently still under house arrest at her home in Yangon, she remains the symbol of hope for those who oppose the junta.
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