Yangon Days: Taukyyan War Cemetery

Because of the number of churches in Yangon and the colonial legacy downtown, the city wears an appearance in which foreign buildings don’t appear out of place either historically or culturally. Except for the Taukyyan War Cemetery in the north which is so quintessentially British: a tightly cropped and well watered lawn, small shrubs lining the graves, neo-classical memorials and the victorious statements of “Their Name Liveth Forever”.

27,000 Allied soldiers died during WWII in Burma and Assam (with a reported 200,000 Japanese also dying). Growing up in Europe we were repeatedly taught about the War in school history lessons, each time with a more critical perspective on its origins and its outcomes. But this was more than a World War, with a globalization in which the allies “outsourced” their fighting across the British Empire. A fact that we never touched on back in English High School, as the battles of Europe and North Africa that figured in our lessons relied less on the Indian, Burmese and African armies. But Taukyyan leaves you in no doubt as to who fought, and at which cost.

Rupert Brooke rings true

Of the 6,347 graves, I found graves marking British, Indian (back when India covered Pakistan also), Burmese (by then separate from India) Ghurkas (Nepalese), New Zealand, Gold Coast and Nigerian soldiers. The memorial stone also mentions East Africans, and I didn’t pay enough attention as the morning heat set in to see who else was included.

Even Buddhists were fighting

A depressing reflection on a Sunday morning was the ages marked on the graves, with almost the entire majority between 20 to 32 years old and the fact that most died from April 1945 onwards, which we were taught in school was when nearly all the fighting had finished (in Europe, or course). And the way the whole Cemetery was maintained was impressive, regardless of your views on Empire or war. I’ve seen memorials to the Great Fatherland War across Central Asia which have lapsed in to complete disrepair, but in Myanmar the headstones remain set in painted and polished and organized with military precision across the maintained garden. Somehow that seems fitting for those who died “for all free men”, irrelevant of whether it was really the case or not for all those from across the Empire who are buried there.

"They died for all free men"

The long list of East Africans

Yangon Days: Thingyan 2012 Bucket-Cam

Last year I spent three days in the water fights of Yangon. By day three I felt confident enough to go out cycling and filming, assuming that I would be able to avoid any excessive water affecting the camera. I was wrong, and the camera broke. This year I returned with a waterproof camera, positioned behind my bucket/hose...

 

Yangon Days: Offline

Last week my ownership of the URL maximobo.com expired. I'd been warned about it enough via e mail, but there wasn't much I could do from Myanmar. I've had people complain before that google will refuse payments from Myanmar because of sanctions (whereas Amazon will not), and I saw an article that says the same applies to the iStore in Syria (another country under sanctions).

At the checkout, but refused serive

It was a major frustration to add to the list of things that one takes for granted until you live in Myanmar. But it was neither life nor freedom threatening, and the only thing that was really affected were my page visits. The worst was that when maximobo.com became an ad page, it was not selling bespoke cycling equipment or iconic modern literature, but the usual generic celebrity sites and one link that only mentioned: "girls, girls, girls". I didn't click to find out.

Yangon Days: One Year on

A year ago today I arrived in Yangon for the first time on an evening flight following a mad dash from my previous posting in Dhaka to get a last-minute visa ahead of Thingyan. My documented impressions of that first day:

There was no traffic, and the cars that were on the road didn’t use their horns, plenty of bars and restaurants along the route, a couple of smart, well-stocked shops selling golf equipment and toilets and mattresses, supermarkets that weren’t as well stocked, my first military convoy (shipping jade according to the driver), men wearing sombre coloured lunghis, Buddhist monks (that will always be more aesthetically pleasing than their Muslim counterparts), and a 15 minute wait at a red light (which amusingly kept re-setting its countdown). That led to the only communication between the driver and I, as I exclaimed that the delay was “bullshit”. I think he agreed. We turned onto a street that revealed the Shwedagon Pagoda in the distance

I have no idea which part of town the house is in, other than up a very small incline. It is so quiet. All I can hear are birds, toads and geckoes together with the Indian kids next door playing round-the-clock cricket. The crickets are so noisy I can hear them over the air conditioner. It’s a long way from Dhaka where the poverty and people and religion is so inescapable that you hear it in bed.  

North view of the Shwedagon

Travelling in... Myanmar: Chin State

Getting in to Chin State (officially the poorest part of Myanmar) is notoriously difficult: the relevant permission for a three-day visit can take up to a month process. When you look on the country map, there are no main roads heading there. The other option is to just make a day trip from Mwrauk Ou in Rakhaine up the Lemro river the principal reason being to see the village women with tattooed faces.

Let's not avoid the issue with this: it is a human zoo where the exhibits run part of the show. A lot of people are fascinated by the opportunity to see these women who are the last of their kind, whereas others are indignant at the idea. But amusingly that fact does not prevent a single tourist who acknowledges this out loud from going and taking photos of the women, leaving a cash or medicinal donation, and continuing up the river to lunch. I thought it was a zoo too, but my own tactic was to keep quiet, take some photos, and then borrow the megaphone from the travelling troupe of blind people in the village and sing Andy William’s “I love you Baby” as a means of assimilating through becoming another exhibit.

Technically they could just be coconut vendors

Our guide was the owner of a hotel back in Mwrauk Ou, who gave us a varying number of historical explanations around the tattooing of the ladies. Apparently it was a way for them to escape caste when the Brahmins from the north of Hindustan came to request tax payments. Establishing this exemption included a beautiful girl with a ruby earing that was found in a river whose story I wasn’t able to follow, but in the end they all tattooed their faces so that no one wanted to marry them outside the village and everyone was happy. Then in 1963 the Communists hid in the jungles of Chin State, and they were highly culturally insensitive to the tattooing and put the shamans who did it out of business. Come 2012 the remaining tattooed women congregate in the same place every day to serve hypocritically outraged tourists coconuts and have their photos taken. So everyone is still happy.

Exhibit #3?

Actually, for me the best part of the trip was the journey on the river itself: sufficiently long enough so that you can see how people live along the banks, but not so long as to get boring. The boats are also so narrow that you are required to sit in a single file with a noisy engine behind making a proper conversation impossible (so I got to finish the last 150 pages of my book).

The simple life