Remembering Myanmar

There is a personal connection as I watch the news images on television about the protests and subsequent crackdown in Yangon. I had walked down several of those streets seven years ago when I visited that lovely country, particularly in front of the Bogyoke Aung San Market where soldiers the other week fired to disperse protesters.

I had shopped for wonderful Burmese clothes and crafts (I still use the bamboo and horsehair lacquered bowls, handpainted with scenes from the Ramayana, that I bought there) at the Bogyoke Aung San Market, Yangon’s shopping haven, housed in a beautiful colonial building built in 1926. It is named after General Aung San, a former journalist who had negotiated with the British for Burma’s independence but who was assassinated by a rival general a few months before the country won its independence. The day of his assassination, July 19, is marked as Martyr’s Day.

I was with a group of artists and arts workers from the ten ASEAN member countries touring a production of “Realizing Rama,” a dance-drama based on the epic Ramayana. Myanmar was one of the stops we most looked forward to, because it is not usually on the tourist path.

We had police escorts everywhere we went, but we foolishly thought that was because we were special, guests of the state and all that. That could very well have been true, but it was also to keep us from roaming around at will. We found this out later when we were not allowed to make an unscheduled stop – every morning we had to advise our escorts in detail where we intended to go that day – at a hardware store to buy a light bulb that had broken when the sets were unpacked. Since that light was crucial to the production, several of us simply left the theater–– while our escorts were still “consulting” about getting permission – and took a cab to find a hardware store and the bulb. The next day we found all entrances to the theater padlocked except for one – which was manned by two armed guards.

A–“briefing” we received hours after our arrival included a caveat about not asking about or even mentioning”“the lady””– as Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is known–– during our official functions or even in casual conversation. That put a definite damper on plans some of us had to try and find the house where she was, and still is, under house arrest (certainly not a resort detention like Tanay). Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of General Aung San.

It is difficult to reconcile the iron hand of the ruling military junta with the serenity and graciousness of the Burmese people, deeply religious, simple, kind, with an incredible heritage of Buddhism and traditional arts (the Burmese dance tradition of the Golden Deer in the Ramayana is as unique as it is beautiful). The Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar’s landmark, is truly a sight to behold, a stupa 99 meters high completely covered in gold, visible from most parts of the city as it sits atop a hill. I remember waking up every morning and looking out my hotel window to see the golden stupa glimmering in the morning light, sometimes softly when the day was cloudy, other mornings brilliant when the sun was shining; and then again looking at it glowing in the night before I went to sleep. The Shwedagon Pagoda complex is always bustling with monks and worshippers; many of them, I suspect, part of the crowds that marched in the recent protests.

Aside from performances we had the privilege of interacting with Burmese artists and arts students, many of them displaying incredible talent and accomplishment despite limitations in training, in materials and in exposure to other art traditions and developments. Most of them were eager – desperately eager – for interaction with fellow artists, for the opportunity to exchange views and ideas, to see pictures and hear music and watch dance from outside their restricted world. Despite a serious language barrier I remember we all had an amazing, unforgettable experience learning from and sharing with our fellow artists and arts workers in Yangon.

As I watch and wait with the rest of the world, wondering if the junta leaders (Gen. Than Shwe was a recent Manila visitor) will continue to dig in or will ease up on their repression, I think about our friends in Yangon, talented artists who seek to give voice and form to their aspirations, who dream of worlds beyond, whose hearts and minds and spirits soar – and will soar – beyond the barrels of guns and barbed wire barricades. I hope that one day – soon – we will continue our exchange with our Burmese artist-friends, and work again on a production that will celebrate the true, unhampered spirit of ASEAN.