Went to Myanmar in the first year I started my first proper full time job. We were on a guided tour because I knew about the political situation in Myanmar and didn't want to spend so much time planning since it was a rather impromptu trip with my mom. It would have just been too frustrating. So off we went with a bunch of shopping obsessed silliporeans who could not appreciate the sweltering heat, lack of shopping malls, stupas and frolicking children by the street. Yet they ignored the mother with her infant baby but were reverent to the monks in the monastaries. Acts of kindness had to be packaged to those they thought worthy. Evidently compassion was a transaction - I give you stipend, I feel like I got blessed. Bloody silliporean aunties.

Surprisingly, Myanmar turned out to be very safe. Because of the military and Junta, people were living under a thin veil of fear and disguised safety; that I didn't feel threatened walking along the streets at night (not like my experience at the bus terminal at LA on new year's eve). While we were there, we had to exchange US dollars with the tour guide who assured us with his betel nut stained smile of the thriving black market present in Myanmar. At the roadside, I surreptiously took a picture of a disheveled, wild greyish hair man sitting on a stoold in his sarong devouring a book. At one of the four faced buddha status encountering children who were mischievously striking poses for my camera and clamouring to view their own faces. Oblivious to the fact that in Myanmar, rich men would rather donate money to build a stupa than to build a school for them. This was not the kind of Buddhism I knew about. The tour guide explained that to build a stupa, it would bring blessings to 8 or 10 generations of their offspring. Ironically a school they could not envision would have brought even more blessings to so many more, and for so many more generations. On hindsight, I think how resilient these Myanmar people must be. To live under these conditions, rather than to romanticize it by saying they make the best out if it; they were trying their best to survive in the only way they knew how. To tune in to foreign news through second - or third- hand radios, books; learn to speak dialects and languages from tourists so she can make them be in awe at her and hopefully buy a set of postcards.

Two mental images I will never rid on my trip to Myanmar. One was the lady with her infant begging me for money. I was all ready to give her money tightly fisted into a ball in my palm so that noone else would take it from her. BUt was pulled away by a bloody silliporean auntie who couldn't mind her own business. She hissed at me " don't give it to her! didn't you hear what the guide said? there will just be more coming!"; almost as if we were being chased by the living dead rather than a harmless, desperate mother. After I was unwilling pushed on the bus, in the 'sanctuary' of my seat all my tears just spilled out uncontrollably. Unfair, too unexplainably unfair. In a parallel universe, I could be her. From the colour of my skin, to the texture of my hair and the light brown irises - we could have been sisters. But her skin had become leathery from the harsh sun, stretch marks lining her young body hidden under garments, child on her hip; made her a stranger but also another human being. I just wonder if others saw her as well. The second was enroute back to the junta-run hotel; two siblings were huddled and sleeping on the road divider. It must have been about 20inches wide, they were small undernourished children, it wasn't difficult to curl themselves up there. No street lights. Only intermittent flashing of low and high beams from headlights of the cars. Even my mom, who had seen these images in her days traveling, was poignant. We were distressed that the life of these children were so worthless. (Have to stop, I cannot write this without tearing and am in office pretending to work).

After I came back to Singapore I struggled; I wanted to go back to Myanmar in all its untouched glory but to do that may be to support the Junta. With all the press and news about their unreasonable ways (presumably by egoistic military generals rather than trying to obtain real benefits for people). What then? Till then, I'll just have to live in the memories of Myanmar tea I had a the roadside, like teh tarik but not. Alot more fragrant, authentic and mysterious.

***

Damien Rice (someone can buy me his cds) wrote a song for Aung San Suu Kyi and her fight for democracy in Myanmar. Beautiful, charismatic, intelligent, determined; so much quiet strength. Diminutive in stature, enormous spirit. For the longest time has been a political prisoner. Not that I think democracy is a natural solution for all troubled countries, but to see an improvement of living standards through diversity of political parties who are sincerely working for the people would be a good change. Or is that an oxymoron? So disturbing and disappointing to find out news that Singapore has investment links for the longest time in Myanmar. Though at the same time I'm not sure if economic sanctions will be better because the current situation lies that the Junta does not care about their people; what impact will economic sanctions make?

"As Tay Thiam Peng, director of foreign operations at Singapore's Trade Development Board, bluntly put it in 1996, when it comes to business, morality takes a back seat to profits. "While the other countries are ignoring Myanmar (Burma), it's a good time for us to go in," Tay stated. "You get better deals, and you're more appreciated... Singapore's position is not to judge them and take a judgmental moral high ground." As Burma's number-one business partner, Singapore now has 53 projects in Burma, which as of January totaled nearly $1.2 billion"

Or is it better to go the softer, gentler route? They do have a Chinese saying that "吃软,不吃硬 (It's easier to swallow something soft than hard)". After all in Asean, our fates are interlinked.


Unplayed Piano

Come and see me
Sing me to sleep
Come and free me
Hold me if i need to weep
Maybe it's not the season
Maybe it's not the year
Maybe there's no good reason
Why i'm locked up inside
Just cause they wanna hide me
The moon goes bright
The darker they make my night

Unplayed pianos
Are often by a window
In a room where nobody loved goes
She sits alone with her silent song
Somebody bring her home

Unplayed piano
Still holds a tune
Lock on the lid
In a stale, stale room
Maybe it's not that easy
Or maybe it's not that hard
Maybe they could release me
Let the people decide
I've got nothing to hide
I've done nothing wrong
So why have i been here so long?

Unplayed pianos
Are often by a window
In a room where nobody loved goes
She sits alone with her silent song
Somebody bring her home

Unplayed pianos
Are often by a window
In a room where nobody loved goes
She sits alone with her silent songs
Somebody bring her home

Unplayed piano
Still holds a tune
Years pass by
In the changing of the moon