The Eatery and the Slingshot
The Painter in the Temple
The Girl with the Thanaka Swirls
On February 1st of this year, a coup was carried out by Myanmar’s military (the Tatmadaw). The resulting protests, the violent and even lethal retaliation against those unarmed civilians by the military, and now Myanmar’s nationwide civil disobedience movement, have all moved me to write something about my interactions with the locals while traveling there. Why I’m compelled to do this is to explore those moments again for myself, and to give a glimpse, however minuscule, upon a people who are caught up at this very moment in a furious tsunami of history, many willing to give up everything they have–for some, even their lives–to live free from the autocratic governance of an illegitimate military regime. The majority of people in the world, of course, will have never been to Myanmar, so I want to put a handful of faces, in my own fashion, to those distant nationals embroiled in conflict with the junta.
Most will probably have an inkling of the atrocities committed by the Tatmadaw against the Rohingya in Rakhine state, and the leaders of those armed forces are showing their true colors once again. At the time of my trip to Myanmar, in late December 2017, the first phase of the Rohingya genocide was close to its end. I traveled from Yangon to Bagan and back, my way taking me nowhere near the affected areas.
I met no unsavory characters in my sojourn there. I did meet people who were friendly, welcoming and helpful, people who were honest in their dealings with me, people who were accommodating, and people who were all those things. I remember having my traveler’s guard up against getting ripped off when I came into the arrivals hall after my nighttime touchdown, yet when I later got familiar with the standard taxi fares for various distances, I realized that the driver who took me into the city had given me a perfectly fair deal–a relief after my years of late night arrivals in Bangkok and the subsequent price-gouging attempts one has to navigate through.
In my one-bedroom apartment, there are three items from Myanmar on the shelves: a slingshot, a hand-painted tapestry, and a lacquered cup. There’s an encounter attached to each of them, and they’ve all stuck with me.
The Eatery and the Slingshot
I was making my way down the street after nightfall, stomach growling from a busy day of exploring. Having gone up and down that street previously, I’d noticed a number of restaurants that specialized in catering to foreign tourists, serving standard favorites like pizza, spaghetti and burgers. I wanted something authentically Burmese, though–to eat what and where the locals were eating.
I soon spotted just such a place. It was down a short dip from the main road, marked by a simple sign in Burmese script and a couple tables set up in the small lot in front of it, nestled between other buildings. An outdoor eatery. A mom n’ pop type place, common in this part of the world. There were no current patrons in sight, but I went down and approached the glassed display case that contained trays of the available cooked foods. I saw a small group of people inside–which I thought likely to be a family–who seemed surprised to find a foreigner there asking about dinner. It probably showed on my face that I didn’t really know what I was looking at in the trays, so a middle-aged man ushered me to a table. He possessed the tiniest bit of English, but conveyed that they would bring me a meal.
I took a seat at the table, and the man, who I’ll call the father, went to tell the others to prepare the food. Thirsty, my eyes went to a large advertisement for Myanmar beer displayed in view of the street nearby. As the father returned to my table, I asked him if I could get a beer. He looked unsure for a second, and then gave me the affirmative with a nod–but instead of returning to his restaurant, he headed up to the street and walked out of sight. A few minutes later he returned–I don’t know whether from a store, a neighboring restaurant, or even his friend’s place–with a cold beer in hand. He brought me a mug to drink it from, and I took a refreshing swig.
They brought me out what I thought of as a smorgasboard: rice, soup, a chili sauce for some kick, and about eight other small dishes. It was a delicious meal, and contained some flavors that were new to me. While I ate, a young girl, who I’ll call the daughter, came out to play in the lot, stealing bemused glances in my direction. The father approached at some point, a bit hesitantly–his politeness, perhaps, leading him to be concerned about disturbing me while I ate–and struck up a conversation as best he was able, asking me where I was from and some other such questions. He clarified that the girl nearby was his daughter and the others I’d seen were indeed his family. We chatted for a while as I finished eating, quite stuffed, and emptied my beer. He had his daughter come over to speak a few words with me, as it was clear she possessed more English than her shyness allowed her to betray.
The father disappeared to somewhere and returned with a home-made slingshot: a wooden handle, rubber tubing fastened to it with dozens of elastics, and a leather pad. He seemed delighted to show it to me. He selected a couple roundish rocks from the lot at our feet, and fired them off at the gentle slope leading up to the street. Then he held the slingshot out to me, motioning for me to try. I choose a rock, aimed in the direction he had, pulled back and let it fly. I must have aimed too high and pulled back a bit too far though, because to my sudden horror the rock went ricocheting up the slope and missed the bumper of a parked car by a hair’s breadth before coming to rest somewhere on the opposite side of the street. “Holy shit!” I cried, as I watched my misfire barely escape denting the car.
The daughter, either recognizing this expression from some kind of English-language media, or simply seeing the O my mouth had formed, doubled over laughing, with her dad chuckling along. Finally, accepting that I hadn’t caused any damage, I laughed too.
Later, when I asked the price, I was shocked when it amounted to only about $2.50. They could have easily charged me four times that or more and I’d have been none the wiser. I bid them goodnight.
The night after next was my last in that town, so I decided to return to the same restaurant. Once more I was brought a variety of dishes, and after a while the father sat down to chat with me. I told him that I’d be leaving in the morning, and said it had been nice meeting them. As I finished eating and paid, he told me to wait a moment, went indoors and returned with the slingshot. I remember his face clearly: a bit of that shyness returning, perhaps some pride, and, more than anything, friendly warmth, as he put the slingshot in my hands, expressing that it was a gift. Though I’ll never know for sure, I think he wanted me to have it as a memento of the laugh we’d had together, and those short evenings we’d had chatting. I think that, somewhere down the road, he wanted me to remember him, and his daughter, and that time I wound up as the sole patron at their humble little restaurant.
And I do.
Here’s something I’ve learned in my travels throughout the years: It’s the people who have the least who are often the most ready to give.
The Painter in the Temple
The temple might have been a thousand years old. Uncountable people had no doubt passed through it over the course of its long history, but on that day it appeared to stand empty, entrance yawning, as I puttered past. Though impressive, it was a more diminutive structure than some of its visible neighbors, and there was a steady flow of people toward a grand castle-like edifice that gleamed on the near horizon.
Something about this smaller temple caused me to stop, however, wanting to see inside. I passed through its arched entrance into the interior. The bottom floor consisted of a single room, of which I don’t remember much about, except for the painter and her works.
Laid upon the ancient stone floor of the room was an array of painted tapestries. An elderly woman was seated there alongside them. The paintings were colorful, intricate, some featuring Buddhist elements, and others whose inspirations were unfamiliar to me. The tapestries were of various sizes. There were prices next to them, written on scraps of paper, ranging from perhaps $5-$10 USD. As I admired the art, I asked the woman if she was the painter, and though she’d been quiet since I’d entered the temple, she confirmed that she was.
It was hard to discern exactly what I felt, as she wasn’t the first, and wouldn’t be the last, disadvantaged person I’d come across in Myanmar selling their handiwork for what seemed far too little a sum–but how unintuitive, I thought, that this skilled artist was hidden away in a lonely temple, illuminated only by the daylight filtering through the openings, waiting for the odd passerby to step inside rather than pass on by, bound for more renowned landmarks.
Knowing I’d have to roll the tapestry up to transport it, I chose one of the smaller ones I liked, so that it would fit inside the backpack I was traveling with at the time. It’s still rolled up, at its place on my shelf, but I unfurl it sometimes to look at it. Someday, somewhere, it will be properly displayed on a wall.
What the painter in the temple helped me see is that artistry can be found in the most unexpected places, and it’s all too easy in this world for it never to be noticed at all.
The Girl with the Thanaka Swirls
My bus arrived in Bagan at 5am, close to the Archeological Zone. The ancient city was swallowed up in pre-dawn darkness, residing beyond my sight on its vast, unseen plain.
I made it to my hostel shortly after, and in the process of checking in, the owner informed me that the sun would rise at 6:00, so there was still time, if I took one of the scooters and hurried, to view it from atop a temple. She told me the name of a temple and produced a map, pointing it out quickly, but having arrived in the dark and seen nothing of the area, I found myself disoriented. Nonetheless, I bet myself that I could figure it out, and there was no time to waste. I left my bag near the reception desk, hoped onto a scooter in the lot, and sped off into the night with the map folded in one hand.
I didn’t get my bearings as quickly as I’d hoped, and to make matters worse, the air was cold. I had only a thin running jacket to put on over my t-shirt, having been in warm environs when I departed Yangon the evening before. Stopping to zip the jacket up, I determined that I must be on one of the main roads running parallel to the Archeological Zone and its thousands of temples–but in that direction was only a solid wall of night.
It was as I continued down the road that the faintest light lit the far horizon, and in it I saw my first glimpse of a temple out there on the plain. But where was the temple, presumably a large and well-known one, that the hostel owner had mentioned? I couldn’t even remember its name precisely, nor did I have any idea where along the road, as illustrated on the map, I was. I slowed down, figuring I might catch a glimpse of other sunrise-seekers on their way to the best spot, though the stretch of road was mainly empty.
Then someone called out, “Hey!”. I turned and caught a glimpse of a local girl straddling a motorbike on a dirt path that lead off the road, waving to me. “Where are you going?” she asked as I braked.
“I heard about a big temple that I should watch the sunrise from. Maybe somewhere this way,” I added, pointing down the road, aware of the steadily brightening glow above the mountains on the horizon.
“I know the one,” said the girl. “There will be too many people there. 400 people!”. (Probably an exaggeration, I thought). “Follow me,” she continued, “I’ll take you to a secret temple. Not so many people.”
Why not? I thought. Sunrise was imminent, and I wasn’t about to miss getting to a height where I could watch it cresting above the mountains, sending those first red-golden rays across the storied plain. So she went ahead of me down the road on her bike and I followed on my scooter. Soon she turned off the pavement onto another dirt road, and as I did so behind her, descending in and out of a rough dip, I saw a small stone temple loom out of the mist to my right–for the valley in the morning is wreathed in blankets of mist, slowly illuminated by the lightening of the atmosphere that precludes the appearance of the sun itself. We continued on past this temple, deeper into the antique city, and then turned into the dusty lot in front of yet another temple, this one two stories tall. Along the balconies of its upper floor I could see a handful of others who had reached it first.
We scurried into the dark of the bottom floor of the structure, then up a stone staircase, emerging into the open-air gloom of the second floor, where the world held its breath in that moment. Within only a minute, the red sun appeared above the distant mountains, and the majesty of Bagan became apparent in the form of its countless temples and pagodas dotted far and wide across the land, silhouetted in those first rays.
After taking in the sunrise, and the iconic volley of hot air balloons that loft well-heeled tourists across the sky at that hour, I and the small number of other foreigners there were approached by the Burmese girls present–including the one that had led me to the temple–about buying some of the items they had with them. I saw them get brushed off before people descended the stairs, single-file, to the base of the building. I was the last one to leave, and my impromptu guide asked me one more time if I would simply look at what she’d brought. I considered that I wouldn’t have even caught the sunrise without her help that morning, and accepted.
Cheerfully, she took off her backpack and drew out a series of bowls and cups of various sizes, all exquisitely hand-painted in various patterns and colors, no two alike. Speaking in impressively proficient English–that of those whose lives often necessitate they be able to communicate with tourists–she explained that the wares were all created by her family, describing the multi-layer lacquering and painting process involved in their creation. They were beautiful pieces, I thought, and purchased two cups, one which I later gave away as a gift, and the other which sits on my kitchen shelf to this day. The girl was visibly proud of making a sale, wrapping my purchases in paper before giving them to me to put in my pack.
This story, though, isn’t so much about that girl as it is another–also a teen–who spied the transaction for the cups from just beyond the temple entrance.
It’s no secret that in travel to tourist sites, especially in underdeveloped countries, that a foreign traveler gets approached a lot to purchase items or services, in some places incessantly. It becomes necessary, as your experience grows, to harden your heart to this. You simply cannot buy from everyone. In places with many sellers, the act of making a purchase can make you a target for entreaties by others, over those who make little eye contact and consistently ignore them.
I’d now made myself a seller’s target, I determined, resolving to refuse any others who approached me. I reasoned that I’d already bought something, while the rest of the tourists had zoomed off on their scooters with the rising sun at their backs, having purchased nothing. It wouldn’t do for me to solely buy from everyone just because I had done so once.
There is a kind of whitish-yellowish paste, ubiquitous in Myanmar, called thanaka, made from the ground bark of certain trees native to the country. It’s most often used by women and girls, and less commonly men and boys, who apply it to their faces in thin layers as a form of makeup, as protection from the sun, and for the cooling sensation the natural compounds in the paste provide. The girl who had been watching us wore thanaka on her cheeks in elegant twin spirals, with a solid line of it painted down the bridge of her nose. In my short time in the country, I hadn’t yet seen the paste so artfully applied.
As soon I was outside, she called my attention to the t-shirts she’d brought, already holding the first one up in display, which bore some design related to Bagan. I told her no thank you, intent on returning to my scooter, but she was persistent, maintaining her smile as she bid me to at least look at the shirts. Even as she spoke, she was holding up additional ones and drawing closer.
“Not right now. Maybe later.”
“Later?” she countered fluently, knowing she’d caught me out. “But I won’t see you later. Please just look now. Only five dollars.”
“No thanks,” I said as amicably as possible.
“But you bought something from her.” She motioned toward the one who’d sold me the cups, who was watching this exchange with some bemusement.
“Right, I did that, but now I’m going.”
“Please, just one shirt.”
“I don’t need a t-shirt,” I said flatly.
This was where the girl’s demeanor changed. Her smile faded, not to be replaced by resentment, but with a mixture of sadness, frustration and pleading.
“I know nobody needs a t-shirt,” she said, voice rising. “But for me five dollars is a lot.” Her eyes, above the spirals of thanaka, astride the white line down the bridge of her nose, bore into mine, searching.
I was holding out now, I felt, to prove something to myself–that not even this persistence would be able to make me the one tourist there that morning who bought a t-shirt. How many times in the past had I ignored such calls and requests? Why shouldn’t I this time too? Others would come later, and she could make her sales then.
Even as these thoughts ran through my head, the girl stood only a couple feet away, and it occurred to me that she looked almost like tears might escape her eyes.
I realized we weren’t playing a game of banter between a seller and potential customer anymore. It wasn’t about the shirts. She was now pleading with me simply as a human to another human, making her case with only a few words that five U.S. dollars held a very different level of value for the both of us. Then I understood where that frustration I sensed in her truly came from.
She couldn’t have been more than 18. When I was her age I was pumping gas and working a cash register part-time. I didn’t have to travel in the night’s chill again and again to a place of ruins, to approach foreign strangers and peddle t-shirts in a second tongue, to force smile after smile to impassive visitors who I knew wished for me to leave them alone. Even in that pre-dawn dark in which I’d arrived in Bagan, she’d already been awake somewhere, carefully painting those swirls of thanaka upon her cheeks.
I comprehended these things, both then and after, but still in that moment I said ‘no thanks’ a final time. She followed, even to stand by my scooter as I turned it on, and until I pulled away.
It’s been more than three years, but every once in a while, when I’m spending the equivalent of $5 USD on some frivolous purchase–a drink at Starbucks, a cocktail, lottery tickets with an infinitesimal chance of being something other than worthless–I see that girl’s face again in my mind’s eye, as clear as if it were yesterday, her own eyes pleading and frustrated and sad. That’s why I remember the precise way she patterned her thanaka: I see it all the time.
Here’s what the girl with the thanaka swirls made me realize: sometimes there’s a benefit to sticking to your guns, sometimes there’s no point, and sometimes you’ll regret you did it at all. I regret that I didn’t part with five dollars for one of those t-shirts, or even that I didn’t buy two. When I arrived back in Bangkok, I found I had ten times that much in Myanmar kyat leftover in my wallet, those crumpled notes unused, making no one’s day a little better.
These were some of the people I met in Myanmar, Land of the Golden Pagodas, and what meeting them helped me understand. They were all members, however humble, of a populace now engaged in a battle for the future.
As I write these words, on March 22nd, 2021, at least 250 people are reported to have been killed by the junta during the protests.
