In Which I Actually Talk About Burma

Some good analysis here of Aung San Suu Kyi's putative (the results won't be confirmed for a few days) election to the parliament of Burma.

The article touches a bit on one of the major concerns some people in the opposition have had, which is that her new position within the government will take away some of Aung San Suu Kyi's impact as a powerful outside voice, while not actually granting her any real influence over government decisions.

Activists and governments around the world are rushing to embrace the warmer, friendlier Burma with open arms, and I get that, I do.  And there have been genuinely, almost shockingly, positive steps.  Hell, in January, over 650 political prisoners - many of whom had been arrested in 1988, and had thought they would never see their families again - were freed.  Just try looking at some of the photos of family reunions in this article without getting a little teary... but keep in mind that, according to Human Rights Watch, there could be as many as 850 political prisoners still languishing in jail, and unaccounted for.  In a similar vein, the government recently signed an initial ceasefire agreement with leaders of the Karen National Union (an armed group that controls large parts of Karen State, one of Burma's marginalised ethnic areas).  If a ceasefire is successful, it would end what many have called the world's longest-running civil war... but according to reports from Karen State, if there is a ceasefire on, someone forgot to tell the soldiers on the ground.

What I'm getting at is that the pace of events, and the speed with which the world has moved to welcome these reforms (as they should), also means that people raising legitimate problems with the reforms risk being dismissed as irrelevant and unable to move with the times - and opposition leaders may feel railroaded into playing nice with the government that everyone is now praising.

Still, yesterday Burma witnessed something that most of its people thought they would never see:  an election that was from all reports relatively free and fair, in which they were able to vote for the woman who has been the living symbol of Burma's struggle for democracy for years, and after which it looks like she will actually be allowed to take office.  That's pretty damned amazing.

Just Call Me Beatrice

Okay, so.  This is the part of my time in Bang Saen that I swore you wouldn't believe without pictures.

I would ask, "Are you ready?" but it would be essentially pointless.  There is NO WAY you are ready for this.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Wat Saen Suk.

WARNING:  THERE ARE SERIOUSLY DISTURBING IMAGES BELOW.  IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THESE, TURN BACK NOW.

Window to My World

Someday, I'm going to strap a tiny camera to my helmet and record my regular drives around Chiang Mai, too, but for now, enjoy this version that one of my friends here found on YouTube.  Yes, this is basically what driving around this city feels like, except that they seem to have recorded this on a remarkably quiet day.  (Also, it's missing the essential hallmark of driving in Chiang Mai:  the four drunk Thai teenagers and a dog on a single bike, with no headlights, the driver of which is eating with one hand and texting with the other and is also not the person sitting in front.  And the bike is going the wrong way down a one-way street.  THEN it would be fully accurate. :))

Mona Lisa Smile

So!  Clearly, I am all about telling things out of order lately, so let me whisk you back two weeks and let you know about the last few days of in-country training.

As I mentioned, learning with Sucha was a lot of fun, once she warmed up to us.  At first, I thought she was a bit distant because of the stupid joke I’d made the night we met, but it turned out that she actually felt a little awkward around us because she hasn’t taught a lot of Westerners in the past (she tends to work with Japanese student groups).  At the beginning of the first class, she asked me and the other Western VSOs a few times whether we were all right, since we looked so serious (or, more likely, dopey, considering that it was early on a Monday morning).  After we reassured her that we were fine, she confessed, “I am not used to farang face; I thought you don’t like me.”

By the end of the week, though, the five of us ended up having a blast together – especially after we went out for mookata and a few drinks one evening, and ended up riffing on the Thai soaps being broadcast on a giant screen in the restaurant garden.  The one VSO from Sri Lanka provided a running commentary:  “Okay, there’s one girl in the hospital, and she’s talking to another girl on the phone.  They must be fighting over a man.  Oh, there’s the man, the one with his shirt open!  And now the girl in the hospital looks happy.  He must have chosen her.  But oh no!  Who’s this guy?  He’s brought the hospital girl flowers, and now he’s upset.  Maybe he’s in love with her, too?  What is the man with the open shirt going to do?”

We all ended up with Thai nicknames as well.  I already mentioned that Sucha dubbed our Philippino colleague Bpogey (it turns out that, contrary to my initial post, Bpoky isn’t the right way to say it, after all – “Bpogey”, pronounced kind of like “bogey on your six”, means “handsome”, but “Bpoky” is Tagalog for “vagina” – whoops!).  Well, the Sri Lankan volunteer became “Jan”, or “moonlight” (a pun on her actual name); the older Englishwoman was nicknamed “chombu”, or “rose apple”, after her first exposure to the Thai sun left her cheeks a little singed; and the other English volunteer, who’s the youngest of us, ended up being “dek dek” (“baby”).  I wound up with two nicknames, weirdly enough:  Ms. M150 (or “M roi haa sip” in Thai), because the early mornings and lack of black tea left me chugging the enamel-melting energy drink M150 every day, and “Monalisa”.  Yeah, I can’t really explain the second one.  Sucha just looked over at me at one point, and cackled, “You look like Mona Lisa!”  Chalk it up to the mysteries of the farang face…

... or maybe the headband.  Pictured, L to R:  Monalisa, Dek Dek, Chombu, Jan, and Bpogey.

The other VSOs and I also got the chance to explore some of Bang Saen.  There’s a pretty beach lined with palm trees; the water’s not really clean enough for swimming, but it’s gorgeous to walk along.  (At sunset, with the pink sky throwing the palm trees into shadow, it looks ludicrously like a postcard of Miami Beach – the kind of place you don’t expect to exist in real life.)  It’s also lined with stalls selling every kind of seafood imaginable.  Twenty baht (about 40p) can get you a skewer of freshly caught squid, doused in scalding green chilli sauce.  Man, that’s one thing I’m going to miss about Bang Saen.

(There are seafood restaurants, as well, although it’s not really worth the extra money to dine in a more formal atmosphere when you can eat on the beach, or in one of the markets.  I remember passing one of the restaurants that had an enormous statue of a fish – wearing a raincoat and flashing a jaunty thumbs-up, like Charlie Tuna – outside.  A tiny tortoiseshell cat was looking up at the fish and just yowling his little heart out, presumably because it was huge and, for some reason, he couldn’t bite into it.)

And speaking of seafood, Bang Saen’s university (which seems to provide a large part of the town’s population, as well as its social and cultural life) has a neat little aquarium that’s definitely worth an hour’s look.  (Especially if you have a Thai driver’s license, like yours truly, so you can avoid paying three times as much for the tourist admission rate.  *blows raspberry*)  It’s small but packed, and dimly lit to show off the astonishing, electric blues and greens of the tropical fish.  I think my favourite display might have been the octopus tank.  They’re so much faster than you would imagine, and they can basically go tearing along at top speed, whichever way they’re facing.  (When they’re swimming with their tentacles behind them, their faces look bizarrely like dogs’.)  There’s also a huge tank at the end that extends up and over the hallway, so you can look up and see a school of fish swooping like birds overhead – or, in my case, see the ominous shadow of a shark hovering like a bird of prey.  Gah!

The best part of the aquarium, though, was the names of the different species.  Bluestreak Damselfish was my favourite, hands down. :)

We also found a great coffeeshop called Sweet Corner Bangsean, where the owner – a gregarious young guy in chunky black glasses – would help us practice our Thai, and also chat to us in English about our studies.  The cake there is amazing.  (Bang Saen turned out to be surprisingly good for cake:  the main night market had at least three different cake stalls, offering gooey chocolate and black forest slices next to flavours like taro and green tea.)

Three of us even made it over to Chonburi, the nearest big town, one evening to do some of that I-never-realised-I-needed-this shopping that all new arrivals end up doing in their first week.  (I was along for moral support, although I did score some shoes. :))  We visited two of Chonburi’s hulking chrome-and-glass malls, which were kind of a trip.  The interiors felt homey and comforting to me, which is kind of disturbing when you think about it:  coming from New Jersey, I’m such a mall brat that I find escalators and an Auntie Anne’s pretzel stall soothing.  But the exteriors (especially of Chonburi’s huge Central Plaza) were all rectangular ponds and space-age metal arches.  Thailand’s cities can feel very futuristic in a lot of ways – a feeling that I think is enhanced by the general sense that the country is part of a region whose star is rising.  Not only do many Asian cities look like a living space-age fantasy, but it’s likely that the actual look of the world’s future will be strongly influenced by these cities, too.

I also got to try a new Thai food in Chonburi:  khanom jiin, which is basically glass noodles with a selection of soupy curries and toppings (like garlic, lime, coriander, and chilli).  It wasn’t completely new – it’s very like the popular Burmese dish mohinga, which my colleagues made for Christmas – but I’d never had the Thai version before.  The khanom jiin buffet in Central Plaza has a range of curries, from sweet peanut sauce to green curries that will take the roof of your mouth off (but in a good way). :)

There was one more major attraction in Bang Saen, but it deserves its own post.  And pictures.  I promise, you will not believe this shit otherwise.

On my and Sucha’s last night in Bang Saen, we had a party up in Sucha’s room, with what I’m pretty sure was – at a rough estimate – all the food in existence.  So, sorry if there were riots in the empty supermarkets of the world that night.  We had all the food.  There was a mound of fresh fish cakes easily the size of my head.  There was fried chicken, and roasted pork, and skewers of fresh squid, and there was candied squid and maple-roasted candied beef.  (The candied beef is actually nice, like hickory-smoked bacon, but I’m still not convinced about the candied squid – way too sweet for me.)  There were pineapples, and rose apples, and bunches of holy basil (which turns out to be surprisingly good as a garnish in a lemon Bacardi Breezer, trufax), and SO MUCH RICE.  And that’s without even getting into the range of Thai desserts – one that was a lot like flan, and another that disturbingly resembled frog’s eggs (but tasted like tapioca), and one that was essentially tiny orange gulab jamun.

And seven giant hunks of khao lam.

Khao lam is something Pam told me about when she heard I was going to Bang Saen.  “They do this dessert down there – it’s sticky rice and coconut milk, but it’s boiled together in a section of bamboo.  It’s so good.”  And it is – it’s like rice pudding, but sweeter, and with a richer texture.  Some places add chunks of taro or red beans for extra flavour.  The fun part, though, is that it comes in a hefty, two-foot long bamboo section that’s probably heavy enough to be used as a blunt instrument.  The merchant cracks it in a vise for you, and you then have to pry it open to get at the rice.  (I took one on the train back to Chiang Mai the next day.  I hesitate to think what the other passengers thought was going on behind the curtain of my sleeper compartment, with all the sickening cracking and glooping sounds.)

We basically spent the entire night eating, while Sucha spent the night, rather hilariously, adding us all on Facebook and then messaging us while she was sitting across the table.  Good times. ;)

(By the way, one more memory from in-country training.  We were describing the plot of “The Melody” – see my earlier review here – to the young Thai dude from the programme office.  Just as we were explaining how this ambitious young man from Bangkok was transformed by the love of a good-hearted country girl, he held up a hand.  “Let me guess,” he said.  “The girl has cancer?”  Heehee.)

Kony Baloney

Link storm!

In case you missed it, there's a heated discussion going on about Kony 2012, a campaign started by the charity Invisible Children.  The campaign's goal?  Make sure Joseph Kony, head of the Lord's Resistance Army (a guerilla group that began in northern Uganda and now operates in South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but NOT in Uganda), is captured and brought before the ICC for trial before the year is out.  The LRA has a history of killing or mutilating children, and of kidnapping them for use as soldiers or sex slaves.

So, arrest the brutal warlord, save the invisible children of Africa.  So far, so good, right?  And it's tough to deny that Invisible Children's campaign video, also called Kony 2012, is a beautiful piece of work.  It does tug the heartstrings exactly as it was intended to.

Enter the controversy.  Here are some of the key problems that have been brought up regarding the campaign:

1)  Invisible Children's plan is... kinda vague.  What exactly is the charity planning to do to faciliate the arrest of a guerilla leader in central Africa?  Um... take him on with the power of bracelets!  I'm kidding, but not by much.  Most of Invisible Children's funding goes towards raising awareness.  Give $30, and you get a Kony 2012 bracelet and activism "kit".  Now, for some causes, raising awareness is the most crucial step towards addressing the issue, but that really only applies when the people unaware of the problem are the people who can do something about it.  To be fair, Invisible Children's idea is that if enough Americans know about Kony and the atrocities of the LRA, they will put pressure on the government to sent military advisors to Uganda, which will ensure that the Ugandan military can finally bring Kony to justice.

Except... President Obama totally sent a group of 100 advisors to Uganda back in November for exactly this purpose (a move that's analysed in detail in this excellent Foreign Affairs article).

Ooops.

2)  Invisible Children's plan is... kinda worrying.  Okay, the advisors are already in place, so... what exactly is Invisible Children pushing for?  Answers have differed slightly - they're afraid the mission will be cancelled without public pressure (odd, since it was initiated without public pressure), or they want the mission to be expanded.  The charity has, however, cleared things up somewhat with an open letter to President Obama, detailing how it believes the US should support the Ugandan military.

There's a good analysis of some of the strategic problems with this plan here, but the biggies are that Invisible Children's ideas would require a lot of money and (worse) a massive push for the US to militarise central Africa, and that Invisible Children believes that the best way to proceed is by giving intelligence, military hardware, and strategic support to the Ugandan military.  What's wrong with that, you might ask?  Welllll, a few things - for starters, Uganda's military hasn't been successful in finding Kony so far, and Ugandan soliders been accused of abuses against civilians in neighbouring countries during their previous efforts to hunt Kony down, which means that they're not going to be able to follow Kony into other states without serious backlash.  Also, the Ugandan army has a history of human rights abuses almost as long as the LRA's.

Oh, and in case you missed the part earlier about Joseph Kony not being in Uganda, JOSEPH KONY IS NOT IN UGANDA.  You can read about it in this article from Foreign Policy, "Joseph Kony Is Not In Uganda".

All of which leads us to point number 3.

3)  Joseph Kony is not in Uganda.  Sorry, couldn't resist. :)  But that's basically the crux of it - Invisible Children massively simplifies the entire issue, and the entire web of issues facing both Uganda and the central African region.  And in simplifying, they get things wrong.  Subtle things, like the way an expanded US and local military presence probably wouldn't be the healthiest thing for Ugandan society, and basic things.  Like the fact that Joseph Kony isn't in Uganda.

(Okay, to be fair, the video does state - briefly - that the LRA no longer operates in Uganda.  However, as long as Invisible Children continues to talk about this as if it's just a Ugandan issue, and continues to tout supporting the Ugandan military as the only solution, I'm going to keep making this joke.)

And that brings us to point number 4.

4)  This is some pretty patronising stuff.  Invisible Children's approach suggests that Africa as a whole needs rescuing, and that not only is it the place of concerned Americans to do so, but we're the only ones who can.  (Because, naturally, US advice and support = instant solution, right?)  In the Kony 2012 video, we hear a lot about the invisible children of Uganda.  We hear very little about the adults of Uganda - the history of the conflict, the solutions that have been tried in the past, and what the situation is today.  The implication is that, essentially, nothing has been accomplished - or will be accomplished - without Western intervention.  Here is a list of responses from African and African-born American writers that collectively blow that idea out of the water.  (Even if you don't read them all, watch the video from Ugandan blogger Rosebell Kagumire.  She says all of this much better than I could.)

I realise that this last point may sound a little hypocritical, coming from someone who works on international development.  And, yeah, I understand that it's all too easy to tip over into the mindset of, "I'm here to save the world!  I'm here to rescue people!  I'm here to accomplish XYZ for the people of this country!"  But that really accomplishes nothing, except (if you're not careful) to replace local tyranny with the imported variety, cloaked in charitable concern.  I believe - although I know it's debatable - that there is a place for Westerners to volunteer their time, expertise, technology, funding, and advice to help people in developing countries deal with specific issues.  However, it only works if you put what you have at the disposal of the people you want to help, to use as they see fit, in a way that makes sense for their culture and goals.

Honestly, I think Invisible Children is a well-intentioned group, and they certainly have a talent for generating public interest.  I just think it's a shame that that energy is being spent on such a flawed idea.  However, I'm legitimately psyched about the excellent level of discussion that's been going on around this issue.  One of my favourite bloggers said simply, "The video is not informative, but the debate is informative."  Damn right it is, and it's sparked some great writing about politics, warfare, charity, and society, including (but not at all limited to) the articles I've linked here.  Go check them out!

Okay, one more link:  This article brings up the interesting suggestion that the ICC's indictment of Kony in the first place was the wrong move, as it scuppered ongoing peace negotiations between the Ugandan government and the LRA.  However, I'm including it not only for that, but also because of this line:

Unfortunately, the U.S. organization behind the anti-Kony viral video and click-based fundraising capaign, Invisible Children, wasn’t actually asking for money to have a hit man take out Mr. Kony, head of the Lord’s Resistance Army. That would have been a valuable goal. The idea of a crowd-sourced hit job, with tens of millions of people serving as accessories to the crime, has considerable appeal. 

Crowd-sourced assassinations.  Best idea for a novel ever, or best idea for a novel ever?

(One more link, I lied:  There's a Kony 2012 drinking game.  Eat a cookie every time Africans are depicted as having agency.  Psyche!  You don't get any cookies!)

B Flat

Adventures in speaking Thai!  Today I got to navigate the fun world of fixing a busted motorbike, which is an interesting challenge when the longest sentence you're able to say in the local language is, "I'll have the pad sii yew with pork, a little bit spicy, no MSG."

I think Arcee ran over something on the way home last night, because her front tire was starting to go flat when I started out this morning (although, moron that I am, I couldn't figure out why she was twitching and jerking until a friendly dude at a stoplight pointed the now pancake-flat tire out to me).  I wobbled my way to the nearest gas station and tried the air pump; I was pretty sure, from the speed with which the tire had deflated, that it was punctured, but it was worth a shot.  Sure enough, I'd ridden a few metres before it was completely flattened out again.  So I paddled my way back to the station.

The attendant took one look at my tire and pointed me to the air pumps.  I tried to explain in English that I thought the tire had a hole, and got a blank look (it doesn't help that when I'm flustered that someone can't understand me, I start using a whole lot of different phrases, very soft and fast, to try and explain, which is probably the worst thing to do to someone who's trying to follow a foreign language).  He asked one of his colleagues to come over; she listened, looked at the tire, nodded sympathetically, and then pointed at the air pumps.  Eventually, the first attendant took my bike and wheeled her over to the pump, filled the front tire, and looked at me expectantly.

I had no idea what the Thai was for "fill" (or "puncture", or "tire"...), but I remembered "chan" ("I"), and "leaw" ("already"), enough for me to gesture at the pump and insist, "I already!  I already!", followed by an enthusiastic mime of a tire deflating.  From my hunched-over, deflated position, I could see a lightbulb switching on over the attendant's head.  He pointed me in the direction of the nearest repair shop, where I again tried to babble out a long account of what was wrong (in English), while the mechanic stared at me.  Eventually, he pointed to the tire and asked pointedly, "Change?"  Oh.  Right.  Yeah, that'd be nice, thank you.

Things Arcee has now:

- A new tube in her front tire
- A freshly inflated back tire (y'know, while I was there)
- A stunning wash-and-wax job, courtesy of Smile Cars, a carwash run by a sassy middle-aged Thai woman, where they give you a free bottle of branded water with each wash.  (Yeah, I don't know, either.)  Seriously, though, I wish I'd taken before-and-after photos.  Arcee got filthy while I was away (... okay, that didn't really come out right :)), covered in dirt and cobwebs from sitting in the parking lot.  The first time I rode after coming back, my hands ended up caked in mud from the dust that had collected in the grooves of the handlebars.  Now, she positively gleams.
- A very exhausted human

Your Moment of Zen-ocide

Random Thai cultural phenomena, part the thousandth:  Hitler Chic.

Yup, those are t-shirts of Hitler dressed as, among other things, Ronald McDonald and a Teletubby.  And I remember reading about the high school in Chiang Mai that horrified local expats when its senior chose the theme for their annual parade and celebration:  Nazism!

It really does seem to stem from genuine ignorance about Nazi history.  He's a funny little man with an amusing moustache, and they want to dress him in adorable outfits.  Awwww!  Except AHHHHHHHHH!