Sunday in Migun

As is my usual wont on Sundays in Myanmar, I hired UJoe the taxi driver, invited Nyai Nyai the registrar, as a tour guide and brought along a German professor from the Goethe institute I met in the hotel to explore Mandalay with me. We started in the south end of town visiting with a bronze statue maker and then moved on to the marionette maker. What impressed me most about these two shops was the pride they took in carrying out their family business from generation to generation. At the Buddha factory, the owner not only took hours showing us the process but then brought out books of statues he made and delivered to such placed as Paris. His father taught him as he is teaching his son. At the marionette store, the father was coaching his daughter, an economics student at the university and his son, a high school graduate, to carry on his tradition. In Canada if you want to insure your store or factory closes, just suggest your kids take over!

The marionette guy, by the way, told me he sold most of his product to Thailand, specifically the night market at Chang Mai and the Chatachuk market in Bangkok, in case anyone thought they were buying Thai originals. In fact, they are even marked “made in Thailand”on the foot of the marionettes, he told us, when they get to Thailand. When we asked if he felt badly about this, he pointed to his wallet and said something like “what do I care”.

The hard work and dedication of people to a job is truly remarkable. We also went to an Old Folks Home in Migun, a very big deal since most adults live with their children until they pass away. These old people have to be really desperate to live here, yet the nurse told us she lived and worked here for the past twenty-five years and her patients were her family, her parents and her children. I am not sure I have met such a dedicated person before and I could not get over her infectious smile.

In Myanmar, whenever you visit a Pagoda, you have to take off both your shoes and socks. What do you think it felt like walking up about 100 stairs of jagged rock with bare feet in blistering heat? You are right!. As Josh probably remembers, the kids who try to sell you “stuff” all the way up to the peak speak a million languages and can say; “it is not that expensive” in Myanmar, German, French, English and Thai. They are so cute I could not resist giving them money even though I had no interest in buying their product. I just hope I did not offend them.

Yesterday, I put out a “Friday bulletin” at school telling about the comings and goings of teachers, congratulating kids who did well and so on. A Myanmar teacher reminded me afterwards that writing such things as welcoming back a teacher who just had a baby might not be appreciated. At the same time, a Pilipino teacher asked why she was not mentioned again emphasizing to me the cultural differences even in one school where we have foreign teachers from different parts of the world.

So, what did I learn? As usual, one really has to be sensitive to different cultural mores and only eat peanuts that are roasted.What????!!!!

Ya, had some peanuts in Migun which I had and almost spit out. Did you ever taste a boiled peanut?