KABOBfest: Travels and photography from Burma

In June of 2005, I was given the opportunity to visit Burma while at academic conference in southern China. During the pre-trip meeting, while my group of Chinese, American and European scholars were getting ready to head out to the Golden Triangle, we were advised that first of all, while China, Thailand, and Laos were all okay for us visit, all of the westerners coming along on this trek were not officially welcome in Burma. The ruling military junta had eventually been "influenced" and went ahead and granted us visas somehow. I asked no questions although everyone knew it had to have been the Chinese government's ability to coax its little b**** into doing it.

The second thing we were told about this field trip was that we were in for a fun surprise as far as Burma’s toilets were concerned. The only clue we’d been given was that they were “unique”. (Spoiler alert: The tile is nicely laid around the hole in the ground.)

Oh, and uh, one last thing: the original Burmese itinerary had been slightly modified due to a recent “land mine incident” with a tourist last week. Nothing to worry over, though.

My knowledge about Burma had, until recently, been limited to only a few tidbits all acquired from my days as a graphic artist for a small, family-owned outdoor Burmese teak furniture wholesaler (whose owners turned out to be Jewish Zionists as I found out after September 11, 2001. It made things... a little uncomfortable, to say the least). It was at this job where I had been too nice to tell the VP, her boyfriend, her Russian mother, both receptionists, and even the guys in the back that, "No, I was not okay with their chain smoking in the office, kitchen, warehouse and especially near my cubicle," after which I should have cited California’s labor code 6404.5 which strictly prohibits any known smoke from entering my enclosed area of employment.

But nope, I never said a word. Mainly because, like I said, I used to be nice. Also, I was hard up for cash.

Anyway, it was with the furniture company where I learned that Burmese teak (which is what they used) was superior to Indonesian teak (which is what the competition used). It was important to the small, family owned firm that I included catch phrases like, “environmentally friendly” and “reforested teak” on the catalogs. I guess they were trying to draw attention away from Senator Dianne Feinstein’s then-proposed bill to ban all Burmese imports into the U.S. Of this, I was informed that if anyone called asking about I should take a message because I knew nothing and should just carry on with my graphic design and second-hand smoke inhaling duties. Curious, however, I called a friend of mine working in Congress to have the bill’s text faxed over. I showed it to the boss, and he muttered something about “human rights violations” and “it’s just a political football, nothing to worry about”.

I quit a few months later citing emphysema, a collapsed right lung, yellowing teeth and nails, a nicotine addiction, and the inability to play well with Zionists. I was asked not to return the next day. Can I just say now that being nice enough to give your two weeks notice is highly overrated? I checked their Web site about a year ago and saw that they were now a defunct outdoor teak furniture wholesaler, which I realize now, may have been due to the passage of the Senator’s law after all: the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003 banning imports on Burmese products into the U.S.

For the U.S. government to take time out of its busy Middle East oil pillaging schedule to pass a law like that, frankly, raises an eyebrow with me because since when did the U.S. really, and I mean really care about human rights abuses and democracy? It’s killing me that I can’t figure this one out.

So this is why we Americans (and Europeans with similar policies) have a hard time obtaining Burmese visas when going on overnight excursions. It was a surprise to many of us that we were even going to visit Burma on this fieldtrip. Tourism to Burma is boycotted by many human rights groups — something supported by the country’s own 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Aung San Suu Kyi, who would have been the country’s prime minister as she was elected in 1990 by a landslide, except that the ruling military regime decided to place her under house arrest instead.

Visiting Burma is controversial because country’s tourism dollars mainly go to prop up the tyrants running the country. The Lonely Planet guidebook to this country even begins with a “should we have even bothered to publish this book?” soliloquy, outlining the pros and cons for which to visit or not to visit; to spend money, or not to spend money. Their first sentence had me convinced that I should definitely be there. It was one of those you sometimes run across that you wish you would have thought of first but now you have to put quotations around because it was someone else who said it, dammit:

“At Lonely Planet we believe that travel is one of the most powerful forces for tolerance, understanding and democracy the world has.”

Thus, because many people are not able to travel there, I share my photography as an extension of this effort.

[A NOTE ON THE CHOICE OF THE NAME "BURMA": The United Nations’ Web site lists the country as Myanmar, but refers to it as Burma in many documents. The military junta changed the name to to “Myanmar” -- but it can’t really get anyone else to take it seriously. The country’s democratic opposition maintains use of the name “Burma”, and to call it as such shows support for Suu Kyi.]