Although this is not a political blog, it’s a space that acknowledges that you can’t escape the world, even nested within the walled confines of your privategarden spaces. An event that crept into my mental garden is the 20th anniversary of the 8.8.88 popular uprising in Burma (a country whose military rulers have decided should be called Myanmar). I thought I’d mark the occasion with pictures from a trip I took there with my father in 1998, shortly after the tenth anniversary of the attempted revolution.
But first, a quick recap in case you’re not familiar with the events: On August 8, 1988 student protesters led a popular uprising against the ruling military junta, leading in the course of several weeks to the downfall of General Ne Win. For the first time since 1962, when the general seized power, the country sensed that democracy might be possible once again. But the military panicked and installed martial law, leading to a crackdown that very likely resulted in far more casualties than China’s notorious and better known Tiananmen Square incident which would take place less than a year later.
The incident in China was immortalized in that famous photograph of the lone protester facing off with a tank. Fragile flesh meets hardened steel; youthful idealism confronts bureaucratic power. How can anyone forget that picture?
But with a government more secretive and repressive than even China’s, there were no similarly indelible images to make it out of the Burma, and the events of 8.8.88 live primarily through stories handed down from those who were there. In retelling the story I hope to keep its memory alive. [Read more on Burmese democracy efforts.]
Fast-forward ten years to October 1998, the end of the monsoon season, and two months after a small band of students had staged a protest in front of Sule Pagoda in downtown Rangoon. The students were no match and the government won this time.
Things were “stable” when we arrived, though an Orwellian smog hung in the air everywhere we went. Soldiers with rifles guarded key locations in Rangoon. Checkpoints with armed guards slowed down travel outside of the capital. (The US State Department still had a travel advisory in place.)
Orwellian sign
Our plan was to touch base with family in the Rangoon area for a week, travel for two weeks around what parts of the country the military allowed anyone to visit, and then return for a final week to Rangoon. That last week was time I’d set aside to “do photography” beyond my tourist snapshots. The malaria I contracted in up-state Burma gave me a week of fevered delirium to end my trip instead, so all these photos were snapped during the first part of the trip. Out of a few hundred slides, I’ve scanned a few of botanical interest, a few of my father’s home village, some zoo pictures, plus a few that show some of the textures of how people live under one the most repressive regimes in the world.
The flat tire
To get to my father’s village we drove to the city where the good dirt road ended and the bad dirt road began. There we rented a Jeep to take us as far we could get on road surfaces that were still part-liquid, part-goo from the monsoons that were just concluding. In Burma’s poor economy, even the relatively prosperous who could afford a vehicle couldn’t necessarily afford tires or the bribes necessary to get you in the good graces of the officials who would have access to foreign-made tires in the first place. After we couldn’t go any farther in the Jeep, we hired a bullock cart to take us the last couple of miles to the village.
Village catch basin
One of my father’s friends who also emigrated to the United States from this village sent money back to his relatives. Some of the funds helped the family get by. Some went to build a small pagoda outside the village. And some went to building this catch basin that helps provide the villagers with water through the eight months of the year that see almost no rainfall. This is generally how projects get financed. The government does virtually nothing unless the rulers can derive some kind of benefit from the transaction.
Blooming cotton
A flowering cotton plant in the village. Although I wear a lot of cotton, I’d never thought much about where it came from until I saw this plant. Looking at the flowers you can tell right away that it’s a mallow, first cousin to hollyhocks, okra and hibiscus.
Lily/Weed
Farmers in the village cotton fields, like farmers and gardeners everywhere else, have problems with weeds. Here’s one of their undesirables, an Asiatic lily. (If all my weeds could be so attractive I wouldn’t have any need for “good” plants!)
Bicycle mechanic’s shop
The village bicycle mechanic’s “garage.” The mechanic, like many adults that you encountered, automatically went into this stiff, at-attention pose whenever you’d point a camera at him, maybe something to do with cameras loaded with slow film… My father has the same posing issues, even with a camcorder. (You can imagine how compelling videos of him just standing there are.)
A village party
The last night we were in the village we hired a band and threw a party. Most of the village showed up. Two of the musicians are shown with split-bamboo percussion clappers called
wallecotes (however you spell it…).
Village school
After we left the village we passed through another, more prosperous settlement. Here’s a class at their school.
Agitated elephant, Rangoon Zoo
An agitated elephant at the Rangoon zoo. I am
not a fan of zoos, and a visit to an old-school zoo like this one shows some of the reasons. The legs of the elephants stay chained to the posts all day long. Even at the thoroughly modern San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park, the elephants were kept chained to their stalls at night until the practice was discontinued in the 1990s in response to a well-publicized and particularly egregious case of neglect.
Caged Rangoon Zoo monkey
Caged monkey at the Rangoon zoo.
Caged leopard, Rangoon Zoo
This leopard and a neighboring lion got to spend their days pacing twelve-foot-square cages of steel and concrete.
Roadside staghorn and orchid
A couple of roadside epiphytic plants: a staghorn fern on the left and on the right an orchid in the vanda/phalaensopsis (Sarcanthinae) subtribe. Between cities, you can park your car and often see exotic plantlife like this.
Here are a couple good sites if you’d like to do a little more reading on the country. The second in particular has some actions that you can do to help bring democracy back to Burma, everything from switching off the Olympics to donating your many billions.
Irrawady.com
US Campaign for Burma
August 08 2008 | Categories: landscape • places • rambles | Tags: 8888 • agriculture • Burma • China • dictatorships • vacations • weeds | No Comments »
At the risk of sounding too much like Christian on Project Runway, I’m about to embark on a little “vay-cay.” I leave San Diego on Wednesday in my old Jeep Cherokee for what could be its last major trip to the American West.
These days I worry about gas prices, my carbon footprint, and the mechanical reliability of my trusty vehicular companion that I’ve had since it was a baby, back in 1993. My preferred modes of transport the last seven years has been scooters I’ve owned, the first a zippy little Aprilia Scarabeo 150, and now a big Buick of a scooter, a 582cc Honda Silver Wing that weighs over 500 pounds. It has no style, but I got it for cheap. (For all its massiveness, it still gets almost 50 miles to the gallon.)
Above: the Shell station down the hill on April 30, before they raised their prices.
But the thought of strapping two camera bags with three cameras, two serious tripos and a big steel box of film to the scooter sounds a little crazy. And that’s before you factor in the camping gear and multiple changes of clothes to keep me looking semi-snazzy. Important things, you know. Besides, when I floated the idea with John–mostly in jest–his jaw dropped with concern.
“Yellowstone? On a scooter?”
Maybe I was cruel to even scare him like that, particularly after the episode six years ago when he spent seven weeks taking care of me when I was piled into a wheelchair after a little meeting of the body with hard pavement. But the Jeep it will be for this trip. And not only will the trip be in a car, I’ll at John’s urging be packing a cell phone, in case the Jeep breaks down.
That cell is a big move. Even though I’ve been doing email for over twenty years and have had my own web site for well over ten, I’ve been a total Luddite when it comes to cell phones. Yes, they’d be handy to have sometimes, but I’m not willing to chance being turned into one of those people–You know the type: device planted firmly to ear, muttering inanely about foot cream or last night’s pasta salad to whoever will listen, and often doing it in a moving vehicle while driving distractedly like a chauffeur on a Quaalude jag. Pray for my soul, folks.
So, cellphone in pocket, I’ll be heading north through Las Vegas into the Nevada outback, through desert towns with great names like Elgin, Carp(?!), Ely, Pioche, Jackpot and Caliente. (In naming just six cities, I’ve named virtually all the cities on the map on this route that cuts due north through the Great Basin, along the Eastern edge of Nevada.) The nominal destination is Yellowstone, and I intend to get there. But who knows what else I’ll find. There might even be some cellphone reception along the way!
May 19 2008 | Categories: photography • places • rambles | Tags: carbon footprint • cell phones • desert towns • nevada • scooters • vacations | 1 Comment »
