Masala Yangon....

YANGON,MYANMAR- Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Within five minutes of walking through Yangon one is in little doubt they ar in a truly "third-world" country. Electric cables and phone lines drape on and around buildings like cobwebs. It is a city whose infrastructure exudes entropy. Sidewalks occasionally crumble into rubble and dirt. On many of the older buildings vegetation in the form of ficus and ferns take advantage of every crack and wet spot so that scattered plants can be seen sprouting spontaneously throughout their facades.
The air is filled with an aroma of combined dust, exaust, frying oil, spices and rotting vegetation. As one moves through the everchanging hordes of vendors, the aroma morphs from more fruity to spicey to barbeque and back again. The ears are bombarded by an orgy of music- modern and traditonal, cars honking, vendors hawking their wares, birdcalls and the sing song burmese dialect. And then of course there are the almost ubiquitous generators. Yangon notorious for regular power outages checkered throughout the city. So many shops, offices and hotels have their own generators. Yangon is a city notable for its intermingling of divergent classes, ethic groups and religions. But in the west the secular, white, and commercial seem to dominate the urban landscape. In Yangon, monks are almost as visible as street vendors. They cross the street in their orange-red robes -part of which is often gathered up over their bald heads, protecting them from the noon-day sun if they have no umbrella.
Though Buddhist pagodas are peppered throughout the city, mosques, Hindu temples and Christian cathedrals have a definite presence here as well. There is no separation between the sacred and the profane in Yangon it seems. Pagodas and mosques seem as if they are built on top of shops and businesses. It's hard to see where the actual entrance to the holy place is.
There is a large contingent of both Chinese and Indian immigrants, many of whom tend to dominate the city's commerce. Trying to find a "Burmese-looking person" on the streets is a ridiculous quest- probably next only to trying to find an "American-looking person" in the US. Before Myanmar had large infusions of Indian and Chinese, it was a hodge-podge of ethnic groups. Bamar, Mon, Chin, Kachin, Karen, Naga, Rakhaing and Shan are the dominant ones.
It's seems to be a culture with few of the positive effects of globalization. At every street corner there seems to be a guy sittting at a table with a landline phone. People pay a fee to use these phones just like a pay phone. In many other third world countries many of the poor have cell. Social safety nets are non-existent. People with no legs beg on the street. A man passes me with cancerous growths on his face and neck that make his face appear to be a melting liquid mass.
But being a closed-off society until relatively lately Myanmar appears to have retained much of their traditional culture. Many of the men wear longyis (sarongs) like a long dress for men. Women carry all kinds of ungainly loads on their heads. And the general homongenization of their culture seems much to much much slower than in other parts of southeast asia.
I'm going out now to see the famous Shwedagon Pagoda. Tomorrow I fly to Mandalay in the north. I'lll use that as a base for several days to see things in that part of Myanmar.