There's an interesting piece posted 10 April in the International Herald Tribune, the global edition of the New York Times. The story (www.nytimes.com) says that pro-democracy activists and tourism-industry commentators in Asia fear the opening of the long-isolated country Myanmar, also known as Burma, to international tourism.
They are worried chiefly about two things, according to the story: The potential spread of Thailand-style sex tourism and a dependency on handouts among poor local people, especially poor children.
As a traveler and journalist who visited Myanmar/Burma in 2000, when few outsiders were doing so, I'd say these are valid concerns. There are downsides to travel - and especially mass tourism - but the greater risk lies in isolation, which fosters ignorance, among both locals and foreigners, and inhibits economic development.
When I visited, I met a friendly, attractive populace - one that existed on about $1 USD per person per day, however. The nation's major river, the Irrawaddy, had exactly one bridge along its 1,200-mile length. I saw maybe a dozen mobile phones in five days in-country. People were already commonly asking for money - in markets, at the country's many brilliant Buddhist shrines, on street corners - and many of them were children, impoverished by decades-long rule by the harsh military junta that was made worse by international sanctions against the regime.
Since the recent elections and cautious loosening - not abandonment - of control by the junta, tourists are starting to visit the country for its unique properties. Indeed, Myanmar/Burma struck me as being about 40 years behind most of the world, including neighboring Asian countries, when I visited. The erstwhile capital city, Rangoon, also called Yangon, looked like a big Asian city must have looked in about 1960. Going there is like taking part in time travel.
Many sectors of the tourism industry are reportedly controlled by elements of the regime and other well-connected insiders. That is at the high end, however. Cab drivers, many tour guides, restaurants, food sellers and keepsake sellers, small merchants and others can be paid in cash directly by travelers, and that is money they need. Not all of it needs to go through the establishment or contribute directly to its upkeep.
Is the glass half-empty or half-full? It's hard to know for sure, but I think it's half-full. The regime is letting go its grip, gradually, to be sure, and this legendary Buddhist land is cautiously returning to the world. Right now, Chinese and Thais are the most numerous visitors. Personally, I'd return in a heartbeat.
Footnote: The regime renamed the country Myanmar, after an ancient local kingdom, to rid the nation's name of colonial associations. Burma is a name bestowed by the British and refers to the multicultural country's largest ethnic group, the Burmese. Much of the fighting in border regions in recent decades has been between Burmese and national minorities. English-speaking locals told me during my visit that the name Myanmar is pronounced ME 'n ma - the r on the end is silent.
Showing posts with label Yangon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yangon. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Friday, December 2, 2011
What's in a Name? Myanmar or Burma?
What's in a name? When it comes to Burma - or is it Myanmar? - plenty. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discovered this on her visit to the long-isolated Southeast Asian nation, where what name you use indicates what your politics are or even what ethnic group you come from.
I, too, found this out when I ventured there a decade back in search of a travel story. I wasn't supposed to go, following the argument that tourism gives the corrupt government more revenue, while travel sanctions would weaken the regime. But the regime simply cut deals with neighboring powerhouse China and took in even more money that way. With tourism, at least some money makes its way to local working folk. When I was there, they averaged $1 USD per person per day in income. So, I went.
Burma is the older name. Myanmar is the name the ruling military junta, in power since the early 1960s, gave the country maybe 20 years ago. That makes it bad, right? My former newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, was among a number of Western media outlets whose editors thought so. The Examiner style gurus refused to use Myanmar, so my every reference in the travel section cover story I wrote after my trip was struck and changed to Burma for publication.
But things are not as simple as that. Burma is a name bestowed on the country by British colonial rulers. The Burmese are the largest ethnic group, but there are minorities fighting border wars with the authorities of long duration. Calling the country Burma is like saying most people in the United States are Caucasian so the country should be called the United States of Caucasia. Problem: It's not inclusive.
People who object to Myanmar do so because they don't think the junta should be free to rename - or rebrand, in marketing-speak - the country. But Myanma, without the R, was the name of a bygone kingdom in the vincinity; it refers to a place, not a group, and its use is more progressive than the name it replaced, despite the rotten reputation of the junta - which may be liberalizing at long last.
So, I'm sticking with Myanmar - even as I lament the name-change from the lovely Rangoon to the rather flat-sounding Yangon for the country's largest city. Happily, the city of Mandalay is still called Mandalay.
BTW, when I asked English-speaking locals in Yangon/Rangoon and Mandalay how the name of the country is pronounced, they told me the final R is silent. Imagine a southern American drawl, then say ''ME 'n ma,'' and you've pretty much got it.
I, too, found this out when I ventured there a decade back in search of a travel story. I wasn't supposed to go, following the argument that tourism gives the corrupt government more revenue, while travel sanctions would weaken the regime. But the regime simply cut deals with neighboring powerhouse China and took in even more money that way. With tourism, at least some money makes its way to local working folk. When I was there, they averaged $1 USD per person per day in income. So, I went.
Burma is the older name. Myanmar is the name the ruling military junta, in power since the early 1960s, gave the country maybe 20 years ago. That makes it bad, right? My former newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, was among a number of Western media outlets whose editors thought so. The Examiner style gurus refused to use Myanmar, so my every reference in the travel section cover story I wrote after my trip was struck and changed to Burma for publication.
But things are not as simple as that. Burma is a name bestowed on the country by British colonial rulers. The Burmese are the largest ethnic group, but there are minorities fighting border wars with the authorities of long duration. Calling the country Burma is like saying most people in the United States are Caucasian so the country should be called the United States of Caucasia. Problem: It's not inclusive.
People who object to Myanmar do so because they don't think the junta should be free to rename - or rebrand, in marketing-speak - the country. But Myanma, without the R, was the name of a bygone kingdom in the vincinity; it refers to a place, not a group, and its use is more progressive than the name it replaced, despite the rotten reputation of the junta - which may be liberalizing at long last.
So, I'm sticking with Myanmar - even as I lament the name-change from the lovely Rangoon to the rather flat-sounding Yangon for the country's largest city. Happily, the city of Mandalay is still called Mandalay.
BTW, when I asked English-speaking locals in Yangon/Rangoon and Mandalay how the name of the country is pronounced, they told me the final R is silent. Imagine a southern American drawl, then say ''ME 'n ma,'' and you've pretty much got it.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Travel and Myanmar/Burma
Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's release today from her latest house arrest at her lakeside villa in Yangon took me back to my visit to Myanmar (also known as Burma) at the start of the decade, and sparked renewed thoughts about the interplay of travel and politics.
I published some thoughts about that in a travel piece I wrote for the San Francisco Examiner, which the paper published as the Sunday travel cover story back on Oct. 22, 2000. Re-reading the piece today, I see very little I would change - including my comments about Suu Kyi's support for a trade embargo and total avoidance of travel by foreigners to her country.
Below are excerpts from that story for the Examiner. (Which was, by the way, then a professionally produced daily newspaper owned by the Hearst Corp.. Save for the name, it bears no relationship to the giveaway tabloid published today by other owners and written in large part by unpaid or barely paid aspiring writers):
YANGON (RANGOON) - It's mid-afternoon in the beating heart of the city. Traffic rumbles around the downtown park in the dry, baking heat. Local people stroll by, snacking on grilled meats at sidewalk food stalls, nibbling slices of fruit and cupping tins of cold water - captured from big chunks of ice that drip in the heat.
Burma is a beautiful country lost in time.
Aung San Suu Kyi is a woman of courage - demonstrated anew in September (2000), when she tested the limits of personal freedom by attempting to leave Rangoon for a political meeting, as she has done several times in recent years. The military, as it has done every time before, stopped her car, detained her, brought her food and water for a week, then forced her to drive back to Rangoon, where she remains under de facto house arrest, physically unharmed but also not free.
Viewing these struggles, I am hopeful that Suu Kyi and people like her will prevail and that deomcracy will come. But, in the meantime, as a journalist, I want to see things for myself and write about a wide variety of experiences. If I wrote only about people and places I approve of wholeheartedly, I would publish far fewer stories.
Most importantly, I am not convinced that tourism necessarily has to legitimize the status quo. In poor countries, it may well do the opposite - provided visitors deal directly with independent merchants and ordinary people outside official circles. In Burma, the average yearly income per person (circa 2000) is $300, one of the lowest in the world. Putting some money into their hands counts for something.
Moreover, tourism puts local people in contact with the outside world, easing their isolation - and lessening our blinkered provincialism. That counts for something, too. Burma/Myanmar calls itself the Golden Land, but in most of the world, it is more like the Unknown Land.
At my request, a senior U.S. diplomat in Rangoon explained U.S. foreign policy, which seeks to isolate Burma. He related some sobering facts: The junta closed the universities for four years because they were hotbeds of dissent, and it gunned down 3,000 protestors in the streets of Rangoon in 1988. To weaken the junta, Washington imposed an embargo in 1997 on new investment by American corporations (though not on Americans traveling to Burma).
But politics are rarely clear-cut, and sanctions and embargoes are not simple matters.
In the ''Lonely Planet Guide to Burma,'' a prominent dissident imprisoned by the military for three years takes strong exception to the U.S. embargo. Ma Thanegi writes:
"Two Westerners - one a prominent academic and the other a diplomat - once suggested to me that if sanctions and boycotts undermined the economy, people would have less to lose and would be willing to start a revolution ...
"Burma has many problems, largely the result of almost 30 years (now 40) of isolationism. More isolation won't fix the problems and sanctions push us backward, not forward. We need jobs. We need to modernize. We need to be part of the world. Don't close the door on us in the name of democracy.''
Ma Thanegi made me think about sanctions. Nelson Mandela credits international sanctions with helping to bring down apartheid in South Africa. If so, score one for sanctions. But the U.S. trade embargo of Cuba, in place since 1962, has only impoverished Cubans and has not accomplished the announced goal of toppling Fidel Castro. And sanctions against Iraq don't appear to have harmed Saddam Hussein, just Iraqi children. Saddam, still in power (until 2003), seems to get all the goodies he wants.
As for staying away from countries with pariah governments, I think I smell a double standard. America resumed trade and travel to China shortly after the Tiananmen Square shootings of 1989. And Mexico, where students were mowed down in the streets of Mexico City in 1968, was a one-party dictatorship for 71 years before July 2000, but Mexico has not lacked American tourists.
Is Burma worse? I don't think so. I think it's smaller, weaker and farther away. It's easy to demonize.
I decided to go.
I published some thoughts about that in a travel piece I wrote for the San Francisco Examiner, which the paper published as the Sunday travel cover story back on Oct. 22, 2000. Re-reading the piece today, I see very little I would change - including my comments about Suu Kyi's support for a trade embargo and total avoidance of travel by foreigners to her country.
Below are excerpts from that story for the Examiner. (Which was, by the way, then a professionally produced daily newspaper owned by the Hearst Corp.. Save for the name, it bears no relationship to the giveaway tabloid published today by other owners and written in large part by unpaid or barely paid aspiring writers):
YANGON (RANGOON) - It's mid-afternoon in the beating heart of the city. Traffic rumbles around the downtown park in the dry, baking heat. Local people stroll by, snacking on grilled meats at sidewalk food stalls, nibbling slices of fruit and cupping tins of cold water - captured from big chunks of ice that drip in the heat.
Burma is a beautiful country lost in time.
Aung San Suu Kyi is a woman of courage - demonstrated anew in September (2000), when she tested the limits of personal freedom by attempting to leave Rangoon for a political meeting, as she has done several times in recent years. The military, as it has done every time before, stopped her car, detained her, brought her food and water for a week, then forced her to drive back to Rangoon, where she remains under de facto house arrest, physically unharmed but also not free.
Viewing these struggles, I am hopeful that Suu Kyi and people like her will prevail and that deomcracy will come. But, in the meantime, as a journalist, I want to see things for myself and write about a wide variety of experiences. If I wrote only about people and places I approve of wholeheartedly, I would publish far fewer stories.
Most importantly, I am not convinced that tourism necessarily has to legitimize the status quo. In poor countries, it may well do the opposite - provided visitors deal directly with independent merchants and ordinary people outside official circles. In Burma, the average yearly income per person (circa 2000) is $300, one of the lowest in the world. Putting some money into their hands counts for something.
Moreover, tourism puts local people in contact with the outside world, easing their isolation - and lessening our blinkered provincialism. That counts for something, too. Burma/Myanmar calls itself the Golden Land, but in most of the world, it is more like the Unknown Land.
At my request, a senior U.S. diplomat in Rangoon explained U.S. foreign policy, which seeks to isolate Burma. He related some sobering facts: The junta closed the universities for four years because they were hotbeds of dissent, and it gunned down 3,000 protestors in the streets of Rangoon in 1988. To weaken the junta, Washington imposed an embargo in 1997 on new investment by American corporations (though not on Americans traveling to Burma).
But politics are rarely clear-cut, and sanctions and embargoes are not simple matters.
In the ''Lonely Planet Guide to Burma,'' a prominent dissident imprisoned by the military for three years takes strong exception to the U.S. embargo. Ma Thanegi writes:
"Two Westerners - one a prominent academic and the other a diplomat - once suggested to me that if sanctions and boycotts undermined the economy, people would have less to lose and would be willing to start a revolution ...
"Burma has many problems, largely the result of almost 30 years (now 40) of isolationism. More isolation won't fix the problems and sanctions push us backward, not forward. We need jobs. We need to modernize. We need to be part of the world. Don't close the door on us in the name of democracy.''
Ma Thanegi made me think about sanctions. Nelson Mandela credits international sanctions with helping to bring down apartheid in South Africa. If so, score one for sanctions. But the U.S. trade embargo of Cuba, in place since 1962, has only impoverished Cubans and has not accomplished the announced goal of toppling Fidel Castro. And sanctions against Iraq don't appear to have harmed Saddam Hussein, just Iraqi children. Saddam, still in power (until 2003), seems to get all the goodies he wants.
As for staying away from countries with pariah governments, I think I smell a double standard. America resumed trade and travel to China shortly after the Tiananmen Square shootings of 1989. And Mexico, where students were mowed down in the streets of Mexico City in 1968, was a one-party dictatorship for 71 years before July 2000, but Mexico has not lacked American tourists.
Is Burma worse? I don't think so. I think it's smaller, weaker and farther away. It's easy to demonize.
I decided to go.
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