I'm now packed and ready to go and just bumping up against the point of no return in terms of having to take a taxi to the airport rather than transit. But I think I'll suck it up and eat the cab fare so that I can have an extra thirty minutes of breath-catching, which might include suddenly realizing that I've forgotten something important. In case you're wondering whether it's a good idea to hold ten hours of oral exams on the last two days you're in the country, while also trying to send off everything that requires a post office, get packed, and take care of all the odds and ends that can't be taken care of from afar, the answer is—I know this will shock you—no, it's not a good idea.
But better than delay this trip any longer. It will be short enough as it is. So, really, this trip might involve a fairly hectic pace too. But we'll see how I feel in terms of the compromise between see-as-much-as-you-can vs. chill-out-and-take-it-slow.
This blog will (hopefully) become more (at all) interesting once I'm at my country of destination, so here's a quick run-down of how that's supposed to happen. All times local:
Fly out of Chicago O'Hare: 9:50pm on Tue 9 Dec
Arrive in Istanbul: 4:25pm on Wed 10 Dec
Fly out of Istanbul: 12:40am on Thu 11 Dec
Arrive in Singapore: 5:20pm on Thu 11 Dec
Fly out of Singapore: 11:05am on Fri 12 Dec
Arrive in Yangon: 3:00pm on Fri 12 Dec
I expect I will be Very Tired on my first day in Yangon. The only thing to look forward to in the next few days is the fact that I'll be overnighting in Singapore with a very dear friend who I haven't seen in a few years.
One last remark, on the gut-bustingly witty title for this blog. First of all, I'm not sure that the "my" in "Myanmar" is pronounced the same way as the "my" in "my oh my." Wikipedia thinks you can have it both ways, but my guess is that locals pronounce the "y" more like the "j" in "fjord." I will soon be able to confirm this for you.
The other thing I'll be able to confirm is what locals actually call this country. Officially it's called the "Republic of the Union of Myanmar." This was the name given to it by the ruling junta in 1989, shortly after they'd violently cracked down on pro-democracy protests. Many countries—including Canada, the United Kingdom, and sort of the United States (the State Department acknowledges "Myanmar" as a secondary name and Obama has used it in speeches)—insist on continuing to call the country "Burma" because they don't recognize or want to legitimize the authority of the ruling government to change the name.
On the flip side, one of the purposes of changing the name was to make it more ethnically inclusive. "Burma" is named after the ethnic Burmans, who constitute just over two-thirds of the country's population, occupy the central chunk of the country, and are the predominant ethnic group in the two major cities of Yangon and Mandalay. Most of the border regions of the country are occupied by a wide range of other ethnic groups—Shan, Karen, Rakhine, Mon, Kachin, and many, many others, including Chinese and Indians and the stateless and oppressed Rohingya—and many of these ethnic groups have their own militias and their own de facto governments that have been at war with the central government on and off ever since independence back in 1948. So changing the country's name was, among other things, a gesture to greater ethnic inclusiveness. One of the most remarkable changes in the country in recent years is that many of these conflicts between the central government and various rebel armies have started to reach some form of settlement. The glaring exception here is the government's continued refusal to recognize the rights of the Rohingya, and to turn a blind eye (at best) to the ethnic cleansing taking place in the west of the country.
All of which is to say, this is a perplexing and fascinating country, from the name on in. I look forward to getting acquainted with it.
But better than delay this trip any longer. It will be short enough as it is. So, really, this trip might involve a fairly hectic pace too. But we'll see how I feel in terms of the compromise between see-as-much-as-you-can vs. chill-out-and-take-it-slow.
This blog will (hopefully) become more (at all) interesting once I'm at my country of destination, so here's a quick run-down of how that's supposed to happen. All times local:
Fly out of Chicago O'Hare: 9:50pm on Tue 9 Dec
Arrive in Istanbul: 4:25pm on Wed 10 Dec
Fly out of Istanbul: 12:40am on Thu 11 Dec
Arrive in Singapore: 5:20pm on Thu 11 Dec
Fly out of Singapore: 11:05am on Fri 12 Dec
Arrive in Yangon: 3:00pm on Fri 12 Dec
I expect I will be Very Tired on my first day in Yangon. The only thing to look forward to in the next few days is the fact that I'll be overnighting in Singapore with a very dear friend who I haven't seen in a few years.
One last remark, on the gut-bustingly witty title for this blog. First of all, I'm not sure that the "my" in "Myanmar" is pronounced the same way as the "my" in "my oh my." Wikipedia thinks you can have it both ways, but my guess is that locals pronounce the "y" more like the "j" in "fjord." I will soon be able to confirm this for you.
The other thing I'll be able to confirm is what locals actually call this country. Officially it's called the "Republic of the Union of Myanmar." This was the name given to it by the ruling junta in 1989, shortly after they'd violently cracked down on pro-democracy protests. Many countries—including Canada, the United Kingdom, and sort of the United States (the State Department acknowledges "Myanmar" as a secondary name and Obama has used it in speeches)—insist on continuing to call the country "Burma" because they don't recognize or want to legitimize the authority of the ruling government to change the name.
On the flip side, one of the purposes of changing the name was to make it more ethnically inclusive. "Burma" is named after the ethnic Burmans, who constitute just over two-thirds of the country's population, occupy the central chunk of the country, and are the predominant ethnic group in the two major cities of Yangon and Mandalay. Most of the border regions of the country are occupied by a wide range of other ethnic groups—Shan, Karen, Rakhine, Mon, Kachin, and many, many others, including Chinese and Indians and the stateless and oppressed Rohingya—and many of these ethnic groups have their own militias and their own de facto governments that have been at war with the central government on and off ever since independence back in 1948. So changing the country's name was, among other things, a gesture to greater ethnic inclusiveness. One of the most remarkable changes in the country in recent years is that many of these conflicts between the central government and various rebel armies have started to reach some form of settlement. The glaring exception here is the government's continued refusal to recognize the rights of the Rohingya, and to turn a blind eye (at best) to the ethnic cleansing taking place in the west of the country.
All of which is to say, this is a perplexing and fascinating country, from the name on in. I look forward to getting acquainted with it.
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