Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

I managed to discipline myself to pay attention to the alarm I set at 6:30AM. So I dressed up and went down for breakfast - and MC was up already with her two daughters. At around 7:30AM, KMZ and KSW arrived. KSW brought some rice cake (with chickory flavor) and some shredded coconut meat to sprinkle over (they call this moke sein paung). I toasted some buttered bread and prepared some coffee and tea for them. We had a nice breakfast and proceeded to Bo Ta Thaung Pagoda (Bo Ta Thaung means 1,000 generals).

We reached the Pagoda and being a tourist, I had to pay 2,000 kyats (and there is a need to pay extra - I think 1,000 kyats - if one intends to use a camera inside the compounds). We all had to take our shoes off - and I also had to remove my socks. Inside, we proceeded to an area where we could make donations of money for construction or restoration of the Pagoda, purchase of gold leaf, lighting, etc (this needs to be specified). The tourist entry fee I made was also enough for one donation, which KMZ filled up for me (one gets a kind of certificate for the donation). KSW gave a donation in the name of KM, a good artist friend and member of the artists’ group who died a year ago (I remember him from the symposium in 2002, he was a cartoonist and also a music producer and he gave me a cassette tape of Myanmar children’s songs). I decided to donate 1,000 kyats additional for the purchase of gold leaf for the Pagoda.

Then we entered the shrine where they kept the sacred hair relic of the Buddha. There were quite a number of people being the sabbath day. A stone in the shape of a cone was kept in the shrine - which historically was found beneath the ruins left by RAF bombing of the Pagoda in 1943. Inside this cone was another smaller cone and inside was a small golden pagoda under which two hair relics of the buddha was found. The hair relic was kept in the center of the shrine - placed right above the deep dug out area where it was found - but the entire walls around it had been gilded and walled with glass. It was an amazing sacred site.

Then to go outside the shrine, we had to go around it within a zigzagging corridor with all its walls made of glass mosaics. There were also spaces along the shrine filled with buddha, pagoda and other images donated by sponsors - and along the walls were plaques with names of many sponsors.

We proceeded to the chedis and the altars - there were altars for each day of the week (however, there were two altars for Wednesday- one for day and one for night). KSW approached the altar representing Monday, the day she was born, and used the little colored plastic cups placed around the altar to pour water over the buddha statue. KMZ’s son was born on a Monday, so she did this as well. I also did this - at the Tuesday altar, although I wasn’t completely sure I was born on a Tuesday! I asked how many times I was supposed to pour water over the buddha and KSW told me the same as my age!

We also went to this fountain area with a bridge going over a large pond and fed crackers and vegetables to the large turtles. There were many things to do in Botataung to make merit - giving donations, feeding turtles, pouring water, throwing money into moving mechanical buddha imges, sounding the huge bell, etc.

After Botataung, we went outside to the port area - a place where KMZ told me she used to go with her husband (then boyfriend) in their student days. Then we walked to Botataung Pagoda Road to meet KM’s widow, KK. She is a poet and a teacher, and she was so happy to see us. I did not see her at the symposium two years ago as she was very busy.

KK remembers me, though, because she saw me in their video docmentation of the event. I saw the painting (with a vinyl record collaged on it) that KM presented during the symposium. KM was supposed to have an exhibition on his birthday at Lokanat Gallery, so it was KK who curated and organized his exhibition.

KMZ told me KK never really understood her husband because they hardly met at home - she was always busy and he was always busy too - and KK wrote a poem about this. KM was only about 47 when he passed away because of liver disease (hepatitis) and because of a drinking problem. KM was also imprisoned for 5-7 years when he became a member of the NLD. He was then only 16 years old. KSW told me that some of those imprisoned were let out after 3 months after they signed a declaration that they will not oppose, etc. But KM refused. He was also tortured which showed through a limping shoulder. He was probably extremely hard headed - prisoners were not allowed to grow a beard or moustache but when he was released he had a moustache. KMZ also told me that prisoners were drinking water passed deliberately through lead pipes, poisoning them little by little.

After the visit to KK, KSW proceeded to work and KMZ and I went downtown to the bookstores. There were so many old books from the 50s - about all sorts of things like meditation to Burma history - mostly published by the British. I was able to get one (photocopied) book about “Burmese design through drawing” and a really good Burmese cookbook (where I found all the stuff that I was eating), as well as a little book on Shwedagon Pagoda and a book on education in Myanmar published by the ministry of education in 2003 (the education book was 2,000 kyats which I thought was expensive because I’m sure it’s rubbish).

Then we saw PNW, painter and writer, along this narrow road of tea shops and book shops. Many of KMZ’s writer friends stayed along this area. PNW invited us to tea and some noodles. We had kyar zan chet (kyasan means vermicelli and chet means cook) - which was really very good - but really very oily too. It was wonderful being with PNW - a really amusing fellow - who was crazy about Jose Rizal and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Then later we met two more of KMZ’s writer friends, MMZ (retired Philosophy lecturer from Yangon University), and SMT (poet and writer who owns a small bookshop) who I met in the previous symposium. SMT joined the underground movement in the 60s-70s when he was a student and was in jail for many years. It seems that every writer and artist I meet (especially the older generation, those in their 40s-50s) have been to jail. We got back to the center at around 11:30AM, talked a bit and then KMZ had to go back home. I asked her to have lunch with me but she said the kyazanchet was already enough for her. She has athritis problems and said she has to eat carefully too. I asked if she could join us and see ZY tonight but she told me that she had to be with her son who is preparing to take the exam to university admission, and that she also had to cook dinner for him. KMZ has more problems with her husband, TO, and one of the writers we met downtown joked her that she has just been divorced. Her husband works too hard at the office and smokes too much despite a heart attack a few years ago. Pretty much like my father who often had arguments with my mother over drinking and smoking. TO refuses to give up his life’s little pleasure until it is too late.

I had a late lunch, around past 1PM after YN arrived. I was hoping to discuss the website with her when suddenly LES arrived with three young people - one was DD, and two other Kachin youths - LNS and LNHH. They were all second year fine arts students from a theology programme. LES asked when I would be free to see the Dean of the programme but it was just impossible with my schedule, so I told him if we could go now and come back before 4PM because I had an appointment with KSW. He agreed - so I quickly finished off my lunch and proceeded to Inseine. We passed by the University Student Christian Center where children were practising for a school play.

Although the university is for college level students, the space is being used for other purposes - lots of “other purposes” under the religious umbrella. LES took some photos and we walked on an took another taxi to the school in Inseine.

The compound was quite large and there were a number of buildings especially for ethnic minority groups, especially the Karens. There was also a medical center for Karens established by the two doctors that I met in LES’s apartment last week. We walked further into the compound and reached the home of the Dean programme, PL. Along the way, LES kept taking photograps - it was quite amusing and DD and her friends were laughing with amusement.

It was PL who stood in as a father for LES when he was still a young student - so LES was drawn very closely to him. PL was then a professor at the government school, resigned and worked for some eight years in private office, and then was asked to join the programme. I think that LES had told PL that I was interested in Myanmar education - but there seemed to be a misunderstanding of my intentions. It became clear shortly that PL was hoping that I would stay longer and perhaps take up teaching there - or perhaps even take his place - he did express somewhat reluctantly that he was not quite sure about staying on as administrator of the programme. I saw how his face fell with disappointment when I told him that I’ll be leaving in two weeks and that I don’t speak Burmese. LES can be a bit too excited and can exaggerate things and probably told PL that I intended to stay longer, was Christian and could understand Burmese. Now LES has also asked me - he wanted me - to attend an orientation meeting of the school where he also asked Aye Aye Win to attend and deliver a speech. This was to be this coming Sunday afternoon at 5:00PM, immediately after the web design workshop. However it was quite nice chatting to PL and it seemed that he was just a bit hesitant to speak more about things because his students were there - especially that I was asking him about his future plans for himself and the school and Myanmar. There was a sign in he livingroom that said “Powerful Medicated Oil” and I asked about it. PL makes such medicated oils - from olive oil, neem and other such herbs and plants - and he said he learned about it from his mother, so the “Powerful Medicated Oil” is a secret formula passed on from generations in his family. I wanted to buy one but he gave me a free sample instead.

We left a few minutes later and went to the programme’s building to look around, and then sat in the canteen to rest - and then went back to the center. I arrived a little after 4PM and YN had already left - and LT and M was there also about to leave. They came to read some book at the the center library.

I was able to rest for a while before KSW arrived. We were able to talk for a few minutes about some rather sensitive things… and then we moved on and took a taxi to see ZY at the new gallery downtown.

The name of the gallery was LKS - the owner KS was Hindi and had a background in agriculture and works selling medicines - he has some business in India as well. The area was an Indian district downtown predominantly muslim.

It was a wonderful evening - members of Artists’ group arrived and most of them I had met before. It was really so good to see these artists again! We had beer, Mandalay rum and all sorts of fried foods and chicken tail barbecues and soup noodles. The conversation was also very political - about the military government. Then TT started asking me about the political situation in the Philippines, and the situation when I was growing up. I told him I was a Martial Law baby, born just three years before Marcos declared Martial Law. I was finishing highschool when Marcos was deposed by the peaceful People Power Revolution - a revolution in the streets I was not allowed to take part in because my father idolized Marcos and hated the idea of a woman president (Corazon Aquino, widow of the opposition leader Benigno Aquino). Fourteen years later, I was able to join the second People’s Power revolution that removed Joseph Estrada from power and installed the current government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the second woman president of the country.

I don’t know how valuable the Philippine experience might be for Myanmar but surely the situations have congruences but remain very distinct. I don’t think that the first People’s Power Revolution would have been successful if the Americans did not interfere.

However, the lessons remain important it seems - corruption remains in the Philippine government, people are still very poor, the insurgency problems have worsened, the Americans are still doing military exercises in the country, and things are bound to get worse next year. Tito was so surprised - he told ZY, things have been really bad in Burma for decades and the Philippines is getting ready to be just as bad. I joked, yes, you definitely have much more years of experience in these things!

It was nearly 10PM when we started to wrap up, and then ZY gave me this gift - a gem painting that he made. It was beautiful and I was so touched. We also had so much fun as TT was teasing me that it was a wedding gift for me and my partner, Trevor. I had earlier told KSW about Trevor (she asked if I was in a relationship), but when KSW mentioned that I intended to live outside the Philippines with him, everyone assumed I was going to get married to a Swiss guy (because I earlier told them about my residency in Switzerland). So they started teasing me and started teasing KSW and HK who were both still unmarried. ZY also told me (in Burmese and translated into English by TT) that when I get married he would send me a gift - about the hundred different ways of “something” that TT could not express because he was too embarrassed and just went on to say that ZY would send me the “art of sex.” Well, I suppose that’s something to look forward to. And I guess I’ve already made a bit of a preparation for Trevor to come to Myanmar to meet all my friends here, although they’d be expecting a Swiss guy. It was so funny too because they all also started teasing SM who was past 50 and also still single.

They told me that SM was smiling strangely because something probably happened when he was in Bangladesh. TT also started teasing NWM, one of the artists who went to Cambodia. NWM was this thin tall guy who supposedly impressed his wife-to-be by playing this gigantic bass drum in a marching band.

When I met TT two years ago he knew one Filipino word “malibog” which means horny. Meeting him this evening it is still the only Filipino word that he knows. He’s such a funny person - he still works with an airline company which he considers bullshit with all its special offers and thinks that airlines like where he works are bullshit because they cost too much, and could cost much less like budget airlines in Europe.

I almost didin’t recognize TT when saw him because he has changed - he looks older - actually, many of the people I met before looks much older now not really because of the time but more because of sadness. SO, a publisher (he publishes 7 journals!), gave us autographed copies of his new book - actually, old stories he has published before in magazines but now published into a book entitled “Park and Theater, Playing Card and Box” with watercolor illustrations.

Included in the compilation was a story called “The Story of the Three Curtains” which was previously banned from publication in a magazine a few years ago. Now the story has been allowed to be published in the book because the book looked like a storybook for children. The three curtains story was about a group of people inside a room/space who wanted to know what was behind the three curtains. People who went through the curtains never returned and there were crying and other sounds coming from behind the curtains. In the end, the people left inside the room just settled in the center of the room never knowing what was behind the curtains and the author only wished that he knew what was there.

We took a taxi with ZY, his son, and MN. While in the taxi, ZY asked me to teach him how to get past the government ISP firewall. I was surprised that he was going to risk that - or perhaps he didn’t know that a government-monopolized ISP is impossible to bypass without being found out. I told him about encryption and told him about being tracked down whenever and wherever one accesses the Internet. A country with only one ISP owned by the government would be impossible to hack without being found out particularly if you are hacking from within. Perhaps something could be done from the outside, or if we had a hacker within the military government itself, but the problem with people using (and allured) by technology is that they think the technology can make them communicate better or that techology can be subversive and private. I can’t remember exactly how the Zapatistas were able to use the internet, but their conditions were definitely different from Myanmar - although I think that the satellite dishes (or even radio) could offer a more viable alternative communications network if one knew how to work with scramblers and such things. Wireless and encryption are probably good options.

ZY and his son got off near Dagon centre, and then it was MN (people call him ZZ) who kindly walked me home (he lives just two blocks away from the center). He was this really quiet person - hardly spoke a word the whole evening (the most talkative of them all was TT) - and I remember meeting him before in the last symposium. It was past 10PM when I got back to the center. I couldn’t really sleep right away with so many thoughts running around in my head. I wanted to avoid political things while here but that is just impossible.

I got up a bit earlier today, around 9:00AM, and just had tea and was able to email some urgent matters to Nisar Keshvani about LEA. It has been raining too until around early afternoon. YN called in sick and so couldn’t come to work, and SMA, the young Kachin fellow who was supposed to help with the website didn’t arrive either. I was expecting them both so we could work on the Myanmar arts website and brochure. Anyway, I did make use of the spare time to write - but only very little.

Lunch was quite good today - I really love the vegetable salad and watercress with rice - especially when I pour in some dried chilli. I told BY and MC that this was the kind of food that I really like - so at least they wouldn’t be preparing those really inedible things again!

KMZ arrived at around 4PM, and shortly KSW - and we both headed to her husband’s office along Ah Lan Pya Pagoda Street to meet KMZ’s husband who works there and his photographer friend. Turns out that his photographer friend SN (and also executive director of the office) was doing research on U Aung Soe - quite a well-known Myanmar artist (whose mother was so poor she sold moke hingar in the streets). KSW told me that SN is Muslim and has been a good friend of KMZ’s husband since they were in kindergarten - and that SN is still single. Funny, because during the sound workshop where we recorded interviews, KMZ interviewed DW about his being single - which everyone thought was so funny (later, DW called his finished sound work “Single Life in the Toilet”).

I really was intrigued by U Aung Soe’s work - in the 50s he started with oil and acrylic and later when Burma was under the socialist movement and artists’ materials were unavailable, U Aung Soe started using paper and markers and pens and developed these really intriguing and remarkable illustrations.

The symbolism in his illustration is just remarkable. He was educated in India, lived and worked in Myanmar and died in the early 90’s of heart failure. Earlier, Swiftwinds published a book about another important Myanmar artist Paw Oo Thett, and I liked the book so much so I bought one copy (for 4,000 kyats). If they had a book available about U Aung Soe, I’d get it. SN is doing research and has compiled so many photos of U Aung Soe’s works and should be able tp publish a book soon. However, many of U Aung Soe’s most interesting works are already in private owners’ hands - private owners outside of Myanmar especially in Singapore.

After the office, we walked to a very busy area near Sule Pagoda to have dinner - chicken biryani in this restaurant along Pagoda Road. I’m not really a biryani fanatic because these are not very good in Manila but the one we had here is quite good. After dinner, we proceeded to see SM.

It was very good to see him again, although now he’s not doing very well - he’s into a construction supplies business (inherited from his father) but business is not very good for small business people like SM. KSW and SM arranged for me to have a tour of the galleries with their artist-friends when I am free - most probably Monday after the web design (the last!) workshop during my stay here in Yangon. Last year, SM had been to Bangladesh to conduct an art workshop. KSW told me that SM comes from the Rakhine state (western side of Burma the part closest to Bangladesh) and that he had “recanted his citizenship” and stays in Yangon (although they still speak their own language).

KSW took the bus home and I shared a taxi with KMZ. It was past 7:00PM when we reached the center, and I got a bit worried about KMZ going home quite late by bus (which takes about one hour and no taxis go to her place) although BY told me that she will be fine - and ZL accompanied her to the bus stop.

When I got back to the center, MC and her two little daughters were watching TV. He daughters are really cute and I asked how they got their names, because I noticed that some Myanmar people got their father’s names. But in MC’s case this was not so - her daughters were named after the day of the week that they were born, CS was Monday born, and AAT was Sunday born.

I should rest now - I need to be up early tomorrow.

Just had coffee (3-in-1 mix with cream and sugar) for breakfast today - I got up a bit late, nearly 10:30AM. KZL called and said he’d drop by today instead of the appointed time tomorrow. I finally got time to send a few emails in the morning.

Lunch was rather difficult today - the snake fish was really good but I couldn’t eat it because all the sharp bones and scales of the fish were included in the meat (which was ground together with the bones, etc). It was just impossible to eat it without choking on bits of fish bone or scales. The chilli mix of tomato, onions and all sorts of other things was also so difficult to eat because it had bits of rice hull. I did manage to finish my rice because I knew I had to eat well otherwise I’d get sick, but if this is traditional Myanmar food preparation then I’m afraid it’s really very crude (or I wonder if BY and ZL were playing a joke on me). I asked how they prepared the fish and they told me that they just chop up this huge snake fish without removing the bones and scales or cleaning it up. I can eat fried fish heads and fish intestines, etc. cooked with fermented fish but if the preparation is this bad then it’s just impossible to eat it (unless I was a cat, although I doubt that even a cat would appreciate so many fish bones and scales mixed with the meat).

Anyway, KZL came after lunch and we talked about the sound exhibition. I lent him the minidisc recorder and asked him to come to the center and use the computer for editing. (I bought the minidisc recorder in Singapore airport for about S$299 - I couldn’t find one in the Philippines at all!) Later, KZL asked if I’d like to go to Traders Hotel to see this exhibition by two Myanmar artists - Ma Ohmar and Sein Myint.

The exhibition was just 3 days because the space costs US$550 per day. Many of Sein Myint’s works were sold, however, a painting cost a minimum of US$2,000 and as much as US$10,000.

After Traders Hotel we proceeded to Bogyoke market where KZL got some acrylic
paint and where I was finally able to find good Mandalay rum for Tilak, the Sri Lankan fellow who owns this apartment where I will be staying in Singapore. I asked my hosts if I could get Tilak something for his kindness and they told me I should get him some rum from Burma. I got it from a grocery called Tiger.

So at least it was a nice afternoon. Then in the early evening, HWA, the lady who attended the sound workshop called and we would be going to LES’s apartment again - as LES invited us - to have dinner in honor of Aye Aye Win, the AP journalist who received the prestigious award for her work on Burma. HWA arrived around 6:30PM with her husband (an engineer).

In LES’s apartment, there were so many people in such a small space - there must be more than 20 people! I was able to take a video and LES was taking so many photographs. Everyone talked in Burmese but Aye Aye Win spoke a few times in English for me. LES had arranged for many young people to be there to meet her. So, it was another very politically engaged evening - people getting together in honor of a woman who risks her life to practice her profession in a country run by a government that deals brutally against those who dared to speak about freedom or democracy.

Dinner was really wonderful too - traditional Kachin dinner prepared by LES’s friends. I think food preparations by the ethnic minority are much better than the majority Burmans.

I got back to the center at around 10:30PM and MC and her little daughter and family were in the office watching TV and BY and the carpenter, etc. were at the computer watching DVDs and what looked like Myanmar MTV or karaoke. Obviously, when my hosts are not around, the cook and their families and the carpenter, etc. take over the place, which is fine until things get busted!

Although I set the alarm to 7:30AM it was almost 9:30AM when I woke up - and so I had to rush because the sound workshop starts at 10. I did manage to wash up and get breakfast - as BY promised, there was oun nou khou shwe waiting in the kitchen - noodles, soup with coconut milk and some spices, fried gourd and dried chili. Then at exactly 10AM KMZ arrived and shortly the other workshop participants. DD came too and it was nice to see her again and that she’s interested in the workshop. Then we sat outside for some coffee and tea when LES suddenly arrived.

Well, that turned into another very political moment - LES started to talk about his life as a karen ethnic minority and as a photojournalist. The older people were interested in what he had to say but the younger ones, especially the lady from the CBI NGO, HWA, wasn’t too interested. KZL, young artist, later became more interested especially after he observed that I also had some (restrained) political views. Perhaps they were a bit afraid of LES’s lack of tact which could get everybody in trouble.

And as LES was describing life in the ethnic states (extreme poverty, violence), KMZ started to cry. KSW joked lightly “you made my friend cry!” The city people, like my friends here in Yangon know very little - most of them know nothing - of what is going on in the borders and the minority states of Myanmar. Of course, the military government makes sure that people know nothing.

Then we proceeded with the workshop and LES took some photos. Later that afternoon he came back with prints for everyone! Then LES invited me for dinner at his apartment again tomorrow to meet Aye Aye Win - award-winning lady journalist working for AP. If I’m not too tired I will probably go - and if HWA can’t go with me, maybe I will try to go with BY.

I asked KMZ and ZY about the breakfast I’ve been having - and ZY tells me that moke hingar soup includes essence from a particular kind of tree. No wonder it smelled so strange. He also told me that one would need a strong stomach to eat the kind of breakfasts I’ve been having - and later KMZ told me about the mother of a poor artist who sold moke hingar for a living. It seems that moke hingar and such breakfasts are the kind of Myanmar food for the very poor people in the city. I certainly hope I don’t get sick. I remember over dinner with my host’s rich Singaporean friend J, she was talking about several people she knew who went to Myanmar and got really very sick in the stomach - and my host also talked about being really sick - throwing up and not being able to eat for five straight days on his first stay in Myanmar years ago.

Food probably isn’t very clean out in the streets and the tea shops. I just had dinner prepared by BY and there’s hair in the rice and the chili pork, and god knows what else is in the food.

Just finished the CD-ROM for the sound art workshop - a kind of documentation and reference for the participants which includes our photos and the finished works. I’m quite pleased with it and I’m very happy with how the workshop turned out. It was really difficult though because electricity kept fluctuating and it was really very hot (Myanmar is notorious for 8-12 hour black-outs so the center has a generator but it’s not really very powerful and they’re also trying to save on petrol (which has become more expensive).

Anyway, we had 9 people attend the sound workshop, and the next day we had 8 people, and we came up with only 7 works (which is not so bad). There would’ve been 8 works but HWA wasn’t able to complete her work because earlier in the day was this power fluctuation problem, and the generator doesn’t seem to be working and the UPS wasn’t fully fully charged.

What this workshop is about
• This workshop is about the use of sound as material for artistic work.
• This workshop is about how sound can be manipulated and organized.
• This workshop is also about how sound is presented into a sound environment with emphasis on the way it is perceived by an individual or by society.

This workshop encourages:
• Artists to use new material in their work – such as sound and the environment;
• Artists to use new process in their work – such as mixing of digital and non-digital techniques;
• Artists to develop their own ideas, concepts, and theory of sound art;
• Artists to shape their own history and culture of contemporary art-making.

Workshop structure:
• Discussion about basic sound art concepts;
• Presentation of examples of sound art and music compositions
• Recording and editing of sounds;
• Listening to and discussing the sound works;
• Finishing the compilation and documentation of the sound works.

I’m very disappointed that THA never arrived - although there’s still time for him to try to get in touch with me. However, he also reminds me of some of my students who don’t really feel any urgency in their work. Or maybe he is running into some problems. Whatever the case, I just get disappointed but am tired enough not to worry too much about such things.

I just survived a grueling day-1 of the sound workshop - there were 9 people, too many - and I’m going to try and finish everything off in two days - so tomorrow we should be able to finish editing all the soundworks.

Today I had to get up extra early - I set the alarm at 4:30AM because I knew my hosts were leaving at around 5. I just thought I’d be around to say goodbye to them - they left a letter for me on my computer in the library just in case I didn’t get a chance to see them before they go. It was good that I was able to see them.

Then as soon as they went off, BY asked if I wanted to have some traditional Burmese breakfast – of course I said yes, and a few minutes later he came back with moke hingar (maw hee ngah) which is vermicelli, gourd fried with flour, some chili and a really strange smelling olive green-colored soup with all sorts of spices and pork and other meats. The smell actually reminded me of dog meat - or the bladder of goats - and I was a bit scared of getting sick because BY bought it from the streets. I seem to have survived that one too - and it was actually quite good, especially the mix of vermicelli and fried gourd with chili.

Anyway, I finished off day-1 of the sound workshop at around 4:30PM today and got some rest and waited for LES to come over and pick me up for dinner. He invited me to join him and his friends over at his apartment. The right tomboyish Kachin girl was there as well as the other young fellow who played the violin (I met the violinist earlier at the apartment when I went there with the photography resource person from Singapore. We also I met when LES came to the center one evening with three other young people who were interested in photography and art).

A couple and their son was at the apartment too - the guy was a neuro-surgeon who was educated overseas, the lady was also a doctor. I also met this young lady who is correspondent for AFP. Then two young people from the NLD came - they were very close to Suu Kyi. LES’s father was also there – both have rather strained relations and LES is trying to build a better relationship with a father he did not see for many years. Then afterwards LES’s cousin came with his wife and son - they are muslim. The wife’s name had a somewhat western name, and she was named such because her mother was Christian, but her son is Mohammad, a really smart 11-year old kid who kept on looking at me! Then soon enough people started talking about Suu Kyi and NLD and politics and China and the sanctions and the Asean meeting yesterday in Vietnam.

Everyone spoke in Burmese and sometimes LES translated for me and the doctor couple spoke in English for me and so I was able to discuss some things with them. I also had a nice chat with the muslim family.

Then after a really wonderful Kachin dinner prepared by the students, LES showed this VCD entitled “Who Really Killed Aung San” which was produced by British researchers about the history and circumstances of Aung San’s assassination.

Sitting there with these group of people, talking about Suu Kyi and the military government, I felt like nearly 20 years ago when I sat together with some family members watching (underground) video of the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr - the assassination and the failure of the snap elections eventually led to the People’s Power Revolution – would things change in Myanmar too?

After the film, we watched this Graceland concert by Paul Simon in South Africa. Of course in Myanmar, it’s impossible for people to express/communicate anything in art or poetry or music or dance without the approval of the military government. Even in the offices, I was told, people are not allowed to talk about Suu Kyi.

It was past 11:00PM when I got back to the center, the muslim family had asked me to hitch a ride with them, and the young man from NLD also hitched along. I gave them brochures and calling cards of the center and invited them to visit some day. When I got home, BY and the carpenter and this other fellow were all watching this DVD film through the computer plugged to the TV - I wonder if our hosts allow them to watch at all. I guess now, since I remember our host telling me that everytime they leave and come back all the computers are busted!

Then BY asked if I’d like to have this coconut noodles for breakfast tomorrow. Another traditional Burmese breakfast - I was a bit hesitant, but I’ve always been adventurous with food so I said yes.

I should rest now - it’s another whole day tomorrow of the sound workshop. Looks like I won’t be able to do any of the writing after all since there’ll be lots of work and lots of socials to attend to. An artists group have invited me to join them for dinner next Saturday evening - this is after another web design workshop – and KMZ and her husband is also inviting me for lunch or dinner on a weekday. Then I need to go out with YN and maybe BY to buy some cheap cotton fabric for the Singapore exhibition, as well as visit the Shwedagon pagoda and Botathaung in Yangon. However, again, I am too tired to sleep …

Presentation for Sound Art Workshop PDF 509kb.

Maybe the thought of my hosts leaving on Saturday depress me too. It’s still such a short time to be together. Today has been a rather lazy day - I keep getting up to work and then going back to my room to rest. I can’t get my thoughts together and focus on the writing for Central Bank. I tried doing other things, like the prospectus for the Pacific Rim Summit, or the Sierre study, etc. but the only thing I managed to work on continuously and finish (with YN yesterday) was the information design for the Myanmar arts website.

I have a bottle of Spirulina on the table where I work in the library now - and 5 bottles of “imperial dragon balm.” My host reccommeded the spirulina (health food - in tablet form - processed from spirulina algae) and this Singaporean fellow we met at the Coca Suki dinner last Tuesday makes this balm with neem oil - the balm was really good and it wasn’t so expensive and I think that folks back in Manila will love it.

When I got out of my room this morning, the kitten Snow was there ready to run into the room!

I thought of using speech sounds for the sound workshop. Last night we started having problems with one of the two computers. Today, a Christian NGO group came over to look at what the problem was - and they just took the computer and hopefully would be able to make repairs. One of the members of this group told me he had been to the Philippines before, in Cagayan de Oro - in particular Xavier University. He was interested also in coming as observer to the sound workshop.

Just finished discussing YN’s flowchart and we’re doing really very well!

It must nearly be ten in the evening when we came back from dinner with our hosts and a woman friend of theirs at her place - a bar and restaurant with a souvenir shop, a rich Singaporean woman married to a French and both living and doing business in Myanmar for ten years now. She was very nice. She was also not very optimistic about our hosts pushing on with the center and she keeps telling them to go somewhere else, and she has lots of problem stories about dealing business with Myanmar people and working with them, etc. She stays anyway because she has already invested so much in Myanmar. She’s worried now that the peak season which is supposed to have started doesn’t seem to be starting out well - things must be on the way down for Myanmar because of increased sanctions. Internally, it seems that most people in the country simply do not have the skills to compete globally. Well, Myanmar is a closed country and the most progressive and intelligent people from the 50s are gone now.

I thought she was nice but if she was in the Philippines I won’t get anywhere near her. She’s so much like this rich socialite woman that my ex-colleague adores so much (in a mother-son kind of way) because she’s a kind of patron for his artworks. She is also much like an art patron kind of person, and her positioning sort of depresses me. I tried to get some rest tonight but felt too tired and disturbed by some things…