Smile in my heart

After more than a decade, it is easy not to remember anymore that it is being in south-east Asia that brought me back to life, and gave me another chance to relate to people and the world. I learnt to smile, trust, ask, accept, forgive and just be together again, piece by piece, step by step, like a child.

Most pictures are new, and I still remember taking them. But I could have picked any other country or any other year, I would still remember so many pictures and people.

Eternally thankful, even when I don’t look like it.

 

(In the middle Aung San Suu Kyi, of course.)

 

Jasmine, teak, sand, and the like

I’ve had a few rough days, struggling with a full schedule, illness, and changing countries again in the meantime…. and got left behind with blogs, yet again….

But at least, when I’m busy, I don’t ask too many questions.

I’m so scared about what is ahead of me, and the little details I’ve been looking at are just as important now as they were when I was right there. Keeping things in perspective. Or provide some kind of distraction. Live the moment. Whatever, there is always an excuse.

Why are you taking a photo of the water jugs? His eyes were asking. You don’t have water in your home?  –  Nope, it is not customary to share drinking water all the time, everywhere, for free, with anyone on the road. Yangon airport is the only one I remember that has free water…. not the usual 2-dollar ripoff.

We must be hilarious, sometimes, the kinds of things we take photos of.

Sometimes I wish I could feel more, understand more, how we are being perceived.

I’m guessing I should have learnt something. Some enlightenment, overarching life lesson, something that resonates and echoes for years. Nope. It’s just distractions, big and small. Stunning and trivial.

 

 

I’ve only just left, but I wish I could go back for more. So many areas still remote and inaccessible, not used to foreigners, or beyond reach. So many people still struggling for basic human rights, being exploited, hidden. I know it’s not all a golden story…. still a long way to go. Very long. But whatever it is, it’s a place that grabs you tight and never lets you go.

There are these sandpainters in Bagan. Some of them are truly a pain in the ass, chasing you down on a motorcycle, or following you to the tops of pagodas. Some of them show hidden staircases and views and paintings on the ceiling, and are a wealth of information. However annoying they may be sometimes, I really admire their art, and it’s a shame they don’t realise that their approach is chasing a lot of people away from ever listening to their stories. They painstakingly learnt to copy the ancient murals from the temples. We are talking 900-year-old designs here, quite unique, can’t see anything like this in Thailand or Cambodia, nothing even comes close. Lots of Hindu and pre-Buddhist elements, everything has a meaning, every colour or brushstroke has centuries of tradition. I could sit and watch and listen for hours, too bad they want me to shop 🙂  Now I wish I had bought more. Quite a few are in a box somewhere…. waiting for me to have a home.

 

(The monks with umbrellas and the landscapes are of course modern designs.)

Bagan is of course is one of the best places in the world, and quite the opposite of “the little things”, I don’t even know how anything I can show and say will ever do it justice.

 

Home of world records

I was thinking, I should have tried for a job in Mandalay, not Yangon, back almost three years ago. But then, internet was really sketchy and there were no flights out. On the other hand, there are, and were, motorcycles…. changing everything.

Anyway.

I was planning to go and visit for a weekend for two years, but something more important always came up. Like, catching up with sleep and lesson preparation. I never made it until last week.

Mandalay and its vicinity are home to the “world’s biggest book”, the world’s longest teakwood bridge, the world’s biggest uncracked bell, and the world’s biggest, albeit unfinished, Buddhist pagoda….

That “book” is actually the entire body of Buddhist scriptures and explanations carved on stone slabs, each housed in its own little white-washed pagoda…. almost 3000 in all in the two separate but adjacent temples. And they are real temples, still alive, with people having a quick nap on the floor, little girls selling jasmine garlands, couples making out in the hidden corners, young monks picking star flowers and chatting well hidden in the trees, kids climbing the buildings as if they were monkey bars at the playground.

Unfinished, shattered, cracked, impressive…. and of course, climbed by all, right next to a huge sign asking people not to, hoping that the next earthquake is not scheduled for today. Amazing structures like this make me wonder when I look at my 4-year-old school building falling apart, where did all the knowledge and craftsmanship go, these people were building pagodas nine centuries ago that are still standing, and this huge one is merely two hundred years old, and their descendants, well…. not really proud caretakers of a noble heritage.

 

This one, not cracked, just so badly graffitied…. and another moment of hope that this is not earthquake day. The Burmese also have a much larger, legendary bell that their archeologists are still relentlessly looking for.

And of course a bridge is just as good a place to sleep as any other. Or to go to school, sell food, fidget with your mobile (there is good signal here – good for Myanmar, at least), and take selfies. Famous, but still very much a community space.

Too many photos, I will need to continue here some other time.

 

Lion kings

Burma’s lions are undoubtedly the most majestic, sometimes huge in size. First, I was joking that they look like they are scared, pulling back, escaping. But I was told they are actually ready to pounce. 

Mandalay

Yangon, Shwedagon pagoda

Awa (Inwa)

Bagan

Here is a myth about its origins:

“A princess had a son through her marriage to a lion, but later abandoned the lion, who then became enraged and set out on a road of terror throughout the lands. The son then went out to slay this lion. The son came back home to his mother stating he slew the lion, and then found out that he had killed his own father. The son later constructed a statue of the lion as a guardian of a temple to atone for his sin.”

And then there are the curious lions on pagoda corners that have two bottoms. I don’t remember seeing these anywhere else.

And finally, lion dance for Chinese new year in my school in Yangon.

Thanks to my parents for some of the photos featured in this post, and also for keeping me company in Burma. I had been to scared to go on my own and dragged them along  🙂 Observant readers will find my mother and my stepfather in some of the images. I was hoping I would find more photos of lions from Yangon, but somehow I was never really in the mood to take pictures in that city. I’ll make up for it one day.

Looks like there is one more part coming up sometime. I didn’t realise Indonesia also has lions.

Part one: https://fearfuldragon.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/lions-of-asia/

Part two: https://fearfuldragon.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/hear-my-roar/