Vignettes of Yangon
I.
My-ann-mar, people call it. I’ve never heard Burmese people call it that, except in acknowledgement that yes, it is the same country as Burma. To them, and to me, it’s always Ba-mah – the consonants soft, the vowels sloping with the heavy familiarity of its mother tongue. It sounds like how it felt to be there: a humid wave, a heat that weighs on your body like wet sand in your pockets, a grit under your feet that never washes away.
II.
Burmese hospitality is no joke.
At the airport, my dad’s best friend is waiting for us, wearing a longyi around his waist like my dad usually does at home. He helps us with our luggage and ushers us into his car, weaving through roads surrounded by dense forest before reaching more urban neighborhoods, where the buildings are tightly-packed pastel rectangles with dilapidated fronts. When we pass through his metal-gated double doors, held closed by a simple padlock, we are greeting by the savory scents of ohno khao swe and mohingya; the table is laid out with the delicious Burmese cuisine. We sit down to eat immediately.
The meal is lukewarm in that way that all well-prepared feasts for big families are, and a welcome contrast to the temperature outside. My brother and I stand to take our empty plates and used silverware to the sink, but our host family urges us to sit back down.
“The maid will take it.”
My brother and I exchange a look in disbelief.
“What?”
My mother grew up in a fairly well-off merchant family at the Burmese capital, Yangon. When we were little, she regaled us with stories of her childhood and her seven sisters. In her crowded household, she grew up with a plethora of maids who lived in the basement and took care of the housework. To her, the existence of maids is normal.
Amicably, she stacks and passes the dishes to a tanned, short girl with nimble hands and her hair tied back into a ponytail.
But my brother and I are New York City kids through and through. We are used to pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We are used to vacuuming our own carpets, and wiping our own tables clean. Most importantly, we are used to washing our own dishes (Asian families don’t use dishwashers). Our hands twitch at the end of every meal, struggling with the wrongness – the injustice – of not being allowed to do the simple task.
We never get the chance to wash a single dish in Burma, even though we try very, very hard. The maid catches us with an exasperated, yet fond, sigh every time we make a break for the kitchen sink.
III.
Oo Oo is the way to say “Mister” in Burmese.
Swag is the way to say “cool” in Urban Dictionary.
We take to calling my dad’s best friend “Swag Oo Oo,” because he exudes confidence in his slow saunter. He also owns a clothing line and kind of looks like Robert di Niro, which qualifies as pretty swag in our books.
He gets a kick out of it and treats us to chilled falooda at J’Donuts, the Burmese version of Dunkin’ Donuts. The sticky rose milk lingers after we finish the dessert, cloyingly sweet on our tongues as we step back into the unforgiving heat.
IV.
The mall stands gleaming and proud next to a crumbling shanty.
At the mall, there are more vendors than customers. Cockroaches skitter along the sneakers on sale, enjoying their personal obstacle course. The store owner doesn’t spare them a glance.
V.
My father, my mother, and I were all born on Monday, so we pray with our palms flat together in front of the altar dedicated to that day of the week, bowing low three times while the tiger statue watches us. Flowers are strewn along its neck.
My brother is special because he was born on the second half of Wednesday, the only day of the week split into morning and evening. He pours some water on the tuskless elephant that sits in regal silence and drips the remaining droplets on his feet, a little surreptitious. Our soft American feet are tender from the heat-soaked tiles, but we dart to the shaded zones and school our faces into unbothered expressions so we don’t attract the attention of the peddlers selling gold leaf and charms.
If they find out that you’re a foreigner, my mother had warned us at the entrance to the Shwedagon Pagoda, they will follow you and charge you double for everything.
Just in case, I speak my best Burmese loudly as we pass by, careful to avoid that pesky ng sound I can never pronounce.
VI.
In Burma, no U-turn is illegal and the cars run on octane instead of gas.
The buses are filled to the brim, so latecomers hang from the back. The faces of the women are streaked with thanaka, the yellow paste from ground bark that doubles as makeup. I have worn thanaka before, but never in public. When I wear it in Burma, I relish in the cool sensation on my cheeks and instantly understand the appeal. The maid calls me chaw de when she sees me and I shake my head at the compliment, bashful.
Later that day, my mother and I stay up late to ring in the new year, while the maid watches on in bewilderment. Everyone else in the house is already asleep.
Why are you still awake? she asks.
To welcome the new year, I respond.
In America, we scream “Happy New Year” at midnight, my mom grins.
Happy New Year? she repeats, her lips clumsy around the consonants.
Happy New Year! we yell back enthusiastically. She laughs, smiling at our silly American antics and strange customs.
In Queens, there would have been fireworks lighting up the sky, music blaring from the speakers, and a countdown ticking on the television. In Burma, the sky is pitch black and the windows are dark. The television broadcasts a fuzzy commercial for a hair product. We are the only ones with the lights still on down the block. It is peaceful, somehow.
-Monica
The Junction Journal 