Yangon by Fiona Dunlop
Featured Hotel in Rangoon
But above all there are pagodas, thousands of them, either dazzlingly regilded or atmospherically crumbling. In tandem, monks and giant Buddha statues far outnumber those of Burma’s neighbours. When you gather exactly how repressive the military regime is, in place since 1962, this seems surprising. But this is Burma, where even ruthless generals arrange photo-ops at high-profile temples and live as superstitiously as the rest of the population.
Years of hard-line socialism, human rights violations, a name-reversal to Myanmar and the ongoing house-arrest of opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, mean that Burma is not exactly a hot destination. Tourist numbers are tiny (a mere 232,000 in 2005) and the Burmese have little contact with the outside world. Instead, they seem to have buried themselves in Buddhism. Karl Marx’ mantra, “religion is the opium of the masses”, rings only too true here, as what alternative is there if you dare not speak openly to a neighbour? Informers are everywhere. “Divide and rule is their policy” one man tells me angrily, while a woman explains, “You can’t talk to anyone about political change as you’re so afraid - not only for yourself but also for your family.”
Theravada Buddhism, the original, purist form of this religion (as opposed to East Asia’s more ostentacious Mahayana Buddhism) came to Burma nearly 2000 years ago. Its fundamentals are so deeply embedded that local legend has it that the Burmese race descended from a prince related to the Buddha. More than its religious definition, Burmese Buddhism has far-reaching social implications for 75% of the 52 million inhabitants. Although officially Thailand claims a greater proportion of believers due to having escaped colonial rule and missionaries, Thai worship often stems from duty and habit rather than the profound belief of the Burmese.
Nor is it kept under discreet wraps. On the contrary, it is visible at every turn, kicking off every morning when, across the country, over half a million shaven-headed novices and monks do their rounds. Young and old, barefoot but elegantly draped in maroon robes, they fill their food-bowls from regular donors before sharing these offerings back at the monastery. From midday onwards, with desire eliminated, food goes off the agenda until the next morning. This does not stop laughing and chatting monks out everywhere on evening strolls; mind rules matter successfully.
Towering over Yangon from a central hilltop is the mother of all Burmese pagodas, the unmissable Shwe Dagon. As I watch its golden glow through torrential rain from my 17th-floor hotel-room, it feels like monitoring the gleaming eye of a city hiding its soul. There is little sign of the military and, superficially at least, life is that of any Asian city with all its mayhem, human sweat and inequalities. Then you notice tree-trunks hung with what look like bird-boxes. These turn out to be ‘nat’ shrines, a remnant of pre-Buddhist days when animism ruled. Nats still play a major role in Burmese belief in the esoteric, along with zodiac signs and numerology, and their festivals are big hits on the calendar.
Inevitably I am lured to the Shwe Dagon complex. At the top of this hilltop nirvana, I step into a mindboggling theatre-set of blinding-white, ornately sculpted and stuccoed stupas, all clustered round the big one, a massive, gilded affair said to contain relics of four different Buddhas. As such it is Burma’s most sacred sight. Thought to date 2500 years from Siddartha Gautama (number four Buddha, the one we know about), repeated earthquakes have meant serial rebuilding while about 60 tons of gold leaf are pasted on to it every four years. Any comparison between its spiritual and material worth is decidedly tricky.
Around the stupa base, dozens of people douse Buddha statues with water while others light candles, ring bells or meditate. Still more meander in apparent spiritual bliss between 70 or so side-shrines, stopping to drop off a coconut offering or, at a shrine to a 1940s miracle worker, a cheroot, sitting down to gawp at an ornate interior or, in the case of one monk, to light up a quick smoke. Up to 40,000 worshippers find their way here daily yet there is an incredible ease and freedom of worship: there are no codes or rules, as in Buddhism there are no judges, merely karma, the natural ‘law’ of cause and effect. What you give comes back to you, so the more you donate, the better your after-life is likely to be. This, more than anything else, seems to be what has kept Burma going.
Among the shrines, women sing for gold-leaf donations, just one of the actions that ensure Buddhist brownie-points. Even better is to apply the gold-leaf yourself, something I see later in frenetic action at Mandalay’s Mahamuni temple, where the country’s oldest statue of Buddha has almost disappeared under layers of gold-leaf. Here at Shwe Dagon, vast personal fortunes fund elements like the jewel-studded finial of the main stupa which, despite being five metres long, can only be properly admired through binoculars. Above it, a gold sphere sparkles with diamonds, in turn crowned by a glittering rock that even Hollywood’s finest could not aspire to own – all 76 karats of it.
My guide, Thu Zar, could be a beauty queen but instead, like most Burmese, is a devout Buddhist who spends hard-earned holidays on meditation retreats. After the overwhelming atmosphere of Shwe Dagon, we head for a more 20th century shrine. Looking suspiciously like an aircraft hangar, it actually houses a gigantic reclining Buddha who seductively stretches his limbs over 65 metres. Quite a boy. Rebuilt in the 1960s in brick and plaster, he certainly boasts “the eyelashes of a calf, a neck round like a Banyan branch and arms as smooth as an elephant truck”, a description laughingly quoted by Thu Zar from Buddhist texts.
Monasteries and their schools are part and parcel of the Yangon landscape although it is in Mandalay, Myanmar’s intellectual capital to the north, where 80% of the monk population actually lives. Occasionally, too, you spot giggly young shaven-headed nuns in their sugar-pink robes near a Buddhist school. These structures step in when the government fails, as so often seems to be the case in social affairs. One of the largest is at Yangon’s Kalaywa monastery, where 1500 students from poor rural areas are given a general education up to the age of 16. When I visit, the atmosphere is open and easy-going though discipline is clearly observed and meditation is said to be as important as study. I later compare it with a much smaller Shwe Yan Pye monastery in the remote Inle Lake region. About 30 local Pao boys, an ethnic minority from the nearby mountains, are taught by six monks in an informal atmosphere, staying at the beautiful 118-year old monastery for up to 10 years. “The monks never refuse anyone” I am told. As a novice bounds out of the room and tumbles down the steps gleefully, I understand why. Indeed the joyful attitudes of the monks points to another of Burma’s anomalies: humour. Far from the holier-than-thou mentality to be expected from such philosophically inclined Theravada Buddhists, and despite the repression of their rulers, these people love to laugh.
When I finally leave this beguiling country, I am full of both sadness and superlatives. I have seen wonders such as the world’s largest ringing, uncracked bell at Mingun, outside Mandalay, with several generations of one family trooping round inside for fun, watched 2,000 monks patiently and silently queue for lunch, shared snacks and jokes with industrious Pao women much thanks to my sensitive interpreter, wandered through a mesmerising landscape of 1,000 abandoned stupas, seen immaculately groomed young girls work relentlessly for $2 a day, and rather pompously discussed the relative merits of Thatcher and Blair with a well-informed monk who spoke impeccable English. Best of all I have talked to people gagging to unburden themselves and whisper how much they hate the regime. One craftsman in Bagan, giggling nervously, said “We are 175% against.” It’s hard to beat that, however comfortable the Buddhist after-life promises to be.