A Keyhole into Burma – Betel nut chewing, it’s as gross as it looks

by Leif Pettersen on

Initially, I was convinced that there was a nationwide dental crisis in Burma. People everywhere, men and women, had deeply stained reddish-brown teeth with gums so ostensibly diseased that even the lips and chin suffered discoloration. Unable to ignore this any longer, I inquired about the epidemic and was subsequently school on the revolting art of chewing betel nut.

Betel nut chewing is a wildly popular Burmese habit, with all the outward appeal of chewing tobacco (but messier), having the general effect of a cup of coffee. The exact origins of this appetite killing habit are in question, but in places like India, it’s been nauseating visitors for thousands of years. I located one vague mention of betel nut in a Burmese book indicating that it’s been in vogue locally from royalty on down for at least 150 years.

There’s a betel stand on virtually every street corner, usually consisting of just a tiny table with all the ingredients laid out and a very wired up, and presumably eternally single, guy with red drool down his chin preparing the chews. A few tiny pieces of betel are set in a leaf, along with lime paste, and tobacco. There’s a betel-for-girls as well, where the tobacco is replaced with a sweet flavoring. The whole mess is wrapped up in the leaf like a tiny burrito and popped into the mouth as is.

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In addition to being faced with a disagreeable betel smile hundreds of time a day, non-chewers also have to take care as to where they step as the streets and sidewalks are one giant betel spittoon. Never mind the sanctity of your footwear, one needs to dodge these minefields of fresh, red/brown goo so as not to sully the lobby floor of one’s guesthouse.

Leif Pettersen, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, contributed three stories to the upcoming anthology “To Myanmar (Burma) With Love: A Connoisseur’s Guide” published by Things Asian Press. His personal blog, Killing Batteries, and his staggeringly vast travelogue could fill a lifetime of unauthorized work breaks, if one were so inclined.

A Keyhole into Burma – This ain’t Kansas

by Leif Pettersen on

My first day in Yangon was draining. Interminable walking in dusty 102 degree heat and humoring enthusiastic English speakers every few minutes can sap the most tolerant of Beckham look-a-likes. By nightfall, I longed for my guesthouse bed and sweet, sweet air-con.

As I made my way to my guesthouse, it became clear that parts of Yangon were suffering from a blackout. Street and traffic lights were out and all buildings were dark. The only light available came from passing cars, candles at food stalls and the occasional generator powered light in front of a shop or home. I was forced to slow my pace so I could cautiously judge whether or not I was about to step in an open ditch or on the tail of a stray animal.

Visibility briefly improved outside an unmarked, walled and barb-wired compound. Strangely, the street lights here were working. I stepped around a huge barrier on the corner of the block and up onto an abnormally pristine sidewalk. I marched along with the whole sidewalk to myself for almost half a block before a woman pleaded for me to step back down into the street. It turned out I was walking past the ministry’s compound and they do not allow people to walk on the sidewalk outside the walls. Yangon’s best maintained sidewalk is off-limits to pedestrians. That’s just so military junta, isn’t it?

A few blocks later I was accosted by a young man with the best English skills I’d heard all day. He invited me for a chat and Chinese tea at his food stall. At one point he went a little overboard extolling how handsome I was. Apparently, Burmese men regularly and honestly lavish other men with compliments about their looks. They’re also unusually same-sex affectionate, putting arms around each other and idly hugging one another.

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The young man invited me to attend his English class the following day. The thought of spending a few hours in a room full of Beckham-loving English speakers was not without its appeal, but I’d already committed to a full schedule of touring Yangon’s most gnarly tourist sights with a local guide. The young man was understanding, but asked if I would visit him the following evening for more tea and conversation. I agreed, bid him goodnight, and continued the pitch-black walk to my guesthouse.

Leif Pettersen, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, contributed three stories to the upcoming anthology “To Myanmar (Burma) With Love: A Connoisseur’s Guide” published by Things Asian Press. His personal blog, Killing Batteries, and his staggeringly vast travelogue could fill a lifetime of unauthorized work breaks, if one were so inclined.

A Keyhole into Burma – Instant celebrity

by Leif Pettersen on

“Hello Beckham!!!”

I smiled and waved. I was a star. Really, the only thing you need to do to be the most popular guy in any Burmese city is to simply be from somewhere else. I had the added advantage of having a passing resemblance to David Beckham, in that we are both Caucasian, with short, blond, fuzzy hair and devilishly good looking.

I was continually accosted by ‘fans’ just wanting to shoot the proverbial shit. However, limited feces can be discharged when you and your new acquaintance only share a handful of common words and phrases. For the entirety of my time in Myanmar, I had the following verbatim conversation about 137 times a day:

Local: “Hello!”
Me: “Hello!”
Local: “Where you come from?”
Me: “America.”
Local: “Ah! Very good country! Goodbye!”

The people who had a larger command of English nearly always inquired and then showed great concern upon hearing that I wasn’t married at my age. Usually the language barrier prevented me from explaining that I had already been to that particular ring of Hell and back and could only recently talk about it without my eye twitching, my jaw clenching and my wallet bursting into flames.

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In many parts of Southeast Asia, being Caucasian comes with great responsibility. Whether you like it or not, you become the village English teacher, sideshow and change machine – the kind where you don’t necessarily have to stick in a note before expecting your change.

That last one becomes oppressive over time and I’ll admit that more than a few beggars felt my wrath while I was in Burma. My already feeble patience had been worn raw with incessant solicitations for handouts in Malaysia and Thailand, so I was primed for a few meltdowns. Though, overall, begging in Burma was unexpectedly light. Almost non-existent outside of Yangon. More often, people wanted to trade. Had I been prepared, this would have been brilliant.

Clothes are probably the biggest thing (basic pants and t-shirts are fine, but jeans and shirts with western sport teams, colleges, cities or band names written on them are optimum, even if they’ve been more than a little lovingly used). In rural areas I was beseeched for pens/pencils, shampoo, small flashlights, small fold-up knives, wrist watches and American coins. Additionally I have been told it’s a good idea to bring some lipstick, candy (the non-melting kind – Burma is hot) and considering the ban on western music, CDs would probably be a huge hit too. Don’t be a putz like me, bring stuff to trade. You’ll deeply regret it if you don’t.

Leif Pettersen, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, contributed three stories to the upcoming anthology “To Myanmar (Burma) With Love: A Connoisseur’s Guide” published by Things Asian Press. His personal blog, Killing Batteries, and his staggeringly vast travelogue could fill a lifetime of unauthorized work breaks, if one were so inclined.

A Keyhole into Burma – Burmese currency (I don’t give a FEC)

by Leif Pettersen on

After weeks of sweating the complexities of money in Burma, it turned out to be pretty straightforward. Formerly, travelers had to juggle three currencies to get by.

To start, one needed kyat (pronounced ‘chat’), Burma’s everyday currency, to buy food, pay for some, but not all, transportation and to purchase souvenirs. One must be judicious when acquiring kyat. With Myanmar’s position as a naughty sanctioned nation, the rest of the world does not recognize this currency, so if you don’t spend it, it becomes a worthless souvenir as soon as you leave the country.

One also needed a stack of US dollars which served as a general fall-back currency, used to pay for hotel rooms, domestic plane tickets and industrious tourist touts.

Finally, there were FECs (Foreign Exchange Certificates), a kind of pretend currency invented by the government for the sole purpose of padding their pockets with tourist cash without actually having to do anything.

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Independent tourists were required to purchase US$200 worth of FECs upon arrival in Burma, which they in turn could only spend at a precious few government-approved hotels, tour companies and transportation conglomerates. No sane person in Myanmar would exchange FECs back to dollars for you, so if you didn’t give these government-backed businesses your patronage you’d end up going home with a pile of useless currency. Although it goes directly against the spirit of the junta to make life less complicated for anyone, they generously dropped the US$200 mandatory purchase rule in 2003. FECs have since quietly dropped off the radar.

As for exchanging US dollars into kyat in Yangon, I soon learned that in order to get the best exchange rate, I needed to walk into the center of town and accost one of the jewelry merchants in the dubiously named Black Market. I was assured that this was just a name and that nothing truly unlawful was going down.

At the market, sure enough, I found many takers for a US dollar cash exchange. I ambitiously changed a hundred dollar bill and was presented with a rubber banded stack of 92 crisp, new, 1,000 kyat notes as thick as my thumb. It turns out that the 1,000 kyat note (about US$1.10 in 2005) is the largest denomination.

Have you ever tried to shove 92 bills into your wallet? Give it a try. Yes, right now. How’d it go? It was like trying to fold a Reader’s Digest in there, wasn’t it?

I stood there for a moment staring at this gangsta wad of money. Finally, I peeled 10 notes off the top, put them in my wallet and shoved the rest into my day bag, which I held onto with a death-grip for the rest of the afternoon.

[Thanks to Mike and Laura Gaffney for the kyat picture (that I stole).]

Leif Pettersen, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, contributed three stories to the upcoming anthology “To Myanmar (Burma) With Love: A Connoisseur’s Guide” published by Things Asian Press. His personal blog, Killing Batteries, and his staggeringly vast travelogue could fill a lifetime of unauthorized work breaks, if one were so inclined.

A Keyhole into Burma – The current regime sucks, obviously, but that’s beside the point

by Leif Pettersen on

Bringing up travel in Burma (Myanmar) in certain social circles has ruined many perfectly good cocktail parties. I’m talking raised voices, spilled drinks, mangled Twister mats, and even fisticuffs with multiple players. (At what stage can you call it a ‘melee’? Cuz I live to use that word in casual conversation. Melee. Heh.)

The recent uprising, the strongest anti-government demonstrations since 1988, briefly sparked new hope that Burma’s hateful leaders would finally be bounced out of power. After a stirring week of unthinkable marches and defiance, the government finally broke its silence and retorted with beatings, arrests and killings.

At the time of writing, the protests were stamped out, reducing the nation to its usual simmering discontent. The ensuing political condemnation from around the world has forced the military junta to concede to ‘conditional talks’ with Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy, though this agreement is widely thought to be a delaying tactic that will be annulled as soon as the international microscope moves its focus elsewhere.

The go/don’t go to Burma debate, of course, is raging once again. This BBC article cleanly sums up the interminable dilemma. I brought myself up to speed on the issues several years ago. Following the matter closely ever since, I haven’t heard anyone make any groundbreaking progress on what is a compelling argument on both sides. I have nothing to add to the debate, but I will say this: people on the fence that have actually visited Burma inevitably come home on the ‘go’ side.

For starters, it’s a beautiful, unspoiled country with amazing people and unforgettable sights. That the government marginally profits from tourist money is indisputable, though visitors can control how much money is pocketed by the government to a moderate degree. Equally, however, large numbers of private citizens also profit from foreign visitors and, arguably, the entire country benefits from having their story reported to the outside world, whether it be at an intimate dinner party or on a popular, international travel blog.

I visited Burma for 10 frenzied, sleep-deprived days in 2005. Every weekday for the next three weeks, I’ll be posting short vignettes and pictures from my journey.

Read the next post in this series: Burmese currency (I don’t give a FEC)

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Leif Pettersen, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, contributed three stories to the upcoming anthology “To Myanmar (Burma) With Love: A Connoisseur’s Guide” published by Things Asian Press. His personal blog, Killing Batteries, and his staggeringly vast travelogue could fill a lifetime of unauthorized work breaks, if one were so inclined.