Tim Patterson on the Kachin struggle for freedom in Myanmar

by Brenda Yun on

My travel writing buddy Tim Patterson has been traveling around Southeast Asia for six months now doing a bunch of things, but when I learned of his latest project in Myanmar, my eyes and ears perked up and I hope yours will too. He and his friend Ryan Libre have been working with the Pulitzer Center to provide crisis reporting in the Kachin state of northern Myanmar. Their first report came in December 13, and certainly brought to my attention a frightening situation that many are not aware of.

Tim and Ryan had been invited to Kachin by the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) to lead journalism workshops to young writers. Upon arrival, however, the two were quickly ushered into their hotel room, where they were kept protected from the watchful eyes of the country’s reigning military junta, which has long opposed foreign journalism coverage of any activities taking place in Myanmar.

Instead of telling you, second hand, what transpired during their precarious stay in Myanmar, I thought it would be more worthwhile to hear some of the story straight from Tim. I prepared these questions for him by email, and he graciously and promptly responded.
BY: How did you and Ryan decide on this particular project, through this particular non-profit (the Pulitzer Center)?

TP: Ryan and I had been talking about a trip to Myanmar for several years. He lives in Thailand, where many Kachins go for various training workshops, and met a KIO operative at an ashram near Bangkok. When Ryan asked if I wanted to make the trip it took me about .8 seconds to say YES!

It’s been an immense privilege to work with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and I’m incredibly grateful to Jon Sawyer, Janeen Heath and the rest of the Pulitzer staff who decided to take a chance on this project.

There are a lot of terrific young journalists supported by the Pulitzer Center, like the folks at the Common Language Project, and it’s intimidating to see my name alongside those of more accomplished journalists. Ryan and I have a big responsibility to turn in quality work.

BY: Had you traveled to Myanmar before, and what were your impressions of the country upon arrival this time?

TP: Nope, I had never been to Myanmar before, and now that news of this project is plastered across the web I doubt the junta will ever give me a visa. It’s hard to talk about impressions of the country in general terms, because we were limited to small strips of territory controlled by the KIO.

My overall impression is of a rich and fertile land populated by deeply sincere, ambitious, learned people who – tragically – have almost no opportunity to pursue their dreams. The perpetual rule of the Myanmar military government is a travesty and countries who continue to deal with the junta, notably China and the ASEAN member nations, should be ashamed.

I should also mention that although what Ryan and I did sounds like hardcore journalism, our time in Kachin was quite relaxed. The Kachins were gracious hosts and we spent a lot of time drinking tea in front of a space heater and watching the BBC.

BY: What do you and Ryan hope to accomplish by telling about your experience in Myanmar?

TP: It’s shocking to see how little information on Kachin is available. Our main goal is to get the word out however we can, to make people aware that such a place exists. We’ll do this by hitting up as many forms of media as possible – online, newspaper, magazine, radio and even a short documentary film that we hope will air on the PBS program “Foreign Exchange.”

Our biggest challenge is to make our work accessible and entertaining to a general audience while doing justice to the complexities of the situation on the ground. There’s nothing black and white about politics in Myanmar, and that’s especially true when talking about the ethnic minority areas like Kachin, where the central government doesn’t have total control.

We’ll try to let the Kachins speak for themselves when possible through interviews and personal portraits, but it’s also important for journalists to be skeptical and try to capture the many facets of a given issue.

I’m more comfortable with the sort of personal travel writing where exaggeration isn’t a big deal. With serious journalism, there’s a much greater imperative to stick to the facts.

BY: How many more “Untold Stories” can we hope to read from you, and can you give us a little hint as to what to expect in future dispatches?

TP: A lot! Ryan and I are holed up in a teeny-tiny room in Hong Kong now, living on instant ramen and cheap beer and sorting through stacks of notes, thousands of photos and hours of video. We hope to publish dozens of stories across a range of media.

I’m working on a feature article that gives an overview of the political situation in Kachin, along with a more personal piece for BraveNewTraveler.com about the power of the Kachin’s Christian faith. We’re also putting together a piece for the Kyoto Journal’s special issue on War and Peace.

Going to Kachin was the easy part. Now the real work begins.

BY: Back in September, you had hinted about growing roots in Vermont. Is this still the plan, or have your plans changed after what you’ve experienced on your extended trip in Southeast Asia?

TP: I still want to settle down in Craftsbury, Vermont, and plan to break ground on my cabin this summer. There are lots of opportunities opening up in Asia, however, and I’ll be shuttling back and forth across the Pacific for a few years to come.

Next week I fly home to the States, where I’ll be recruiting students for Where There Be Dragons educational travel programs. In March I go back to Laos to finish scouting the new Dragon’s Mekong River semester program, then home again for cabin building, then back to Asia to lead a Dragon’s trip, and then maybe back to Kachin….

As much as I want to live a simple, low-impact life, the travel opportunities are difficult to turn down.

Tim continues to be an inspiration for me as a travel writer. He seeks the truth in every experience, no matter how heartbreaking or difficult the story is to tell. He and Ryan’s journey to Myanmar is living proof that stories are worth telling, no matter how dangerous or dire the consequences.

To read recent stories from Pulitzer Center writers, visit their Untold Stories blog site. You can also read up on Tim and Ryan’s project (as well as other Pulitzer Center projects) here.

All photos are courtesy of Ryan Libre. More images taken during the Myanmar project are viewable through his Idioimagers site.

Photo of the Day (12.13.08)

by Brenda Yun on

Myanmar has been on my mind. I am indebted to this country alone, so ripe with political strife, for the worldly passion I now possess. Just a year and a half ago, I stepped off the plane in Yangon a naive and lonely American traveler. I learned by observation that the men wear longyi (a long wraparound skirt), the women and youth paint their faces with thanaka (a tree bark powder serving the double function of makeup and sun protection), and most adults chew betel nuts (which leave a red residue on the teeth as seen on the woman in this picture). This is just the external part of Myanmar’s unique culture. During the brief three weeks I was given in Myanmar, I fell in love with the place. I arrived quite ignorant of what life can be like under an oppressive military regime; I left infinitely grateful to have shared my time with these friendly and most generous people.

This gorgeous photo taken by uncorneredmarket (a.k.a. Audrey Scott and Daniel Noll) really captures the spirit of the Burmese people. Audrey and Daniel, who have been traveling the globe for over two years now, offer a nice reflection of their time in Burma here. I too think about Myanmar and its people frequently. Perhaps the two faces in this photograph explain why better than words can.

If you have some great travel shots you’d like to share, be sure to upload them to the Gadling pool on Flickr. We might just pick one as our Photo of the Day!

When is Travel Too Dangerous?

by Josh Lew on

Sometimes, common sense is all you need to decide if a trip is too risky. For example, a expedition to build sandcastles on Galveston Island wouldn’t have worked out well during Hurricane Ike.

But at other times the decision to stay or go is a lot less clear. Do you avoid places like Thailand, where current political strife has induced demonstrations and violence? What about Indonesia, where there is always a threat of terrorism bubbling under the surface? Lebanon? Israel…?

I guess in large part, the decision depends on the kind of traveler that you are. Some people just don the pith helmet and wade into the fray, while others avoid it completely, opting for ping pong and cable TV in the safety of their basement. For those of us who are neither overly courageous (or is it reckless?) nor overly fearful, the answer to the question “to go or not to go” is a little more complicated.

So how can you weigh the odds and decide if the positive aspects of a trip are worth putting up with the risk?At some point, you have to honestly ask yourself if you will be a target. I’m not talking about walking through Iran with a crew cut and one of those t-shirts showing an eagle holding the American flag in its beak. If you think that is OK, it’s probably better to stay at home…in your basement. By what if you can be singled out and targeted as a foreigner like the Japanese photographer who was killed last year in Myanmar? If foreigners in a certain country are targets and there seems to be no repercussion for harming them, it is probably best to stay away.

What about past situations in your destination? Thailand has frequent coups. Most do not turn violent; though there are some exceptions. As long as you avoid demonstrations and other confrontational situations, your greatest risk will be a traffic accident. That said, things can happen in the heat of the moment. Even if you don’t feel that you are a target, you might find yourself as one. Australian photographer Neil Davis survived covering the Vietnam War only to be killed by a trigger happy tank gunner during a minor, otherwise non-violent coup, in Thailand.

Aside from the general situation on the ground and a country’s past treatment of visitors, you have to remind yourself about the risks associated with normal travel. The biggest chance you’ll take in most places comes when you try to negotiate your way through unfamiliar traffic.

Just how bad was Myanmar flooded?

by Grant Martin on

Google just updated their map servers with imagery from before and after Cyclone Nargis that struck earlier this month. The resulting data are pretty shocking.

Click on the Google map to see a regular layout of the country’s coast. You can see the cyclone’s path and what areas were flooded by checking the “Show Path and Flooding” link, where you’ll see all of the red areas that were affected.

You can see how the cyclone crushed several regions by comparing some of the pre-storm imagery against those of the post-storm. Go ahead and select post-storm, zoom way in and look at the difference among some of the homes and countryside. Scary huh?

Now would be a great time to consider donating to the relief aid going into the overburdened country. Now that the military junta is letting foreign aid in, they need everything that they can get.

If you’re out of money but have extra frequent flyer miles, consider donating those instead. Several, like Northwest Airlines, have set up dedicated sites to help you give miles to a particular charity. Heck, many of you have accounts with just a few thousand miles in them that you’ll never use. Take the five minutes over lunch and donate your miles.

Lonely Planet’s Burma guide called unethical

by Anna Brones on

Traveling can be political, and as reported by the BBC last September, guidebooks even more so. The current political situation in Burma is so highly charged that Britain’s Trade Union Congress (TUC) is asking travelers to stop buying Lonely Planet’s guide to Burma in order to encourage the company to withdraw the book from the market.

The TUC along with Tourism Concern, Burma Campaign UK and the New Internationalist launched an online petition on Thursday calling for the immediate withdrawal of the Lonely Planet guidebook because “holidaying in Burma is one of the most unethical trips you could make, given the brutality of the current regime,” as New Internationalist co-editor Chris Brazier explained.

This brings into question what role tourism plays on the political scene. Both the Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Burmese unions have asked travelers not to visit their country as long as the military regime is in power. Lonely Planet however believes that travel choices should be left up to the tourists themselves and that publishing a guide on Burma “does not of itself represent support or otherwise for the current regime.”

What do you think? Should Lonely Planet withdraw its Burma guidebook?