And now for something totally different from the previous days in Myanmar indeed. A Tamil festival in the streets of Yangon is kind of an instantaneous jump some thousands of kilometers Westward, and shows how intertwined different cultures are in the country…
Back in Yangon now. The party with all the ‘7 Days in Mynmar‘ participants is over, the files delivered… Job done…
Or is it?
Not really of course. As usual a pandora’s box was opened by starting that new story on the demise of the hill tribes. There is so much more to say, so much more to show. I’m sticking around a couple more days and they will be usefull to start investigating how to go on from here. There is already one sub-story I want to cover for sure and a Sunday seems to be a good day for that… More on this later…
Meanwhile here are a few more second takes…
That is basically what the story I will submit for the ‘7 Days in Myanmar‘ project will be about… The demise of the hill tribes, the ‘normalisation’ of ‘difference’, the difficult to stop cultural leveling of society… The opening up of Myanmar will for sure increase the speed of those changes.
The pieces of my Myanmar puzzle during the ‘7 Days in Myanmar‘ project are coming together. As usual it is a few random encounters which bring the nicest batch of sub-stories: talking to an Akha woman in the streets of Tachileik brings me to a funeral, talking to some streetkids under the bridge crossing the border between Thailand and Myanmar opens up a whole new spectrum of not so touristic viewpoints. But more on that later. Meanwhile here is a condensed version of the story: from working the land to migrating.
I am back from long walks in the mountain and hooked up on a rickety WiFi in bordertown Tachileik. I have been thinking on how to link two very different places like Ksieng Tong and Tachileik, ethnic minorities and a town bordering Thailand. Having talked with a few Akha, Enn, Palaung and Wa, it seems, like anywhere else, pressure to normalise is on them as well. Their small plots of land are not sufficient anymore to nourish their families, making their situation unsustainable and triggering rural migration as well as cultural alienation.
Covering the sleazy side of Tachileik is not going to be a piece of cake as it seems impossible to rely on local or even international NGO’s like World Vision who are not authorised to talk to tourists… Fear of authorities is still very common here…
Between a press conference, a party for the ‘7 Days in Myanmar‘ project, and with blazing hot temperatures in the streets, I had only a short time to spend at the obvious: Schwedagon Pagoda. Luckily some families were having a ceremony for their child…
It is nearly all right. The fear has eased and comfort when photographing is slowly setting in. People keep politely asking me where I come from. Reminds me of ten years ago in Cambodia.
And I now also know about the areas I am supposed to photograph for ‘7 Days in Myanmar‘: the Eastern Shan area with Keng Tung and the bordertown of Tachilek. If the fixer is not too much used working with tourists this might be interesting.
Here is yesterday’s take wandering in Yangon… No purpose. Just for photography’s sake. And it seems I’m lifting my elbow a lot again…
I have been probing how people react to being photographed here on my first day in Yangon. Seems to be all right… It remains a challenge.
| Quest for Land |  |