Movement of the People

Nobody walks in Mandalay.  Except, of course, us.  

Our apartment is located in a touristy/backpacker part of town.  There’s a hotel across the street that caters to the traveling westerner.  One down the street, too.  A couple of ATM’s around.  And, as always happens in touristy situations, taxi drivers, scooter drivers, bicycle rickshaw drivers, and scooter rickshaw drivers all compete for business in this growing (and relatively affluent) market.

Just down the street is a corner with a covered set of stairs that kind of arcs around the bend.  The building for which the stairs were formed is abandoned.  There’s an awning.  It makes for a good hangout, especially if you’re a taxi/scooter/bicycle driver seeking trade.  

I go by there often.  One of my local restaurants is just around the bend.  School is the next block down and to the right a block and a half.  

“You need taxi?  Where you go?”  Most of the guys (it’s always guys) speak a fair amount of English.  Which is to say, enough to snag a fare. The sidewalk around their roost is stained a deep red from betel juice spit.  Invariably, drivers pack a wad of chaw in their cheeks, and when they smile (as happens often) they expose the deep red gums and rotten teeth of their addiction.  

The other night I was looking for some fresh veggies.  This was closer to the time we had arrived, and I hadn’t yet gotten my bearings.  I stopped in a small corner shop run by an Indian guy.  “Do you sell veggies?  Vegetables?”

“No,” He went on to indicate a place two blocks to the east, and four or five to the south.  I started off, stepping into the street because the sidewalk was clogged with scooters and cars, a weather eye over my shoulder to avoid being blind sided by an angry snarl of traffic coming off the light.  Early evening is busy.  It’s dark, there’s few street lights, and the exhaust burns the eyes.  On impulse, I made a u-turn and headed across to my boys hanging on the corner.  Immediately, I was surrounded by a small group.

“Where you need to go?”  I settled on a young guy sporting a long, Muslim tunic.  Maybe sixteen years old, he already displayed the shrunken red gums of betel nut exposure.  When I asked his name, he replied, “Yazak” and gave my proffered hand a rather limp shake. I started to explained I was looking for a shop with veggies, but he cut me off halfway.  “Ok, ok, I know…”  He leaned in, as though straining at a chain, and I wondered just how much of the betel nut he’d had this early evening. Suddenly, Yazak turned and sort of walk-skipped to his scooter, anxious to get moving, get his (and my) ass on the saddle. I followed along, looking back at some of the older dudes I passed over in favor of this young buck. They were smiling and speaking among themselves in Burmese, looking my way.  Laughing.  Hmmm.  

I stood next to his machine as he jumped on the kick starter, which gave me a chance to assess his ride.   Chinese knock off.  Plastic cowling cracked.  One of the turn indicators hanging by its electrical connection.  And it didn’t seem at all willing to actually fire up.  For a brief moment, I felt I might be spared the consequences of my choice of this young lad, but then it coughed to life in a cloud of thick black smoke.  He turned and flashed a wide betel nut smile. “You want this?”  He held up a badly scarred plastic helmet.  The look on his face suggested it was kind of a pussy move, but he recognized that it somehow gave comfort to us strangers from far off places.  “Do you think I’ll need it?” I asked as I climbed aboard.  He shrugged the shrug of a philosopher who understands this brief, fleeting madness called life and gunned the throttle, launching us into the fray. 

Turns out, the press of traffic is somehow less pressing when one is moving along with the current. Until, that is, one comes to an intersection.  Further, this town being set to a tight grid pattern means there’s lots of them.  And for some reason only the busiest of intersections warrant a light.  All the rest operate on something like the honor system, with the majority of commuters making their way through by filling every available gap, or lumping into a herd of scooters that defies oncoming traffic on their flank.  As a rule, things work out surprisingly well. 

There’s also quite a bit of eye contact, which I’ve picked up on since getting my bicycle.  People see you coming and catch your eye, then typically give a slight nod to indicate they see you and, depending on your position relative to them in the intersection, if they’ll hold while you pass.

My proletariat roots might be showing, but it seems much more likely to get eye contact and deference from a working stiff.  The rich folk have a way of looking straight ahead and hitting the throttle.  One learns to exercise extreme caution when crossing a street or approaching an intersection in front of a Mercedes/Lexus/Land Rover.  Not that there’s many around…

Yazac and I hit three different stores before striking gold.  (Turns out the average bear gets their veggies at the market during daylight hours.  Go figure.) On the way I complimented him on his English language skills.  “I study with books my friend gave me,”  he told me.  

“Are you in school?”

“Is my own school.  I teach myself.”  Which is to say, no.  But you have to hand it to him.  He’s scraping together a living in a tough market. 

When we arrived back at my place I climbed off the back and gave him back his helmet.  He removed my bags of food from a hook below the handle bars and handed them to me.

“What do I owe you?”  Yazak paused and did a little mental calculating.  We stopped at three stores, all of which he hung out in front while I went in to find veggies.  Total distance maybe three miles.  Time, about an hour.  Plus the fact that I’m a white guy with money.

“One thousand Kyat.”  (About eighty cents.)  And guess what?  It’s possible I was being gouged.  He might have taken a local dude for half the price.  But I don’t think so.

There’s a famous Buddhist temple in the south known as Kyaiktiyo, AKA Golden Rock.  Probably you’ve seen pictures.  The temple is actually built on top of this massive gold rock, which sits on the edge of a cliff, seemingly defying gravity.  The temple is said to hold a strand of the Buddha’s hair.  Pilgrims come from all over to walk up to the temple and stick a piece of hammered gold leaf to the face of the rock.  Each piece of gold leaf is hammered to a thickness (Thinness?) of one to two molecules.  Pretty light.  But, you know, these things add up.  And, for poetry’s sake, let’s imagine that in time the weight of the pilgrim’s offerings will cause the rock to loose its delicate balance and crash down from the cliff’s edge.  

This country feels alot like that rock.  It would seem to be poised in a delicate balance of innocence and worldliness. People like Yazak don’t think to gouge.  Drivers still make eye contact (for the most part) at intersections.  When a cashier or waitperson hands you your change, they do so with two hands, and bow slightly in a show of respect. 

Which is not to say it’s some magical place out of time.  There’s corruption and graft.  Drug abuse, prostitution, and human trafficking.  But a place makes its mark in large part due to the small acts of civility and grace extended to its guests.  Even here, in the so-called backpacker district, there remains an openness that takes some getting used to.  One braces for an assault, and finds instead a bright red smile.