I drinks a bit

Our neighborhood watering hole

A true sportsman's bar

Sign at the Mann Bar- Warmly Welcome and Take Care of Tourists

I have an odd relationship with the dude runs the little store at the bottom of our stairs.  He scowls most of the time and falls deep into the task of cleaning his nails whenever I walk by. On those occasions when I do step into his shop, it takes a bit of effort to get him to acknowledge my presence. I’ll clear my throat, poke around the displays of laundry detergent, and generally make myself a pain until he finally gives me a look not unlike the look one gives to pus. Or ticks. There’s any number of possibilities for this avoidance: he might have Aspergers syndrome.  I mean, just because we’re in a developing country doesn’t free someone from psychological/neurological challenges. And/or he might be jealous.  If that’s his cross, I can see why. 

Dude’s wife is a regular ray of sunshine.  I’ll catch her eye from behind the counter, give her a big smile and ask how she’s doing.  She clearly enjoys the company of others, and is quick to spread joy in ever-increasing ripples from her little shop on the corner to the clinic and school next door and—one imagines—outward and upward in messianic tones to warm the hearts and souls of even the most destitute and forsaken round not just our small neighborhood but indeed all of Mandalay and beyond. I think she’s swell! And the bonus here is that she speaks very good English, which, unfortunately, is not the case with her husband.  Mind you, his language skills easily top my pitiful butchering of Burmese, but he clearly draws from a shallower well than that enjoyed by his wife. Sadly, she’s not there much.  

It could be that dude’s lack of bonhomie began back in early October.  It was stupid hot and I needed a beer. (I’ve since learned just how easy it is to make that happen in these parts, but at the time I was new to the neighborhood and unclear on my options.)  I knew the bar down the street—appropriately named Mann Bar—was one option, but wasn’t feeling like dealing with Mann Bar just then. Mind you, it’s not that it’s a particularly unpleasant place.  It’s just that it has a kind of pitiful, alcoholic air about it.  Guys sit around the green-painted tables drinking from pints of whiskey and rum with the obvious purpose of losing themselves.  Stray dogs wander in and out, and a woman behind the counter holding a baby on her hips discretely tells the wait staff to get off their duffs and see to the needs of the people.  The concrete floor and tile walls give it an industrial, almost institutional feel— this only slightly mitigated by the smoke-stained animal heads mounted on an overhead beam. I’ve seen guys come in and grab a bottle from the counter, take it to their table, and call out for service.  One of the guys working the place will bring a glass with ice, into which the patron pours a few ounces, rounding it off with water.  A T.V. plays Burmese soap operas, and everyone stares.

That particular October evening found me standing on the street out front of our apartment building, eyes stinging with the dust and the smoke, considering my options. The constant honking of scooters and cars was particularly grating, and led to my decision to get some beer to go, which I could chug lovingly in the relatively cool comfort of our apartment.  I began the walk down to Mann Bar to negotiate my options, but for some reason stopped in front of the little shop on the corner—dude’s place.  I looked at the small, glass-front cooler and saw the usual supply of soft drinks, red bull knock-offs, and sweetened milk.  No beer, which wasn’t a huge surprise, given the largely Muslim make-up of the immediate neighborhood.  Both dude and his wife were behind the counter.  Mingelabar! I said.  Then, more slowly, and with an almost conspiratorial air, I leaned in and asked, Do you have beer?  

I might be wrong, but it seemed his wife gave dude a slight nod, as if to say, The infidel would never alert the Imam…  

At any rate, he slipped out from behind the counter and indicated with a slight nod that I was to follow.  Yes, indeed!  Behind a half wall made by a display rack and the same cooler that held soft drinks was a small refrigerator, which dude opened to reveal a rack of canned beer and, below that, a second rack with the larger (640 ml) bottles of Myanmar beer.  Oh, yeah.  I reached in with one sticky paw to determine the coolness of the bottles and, finding them sufficiently cold, held up two fingers.

“Four thousand kyat.”  Dude wasn’t giving them away, but I was in no mood to barter.  The thought of dealing with the squalor of Mann Bar found me reaching for a fistful of crumpled bills and, beer safely wrapped in an old powdered milk bag, made my way up to our second floor den.

Since then I’ve certainly expanded my horizons.  There was the predictable early flurry of hitting up dude for the evening dose—So convenient! So close! Until there finally came the day when he informed me he was out of bottles.  Only cans remained, which turn out to be slightly less of a bargain.  I frowned to indicate my displeasure, and he assured me (in so many words and gestures) that he would have bottles in stock by the following week. No big deal. However, by the time he’d replenished his stock I’d sniffed around the neighborhood and discovered some other options, including the convenience store just beyond Mann Bar known as  Free 2 Buy.  Not making this up.  It’s like a mini 7-11, with a small cooler of beer and soft drinks that happen to be a lot cheaper than those found at either corner dude or Mann Bar.  

The only down side would be the flimsy little plastic bags they tuck my beer into, resulting in the bottles poking their brown necks out the top like a couple of rambunctious puppies wanting to play.  Walking past corner dude’s place is like parading around my hot new girlfriend at the church bazaar.  Little bit of guilt.  Little shame.  I mean, we had a thing for a while there, but darnit, we’d grown apart. Moved on.  

Meantime, I figured I’d throw dude a bone and get my top-up card for the phone at his place.  The deal is you buy a card for 5000 or 10,000 kyat, and scratch it like an instant lottery ticket, revealing a code which you then puch into your phone, something we use as both a phone and an internet hotspot, which burns the kyat at a pretty high rate.  Every little shop stocks these top-up cards. Usually I get my card in the morning, while the kids are pouring into school and Rebecca’s getting ready for her nursing gig. 

A couple of weeks ago I went down to dump the trash and pick up a card.  Dude was there, but not his wife.  Bummer.  “I’ll take the 10,000 top up card.”  He eased over to the counter and pulled out the little plastic container he kept the cards in, flipped one out onto the counter.  I handed him a couple of 5000 kyat notes and, as he was taking the money, he kind of leaned in.  

“I have bottle beer.”  

This felt like a big deal.  I wondered briefly whether he had been practicing that line in anticipation of my arrival—something I do all the time with Burmese phrases.  I looked a bit more closely at dude the man—a father, a husband, a guy with certain limitations.  His brown, liquid eyes were reflecting pools of the hopes and fears shared by us all.

“I’ll take a couple,”  then, at his look of confusion, I put on a big smile, held up two fingers, and said as clearly as I could, “Two, please!”  He nodded and worked his way around the narrow counter, into the land of hidden pleasures.

I’d like to report a change in our relationship.  An easing of tensions, as it were, But I can’t do that, and the reason is simple—it wouldn’t be true.  If this were, say, literature (or politics) and not a historical reporting of events, than sure!  Why not? But the truth is vastly less poetic.  It turns out dude is still very much dude-like in his cleaning of nails and turning away when I walk by.  He’s not—and probably never will be—one to make the first move.  Further, I’d imagine this would be the case whether or not I forsook him back in October. He is who he is, shaped by a world that is vastly more constrained than the one I was fortunate enough to land in.  But one that is becoming less so by the minute.

I’m not sure what the story is around here with beer—and alcohol in general.  I do know that quite a few restaurants don’t feature anything alcoholic on their menus, but if you ask, they’ll produce beer.  My buddy who’s family runs the little neighborhood joint around the corner (in which that very circumstance plays out) tells me it has to do with people just not thinking to place it on the menu, though he concedes that alcohol consumption has been on the rise over the last few years.

“I have a couple of guys who work for me at the water bottling plant (his other gig.) They grew up in the village, and would never think to drink a beer, but if I buy them one, they’ll totally be all over it.  It’s a great prize!”

Certainly there are those who abstain for religious reasons—the Muslims in my hood being a prime example.  Those places run by Muslims will often loudly proclaim on their menus: Never serve alcoholic drink!  The sub-text being: So don’t ask.  

Probably corner dude falls into the latter, religious category.  Could be that he sees a chance to make a buck by stocking a bit of hooch, but feels a tiny betrayal of his God, even though he’s not allowing it past his lips.  Aiding and abetting, as it were.  

I would be remiss were I not to mention the Beer Stations.  Great name, great concept, great fun.  Just thinking about these fine places brings on a thirst.  The typical set-up involves cold—as in, freaking brilliant ice cold—beer on draft.  Out front will often be a big ol’ charcoal pit with a display of meat on skewers which you can pick out and have them serve to you sizzling off the coal.  And not just meat—there’s various veggies, whole fish, quail eggs.  Typically a kitchen will whip up noodle dishes as well, and they’ll bring out nuts or roasted beans to chew on while drinking. The few I’ve been to are some of the very few places who employ women as servers, and they’re typically done up in a half-tarty way.  They don’t look like hookers or anything, but they make for a pleasant visual diversion.  Trump would approve.  

A beer goes for anywhere from 750 kyat (60 cents) to a thousand at the nicer locations, like on the moat across from the palace (85-90 cents.)  Amazingly, I get a bit incensed paying eighty cents for a beer, which doesn’t bode well for my return to the land of five dolla beers.  

The days are cooling off, with clear, blue skies and afternoon tempertaures hovering someplace around eighty-five degrees.  Lows at night drop to something around the mid-sixties.  I realize these numbers feel high by Marquette standards, but here there are folks wearing fleece and wool pullovers with winter caps on their heads.  No shit.  And I, too, have acclimated, I suppose.  Not sweating so much.  The days of ninety-five to one hundred degrees with 99% humidity are behind us.  But I’ll still drink a beer—just not so needfully.