Reflections: Life Without Duties in Burma

                         

    During the summer of 2007, I (Grumpus) spent three months backpacking around Asia.  My original plan to travel through Tibet to Mt. Everest base camp fell through when the border into Tibet was closed, so I decided to go to Burma.  The only information I had about the country, as I crossed into the border town of Muse from Yunnan Province, was on a two-inch slip of paper in my pocket onto which a backpacker had scribbled the names of a few guesthouses in Burma.  I had no idea what to expect.  
As soon as I crossed the border I was put to work by the local propaganda machine.  Upon my arrival a General welcomed me to his country in broken English that spewed forth from behind his few remaining teeth as the cameras rolled.   My entrance would be front page news according to the debriefing I got from my cab driver.

Following a black market exchange of US Dollars for Burmese Kyat, I arrived in Lashio.  I deposited my stuff in one of the guesthouses mentioned on my little scrap of paper and headed for the market to get a feel for the town.  The market reminded me of many I'd seen in Southeast Asia—dirt roads, people hawking Chinese-made plastic household items, food stalls and t-shirts.  A man who had watched me from a distance invited me to join him for coffee in his computer shop.  After an hour of chit-chatting in his shop, he conferred with his wife and decided to invite me upstairs to dine with his family.  

Mr. Shein (alias) was a tall, Sikh man whose training as a lawyer was rendered obsolete following the junta’s seizure of power in 1962.  I spent most of dinner talking to his precocious ten year old son who plowed his savings into Harry Potter books, which cost a princely $50 in Yangoon, the capital.

"Why didn't you ride the London Eye when you were in England?" he asked.

"Too expensive," I replied.

"Whatever… So, do you believe in aliens?"

"Yeah, I think that there has to be something else out there."

"Really? I don't."

After dinner, Mr. Smith invited me to the living room so that we could continue our discussion and bring politics, a subject that had been lurking under the protection of innuendo and metaphor, out into the open.

"You know that I can go to jail for talking to you," he began.  With an understanding smile and a nod of recognition that I wouldn't do anything to endanger him or his family, he launched into a lucid critique of his society.   "Without duties there can be no rights; without rights there can be no duties," he began.  "If a man wishes to fix the road in this country, he will not dare to initiate construction nor will he petition the government to fix the problem.  The reason is simple: he has no citizenship rights and is afraid that he will be labeled as subversive to the state if he tries to alter the status quo in any way."

The fear of standing out stifled political life.   "The majority of the population lives in a hand-to-mouth fashion and struggles to survive, so the common man does not have the time to think about the government or democracy—he is squarely focused on his survival.  This is part of the evil of our government," he concluded.

As we sipped from our second glass of imported Whiskey, his thoughts turned to his son, who was sitting with us, listening attentively and contributing as best he could.   "I try to give my son a good education, although it is hard to do in this country," Mr. Shein stated.  In his mind, a good education is composed of three attributes--English, music and golf--all of which have their roots in the British colonial era.

 Mr. Shein proceeded to ask his son to play something on the "piano,"  a Casio keyboard.   As his son played a range of pieces from Mozart to The Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel, Mr. Shein swelled with pride as his eyes glistened with tears.   He knew that, despite all of his labor and sacrifice, he would not be able to give his son the future he deserves in Myanmar.  That is why he  tells his son to go abroad, to fulfill his promise, to find a better life and to leave his family and country behind. When asked where he wanted his son to go, he responded, "America, because America is the land for dreamers." 

Throughout the rest of my time in Burma and for the following two years, my evening with Mr. Shein was the reason I cited when I told people why I wanted to go to law school.  I wanted to understand how rule of law can be established -- and so easily destroyed.  It was this line of thinking that led me to The Fletcher School.  Yet when I think about my evening with Mr. Shein and my immediate reaction to it now, I'm struck by how much I focused on fitting that experience into a narrative that I'd crafted for myself.  I still believe that the rule of law is vital, but helping countries strengthen their legal and democratic institutions is not my calling.  I've spent enough time in foreign lands to know that, without  a clear understanding of the language, history and culture of the place, the best I can do is offer some helpful advice; the worst I could do is undermine informal institutions that I don't fully understand.  

When I think about Mr. Shein now, two things strike me.  First, I'm amazed that someone put himself and his family in serious danger in order to have me over for dinner.  I wonder what it was about my walk or my face that made him so comfortable with me.  I've experienced this warmth and hospitality from people several times, and to this day I wonder if there is a certain openness to the way I carry myself.  If there is, I hope to keep it. Second, I marvel at how quickly the story became about me.  It was about how having dinner with his family impacted me -- about how the experience helped shaped my desire to work in the rule of law field.  
All of this sounds great, but it rings false.  I took an amazing experience and tried to fit it into a way that I saw the world -- and the role I hoped to play in it.  As I've gotten older, I've come to realize that trying to follow a preordained path that might lead to an end result is the recipe for a hallow existence. 
 Helping to bring about stability and prosperity in Burma through work on rule of law reform would be a great accomplishment, but, for me, I think that living a life in which I'm connected and in tune with my surrounding would be a greater accomplishment for me.  The world is a big, complex, brutal place -- and I think that the first step towards happiness is admitting that we can only make things better my following our passions -- not the passions we wish we had.