Part 2 of 4: Tea Time and Trade Embargoes

I suspect that every traveller who comes to Burma soon realizes the legacy of British colonial rule.  Victorian mansions, stately government buildings with symmetric facades, wide tree lined streets, and the constant drinking of tea.  Tea shops dot every corner in this country--from the corner of grand boulevards in Yangoon to the hut-side teashop in villages, drinking tea, according to Aung San Suu Kyi in her book, Letters from Burma, "is a national past time."  She continues, "tea shops are where people gather, exchange stories, news, events and, in better political times, discuss politics."  It is with this knowledge in mind that I set out during my last day in Yangoon to find a tea shop to sit and observe.

Walking down the wide boulevards of central Yangoon, I noticed the dilapidated state of the colonial buildings, and tried to imagine what they could of looked like during their period of grandeur.  The name of buildings,  "Standard Chartered Bank" or "National British-Burmese Railways" carved into the front facades, told of the former purposes of these buildings.  On the contrary, the current dilapidated state perhaps represents the present day situation that Burma is in--a country ruled by military dictators, full of human rights abuses, and is economically sanctioned by the Western world.

I noticed a busy tea shop with low level tables down a small alleyway and proceeded to walk in.  Sitting down, the owner approaches me and speaks to me in Burmese.  I look at him confused and shrugged my shoulders; he then realized I was NOT Burmese.  I pointed at the tea at the next table over, he understood and five minutes later, came out with a pot of tea for me.  I sat there watching the men at the the tables around me, all engaged in what looked like deep or intense conversations.  It reminded me of coffee shops back home--a gathering place for friends to meet and talk.  I guess every culture shares similar characteristics which satisfies the need for people to interact and converse together.  It was nice to  feel this sense of familiarity in such a foreign environment.

After about 20 or so minutes sitting by myself, a man from the table next to me casually asked me what I was doing in Myanmar.  This question soon led to an hour discussion that ended up on the roof-top of the teashop.  Htut is a rugged looking 52 years old--a head full of salt and pepper hair and wrinkles around his face which is a physical testimate to the many difficult experiences he has been through.  Htut is a Burmese teak exporter who lives in Yangoon with his family.  He considers his family middle class. Our conversation revolved around the West's economic/trade embargo on Myanmar.   Htut exports his teak (logged in Myanmar) to countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, which then in turn put their own country labels on it and sell it to countries in the European Union and the US.  Therefore, according to Htut, the trade embargo really helps the other Southeast Asian countries and China, creating middle men for Burmese products.  I told Htut that my understanding of trade/economic embargoes were to put pressure on the government, making it difficult for them to conduct business so that they would secede to the Western demands of democracy and human rights.  Htut had a chuckle to himself when I said this and told me that he does not think that the government is suffering much.  "So they do not trade directly with Europe or America, but I think that trade from the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and China lines their pockets very nicely.  There is no need for them to change.  It is the people that suffers from the trade embargo, not our military dictator government."  Htut continues, "The trade embargo does not isolate the military dictators, but rather, isolates the average Burmese people.  It makes it harder for us to conduct business with foreign firms and severely limits our business opportunities.  We [the Burmese] would like to be "free" and interact and conduct business with whomever we choose, but right now, it is the Western governments that is hindering our freedom to do that with these economic sanctions."  Can it really be that the West, so called promoters of freedom and democracy, be inhibiting the development of Burma's freedom by isolating it through trade and economic embargoes?

**Names have been changed to protect individuals discussed above**