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    Myanmar - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
    Myanmar - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
    Myanmar - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
    Ebook239 pages3 hours

    Myanmar - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture

    By Kyi Kyi May and Culture Smart

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    Myanmar, as Burma is now known, is strategically situated between the world's two most populous nations—China and India—and its distinctive ancient culture shares some traditions with both countries. Hidden away from the eyes of the world for half a century by its military rulers' policy of self-isolation, "the Burmese Way to Socialism," with a new democratic parliament and civilian government Myanmar is undergoing important changes as it approaches its next elections in 2015. Its most famous political detainee, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace laureate, has been released after nearly twenty years of house arrest. The present administration faces teething problems in politics, governance, education, its dealings with over a hundred ethnic groups, and its society. At the same time, progress has been made with the emergence of a free press, the release of political prisoners, and the reemergence of the long-lost voice of the man and woman on the street. The country is opening up to tourism and business. The Burmese people are by nature friendly and polite, and are traditionally easy-going and peaceable. Most are devout Buddhists, and there are pagodas and meditation centers all over the country. They are also great lovers of fun, entertainments, and festivals—in fact, there is a festival for each Myanmar calendar month. Culture Smart! Myanmar provides much needed information about a country taking its first steps to becoming an important player on the world stage. It offers invaluable insights into the inner life of the Burmese, their history, traditions, attitudes, and work ethic, and gives practical advice on what to expect and how to behave in different circumstances. While their hosts may be naturally polite and accommodating, foreign visitors will have to go through a steep learning curve to understand the dos and don'ts of Burmese social customs. This book serves as an essential guide for Western tourists and entrepreneurs who are interested in visiting or doing business in this beautiful, enigmatic, and resource-rich country.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKuperard
    Release dateJul 1, 2015
    ISBN9781857336986
    Myanmar - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture

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      Myanmar - Culture Smart! - Kyi Kyi May

      GEOGRAPHY

      Myanmar is situated on the west of the Southeast Asian peninsula, bordering India on the northwest and China on the northeast. Bangladesh lies to the west and Thailand and Laos to the east. The country has a 1,770-mile (2,832-km) coastline that faces west and borders the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.

      The country used to be known as Burma. Following a military coup, the military rulers ordained in 1989 that it should in future be known internationally as Myanmar, which is close to its Burmese-language name, Myanma. This reflects the fact that the land is populated by many different peoples, not just the Burmese who make up the overwhelming majority. Bama continues to be used in Burmese as the country’s colloquial name, and internationally Burma remains in common use. The word Burmese is widely used to describe both the dominant language and Myanmar’s inhabitants—not totally accurately in the second instance. The adjective Myanmarese, is, in any case, rather unwieldy in English.

      The names in English of several of the country’s cities have also changed. For example, the main commercial city and former capital, Rangoon, is now known as Yangon in both Burmese and English; the historical city of Pagan is now usually written as Bagan, while Pegu, another historical city, is written as Bago. Mandalay, the former royal capital in the heart of the country, has retained its original name. In 2005 the newly built city of Naypyidaw in the central plain became Myanmar’s new capital.

      PRONOUNCING NAMES

      The Burmese language, which belongs to the Sino-Tibetan group, is not used outside Myanmar, so few foreigners can speak or understand it. It has a built-in politeness: for example, the honorific prefixes U for a man and Daw for a woman are always used in front of a name to show respect.

      In its transliterated form, some pronunciation quirks need to be understood: for example, kyat, the unit of currency, is pronounced as if it were spelled chat. Place names such as Yangon and Mandalay are easy for foreigners to pronounce. The exact pronunciation of the name of the new capital, Naypyidaw, is more of a challenge, and a few, such as Myitkyina, pronounced Michena, and Kyaing Tone, pronounced Chiang Tong, generally need more practice.

      Myanmar is roughly the size of the state of Texas, and larger than any European country, excluding Russia, with an area of 261,228 square miles (678,500 sq. km). It is the largest country in mainland Southeast Asia, but is also one of the poorest. Its shape resembles that of a kite, with a long tail drifting down the peninsula toward Malaysia.

      Myanmar’s most prominent geographical feature is the 1,350-mile (2,170-km) Irrawaddy River, or Ayeyarwaddy, flowing north to south, which Rudyard Kipling famously called the Road to Mandalay. Other important rivers nourishing this rice-growing land are the Salween and the Chindwin. The rivers serve as Myanmar’s arteries, while the mountain ranges of East Yoma, Bago Yoma, and West Yoma stand like sentries on guard duty. Myanmar’s highest peak, Hkakabo Razi in Kachin State, reaches 19,295 feet (5,881 m). Snow-capped mountain ranges mark Myanmar’s northernmost frontier with China.

      The Shan plateau has its famous natural attraction, Inle Lake, situated 2,900 feet (880 m) above sea level. A freshwater lake, where the inhabitants live in stilted homes surrounded by floating islands, Inle Lake is nearly fourteen miles (22.4 km) long and more than six miles (10.2 km) across at its widest point. A unique feature of the lake is the way the people who live on its shores, the Inthas, use their legs to paddle their boats.

      CLIMATE

      Myanmar stretches from the sparsely populated mountainous north, where it borders China, to the tropical south, and there are huge variations in climate. In the extreme north winters can be bitterly cold, but the inhabited parts of the country never experience extreme cold.

      There are three seasons a year. Most of the country lies within the tropics and enjoys a hot season from March to mid-May, with temperatures reaching 95°F (35°C). The rainy season begins from the third week of May, when monsoon rains envelop the country. The rains are heaviest during July and August, and taper off in October. The cool months are from November to February. While temperatures at this time dip below the freezing point in the north, for Yangon and other big cities in central Myanmar it is pleasantly warm, around 68–77°F (20–25°C).

      THE PEOPLE

      Myanmar’s population of more than fifty million is made up of about 135 indigenous races spread all over the country. The largest group is the Bama, or Burmese, race, which constitutes about 69 percent of the population. The next most numerous are the Shan (about 9 percent), the Kayin, or Karen (7 percent), and the Rakhine, Mon, Chin, Kachin, and Kayah. Less numerous groups include the Salon, Kaman, Mio, Jingphaw, Lisu, Paye, Po, Sakaw, Pa-O, Kokang, Danu, and Palaung, who live mostly in the northern hilly areas or the southern part of the country. The largest nonindigenous race is the Chinese, believed to constitute around 3.5 percent of the population, many of whom have arrived recently. A significant number of people of Indian origin arrived in colonial times, when Burma came under British-ruled India. The largest concentration of people lives in Yangon, which has a population of six million, and the nearby Irrawaddy Delta.

      STATES AND REGIONS

      Myanmar is divided into seven states and seven regions. Each state and region has an assembly, or hluttaw, and a state or regional government led by its own prime minister.

      The states are ethnically based: Kachin, Kayah, Kayin (Karen), Chin, Mon, Rakhine (formerly Arakan), and the largest, Shan State.

      The remainder of the country is divided into regions, of which Yangon, the most populous, is the business hub. The historical region of Mandalay is renowned for its traditional crafts and arts. Its inhabitants are proud of their culture and traditions. The other regions are Ayeyarwaddy, Sagaing, Magway, Bago, and Tanintharyi.

      As a Myanmar saying has it, Mandalay is known for its sagar (words), Yangon for its ah-kywar (boast), and Mawlamyine, the capital of Mon, for its ah-sar (food).

      Until 2005 Yangon, formerly known as Rangoon, was Myanmar’s capital. It remains the largest and most heavily populated city and the country’s main commercial center. With its neat colonial architecture, it used to be a fairly quiet backwater compared to other Southeast Asian capitals. Nowadays, with the relaxation of international sanctions, it has become a bustling business center with an ever-expanding population and has several satellite towns or suburbs. Besides business and, at least for now, foreign embassies, Yangon is a center of learning and a transport hub from which trains and buses connect with all parts of the country. It is also home to the golden Shwedagon Pagoda, the most sacred Buddhist structure in Myanmar, which gave the city its earlier name, Dagon.

      The new capital, Naypyidaw, two hundred miles north of Yangon, was built only ten years ago and boasts six-lane-wide roads, a new parliament, various government ministries, housing for government staff, a replica of the Shwedagon Pagoda, a zoological garden, many big hotels, and a huge shopping mall for its residents. It is vast, but looks rather like a ghost town because the ministries are quite far from one another and there is very little traffic on the roads. Apart from government workers, families have been reluctant to uproot themselves and resettle in the new capital. Many government officials, even ministers, have to manage two homes, one for him (most ministers are male) in Naypyidaw and another for his wife and children who have stayed behind in Yangon. Situated in a semi-desert-like region, Naypyidaw is a very hot town—temperatures can rise to 105°F (41°C) in April—with few attractions to encourage permanent residency.

      NAYPYIDAW – MYANMAR’S CAPITAL IN THE JUNGLE

      "Naypyidaw, which means ‘abode of kings,’ is not so much a place as a sequence of ‘zones,’ bordered by roundabouts in the form of giant lotuses. There is the ministry zone where the bureaucrats go about their work behind panes of turquoise glass. There is the military zone, where titanic statues of ancient Burmese monarchs loom above a vast parade ground.

      Diplomats live in terror of having their embassies uprooted to the diplomatic zone—one ambassador told me he would give up his job to his second secretary and stay in Rangoon as a humble consul.

      The Hluttaw, or parliament, is an extraordinary structure that draws its architectural inspiration from the palace of Ming the Merciless on the planet Mongo. But there are markets and restaurants and hospitals too, and the Uppatasanti Pagoda with its community of lucky white elephants.

      The official explanation was that Rangoon had become too congested, but some speculated that Naypyidaw’s more central location helped ease paranoia within the junta about the previous capital, which was near the coast, being attacked by foreigners …"

      Richard Lloyd Parry, The Times, November 17, 2014

      A BRIEF HISTORY

      The territory of Myanmar has been inhabited for thousands of years, as shown by fossil remains unearthed near Pon Taung in the south and the wall paintings of Pyadalin Cave in the north. The country’s recorded history can be traced back around 2,500 years when, according to legend, Mon settlers from Central Asia laid the foundation stone of the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, which remains a key symbol of the country. The Mon are credited with establishing Buddhism in Myanmar around the fifth century BCE. Subsequent history revolves around the major historic cities of Bagan (Pagan) and Mandalay in the center and Bago (Pegu) and Yangon in the Irrawaddy Delta region. Each in turn was the center of a kingdom or dynasty.

      The Golden Age of Bagan

      The Bagan dynasty lasted from 107 CE until the end of the thirteenth century. Of the fifty-five monarchs who ruled from Bagan, King Anawrahta, the forty-second, was the most famous. It was Anawrahta, who acceded to the throne in 1044, who created the first Myanmar Empire by overrunning the earlier Mon capital of Thaton in 1057. As Myanmar historians like to point out, this was nine years before William the Conqueror became king of England. Anawrahta was responsible for propagating Buddhism across the country. Today around 90 percent of the inhabitants practice Theravada Buddhism, whose values and attitudes are regarded as identical to those of Myanmar itself.

      Bagan’s golden age came under Anawrahta’s successor, Kyanzittha, who ordered the construction of many Buddhist pagodas. By the early twelfth century Bagan was known as the city of four million pagodas. A century and a half later the first Myanmar Empire came to an end following further invasions from the north. First came the Shan people, who settled in what is now the Shan State. They were followed by Kublai Khan’s Mongol army, who looted and set fire to Bagan in 1287.

      The European Merchants

      There followed a period of two hundred and fifty years with the Mon, the Shan, and the Arakanese in the west each establishing smaller kingdoms, often fighting wars against each other. Toward the end of this period of city-states, European travelers started to arrive. First came the Venetian merchant Nicolo do Conti, who visited Bago in lower Myanmar in 1435, and Portuguese merchants followed once Vasco da Gama had pioneered the route to Asia around the Cape of Good Hope in 1498.

      The Second Myanmar Empire

      Determination by King Tabinshweti of Bago to regain control of his territory from a Portuguese trader, Philip De Brito, led to the establishment of the second Myanmar Empire in 1541, besieging the port of Martaban, whose ruler had signed an agreement granting the Portuguese trading rights. This did not stop the Portuguese trading with Martaban and with another port along the Bay of Bengal coast in Arakan, and later at Syriam, near Bago. By this time, Portuguese traders and missionaries were established in Goa, in India, the capital of Portugal’s eastern empire, and Malacca, down the peninsula from Myanmar. A later ruler, King Bayint Naung, expanded the country by waging war with Siam from 1550 to

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