Myanmar (Burma)

This report may be dated and circumstances may have changed to some degree given all of the changes that have occurred in Myanmar since our visit there in 2008. However, it is critical to gather as much information as possible beforehand about issues as mundane as money: credit cards are/aren't accepted? If cash only, then in what denominations and need they be crisp new bills? Is internet available? If not, and you are on a multi-country tour and need to be in touch with your next stops during your time in Myanmar, explore other options for communications -- faxing? phoning? sending messages via the U.S. Embassy? -- or reconcile yourself and your correspondents to silence for the duration of your stay. There was a business center in our hotel but, inconceivable to a Westerner, no internet connections available.

Additional Lessons and Tips:

Performance Venue - On American Property:

Performing in Myanmar is particularly difficult because anything American attracts the negative attention of the military regime. The idea of performing in a theater was ruled out, not only because the theaters would have been in dilapidated condition, but even more so because the Embassy knew from experience that even if they were able to get permission to produce a concert in a theater, the regime would cancel the license within 24 hours of the performance. Similarly, if they hired a ballroom in one of the hotels in Yangon, the regime would likely force the hotel to renege on the contract at the last minute.

As a result, the Embassy arranged to have a stage built on what is usually a basketball court on the American Embassy's residential compound.

The second performance was at the International School of Yangon, a private institution with its own land and heavy subsidies from the U.S. and other Western countries whose children attend the school.

Practical Considerations -- bring new $100 bills

Myanmar's Hotels don't take credit cards, company checks or wire transfers. Fresh, new US greenbacks are the only way to pay for your rooms, no matter whether you are staying for many days times many rooms and have to stuff a money belt full to the brim (and subject yourself to the danger of being robbed.)

Outreach Activities -- desperately needed but hard to supply

We had very low attendance at our workshops, a striking difference from other countries where we often have to add workshops to accommodate the overflow.

From the less shy participants, we were able to find out that the 'authorities' had tried to dissuade them from attending, and that many of their friends were worried about braving the massive security at the American Library where the workshops were held; and-or that they were worried about Myanmar's secret service security cameras that they knew would be trained on the Entrance to the Library, keeping tabs on Myanmar citizens who pay too much attention to anything American.

Connectivity -- next to none

It is bittersweet to enter the Business Centre at a 5-star hotel in Yangon only to find out that even there (perhaps especially there) one cannot find internet service. We heard about an internet cafe downtown that supposedly had service. How if no one else did? Because the owner was related to one of the Generals.

OK. We went there. Signing onto webmail and downloading messages involved calling over to the young aides who ran from terminal to terminal, dialing in new aliases in order to undermine the government's firewalls. Better be quick -- only one or two sentences could get through before the fox caught the rabbit and the service was terminated.

One man can make all the difference

Our primary liaison in Yangon was Nyi Nyi Thu, Cultural Affairs Specialist at the US Embassy. I hope he is still there. Nyi Nyi is a charming, warm-hearted can-do person. I will never forget going with him to find a carpet and flooring store at the marketplace and picking out the most neutral linoleum available with which to cover the stage at the 'basketball court' and haggling over its price. This was the final layer that was to be applied to a stage that had been built from scratch on the court's concrete base.

How did they come up with the wooden under-structure? The Water Festival had gone on a week or so earlier and the floats and stages that had been erected for this massive national event were being taken down and Nyi Nyi arranged for the lumber to be reserved for our stage! Given where we were, it was probably teak!

The rationale for going despite the difficulties

The US Embassy organized seating for approximately 750 people at the first performance. More than a thousand came, and those who came too late to get a seat stood on the periphery of the 'basketball court', jammed together as if at a rock concert.

The energy was palpable. The audience stayed throughout the 90-minute program, despite the heat, crowds, standing room only, and bugs (which formed a carpet on the stage, attracted to the lights) because they were so hungry for new experience and intellectual and cultural stimulation.

The Q & A after the performance in which we heard astonishingly acute responses to our dances convinced us that the Myanmar were aesthetically attuned people with a richness of imagination that has not been crushed by the regime and the incredibly poor living conditions even in the capital city. (soon after we left, Cyclone Nargis hit and what was already a devastatingly difficult life for the Myanmar people became unimaginably worse.)