The U Bein Bridge - and the Sinicization of Myanmar

February 2016

Our last day in Myanmar proved to be a real game-changer in terms of our appreciation of the country and its people.  Here’s how it happened… .  (Note: all photos are of U Bein Bridge, near Mandalay.)
We returned from Pyin Oo Lwin to Mandalay by shared taxi, traveling at just under break-neck speed, thankfully mostly on a divided highway, so few worries about vehicles coming directly towards us – just the usual concerns about careening over the edge of a cliff on a hair-pin curve or side-swiping or being side-swiped by any of the large trucks, buses and assorted methods of conveyance (bullock carts, auto-rickshaws, etc.) that ply even the most modern freeways here in Myanmar. 

Back in Mandalay we decided to do a ‘tourist’ thing – a sunset trip to U-Bein bridge, the longest, and oldest, at 160 years, teak bridge in the world.  Myanmar books and websites almost always include at least one photo of the bridge at sunset – a lovely, serene and often people-less image.  

As the bridge is a fair distance from Mandalay, the best way of getting there, apart from taking an actual tour on a bus with 20 to 40 other tourists (mostly Chinese), is hiring a taxi.  Our driver, a 65-year-old Burmese (or Myanmarmite as we affectionately, with tongue-in-cheek, refer to them), was a wiry, energetic fellow who despite his protestations that he spoke ‘only broken English’ and had ‘no education’ because he never finished high school, was a veritable fount of information, and provided us with much insight into the country, the people and the politics of Myanmar.  We never learned his name, which is likely just as well, so we’ll just call him Myint.

As we started off I told Myint I wanted to take a photo of a hotel on the way to the bridge, the ‘Wilson Hotel’ – this because of our son’s (and my father’s) name.  Myint said ‘no problem’.  I commented that it seemed an odd name for a hotel in Myanmar and asked if it was British (although it seemed to new for that to be the case).  ‘Chinese hotel,’ Myint responded.  ‘Chinese like Christian name ‘Wilson’.  All big hotels in Myanmar Chinese.  All big new buildings Chinese.’  ‘What about our hotel?’ I asked. ‘Your hotel Chinese.  All Chinese.’  

As we drove along the road, Myint took grim pleasure out of pointing out all the Chinese-owned buildings – businesses, hotels, banks – all new, multi-story and impressive-looking, with well-maintained exteriors and shiny plate glass windows.  He slowed down just a little to point out a scruffy one-story shop with a tattered vinyl awning across the front, and an assortment of goods (hardware? electrical?) spilling out onto the sidewalk like the guts of some dead animal.  ‘That one Myanmar store!’ he exclaimed.  ‘Myanmar people poor, have only small stores, not big ones like Chinese.’  

This observation lead, inevitably, to a discussion of the extent of China’s economic invasion of Myanmar (not unlike its invasion of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and several African countries, to say nothing of countries like Canada, Australia and the USA, of course).  We mentioned our epic bus ride from Hsipaw to Pyin Oo Lwin, caught in a 50 mile, 8 hour traffic jam, largely because of the steady stream of massive trucks laden with food grown in Myanmar (watermelons, oranges, corn, rice) and destined for China; trucks far too big for the narrow, winding road that is the main, and at times only, link between Mandalay and towns northeast, including Pyin Oo Lwin, Hsipaw and Lashio (the last of which is closest to the Chinese border, and now predominantly Chinese).  So in addition to the massive trucks, there are buses (large and small, for tourists and locals) and all the local traffic one finds in developing countries, including scores of motorcycles, motorcycle rickshaws, and home-made conveyances of every description.  And the odd ox or horse driven cart as well.

And we talked about China’s plan to build a new highway to transport both food and other goods more quickly not just from Mandalay to China, but from the coast of Myanmar through Mandalay – goods that will be shipped to a new deep-water port that China is now constructing.  The highway will pretty much parallel the oil and gas pipelines, already built.  And then there are the hydro-electric dams and transmission lines taking power to China.  And the teak forests that have been decimated.  

Myanmar is literally being mined of its resources, and its people being used as cheap labour to meet China’s insatiable demands.  Myint, uneducated though he claimed to be, was aware of all of these developments.  ‘China takes all,’ he observed with chagrin.  Myint was not the first Myamarmite to express these sentiments, but he was by far the most aware and eloquent.

And his litany of how much wealthier the Chinese in Myanmar are than the locals didn’t stop with pointing out buildings.  It went on to vehicles.  Almost of the expensive vehicles – the RAVs, the Highlanders, the new Japanese-made cars – are owned by Chinese.  Although I found it difficult to tell the difference between Chinese and Myamarmite, the difference is of course obvious to Myint.  ‘See the Myanmar people are driving cheap Chinese motorcycles,’ he pointed out.  The Myamarmites use motorbikes and scooters not just to get themselves around, but also as mobile shops (motorcycle markets) and cargo carriers.  There are usually at least two and often three slim adults squished onto the specially extended seats of a motorcycle or scooter.  We’ve seen whole families of four or even five on a motorbike, with bags and baskets hanging from arms not holding onto a toddler or baby.  Slightly older children often ride up front, sitting or standing just behind the handlebars, unwittingly becoming, in the case of an accident, their parent’s air bag.  It doesn’t bear thinking about… .

As we neared U-Bein bridge we drove through a poor neighbourhood – an unbroken line of bamboo shacks on stilts with tin or bamboo rooves.  No glass in the windows – indeed few ‘windows’ at all.  ‘No Chinese living here’ I commented.  ‘No, no!’ laughed Myint.  ‘The Chinese like to live in the centre of the city.  They don’t like to live out here.’   I was still trying to process the shifts in perspective that Myint’s ‘guided tour’ had given us when we arrived at the bridge.  And were confronted, much to our surprise, with scores of taxis and tour buses disgorging herds of tourists, Western and Asian, all of whom were heading down tourist souvenir and knick-knack booths towards the old teak bridge.  

We kicked ourselves mentally – clearly we ought to have known that the bridge, as a major tourist attraction, and one particularly sought after for its sunset photo-ops, would be crazy busy.  There was nothing for it but to press on, as it were (or allow ourselves to be carried along on the wave of camera and cell-phone toting tourists.

In contrast to the size of the tourist hordes the old teak bridge seemed almost puny – a rickety wood-stick of a thing – although what it lacks in bulk it makes up for in length: it’s an impressive 1.6 km long.  

We decided, rather than hiring one of the legions of small long-tail boats to ferry us out to the best viewing point, in middle of the river on the ‘right’ side to photograph the setting sun behind the bridge, to join the herd of tourists walking across the bridge.  It was a somewhat perilous journey, as the narrow boards that make up the deck of the bridge are also beginning to rot, and are uneven underfoot.  

The deck itself is not very wide, perhaps five feet or so, and there are no railings.  So getting past the large groups of ‘here we are on the bridge’ photo takers was somewhat of a challenge.  Fortunately we made it to a half-way point without falling off – the river is at least twenty feet below – and there descended an even more rickety set of stairs to a patch of grass and two ‘viewing galleries’ – rows of blue plastic chairs where one can sit and enjoy, what else, a fresh coconut drink as one watches the sun drop behind the bridge.

As usual we eschewed the touristy galleries and instead walked along the grassy river banks, past large piles of discarded coconuts, plastic glasses, soda pop tins and other assorted ‘tourist garbage’.  
We had espied a large flock of ducks swimming determinedly under the bridge – towards the setting sun, and a lone bamboo hut where some Myamarmites were raising a couple of bullocks, some chickens and maybe doing some fishing to keep meat on their bones.  

Walking back towards the bridge I decided to take a look underneath.  I was not surprised to see that many, if not most, of the teak support posts were more air than wood, the worms and weather having gnawed away at them, leaving holes large enough that the posts looked more like fanciful lacy carvings than substantial supports.  

As sunset time neared, the tourist boats formed a long line, their bows pointing towards the bridge, so that their occupants would get the best possible photos of the sun as it set behind the bridge.  

A monk looked out on all of this.  I wondered what he was thinking, and took a photo of both him and the boats, hoping to get a glimpse, in the image, of the nature of his meditations.

At that point we decided to head back to the hotel.  The promise of an ersatz mojito (rum, lime and seven-up) called me more urgently than yet another sunset shot.  As we walked back across the bridge I reminded myself that photographs of ‘sunset at U-Bein bridge’ are in just about every book and web-page of Myanmar I have seen.  I hardly need my own amateur snapshot of it.  

Myint took us on a different route back to the city.  He was continuing his ‘educational tour’, pointing out not just old palaces and temples, but more importantly, poor neighbourhoods where Myanmar people – and no Chinese – lived and worked.  We drove through a long section of road lined with brilliantly white stone carvings.  There were large Buddhas and elephants, horses and peacocks; I saw one man who was painting a couple of the Buddhas, lying unceremoniously on their backs, with gold paint.  Myint told us first the provenance of the stone: it comes from the ‘White Mountain’ near Mandalay.  And then he told us that the carvers don’t wear masks when they work.  ‘They don’t understand’, he said.  ‘They are not educated.’

We drove through another neighbourhood where Myint said many Thai people live.  He then told us the history of how the Thai came to be in Myanmar.  It was a long and involved story, with dates and the names of historical figures that we should have known (but don’t).  The more Myint talked, the more I appreciated that despite his self-deprecating statement, at the outset of our conversation, that he was an uneducated man, he was in fact a well-read, knowledgeable, articulate and thoughtful person.  Once he’d finished his history of the Thai in Myanmar, he told us that his great grandfather was Thai and that he, Myint, had lived in Thailand and was a fisherman for several years in a coastal village near Phuket.

All too soon Myint was dropping us off at our Chinese hotel.  I now saw not only it, but our entire trip, and indeed everything we’d seen and experienced in Myanmar, in quite a different light.  The signs of economic prosperity we thought were so wonderful were just a chimera – a Chinamera – not something real and tangible for the people of Myanmar.  Like Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, many African countries and yes, even Canada, Myanmar has been invaded – economically, socially, and politically (there is no need to invade militarily) – by the Chinese.  And the people of Chinamar, like the people of Chanada, have little say about the future and destiny of their countries.  China is so big, its population so massive, its needs so great, and its economy so strong, that it has and will continue to have the desire and the capability to take control of any country it wants.  

Thanks to Myint, we came away from our little tourist adventure chastened and disillusioned, but at least more educated about what has been and is happening in Myanmar. The rebel fighting in outlying areas now seems more understandable.  Perhaps the rebels are fighting for ‘their country’, fighting against complete take-over by China.  I wonder if they know, in the end, how futile that fight will be?

Meanwhile Myint will continue to drive his taxi, and hopefully will continue to educate more tourists about the things we don’t usually ‘see’.   For him, a father of five, one of his greatest joys and prides is that his 17 year old daughter is now in university, studying biochemistry.  Obviously a smart girl, and hardly surprising given what an intelligent father she has.  I hope she is able, armed with her degree and the legacy of her family, to make a better life for herself, and maybe for more of the people of Myanmar who deserve, after 60 years of military dictatorship, something better than Chinamar.

Note:  For more info on the Sinicization of countries and cultures go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization

More about the U Bein Bridge from Wikipedia (edited and footnotes removed):

U Bein Bridge is a crossing that spans the Taungthaman Lake near Amarapura in Myanmar.  The 1.2-kilometre (0.75 mi) bridge was built around 1850 and is believed to be the oldest and (once) longest teakwood bridge in the world. Construction began when the capital of Ava Kingdom moved to Amarapura, and the bridge is named after Maung Bein who had it built. It is used as an important passageway for the local people and has also become a tourist attraction and therefore a significant source of income for souvenir sellers. It is particularly busy during July and August when the lake is at its highest.

The bridge was built from wood reclaimed from the former royal palace in Inwa. It features 1,086 pillars that stretch out of the water, some of which have been replaced with concrete. Though the bridge largely remains intact, there are fears that an increasing number of the pillars are becoming dangerously decayed. Some have become entirely detached from their bases and only remain in place because of the lateral bars holding them together. Damage to these supports have been caused by flooding as well as a fish breeding program introduced into the lake which has caused the water to become stagnant. The Ministry of Culture’s Department of Archaeology, National Museum and Library plans to carry out repairs when plans for the work are finalised.

From 1 April 2009, eight police force personnel have been deployed to guard the bridge. Their presence is aimed at reducing anti-social behaviour and preventing criminal activities, with the first arrest coming in September 2013 when two men were reported for harassing tourists. 

For more go to:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_Bein_Bridge