Weekend Reads: Myanmar cinema and mines

Dark tourism thrives a year on in Palu

September 27, 2019

Hello friends!

I’ve tried to write this intro a million times but it all sounds a bit hollow and weird. Keep up to date with Indonesia via our friends at Coconuts, The Jakarta Post and Tempo English and when it all calms down maybe we can collect our thoughts then. 

If you can find a moment of respite this weekend, have a peek at these reads (and one watch) that I found super interesting in the last fortnight or so. I’ve been deep into reading about WeWork and the new Uber book (the schadenfreude of rich Silicon Valley nerds messing up is too much to resist) so this list isn’t as diverse as usual but onwards/upwards! 

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See you next week!Erin Cook

City Hunters should’ve been a huge hit in Myanmar. Cracking writing, relatively big-budget and babes all over the cast. But it wasn’t. Myanmar’s filmmakers say the industry will never be able to thrive while the cinema operator duopoly continues to dictate what becomes a success. 

Thiha Kyaw Soe said cinema owners were so powerful they needed to be added to the list of the five infinite venerables that are traditionally revered by Buddhists: the Buddha, his teachings, members of the monkhood, parents and teachers. “We have six now,” he said.

I didn’t even know this existed! The Museum Hakka Indonesia is somewhere in Taman Mini (I’m going to have to text Randy and find out exactly that labyrinth!) and documents the waves of Hakka Chinese migration to Indonesia and the special contributions made by the Chinese-Indonesian diaspora. 

“Your grandfather was once a struggling person. Now you’re already rich, don’t be arrogant,” the spokesperson says. “If you’re already rich, don’t forget solidarity. If you’re already rich, don’t bribe anyone … the main thing is to always remember the mountain’s slope. If you’re slightly off guard, you’ll fall. That’s the philosophy.”

I want that Thaiger-man jacket. Fashion designer Santichai Srisongkram and embroiderer Amornthep Jithnak have designed the line which is then hand-sewn by part-time workers in Bangkok. This feature uses the brilliant clothes as a springboard to explore the enduring stigma around sexuality in Thailand, particularly among the Chinese-Thai minority, and how the fashion industry can provide a home.

Even in freewheeling Thailand, there is a stigma attached to being gay or transgender in certain social and professional milieus. “Many gay men lead double lives – straight by day, gay by night,” says Narongchai Nateewanaphun, an accountant who works for Santichai and leads a double life of sorts himself, having stayed largely in the closet.

A few months back I said ‘no more ASSK fall from grace’ stories. This isn’t one! Just read it. And then tell me what you think, because it’s very interesting but Myanmar is not my wheelhouse. 

Many in Myanmar believe the West has applied its human-rights standards inconsistently. Last month India issued a new citizenship list that left almost two million mostly-Muslim residents of the state of Assam in danger of becoming stateless. Western governments said little and did less. Neither Chinese behaviour toward Muslims in Xinjiang nor Indian actions in Kashmir have had much effect on the behavior of Western governments or investors. Western fecklessness has made China look to Myanmar like a more stable and reliable partner.

Jade mining in Kachin State deserves it’s ‘notorious’ tag. According to this BBC short video, the Myanmar government says 110 miners have died this year alone. I’ve read a lot about the industry but have never seen what it looks like in practice, particularly for the scavenger fringe industry. 

The Michelin Bib Gourmand list is fighting words. The list purports to collect the best moderately priced eats in any given city. In Sydney, thanks babes, handy! In Singapore, it’s war. This Channel News Asia op-ed from Karen Tee is a fun read about the debates it sparks but also what that conversation tells us about the future of Singapore’s food culture.

This cacophony of dissent bodes well for Singapore’s food scene. So much has been said about the dying street food culture that it sometimes seems like there aren’t many worthwhile hawker stalls to dine at anymore. 

Typically, reading about the women of Aceh, the Indonesian province practicing sharia law, is a side note to wider discussions about the province. This piece from one of Australia’s more exciting emerging researchers Balawyn Jones returns autonomy to Acehnese women — for better or worse!

Treating all Acehnese women as ‘victims’ of Qanun is easy, but it is also lazy and disingenuous in its failure to consider the significant role that women have had, and continue to have, in drafting, implementing and challenging Qanun in Aceh. Women are in fact strategic actors in the development of Acehnese law. Through looking at the agency and advocacy of Acehnese women, a different picture emerges that challenges worn-out misleading media depictions.

Readers of the regular Dari Mulut ke Mulut have likely picked up my deep annoyance that Vietnam news tracking is often dominated by American veteran stories. But, this one got me I can’t lie. The Outline looks at the myths about the war perpetuated by Rambo. It goes into the prisoner of war/missing in action cottage industry and gets very uncomfortable.

Thirty years ago, John Rambo was fighting a very different, if equally fictionalized and racialized menace, as the most public face of one of our country’s greatest delusions: the belief that thousands of live American servicemen were held captive throughout Southeast Asia after the official end of the Vietnam War. 

This one from the New York Times featured earlier in the week in the regular Dari Mulut ke Mulut but it’s so stunning I wanted to include it again. Young Rohingya refugees ended up in the US in recent years, but are now stuck in limbo with funding cuts and hopes for family to join them fading quickly. 

Hefzur wanted to quit school and get a full-time job to send money to his family, frustrated that his age — which had been roughly calculated when he arrived because most Rohingya do not keep records of birth dates — rendered him too young to legally work. “You need to change my age,” he told his foster mother.

I love this one from Frontier Myanmar! I always love a read about how the region’s LGBT+ communities are eking out their own homes among stigma and harassment. This one goes deeper into the history of nat kadaws, which I cannot sum up in just a couple dozen words. Just read it, okay!

However, cross-dressing by men is hardly a new phenomenon in Myanmar, where it is associated with the cult of nat worship that predated the arrival of Buddhism here and now lives alongside it. Nat kadaws, the men and women regarded as the spouses of nat spirits, function as mediums between the mundane world and spiritual realm of the nats, and perform at special festivals and other events wearing elaborate costumes and make-up.

Saturday will be the first anniversary of the Palu earthquake and tsunami in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, which left thousands dead. The city has struggled to bounceback, but the tourism industry hasn’t been as destroyed as expected. ‘Dark tourism’ is rising, with tourists pouring in to get selfies at mass graves and other revolting and morally confusing things like that. 

Lamahase and Tamsir, old friends in Balaroa and survivors of the quake, sit in a hut close to the liquefaction that took their homes. They volunteer their time to guide visitors around the debris and recount the nightmare event that swirled their neighbourhood like a blender. They are eager to share their stories about that night, regardless how horrific – the first ripples below roads, houses that sank into the ground, a wall of mud that consumed homes and people as it flowed downhill.

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