Speed of travel

The Yangon Central Railway Station is old, and to match its age, is the train system. In a modern, developing country, one would be hard to make sense of the slowness – especially for travel – faster is always better – if cost is not a subject.

But after spent half an hour here, I started to realize what was lost in speed.  In here, the train slowly came in, allowing the passengers plenty of time to do just about anything. And in the slowness, people maintain relationship in a different way, mostly nicer way. Read the letter, proper farewell and daughter father have a quality time together such as the image here.

There were many great literatures written on train and many about trains, when the speed of travel is slow.  Today, they are long lost. 

Banana

The train station is a lovely place, things happened all the time, all different, with one thing in common, no one is in hurry, clock seemed to run slower here, except for those with camera on hand! It is 2011, people is so accustom to see cameras in action, the DLSR, EVIL, digital compact, iPhone, BlackBerry, or other cell phone with camera built in, hundreds of million of images taken each day, very little from local Burmese. Whoever with a camera on hand is my fellow traveler. Everyone is busy working on his subject, me included.

It is train station so I could not resist making one image with the railway; this is one of them, a local Burmese with banana.  

Letter and BlackBerry

Phyllis Theroux once said, “To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart.”
One of the common scenes I saw in the train station is people reading letters, a calm and inspiring scene! A scene may quickly vanish with the attack of BlackBerry and its successors. 

The tourist!

Travel to Myanmar is one thing, where to go is another. In this trip, I was traveling as a crew of Steve McCurry workshop, naturally, a photography workshop that suppose to focus on places capable of producing the kind of portraiture Steve McCurry is known for, and all the international participants drawn to sign on the trip.  It did not turn out disappointed, myself, or for the whole group, are then not the regular tourists, at least not by how each days was ended up.  And certainly we are not there for tourist pictures, or commonly known as postcards.

Certainly, it is hard to avoid going to places such as Shwedagon or Mahamuni, which we did go.  But we also went to places that are not considered tourist attractions, and turned out that, it is from those places the majority of better works are produced.  

Yesterday afternoon we were at the Shwedagon, this morning (February 16), we are at the Yangon Central Railway Station. And it is here, I started to realize that this is Myanmar.

This image is a rather common scene at the Yangon Central Railway Station - waiting.

Different faces at Shwedagon

Not much writing on this post, just a few images - faces, and many of the similar, may be some not quite similar will appear in later posts.

I started the blog with the face of Buddha, it would be more justified to continue with a monk, a boy monk. This little monk by the iron cast bell in Shwedagon, a typical Myanmar boy.  He is a boy regardless being a monk, like many orther I will meet and photograph in ths trip - quite photo obsessed;

Another monk, one of those million monks in Myanmar, calm, peaceful, and respectful. I often thought I have enough imagination on many things, being a monk is not among them.

Maintenance workers at duty.  Painting the column, the ceiling, everywhere needs them.  The point is, a place like Shwedagon with its historical significance is maintained by the less educated, low wage worker; does this make sense? May be, may be not.  But hey, a native British fellow photographer and friend, Don Forsyth told me that his stomach knocks whenever he returns England to have his passport inspected by non-British-immegrant turned immigration officer - all because they will take the jobs of lower pay,  does not suggest higher intellengence. This is 2011, the world is operating with a new logic.

The locals, all different kind, man or woman, young or aged, they all seemed to have time, most have good time, often a lot of time.

The prayers, all the kinds, all the time.

The cat (or dog), eventually becomes the most saught after element of a picture during the trip.  Here in the beginning of the trip, is in the stage by itself.

Myanmar, traveller, home

At the age of technology, way of travel changes, although the new not necessarily replaced the old, at least not all of them.

Shwedagon Pagoda is my first visit on this trip, considered a must visit in Myanmar, built in the period of King Okkalapa, and a design to last forever.

Here you will find all different kinds of people; local that came to worship, or as tour guides, or simply to be here. Tourists who were told that this is not to miss, some determined to come, some have to go somewhere and the photographers busy making their art, some better than the other, some care more than others.  And of course all the monks and nuns.

For all the non-locals, the thing in common is that they are all far away from their home, and typically to create a link between where they are (were) and home is usually journal – the old fashion and perhaps still better option, 
and the new fashion – digital images, often by hundreds.  I am among them. The gentleman in the picture is kind enough to allow me to shoot behind him for the benefit of this image. 

Face of Buddha

Ironically, the most often seen face in Myanmar would no doubt to be the face of Buddha.

Life in Myanmar appeared to be quite simple, centered around their religion, and after 11 days of travel, I lost my interest to even to find out what is the percentage of monks or nuns on this Buddha’s land, not that I lost my interest in search of something meaningful, rather, after witnessed the religion is so much blended into the life in Myanmar, such statistic becomes pointless.

Monasteries and Nunneries everywhere, Buddha statues everywhere, big or small, ancient or rather new, defected or perfect; yet even in such large number, one would still find all the faces of Buddha are not all the same. Obviously due to many different sculpturers, some made better and some less, from fine craftsman and from less capable ones, different regions or even perhaps slightly different believes.  Typical oriental style of Buddha sculpture is also quite different from the golden ratio influenced the western art for so long. The Buddha tend to have proportionally larger head, as well as the center portion of the body, which suggests “richness” to some older generations, no doubt less shaped than common preference in this modern time. But the art of sculpturing a Buddha hardly change.

The look of the face is also very much light dependent, the face of Buddha would project differently under different light therefore the very best Buddha sculpturer would request to design the light as well, and so on and so on. 

Since this is a blog about faces of Myanmar, it just came up to me that I should start it with the face of Buddha.  And this one, shot at the Shwedagon Pagoda in late afternoon, my first visit in this Myanmar trip.

The Golden Land

"The Golden Land" was what Myanmar historically perceived; in modern time, it is complicated. 

Its land mass and population is somewhat close to its neighboring country - Thailand, little less, not by a lot. Even politically!  But of course it is not the subject of this blog intends to cover.

In his historical 1941 State of the Union address, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed four fundamental freedoms that people "everywhere in the world" ought to enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear was echoed by the figure almost all would associate with modern Myanmar, Aung Sang Suu Kyi, in her 1990 "Freedom From Fear" speech.
During my most recent visit to Myanmar, between February 15 through 26, the world has gone on a fast spin, in particular the northern Africa and some Arabic region; one might wonder what's next? And very much like Aung San Suu Kyi quoted: "Sometimes, 24 hours can bring a total revolutionary change."

Change is inevitable, although may be not always welcome. In the 12 days travel in Yangon, Mandalay and Inle Lake, I witnessed and experienced some of the most beautiful things and people from this country largely misunderstood by most, perhaps I remained among them.  I shall return.

However, of those I have witnessed and experienced, some might have been forgotten, some were already etched in my memory, some recorded with my camera to share with everyone here.
This image is the famous Shwedagon Pagoda, stitched from 4 captures tusing Canon 1Ds III camera.