Another thing that I have been noticing in my interactions with others has been the power of honesty, both with myself about myself and in presenting myself to others. On my first day in Bagan, we visited tons and tons of pagodas. At each pagoda, there were people selling handicrafts, post cards, pagoda paraphernalia- all things that I didn’t need. In some ways, I justified not buying things from these people by saying that I didn’t need them. But as I listened to the people, I started to hear things like “Only 1000 chats” and “America rich country” and “I have family and no job.” And I know the exchange rate between dollars and chats and I know those postcards cost next to nothing and so it started to feel ridiculous for me to be justifying my shopping by what I did or didn’t need. It was so easy for me to give money that was so valuable to these people and yet I wouldn’t, because I didn’t need what they were selling. But it’s what I did, I only bought things that I actually needed: postcards.
But then I met… the young people. At about the third or fourth pagoda, after I had bought the postcards that I needed, I was approached, inside the pagoda, by a young Burmese woman. She asked me where I was from, then continued to make conversation with me. She would switch back and forth between small talk about our lives and interesting facts about the history of the pagoda we were in. At one point she briefly said, “No money, just tour.” She lead me to the back portion of the pagoda and up to the top of the monastery where there was a great view. She took a picture of me and then asked me if I wanted to buy a souvenir.
At that point, I had already decided that I wanted to give her something. She had given me a tour and I genuinely wanted to give her money to help her out. She had told me that she and her friend were going to start studying physics at the University of Mandalay in the fall, that she was the youngest in her family, and that her only brother had studied engineering. I don’t know why but something about her story seemed a little fanciful to me but it didn’t matter. If she had figured out that this was what appealed to tourists, that this was what put them over the edge and got them to buy something from her, I had to give her props for that. So I bought a wind chime from her, for 12000 chats- that’s about 12 bucks. I would never have paid 12 bucks for the chintzy wind chime she offered me. Her friend saw the interaction and said, “Now she very happy.” And she probably was, that was a lot of money for a wind chime. After I bought the wind chime, she actually kept trying to sell me stuff and I kept saying no. Finally, she escorted me out of the pagoda. It was kind of nice to have her with me as we passed by the other sellers, she seemed to say something to the effect of “She’s cool, she already bought stuff, let her be,” and the vendors stopped approaching me.
I fell for this “racket” two more times, and ended up buying more postcards, and a sand painting- in both situations paying more than I should have. At the last pagoda, I asked the driver if I could just leave my wallet with him, it was just too hard for me to say no to people. And, as is always the case, the thing that you prepare for, never happens: there was no one else in the last pagoda so I didn’t even need to leave my wallet out of the situation…
But that night, I tallied up my savings. See, there are no ATMs in this country and the only currency is CRISP 100 dollar bills. I had three of them left and was quickly running out of the local currency: chats. It’s difficult to find a place to change your CRISP 100s and when you do, you end up with way more chats then you want. On the one hand, I had $300, on the other hand, I had four more days up here and I couldn’t really use the $300 unless I exchanged it for chats. Plus, I really wanted to save $100 to give to my friends for letting me stay with them.
“Okay, no more spending anything,” I thought- just enough for meals and water. I knew I was visiting pagodas the next day and so I considered leaving my backpack with the driver again. But then I pictured walking through the pagoda, shrugging my shoulders and saying to the people “I have no money,” and knowing that they would know that I was lieing. It was true, I had no money on me, but I’m American I have money, and I can get more.
But then I thought about the truth about myself, that I actually couldn’t get more money because there are no ATMs, that I need American dollars to pay for my water with my meal at the hotel, that I need some chats to pay for lunch each day. This was an awful lot to convey in English to someone who just wants you to give them some money but it was helpful to me to see where I was at in terms of money.
The next day I traveled to the eastern part of Myanmar, and toured a region called Inle Lake. Inle Lake is made up of a bunch of villages and in each village, there are different ‘factories’ where people make handicrafts. At each factory, a guide walks you through the factory, explaining the process involved in making the craft, all the while pointing to the actual people while they perform each step of the process. At the end of each tour, the guide brings you to their ‘shop’ where you see all of these amazing handicrafts made by the people who you just saw, slaving away at some difficult task. It is extremely difficult to have just seen these people making these things and not want to support them by buying something or, even worse, to suggest that you can’t afford it or don’t need it. This was almost more difficult than saying no to the people who gave me tours of the pagodas.
But by this time, I had decided that the only thing I could do was to be true with myself and to share this truth with the people around me. I bought a scarf because my friend and I always buy scarves for each other when we travel. I broke my $100 to pay for it because I needed the American dollars to pay for my water at the hotel. When we went to the silver factory, I didn’t buy the anklet because, pretty as it was, anklets always bug my ankles. And I bought the small fish pendant because I wanted to support the factory but I couldn’t spend all my dollars on my second day.
It was interesting, when I was honest with the sellers about my purchases: sorry, anklets bug me or sorry, I don’t have that much, they just adjusted what they were offering me. I had thought they would be upset with me, would think that I was being a cheap, greedy American, but I wasn’t, I was just being honest. But I think this honesty had to come from myself first. I think I only felt comfortable saying that I couldn’t afford the big fish because I actually understood that I couldn’t afford the big fish because of my circumstances right now: no ATMs, needing American dollars for water, and needing chats for lunch.
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