I had been struggling a bit with my interactions with people-who-serve-you when you’re on vacation: the people who show you to your room, serve you your meals, and, in this case, the tour guides who show you their country, and the people who are being shown to you. I just couldn’t figure out the ‘right way’ to interact within these roles that I perceived as superior/ inferior. I felt really uncomfortable being ‘waited upon’ but didn’t know what to do about it. I had kind of decided that really, I just needed to interact with ‘these people’ the same way I’ve been trying to interact with all people: to treat them with respect and to meet them with kindness. But still, I felt uncomfortable in my role in this, and I could see myself squirming.
I was visiting Inle Lake in Eastern Myanmar and knew that part of my ‘package’ was at least one day of sightseeing. I expected to be picked up at the hotel along with a bunch of other guests and be toured around by some unfamiliar tour guide. Instead, the same guy who had just picked me up at the dock and delivered me to the hotel stood waiting for me, by his boat, and I was the only one on the tour. “Oh my gosh, this is going to be so hard,” I thought. “I’m going to be spending all day with him and I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk with him or just let him do the tour.”
As I walked toward the boat, he pointed toward the front seat and said, “Be careful.” Now, you should know that I’m comfortable on boats and in the water, so I felt no need to ‘be careful’ stepping in to the boat. Also, as he crouched down to hold the boat for me, I felt like some Victorian lady, stepping across a mud puddle that he had covered so that I wouldn’t get my petticoats dirty (I’m telling you, I have issues around this). Needless to say, I did not want to be careful, I wanted to show off, I wanted to prove to him that I was not a rich-American-tourist who needed help to get in a boat; I was different, I was just a school teacher who had gotten a sweet deal on a monsoon package. So I just stepped in to the boat all comfortable and sat down all confident.
As we drove away from the hotel, him seated behind me, this long boat in front of me, I felt like Cinderella in her pumpkin carriage. I was being daintily ferried over the open water of the lake while the men behind me (his brother was steering) were motoring the boat and sitting at my beck and call to answer any question I may have. It wasn’t the reality of the situation, but it was what I felt like, and it made me uncomfortable. As we got closer to the inlets, he told me where we would be going that day. “We go to the pagoda, then lunch. You like traditional Shan food or Chinese?”
I thought about this. I had been eating a lot of traditional Shan food lately but I also didn’t really want greasy Chinese food. Then I thought, “I don’t want to be the American who only eats what’s familiar food (Chinese) so I said, ‘Shan.”
“After lunch,” he explained. “We go to lotus weaving shop, silver factory, and floating garden, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, and shrugged my shoulders.
As we rode, I saw lots of things I had questions about, but the motor on the boat was loud so I figured it was rude to yell over it and make him answer my questions. The scenery was beautiful, lush green mountains that reminded me of Switzerland in their shape but Tahiti in their foliage. It was nice just to be out on the water, to be surrounded by cool temperatures and breeze and I was surprised by the familiar smell of lake water; I couldn’t believe that in Asia, the scent returned me to summers in Michigan eating sandwiches and cheese puffs on paper plates.
We finally slowed down as we navigated through the inlet that lead to the pagoda. We pulled up to the dock, the driver jumped out, and held the boat for me. “No shoes in pagoda,” he said. “Leave in boat.” I took off my shoes and as I stood up he said, “Be careful,” as I stepped on to the dock. I walked up the steps and toured the pagoda quickly. There weren’t many Buddhas to see and the large one had a sign that said “Ladies prohibited” so I didn’t spend much time looking at it. I wondered, as I walked back to the boat, if the guy was annoyed, like, “Huh, she didn’t spend much time there. What will I do with her for the rest of the afternoon?” He held the boat for me and again, said “Be careful,” as I stepped in, quite easily.
We boated, about 500 yards, to the restaurant. I wasn’t quite sure how this was going to work. Was I supposed to treat him to lunch? Were we going to eat together? I got out of the boat and walked along the dock. A woman was standing at the foot of the stairs. I turned around to see the driver behind me. “You go up,” he said as he motioned toward the restaurant above. I turned back around and followed the woman up the stairs, still unsure as to whether or not he was joining me. When I got to the restaurant, he was gone.
After lunch, I came back downstairs to see him hanging out with a bunch of other drivers, talking and playing what appeared to be a card game. He got up and his brother and a couple of other drivers went down to the dock to get the boat. “Your lunch good?” he asked. “Very good,” I answered. “What you order?” he asked. “That tomato salad- it’s so good! And mixed vegetables- also good. But too much food- always in Myanmar, so much food!” He smiled. “Was yours good?” I asked. “Yes,” he answered.
I considered asking what he had ordered but then wasn’t sure if he had eaten at the restaurant, wondered if he could afford it, wondered if he got a discount, and felt kind of funny about the fact that he had eaten downstairs instead of upstairs, like there was some sort of servants’ entrance or something. And then I thought, “You know what, he and his friends are probably happy to eat down there. They’d rather be there than eating with a bunch of tourists.” As we walked toward the boat, he said, “Be careful,” as his brother held it close to the dock. I stepped in, nonchalantly, and the boat swayed a little, side to side. As usual, he got in behind me, and sat down.
“Now you want to go to weaving factory?” he asked.
“Okay,” I said, and shrugged my shoulders. I couldn’t tell if this shrugging of the shoulders was a good or a bad thing on my part. To be honest, I didn’t really want to go to some weaving factory, I just liked being on the boat. But it wasn’t like I had any problem with the weaving factory and I figured I’d just let him do what he needed to do to get his job done. As we approached the weaving factory, he explained that they would give me a tour and then they would take me to the show room at the end. We pulled up to the dock, he held the boat, and I stepped up, on to the dock. A woman met me at the base of the steps and I followed her up. The driver and his brother walked halfway up the steps, and stopped at the first floor, where there were a bunch of other men, sitting around a table.
The tour was amazing. It started off with this woman, slicing the stems of a lotus blossom and then pulling the two parts apart to expose this thin, spider-web-like string. She would then roll this string with her fingers across the table and back, then pull it down to another table where it magically dried into a thick piece of string. This string was put on to a skein which was then treated twice, and then dyed. This dyed string was then put on an incredibly intricate wooden loom which was powered by women, sitting at it, and pumping up and down with their legs.
At first, I felt uncomfortable touring the factory, ‘watching’ these women as if they were on display in a museum, as if they were ‘cultural artifacts.’ But then I decided to see them as they were: real people doing their jobs. I watched their work closely and with respect. Their work took great skill and required a lot of physical labor. I greeted each woman in Burmese (MaynGuhLaBah) as we approached and thanked them (JaySuBay) as we left. I couldn’t really tell if they were enjoying their work or not, but they met me with genuine smiles as they looked up from their work to greet me.
At the end, I was brought to the ‘show room’ where I bought a scarf for my friend. The woman then walked me out of the factory and the driver smiled at me and followed me down the steps. As we approached the boat, I started to step down in to it. “Be careful,” he warned. “You don’t want to swim.” I turned around and sat down as he got in to the boat behind me. We pulled away and as we headed down the next inlet he said, “We go to the silver factory now, okay?”
“Okay,” I answered and shrugged my shoulders again.
The silver factory was the same routine: a guided tour of the process, followed by a tour of the showroom where I was expected to buy something. At this factory, the tour guide was a young woman who clearly had been doing this for a while. As she was giving me the tour, she was also handing her cellphone to one of the guys and directing him to charge it on the wall, directing someone else to put away her lunch dishes, and educating me in the fact that their family had created the design for the ‘swimming’ fish, others were just copying them. I felt a little like a number, like one of many American tourists being herded through that day, just a part of her job.
But when we got to the showroom, it changed a bit, we sort of shared with each other. I started looking at the cases along the wall but then she said, “This is the cheap silver, it turns your fingers green.” “Oh yeah!” I said. “My dad always called me a golden girl because when I wear that silver, it leaves a black ring on my skin.” “Yeah, black,” she said and smiled. “No good.”
She directed me to the next case and I walked along slowly, admiring the pieces but knowing that I didn’t really want any jewelry. Then I saw a black pearl pendant hanging. “Oh, black pearl!” I said. She took it out to show me. “My friends,” I said. “They have a pearl farm, In Tahiti!” and I showed her my black pearl ring. She pointed to the pendant she was holding and revealed, “This one not real, cultured,” she explained with a disappointed but honest look on her face. “Real ones expensive.” “I know!” I explained. “My friends always gave me pearls so I never knew but then when I wanted to buy one for someone….lots of money!” She smiled and put away the pendant.
I walked quickly past the rings and then spied what I thought was a pretty necklace. I pointed to it, “How much?” “Thirty five dollars,” she answered. “You try?” she asked as she pulled it out of the case and laid it on the counter. It looked short. “It is a bracelet?” I asked. “No,” she answered. “It is an anklet. If you want it bracelet, you can cut.” “Oh,” I said. I shook my head. “You no like?” she asked. “I like, very pretty,” I explained, “But anklets bug my ankles,” and I motioned to my ankle and made a face. “You no like fish?” she asked. “Oh no, I like the fish, I just didn’t see them yet.” She walked me over and showed me the fish. “Many sizes,” she explained. “Boy fish swim up and down, girl fish swim side to side.” And she showed me how they had designed them will small sequential circles of silver so that they moved when you shook them. “How much?” I asked as I pointed to the small fish. “Fifteen dollars,” she answered. “I buy,” I answered and took out a crisp 10 and limp 5. She examined the five. “I have others,” I said as I pulled out all the American dollars I had and laid out two other fives for her to inspect. I was nervous about pulling out all my money, showing her that I had over $200 and was only spending $15 but then I realized it was the truth. I really was only spending $15, I really did have more, why was I trying to hide that from her? She looked at my fives, traded me for a more crisp one, put the fish in a bag for me, and walked me out.
Again, the driver met me at the stairs and said, “Be careful, you no want to swim,” as I approached the boat.
“But I like to swim,” I answered this time, and sat down with a smile. He got in behind me and we were off to the floating garden. I watched as we passed other boats: some carrying baskets, others carrying dirt, others carrying fruit or motorcycles. I realized that I was on the freeway and this is how people got around. I noticed a few boats with apparent tourists in them and compared myself to them. Was I like them? Was I being ferried around by the people of this country to ‘gawk’ at the people of this country? I was sitting in a boat just like they were, being driven around just like they were, I was the same: we were tourists.
We came to an apparent intersection because suddenly, there were tons of man-powered boats (as opposed to the ones I had been seeing, powered by an outboard motor), going in every direction, and a din of voices. I looked around to see that in the front of these boats sat a child, wearing a white shirt and green traditional longhis (like a sari: a long piece of fabric wrapped and tied around your waist) and in the back of the boat sat their parent, rowing the boat. I turned around to the driver.
“School is out?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, and smiled. I think we both enjoyed this, these children making a ton of noise, these parents taking care of them, this seemingly international event of the end of the school day. Who knows, maybe I’m imagining, but it was nice.
Once we made it through the intersection, I noticed tomatoes, floating in the water, on both sides of the boat. “Floating garden,” the driver said as he pointed to the tomatoes.
“The tomatoes grow? In the water?” I asked in astonishment.
“Yes,” he said, matter of factly.
“They just grow? Like that?” I asked and pointed to the tomatoes, floating in the water next to us. I started snapping pictures, eager to show my brother when we got home, laughing at us silly Americans trying so hard to grow our tomatoes with posts and special fertilizer…
“The bamboo is very strong,” the driver said as he pointed to the right of us. “It stays in one place.”
I looked above the water to where he was pointing and saw: tomatoes, growing on the vine, on bamboo trellises, the same as we grow tomatoes, on the vine, on wire trellises, in the states. It’s just that here they fall off and you harvest them as they float in the water.
“Oh!” I said, and laughed at myself for thinking that tomatoes could grow by simply floating in water. I sat back in my seat after that, no longer focused so much on sitting up and seeing everything that passed our way. “We go to hotel now,” the driver said and we motored out of the inlet back to the open lake that lead to the hotel. As we motored along I imagined the boat driver watching me, wondering about this weird woman in front of him. But at that point I also thought, “This is me, watch all you want, I can’t do anything about it.”
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