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Mon. 18th.
We took an early morning flt. today to Mandalay and were met by our next guide who has the delightful name of Moon. Moon turns out to be a very interesting woman with some strong opinions and not at all what we're used to in this part of the world but more of that later. First of all we were surprised to learn that Mandalay is a modern town..........
Moon took us straightaway to the teak bridge which is the longest in the country. Myanmar is the biggest exporter of teak, most of it grown in Shan state. What can I say about this first trip? It was a bridge. Later Moon gave us a riveting personal insight into changes in contemporary life in Myanmar via her turbulent marriage. According to Moon the modern woman goes into marriage expecting equality but is quickly disappointed by feckless husbands who are happy for their wives to work but expect them to do all the usual domestic duties too. In the case of Mr Moon this includes massage at the end of a tiring day. Moon and husband live with his parents who bring up the children and make her sleep outside when she argues with with their son. Moon is not a happy woman. She is very active in the.....party. She hopes that Aung....... will take them to victory in 2015 and that she will be given a paid position in the party when that happens. We have a picture of her to remind us when one day she becomes Myanmar's president!
The next day we visited both a Buddhist monastery and a nunnery. The males from about 9yrs upwards take up monastic life either on temporary or permanent basis though mostly temporary. There they learn the teachings of Buddha, meditate and chant a lot. They usually leave by about 20yrs. unless they want to make this their vocation. The girls ( identified by their pink robes) are all there permanently. Both monks and nuns have their heads shaved and eat nothing after mid day. As far as I am aware they don't do any charitable work. The men, both monks and ordinary men are seen as above women in Buddhist religion. I asked Moon what she thought of this and she didn't have a problem with it. She said, somewhat indignantly I thought, that the Buddhist religion was very important to the people and clearly didn't think it needed tinkering with. She seemed quite able to separate her politics from her religion on this one. On the subject of other religions she was equally unequivocal. Christians were ok she said but she didn't want the Muslims who she thought were increasing in number. "You can have them in England, " she said, "you like them there". This said extremely assertively which is very unusual with the people here esp. the women. Moon is a bit of a shocker I think.
Lastly in Mandalay we visited another temple and saw more Buddhas. Temples and Buddhas are ubiquitous here. If you just assume we visit some every day you won't go far wrong.
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