11-6-19 - Religious diversity day
/Day 143. John & Kyle joint blog. Yangon, Myanmar.
Today John, aka Big Sauce Tours, planned a religious diversity day in Yangon, Myanmar. The clan heads back to the now Huebner famous “hole in the wall” café near our hotel and we have a blast ordering the delicious food and breakfast sandwiches. While there we try some of our new favorite tea: oolong. In case you haven’t read our earlier blogs, oolong tea was the clan’s favorite discovery in Hamilton, New Zealand at the Zealong tea factory.
We then get the opportunity to buy thanaka which is a type of local cultural paste that is applied to the face and functions as a sunscreen that doesn’t rub in and is made from a special type of tree sap. The waiters start laughing in the back while watching seven Americans trying to put on the thanaka on our faces. Finally, the waiter comes over and tells us that we need to add water before applying it to our faces.
After applying the thanaka and finishing up our breakfast, we head out to our first stop, The Holy Trinity Cathedral. Holy Trinity Cathedral is the primary Anglican cathedral in Yangon. The cathedral is listed on the Yangon City Heritage List. The cathedral was designed by Robert Chisholm, a Madras-based architect, in the Indo-Saracenic style to adapt to warm and humid conditions and completed in 1894. The pipe organ was destroyed during the Second World War and could not be restored so an electric substitute organ was installed. The cathedral has historically strong connections with the British military regiments who were in occupation during the period of the British Empire. Here are several wall tabletures in memoriam of the deaths of many young members of the military.
Upon arriving, we instantly recognized what we’ve dubbed as the Yangon aesthetic. After independence from Britain, multiple red brick buildings like libraries, courts, universities and churches were abandoned. But unlike so many other communist regimes, the one in Burma / Myanmar left these buildings alone. Now these preserved brick buildings are grown over with moss and plants and look like they belong on a Boston college campus. We head onto the church grounds but as we search for the entrance we realize that the only thing open is a day care center run by nuns. We are all way too old for day care and don’t speak Burmese so we pass on a day care visit and head to our next site.
As we are walking to the Kali Mata Hindu temple it starts to rain on us. We all are grateful for the change in temperature from yesterday especially Kyle who almost passed out with heat stroke. Shri Kali Mata Temple is a Hindu temple located in the undefined Little India neighborhood. It was built by Tamil migrants in 1871 whilst Burma Province was part of British India. The temple is noted for its colorful architecture, especially its roof, which contains images and stone carvings of many Hindu gods. The temple is maintained by the local Indian community.
Upon arriving at the temple, we are surprised to see something more colorful than anything we saw in India. The roof was colored with bright crayon colors for the various types of Hindu gods, like Vishnu, and Karma. We take off our shoes and brave past the curious if not somewhat bewildered looks from the locals. We doubt they get many new Burmese visitors let alone any American tourists and especially not like on a rainy day in November. We see the incense Burmese style which means they burned a coconut husk. Overall, we all enjoyed the opportunity to experience a Hindu place of worship as a minority religion in a country that is overwhelmingly Buddhist.
As we are walking to our next destination, we walk through the Bogyoke Aung San Market which is a major bazaar known for its colonial architecture and inner cobble stone streets. The market is a major tourist destination dominated by antique, handicraft and jewelry shops, art galleries and clothing stores. The market also has a number of stores for local shoppers, selling medicine, foodstuffs, garments and foreign goods. We safely pass all the stores without any purchases.
Next we head off to Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue which is the only synagogue not only in Yangon but in all of Myanmar with only 24 members. The synagogue stands between Indian paint shops and Muslim traders on a small street near the city centre. A plaque at the entrance of the building states that the present stone building was built between 1893 – 1896. It is one of 188 sites on the Yangon City Development Council’s list of Heritage Buildings. It serves the few remaining Jews of the country who are mostly descendants of Baghdadi Jews from Iraq.
The Jewish community had originally immigrated as merchants and businessmen to this new colony and once numbered as many as 4,000 but many emigrated out of Myanmar during and after World War II leaving only 24 now.
We learn that in 2015, the longtime leader of the synagogue, Moses Samuels, had passed away. Moses had continued the work of his father in caring for the synagogue and his children have carried on his legacy. Moses was an advocate for better understanding between different faiths and peoples. He received all visitors to the synagogue and treated people with equal respect irrespective of their faith. We find the same experience now as we meet and are greeted my Moses’ daughter, Dinah. It impressive to see a family shouldering the burden of carrying on the only synagogue in the entire country. It was also really cool to see this well persevered history of a minority religion in Yangon. The 24 Jewish members make up 0.000032% of Myanmar’s 57 million population; talk about finding a needle in a Buddhist haystack!
Next, we walk to the Kheng Hock Keong Taoist temple, also known as the Qingfu Temple, which is a marvelous temple with a jade roof built by the Chinese who have many more worshipers than the Hindu and Jewish communities we just visited. The Kheng Hock Keong is the largest and oldest temple to the Chinese sea-goddess Mazu in Yangon. Kheng Hock Keong is maintained by a Hokkien Chinese clan association. The temple attracts mostly Hokkien and Hakka worshipers, while the other temple in Latha Township, called the Guanyin Gumiao Temple, attracts Cantonese worshipers. Inside the temple, there was a constant stream of people burning incense, bowing and reading scriptures. We take some time to take in this unique experience with the Taoist believers.
Next, we head over to the Mogul Shah Masjid Mosque which is a brilliant white mosque engraved with verses from the Quran in black marble. The mosque exemplifies the sage adage “a pearl amongst swine”. The rest of this block was representative of a low-income neighborhood and then out of nowhere this brilliant white mosque shines like a pearl. The Moslem community is sizeable enough that almost every town in Myanmar has at least one mosque to cater to their community which represents ~10% of the people. Unfortunately, the mosque was closed and it seems that a number of religious sites off the beaten path are closed on weekdays.
Next we head off to the next site, the Sule Pagoda. The Sule Pagoda is a Burmese stupa located in the heart of downtown Yangon occupying the centre of the city and an important space in contemporary Burmese politics, ideology and geography. According to legend, it was built before the Shwedagon Pagoda during the time of the Buddha making it more than 2,600 years old. Burmese legend states that the site for the Shwedagon Pagoda was asked to be revealed from an old nat who resided at the place where the Sule Pagoda now stands. The Sule Pagoda has been the focal point of both Yangon and Burmese politics. It has served as a rallying point in both the 1988 uprisings and 2007 Saffron Revolution. The pagoda is listed on the Yangon City Heritage List.
We cross a street passenger bridge and arrive at the entrance. We were subsequently swarmed by people trying to sell tourists overpriced flowers. By this point we are experts at ignoring this trap of “please buy this thing that cost me a small fraction of what I’m trying to charge you.” We pay the fairly steep (for Myanmar) entrance fee of 6,000 Kyat per person. We remove our shoes and head in. It’s been raining all day and we have to go barefoot so we slosh through the wet concrete trying not to slip.
It is a nice pagoda in the middle of the bustling city reminiscent of the quiet churches in Manhattan. There were plenty of Buddhist worshipers out on a Wednesday. The tradition is to visit a pagoda and pray to the shrine, according to which day of the week you were born on. Needless to say that the Wednesday shrine was more popular today than other days. If you’re a Buddhist, you really hit the jackpot if your birthday is on the weekend. John notes that he would hate to be the Monday guy and Kyle points out that he was born on Monday to which John points out that he’s not Buddhist.
We then head to City Hall and more importantly Freedom Square. Contained within Freedom Square is Maha Bandula Park. The public park is surrounded by some of the important buildings in the area such as the Sule Pagoda, the Yangon City Hall and the High Court. The park was named after General Maha Bandula who fought against the British in the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826). The park’s standout feature is the Freedom Monument which is a 50m high obelisk that was installed to commemorate the independence of Myanmar from the British rule in 1948. The obelisk is surrounded by two circles of chinthe, half-lion, half-dragon deities.
We then walk over to view Immanuel Baptist church which was built in 1885 by an American missionary. The church is one of the oldest Baptist churches in Yangon. The church was destroyed during World War II but rebuilt in 1952. Historically, over 90 percent of the congregation were Burmese, including ethnically Anglo-Indian and Anglo-Burmese. Unfortunately, this one too is closed during the weekdays so we can’t see the inside.
Next we go to the Sikh Temple at Rangoon (Yangon was formerly Rangoon). In the 1890’s, the Sikhs in the Indian Army and the Military Police in Burma requested they be granted land to build a temple which was granted in 1897 and subsequently built. It was a small place but we met a Sikh man who was very enthusiastic about showing us the history and the importance of this place. He shows is the head wrap for us to wear, leads us to a place to meditate and gives us a Sikh blessing in the form of a dough ball with grains. John eats his in one bite while Corey and Leanne pick at it slowly. He senses their hesitation and stops handing them out to the rest of the group. This is the most peaceful religious site we’ve been in today as it is completely empty except for the nice man that let us in. We meditate for ten minutes listening to the birds in the garden. We are glad for this stop as Corey and Justin were at their Boy Scout meeting in Delhi, India when we visited the huge Sikh temple so at least they got to experience one.
We then head out to St. Joseph’s, a Catholic Church, but it turns out they inside of the church is closed for a lunch break for two and a half hours, I guess even Burmese priests have to eat once in a while! We then head back to the hotel but along the way. We see that there is a sky lunch bistro, the tired squad gives in and we have a great lunch, talking about the religious sites we saw and the many differences between all of them.
For the evening, Leanne has booked us at a Myanmar cultural dinner and show. Upon arriving, we are impressed with the huge Royal Palace the dinner is being hosted out. Our marvel is short-lived however, as our excitement bubble bursts when John informs us that the building was never used as a Royal Palace and that it was built purely for tourists to host the cultural show. As we enter, Leanne get thanaka put on and gets pictures taken.
Upon entering the dining hall, we are seated at the last table furthest away from the stage. There are only a handful of people already seated so Kyle politely asks if it would be possible for us to move to one of the other, say, 250 seats that are empty and closer to the stage. Unfortunately, we received a just as polite “no, not possible.” The buffet is good but the show has loud banging music and it seems that everyone around is us talking so it is hard to really take in, absorb and enjoy the show. We’ve seen many cultural shows but this one unfortunately does did not rank in the “best of” category.
Things only get worse as Kyle is awoken by Leanne sprinting for the bathroom in the middle of the night. While we thought the cultural show buffet was good, apparently it was not meant to stay down. We have done relatively well on the trip so far but the Myanmar cultural show has claimed its first victim. We learn in the morning that Justin and Ashley were up at night not feeling well although they fared better than Leanne.
