Return to Mandalay

Hi. My name is Timothy Mouse. I am a wanderer. I wander and wonder. 

I was in Mandalay three years ago at a private school playing in the Montessori program.

The kids taught me to say I am a miracle.

The management wasn't very professional so I left after ten weeks. Probation is a two-way street. You can read a story about my experience in STORIES on the sidebar. 

It's called Dr. Scary and Mrs. Marbles. They were a strange dysfuntional couple. I really enjoyed Myanmar. The people are gentle, kind and smiling. 

Anyway, last year I had the chance to return with a language company in Yangon. It was a fantastic combination of helping others develop their vocabulary, criticial thinking skills and laughter while doing my street photography experiments. Everything I do is an experiment.

The CEO was mean and selfish. He lost the lease on one building where we had classrooms so I was downsized with three other teachers after five months. I was grateful for the opportunity.

I returned to Seems Ripe, Cambodia and did a volunteer English project in a rural reality for two months with low income families. I polished a new book of black and white images called Street 21, about Yangon. O joy.

I accepted an offer to return to Mandalay and here I is. I have classes with 9th graders, college prep seniors in a fancy air-con room and primary grades 1 & 2 at a rural private school. It's the first time any of them have had a native speaker.

Young learners teach me songs. We dance, sing and play games using the alphabet and colors.

It's the same old story - young ones have no fear and the older ones have been tyranized into passivity. Big ears no mouth authoritorial conditioning. As Einstein said, "Learning is an experience. Everything else is just information."

They are emerging from imaginary shells with a new sense of love, responsibility, leadership ability, polite manners, teamwork and courage. They experiment in creative notebooks. It's a joy to be a small part of their process. 

Taxi Girl - My Name is Tam

Where are you from?

Vietnam.

I am from here. This is my country. I am a rich businessman. You are very beautiful.

Thank you.

How much for one hour?

I played stupid. What do you mean?

He laughed. Are you stupid? I said how much for an hour.

I looked at my girlfriends. One raised her right eyebrow. Go for it.

How much are you willing to pay?

$50.00.

This was the most money I’d ever heard of. I gambled. Make it $500 for one night. I’ll take good care of you all night. Maybe you can help out my friends.

He looked at them. Five hundred is easy money, he said. Let me make a call and have another drink first.

Ok, take your time. He bought me a whiskey talking about making money, exploiting the poor, twisted business deals using connections, property land grab development. I pretended to be interested. It was getting late. I gambled. Time’s up, I said. Are you going to help my friends? If you want me it’s $500. All night.

Ok, he said. He called someone. I have some chickens for you. He laughed and hung up. I have a place near here. Get me a taxi.

We went through dark streets and stopped at a house. Inside were two older men, drinking. They looked at the girls, paired off and disappeared.

I was a virgin and he was my first man. It hurt like hell, he was rough but I handled it and didn’t cry in front of him. I swallowed all my bitter tears. He fucked me all night. It was brutal.

In the morning I could hardly walk. He paid me in cold hard cash. Five clean crisp hundreds. I couldn’t believe it. I gave Miss Tan her cut and she was very happy. The pain will pass, she said. Get used to it.

I was in business. Easy. Turn on the charm, smile a lot, dress up, be smart, gamble, be open to suggestions, don’t drink too much and be ready, willing and able. Be a passive machine. Close your heart. Pretend you’re somewhere else.

That’s how I became a taxi girl. I was beautiful and tough. Miss Tan saw this and kept me busy. 

My Name is Tam

22 flowers

Crow music
Dim sum next to glorious flowers talking
Who will buy me?

My bouquet rainbows
Red orange white purple green stem
Life carries me home
Climbing 114 steps

Arrange me like so many
Perfect Yangon worlds
Create a dream
Yes

Put me in water

On a soft day
Invisible crows in thick branches
Write laughter's dialogue
Bleed letters, ideograms

Chant sutras ring bells

 

Nothing but the blues in Malamyine, Myanmar

street 21

A new photography book, Street 21, exploring Yangon, Myanmar is available on Blurb.

TLC - 5

“A human life in China is worthless,” said Leo, 14, born in a Re-education-Through-Labor Reform Camp in Hubei. His mom worked in the empty university library.

After school exploring forested hills on mountain bikes Lucky and Leo shifted gears where the rubber met the road. One day they stopped in an old quarry to play in dirt.

It was an abandoned country, an abstract concept.

They stood in a deep excavated canyon. High dirt walls bordered by pine, evergreen and blue sky wore sharp deep gashes after machine teeth gouged down dirt. Workers harvested red clay for imperial jade tombs at the university where 15,001 students struggled to survive in a harmonious society. Students hiding from recycled Mao-styled uniformed security guards mastered eating, texting and casual sex.

They stood at the bottom of a bottomless pit.

“Everyone is a spy,” said Leo.

“How did you surmise this theoretical fact?”

“Life is my teacher. It’s our 5,000-year history plain and simple. Their job is to keep an eye on us. Think about it. We have too any people here and so, to monitor our behavior, attitudes and thinking, they recruit students and teachers as spies. Informers. Minders. They’re paid with passing grades or cash. My father was an informer during the Cultural Revolution. It’s Darwinian logic, evolution of the species. Survival.”

“I’m not surprised. This was common through dynasties. Perpetuate control and authority. The Central Party created a climate of fear. Husbands reported wives. Wives reported husbands, sons and daughters. Daughters and sons reported fathers, mothers, aunts and uncles. Concubines reported lovers. An evil cycle.”

“Yes,” said Leo, “evil is a myth. Everyone is a charter member of the Big Ears Sharp Eyes No Mouth Society. Our generation of informers and spies make good money. Knowing their place they keep their mouth shut to survive. Creativity is my meditation. I meditate on the comic, the absurd. Don’t take life seriously. It’s too short. If you laugh you last.”

“Thanks for life lesson #5.”

Lucky shared writing-living suggestions with eight new Chinese teachers. Make your characters want something right away, even if it’s a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaningless of life need water from time to time. It’s your job to create conflict so the characters will say or do surprising and revealing things, educating and entertaining us. Characters change/grow. Kill your darlings. If a writer can’t or won’t do that they should get out of the trade. A writer is a hustler.

Write like you’re dead. Someday you will be.

Ah the drama - the unfolding play observing sensational phenomena. 

Entertainment is alive and well in Asia. It’s the entertainment capital of the world. Keep them stupid and happy. Children of all ages stay amused by cell phones, Lose Face social sites and the idiot box. They surrender their consciousness. Watch TV. Miss the show.

 “Keep your hand moving,” he said to lazy Chinese robots. “The hand is directly connected to the heart. You are pure sensation. Be an anarchist. Take risks. Take a line for a walk.”

As a foreign language barbarian wearing a Tang Dynasty five-clawed red dragon, yin-yang symbol, a rising Phoenix and a crying crane flying through mist covered mountains he witnessed emperors screwing concubines inside Forbidden Cities with red lacquered emotional curiosities where visions of detached ebullient phosphorus streams wove silent abstractions of zither tonal quality in extreme bliss. Manifestations of superior phenomenal detective analysis and forty questions of the soul redlined final exams.

“We know so much and understand so little,” Lucky said.

“I don’t understand a thing. People are more affected by how they feel than by what they understand,” said Leo. “On day one my teacher said, ‘I only want you to bring two things to class. Your ears.’” Hear ye, hear ye.