So Long, and Thanks for all the Rice!
We were driving to the second or third temple of the day when I asked my driver if he had lived in Bagan for a long time. “I lived and worked here my whole life,” he said over his shoulder. “My family has lived here in Old Bagan for many generations, on the same land. Not anymore though, since the government relocated us away. We are very sad to leave our home, but we could do nothing.” I asked him why the government had relocated him, and he chuckled humorlessly before replying, “They are the government! Who knows? That’s just what they do.”

After my trip to Bagan, I learned that the government relocated thousands of people from their ancestral lands in Old Bagan in the 1990s in order to declare the site an archaeological zone, the first step in applying for World Heritage Site status. Earning this designation would make it easier for the government to preserve the temples — Bagan is one of Myanmar’s most visited sites, and the crowds of tourists that climb the temples every year are beginning to cause them significant damage. They are also having difficulty with some hotels in the area, which are built too close to the pagodas to be safe but are owned by powerful businessmen who refuse to have them moved. The problems in Bagan are extreme examples of how tourism has not always had a positive effect on the people of Myanmar, with many of the problems due to the lack of government capacity, poor infrastructure, and lack of experience.

As I reflect on my time in Myanmar, my experience with the situation in Bagan stands out to me for a number of reasons, particularly because of my own involvement. Part of my work was researching institutional solutions to issues like government relocations, and I became very invested in searching for ways to repair past government wrongs — and yet, I unwittingly stayed at one of the most problematic hotels and climbed many pagodas during my stay at Bagan, a small but negative contribution to the cause of the issues there. As a tourist in Myanmar, the positivity of my contribution to the areas I visited could sometimes be dubious, and it could be difficult to know the direct impact my actions would have on a place. YSPS allowed me to engage with both the issues themselves and my own involvement in a way that made me a better traveler, and hopefully also made me part of the solution.
I am incredibly grateful that my work with YSPS was able to make me a more informed individual, but also feel like a helpful contributor to solving the issues I learned about. My research worked to support their ongoing projects that will eventually be part of discussions with parliamentarians and outside experts to make suggestions for changes that will drive the government towards becoming fully liberal and democratic. Since I am not a Myanmar citizen, I cannot lay claim to any of their political struggle, nor can I attempt to ascribe solutions from the outside. Instead, I got to support people who are dedicating much of their lives to the fight for democracy, who have spent time in jail and who know what it is to sacrifice for your rights and freedoms. Learning from them was an incredible and unique experience, and I am so happy that they shared their country and their mission with me for the summer.

I loved how I was able to see and experience the problems that I dealt with theoretically at work, and traveling across Myanmar was the perfect supplement to my research and studying at YSPS. The incident in Bagan made me particularly introspective about my impact on Myanmar and my involvement with the issues I studied, but it was certainly not the only time where I was able to interact with the country in a uniquely interesting way. I know I have only scratched the surface of what Myanmar has to offer, and I’ll definitely be back to continue exploring — but at the moment, I can only say thank you, and goodbye (for now).
Written by Emily Katz ’19, political science major at Stanford University. Emily is a FSI Global Policy Intern at the Yangon School of Political Science.
