Rangoon (Yangon)

Changes in Yangon

I have been using circle trains since August 2014 as the traffic congestion in Yangon is worse ever than before including almost all remote parts apart from downtown areas. Today on the way to my job (my solo practicing clinic) I headed to Pansodan Central Station to catch one and walked along the route. These were the things I hadn’t looked for but that had come to my glasses helping eyes. Two teenage girls, well dressed and gorgeously adorned with nowadays famous K-pop fashion, were walking on the pavement near 49^th street in opposite direction with me and chattering with each other. I glanced at them and what I saw made me think a personal standard comes nowhere from the dress but from one’s behavior. They while muttering with their amusing words had thrown a plastic bag leftover of somewhat candies onto the road carelessly and consciously. I doubted whether they would have recognized their shameful behavior and that it was a shameful act. Then I continued my walk. The pavements were rebuilt recklessly after being demolished for the sake of car parking. These give no ease to pedestrians as the breadth is made too slim for two people to hardly pass by in face to face. Also the widths of these are not equal even within a ward. The sidewalks do not level off the ground and is much higher than motorways. There spread so much litter on these sidewalks, in drains, on roads, streets and any elsewhere. An old couple walked slowly in front of me carrying a small plastic bag half-filled with sallow liquids. The old man might be over 65 years of age, I assumed, and suddenly he poured the liquid into the near drain hole from the bag he carried and shook off the empty bag from his hand without any care where the bag was to be. I felt really disconsolate to see those behaviors and those are felt to be congenital. Worse is they assume themselves they are doing nothing wrong and the worst is almost all people of variable ages, teens, middle aged or elderly in Burma do not see these kinds of act are wrong. Then I reach to Pansodan and ascended the staircase made of bricks and iron frameworks. On the second tire of the staircase lay a man supposedly drunk and asleep but no one cares. The balusters were patchily rusty and the paints were detached. Browny sallow color dust filled the staircase while some pools of rainwater on the staircase are splashing my shoes. When near the central railway station there was a narrow lane roofed with concrete heading to the station. So many people were there, some rushing, some lingering, and some sitting. The roof seemed not to be rainproof and some raindrops are dripping through the roof that caused water pools along the lane. There was a woman seemed to be in middle ages begging for some money. The central Railway station is one of Yangon’s heritage and was ornamented with British like architecture but dolefully it was not properly maintained as many historic sites and heritages were hierarchically ignored by governing bodies.

-         Aung Paing Phyoe Georgory