Laminated dough

There is a Burmese saying that goes, “If you want good tea, let the picker climb the slope slowly.” Allow people and events to unfold in their own time. Don’t rush.

Which is why I am a coffee addict instead. Which is probably why Myanmar has been taking this long to hold (semi-)democratic elections or legislate basic social measures. Not in a rush at all. The country laid dormant for a good chunk of the 20th century and awakened to a new world of smart phones and severe opposition against genocides.

If you are like me, a third world native in and out of separate worlds with multiple visa stories, you will likely already have a degree of patience for ambiguity. Things take longer at checkpoints. Your weekend getaway plans have to be laid out with some advanced oversight. Waiting is part of the game. You are somewhat used to it.

Yet, my patience for ambiguity has never been tested to this degree as during this period. It is a common feeling for others right now. I have been trapped in dire circumstances before, even worried for my personal safety but there was also some novelty and adrenaline involved. Right now, it is just going through a protracted transitioning process day in and out. I would rather a quick snap, like ripping off a band-aid. People, teams, and flights are just taking a little while longer to get back to me. Just have to wait them out. Waiting.

The thing about waiting only for a future outcome is that you cannot find happiness in that corner of your head space. Happiness is neither in the past nor the future. Pursuit of happiness is present. I think I will be happier if I start viewing the act of waiting as an act, rather than just something that happens to me.

In the Burmese saying, you are allowing the tea picker – the external circumstances – to take their time and fall into place. Sometimes, you forget that you are that tea picker. You have to wait on yourself, too. Stillness is the move, but I just do not know how come I view my own time as so limited. It is a type of mania – this worrying about how I am running out of time to do and see things I want.

As I type this, I am waiting on my laminated dough so I can make breakfast croissants on this cool, rainy morning here in East London.

Whenever I am letting the dough stretch and rise, or when I am pickling something in a jar, or watering my seedlings to grow, I am usually able to practise what Buddhists call Upekkha – a form of gentle and loving detachment. I am not ignoring the dough or the plant. I am not trying to fight off something in fear or in restlessness. This is not a fight or flight mode. I am in care of a certain part of the process, while keeping my distance but switching my focus to something else that requires more active attention…like washing the dishes or writing this note while letting the dough thaw or rise.

Why can’t I do more of that in my day to day life?

Shan State: Chickpea Tofu Fritters

I am not going to sit around here and pretend I have always known how to make chickpea tofu. I do not. This is something I poked around and made calls back home because I got desperate and needed to satisfy my Shan / Burmese food cravings while being quarantined here in my East London flat. Not sure who even visits this old site anymore, but I am bored out of my mind right now and will just post my cooking misadventures here.

The Well Curve

Now that I have a London zip code, a UK bank account, a Giff Gaff number, and a national health insurance code, I am about 90% set on becoming a London resident.  I believe that this relocation process will be officially complete once my Apple App Store is switched to a UK account.

As a born and raised Yangonite, I will always carry a part of Yangon wherever I shall live in the next couple of years.  As much as I enjoy my new life in London, with its very British way of calm and collected energy, the chaotic Yangon is always in the back of my mind.

And I started dreaming about being back at my family home since the very first week, which is NOT how homesickness normally works.  When you are homesick usually, you get really excited and high on the new place for the first few weeks or even months, and a sense of longing kicks in later.  In my case, I am having this parallel experience of thoughts about home, an excitement about London, and a hectic beginning of the orientation modules at school, all at the same time.  This has not given me much time to decompress.

What will become of this blog?  No idea so far.

Listening to Karen’s Mixtapes floods my flat with Yangon nostalgia.  And I also found a playlist I gave her last year, titled The Well Curve.  Here is the same playlist on YouTube.

“It’s called The Well Curve because it’s low on the middle and high at the extremes, which is how you feel when you go through a negative experience. These 5 songs are supposed to accompany your journey through The Well Curve.”

Enjoy your Well Curve journeys!

Big Fish

Over the long Thingyan holiday, I spent a week in Ngapali in a village about seven minutes’ walk from the beach.  We hung out mostly at a beachfront gallery along the stretch made up of temporary cafes, where the municipal government leases out space on a public beach on an annual basis for a small sum of money.

Despite its natural beauty, my Ngapali trip was a touch melancholic. There was a severe lack of public beach area for the locals to enjoy.  Most of the beautiful property, and even the surrounding hills are already in private hands, but without any investment put in place.

My host, a Kachin businesswoman based in Ngapali, showed me the immigration checkpoints from one township to another, even within a small territory of one state, Rakhine.  Our market visit in Thandwe began with two prominent signs at the entrance, marked with “969” symbols.

Myanmar Memories at TEDxInyaLake

On my birthday, I received a note from a former supervisor and a mentor, in a Tyra-Bank style email as follows.  She had then just gotten the organizer license for TEDxInyaLake.

Your mission May, should you choose to accept it, is to be the Communications, editorial and marketing director of the inaugural TEDxInyaLake event.  In this mission, you lead the creation of a strong online presence of the event, including website content, a blog and social media, and promote the event to the public.

Your additional mission, should you choose to accept it, is to be a Curator as part of the curation team to set topics, select, invite and prepare speakers.

This email will self-destruct in five seconds.

Good luck, May.

A year later, here were are, with TEDxInyaLake videos, just edited and released over the weekend.