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| Thè Mar points to the pagoda as she recites its story (Pic: Nyunt Win) |
WITH winter approaching, the evenings in Nyaung Oo near Bagan were starting to feel cooler. However, the dropping temperatures did not stop pilgrims from converging on the town in their thousands for the three-week Shwezigon Pagoda Festival in early November.
I visited the pagoda one night during the festival with a friend, walking among the waves of people crowding the pathways between food stalls and the pilgrims heading towards the pagoda platform where a Buddhist sermon would be delivered later in the evening.
As we reached the platform, a young girl approached and offered to be our guide in exchange for some pocket money. No sooner had I nodded my agreement than the 14-year-old girl, named Thè Mar, began reciting the “Nine Wonderful Characteristics” of the pagoda like a parrot. Although I already knew the story, I listened to her words in silence.
While she spoke, we sat down at a corner of the platform from which the entire pagoda could be seen. A group of children of various ages sat nearby, some listening to the girl and others chatting away and teasing one another.
When Thè Mar finished the story, I asked if she could recite it in English, which she was keen to attempt:
“This is Shwezigon Pagoda;
King is Anawrahta;
Built by King Kyansittha;
Four standing Buddha;
Two Buddha original;
No laugh with no smile;
Sandstone;
No shadow;
11th century;
Finish;
By heart.”
(My own translation of the story is as follows: “It is called Shwezigon Pagoda. It was first built by King Anawrahta and finished by his second successor King Kyansittha. There are four standing Buddha statues, two of which are original. Their faces neither smile nor laugh. The pagoda was built with sandstone and produces no shadow at any time. It was built in the 11th century AD. Let me finish here. I learned these lines by heart.”)
Thè Mar told me that on a good day she gets two or three clients for her guide services, most of whom are Myanmar pilgrims. She said she does not target foreigners because most of them arrive at the pagoda with licensed tour guides.
She said she has long been familiar with the “Nine Wonderful Characteristics” story, having learnt it in her childhood from her parents, who strive to make a living by fishing in the Ayeyarwady River. However, they do not earn enough to support themselves and their five children, so Thè Mar left school during first grade to make money.
“I have four siblings and they all come here to seek money,” Thè Mar said. “Some days, we get K500 to K1000 but sometimes nothing at all.”
They are joined at Shwezigon Pagoda by about 40 local children – some are orphans living with relatives, while some others live with destitute parents – who offer their services as guides.
“We’re not officially allowed to do so at the pagoda,” Thè Mar said. “If we’re caught making a deal with visitors, we’re punished.”
Other kids nodded their agreement and told stories about how they were punished after being spotted by the pagoda trustees.
“We’re scolded and warned not to do it again,” said one.
Despite the warnings, the children’s guide service has been a long-standing tradition at Shwezigon, with the pagoda story being passed down for years in both the Myanmar and English languages.
Even so, knowledge of English among the Shwezigon guides is limited. As I was transcribing the English-language lines Thè Mar had recited, the children stared blankly at my notebook until one of them exclaimed, “Ha! He is writing in English!”
This was Than Htaik Win, a teenaged orphan who could recognise the script but couldn’t read it, just as he was unable to read Myanmar because he had left school too early.
“But I can write my name in Myanmar script,” he said enthusiastically, grabbing my notebook and pen to write his name slowly in untidy characters. “But I don’t know which letter is which.”
As I taught him how to spell his name letter by letter, all the children gathered around and repeated the lesson in whispers.
Meanwhile, Than Htaik Win told me a story of his own: “When my mother died, my father pulled me out of school because he believed that children had to stop learning if their mother died.”
His father remarried but then died three or four years ago. His stepmother left him alone and moved back to her relatives. The Shwezigon Pagoda trustees took pity on him and allowed him to live in a shrine on the pagoda platform.
“I buy food when I get pocket money from visitors,” he said. “But I have only one set of clothes. I haven’t changed them for a long time.”
I asked him if he had ever considered trying to make money selling things around town rather than relying on pocket money from pilgrims.
“Yes, but who will give me money to buy things that I can sell – you?” he asked. “What’s more important now is that I haven’t had dinner. I would rather you gave me money to buy food.”
With a deep sigh, we gave him some money, telling him not to waste it. As he trotted away, the other children started badgered us into giving them money as well, as if we were their elder brothers.
I asked them who the oldest was among them and they pointed to a young lady wearing clean, traditional clothing and wearing thanakha on her face. She was 22-year-old Mya Mya Khat. I gave her some money and told her to buy food to hand out equally to all the children.
Mya Mya Khat’s aunt-by-marriage, a woman in her 50s selling wrapped glutinous rice on the platform, explained that the girl was a mentally handicapped orphan who lived with her sister. As the sister cannot afford to feed her, Mya Mya Khat comes to the pagoda to guide pilgrims and tell stories.
“About 10 years ago, a visiting family asked us if they could adopt Mya Mya Khat,” the rice seller told me. “They seemed quite well-off and they assured us they would take care of her, so we let them adopt her.”
The family lost contact with the girl for about five years until a woman from her village came across Mya Mya Khat – in a tattered and torn dress – in Pyin Oo Lwin and brought her home.
Mya Mya Khat told them that the adopting family had taken her to Lashio in northern Shan State and had made her work from dawn to dusk. After many beatings, she fled to Pyin Oo Lwin, where she was stuck because she didn’t know the way home.
The rice seller said many of the children on the platform had been rejected from monastic schools in Nyaung Oo – where they could be provided with free education – because of a declining tendency to accept girls and because they were afraid that the boys of unknown origin might cause problems.
“When I was younger, girls had a better chance to get a job,” the rice seller said. “We had cheroot and preserved plum production, but those businesses have declined. Of course we have the lacquerware industry, but we don’t have large schools where many local girls can learn the craft.”
As we talked, the children came back complaining about their small share of food and asked us to give them more money. Instead, we bought glutinous rice and passed it around, much to their delight.
“Brothers, will you come back here again?” they asked as they saw us off at the pagoda entrance. They seemed happy that we had treated them as close relatives. We assured them we would be back to visit.
Then we left, the air ringing not only with the tiny bells on Shwezigon’s high umbrella but also with the voices of the lost children struggling for survival on the pagoda platform.
(This story was not approved by the notorious censor board of the then junta. My colleague Htin Kyaw, then Myanmar Times trainee reporter, and I wrote the story.)
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