It’s quite disconcerting when a trip to Burma goes without a hitch — when the wifi works, your VPN doesn’t keep failing, meetings run on time, new samples are even better than expected, you’re waved through at every military checkpoint, and morale seems universally positive. This was a trip without hurdles, without foreboding, without constant troubleshooting. The first for a long time, and possibly the last for a while. As we discussed at length over our spicy steamed sea-bass at lunch today, in Burma when nothing seems to be wrong, that means something is definitely wrong.
Of course there are lots of things that are wrong beneath the surface, but logistically and spiritually, this felt different to usual, and here I am, en route back to the UK, marvelling over my week of unencumbered content, slightly fearful of whatever it is lurking round the corner, but for now basking in temporary levity.
The weather is a big factor. It’s early monsoon season, which means it’s always about to rain, raining in great thundering sheets of water, or has just rained, leaving the air fresh and cool, and the lingering raindrops happily plopping off all the plants. I have spent about 7 of the last 12 years in Burma, and for the first time ever, it was consistently cooler than London this week.
We spent a very happy time in Bago two-hours from Yangonwhere our carpenters are. We chatted through lots of new designs, honed existing samples, discussed the merits of certain wood glues over others, of how different woods behave over time, indulged in our shared appreciation for the peaceful craft of carpentry.
We visited old friends, learnt about the advantages of jacquard weaving looms over traditional wooden ones, watched Burmese Ikat fabric being prepared for dyeing. We poured through reams of acacia-dyed cotton and skeins of hand-woven fabric brought down from Inle Lake, marvelling over the dogged persistence of people continuing their trade in the slightest of markets.
We learnt a bit about the gold industry and watched agog as half-millimetre shards of gold were soldered precisely onto a ring, and invisible dust was carefully swept into adrawer for reuse.
Conversation inevitably slipped into politics everywhere we went — everybody has a view on what happens next, on how the civil war is progressing, on how to function within its constraints. Nobody really knows, is the truth. But what I do know is that I continue to adore Burma, so beautiful through the bruises.
