Burmese Days

The reasons I did it - measure the blood pressure of about 400 patients in 3 8-hour workdays - was because of this.

“When are we going to see Aung San Suu Kyi?’

I asked Christine, the daughter of Doctor Aung, the leader of the trip, ‘Have you ever seen Aung San Suu Kyi before?'

‘Yeah,’

‘Really?! When?’

‘Last Week.’

‘What?!’

I guess one doesn’t stumble across these very often, sometimes not even in a lifetime.

Christine tells me that Aung San Suu Kyi is smart and straightforward, and has family dinners with her family in our group. She also calls her by ‘aunty Suu’. ‘Did she really play Canon in D during the Nobel Prizegiving Ceremony in the movie?’ This was one of the more pertinent questions that plagued a doctor in our group. Unfortunately, Aung San Suu Kyi was unable to grace us with her presence at family lunch that marked the end of our trip because of a leg injury. I was a bit disappointed, but had nevertheless the chance to speak with her deputy. I wanted to talk to her about the civil disobedience movement gathering steam in Hong Kong today in pursuit of a more popular electoral reform. With her political experience, her answers would’ve been very valuable to the people in Hong Kong as well as provide illuminating foresight.

The occasion was unbelievably informal. Like any other ceremonious occasion at a temple, everyone of us were required to take off our shoes. A mishmash of political elite and professionals scattered about the place barefoot, eating on plastic tables and leisurely making conversation. Some mingled outside the temple under the shade in lounge chairs. Second-generations occupied their own table and corner, shamelessly taking selfies. There was no apparent central power or spotlight.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s deputy was unassumingly dressed like any other woman walking along the street on a Sunday Morning. After greeting everyone around the room, she finally extricated herself from an old friend to quench my curiosity.

‘Love and compassion is very important. We shouldn’t appeal so much to materialism as to a sense of community...look at this occasion here today! We are more like a family than a corporation. I think it’s more important to embrace a set of community values than to abandon it in lieu of the burgeoning of high rises.’

I suspected her answer was an excuse for the lack of good infrastructure and ‘great buildings’ in Yangon at first. Without money where would be the beautiful high rises of Central? Had we not been a center for trade, the British wouldn’t have set up shop on Hong Kong Island, and I may not be here today as a citizen of Hong Kong. Deny it as you may, architecture would not exist as a subject if not for the accumulation of capital, often at the expense of income inequality.

Perhaps the way forward is to relinquish our grip on our place as a free market stronghold and exchange it for our self-determination. How can the people themselves exercise sovereignty when the market is devoted to maximizing profits coming from mainland investment? There is not much difference between China’s current state of business control on us (neocolonialism) and British colonial occupation. As long as we operate under this system we are slaves to China’s whims.

We are dependent on China for our economy. Hong Kong gains its current international importance for its proximity to China. Hence, it is not an illegitimate fear that our economy would go into recession should our diplomatic relations worsen. And yet, if we maintain good relations and continue to accept the increasing influx of mainland travellers and immigrants, the locals will be squeezed out of the system at some point such that Hong Kong will be not so much Hong Kong but Chinese.

If we don’t release ourselves from the reins of economics, we will always be colonial slaves. Hong Kong is like a rich but greedy man unable to stop making even more money in the expense of its moral values. It is an anachronism to our degree of civility that we should fling ourselves so uncontrollably to profit maximization regardless of whether it is right or wrong.

Instead of a free market, perhaps it is time to raise the taxes and redistribute our wealth such that the people would have equal opportunities to realize their dreams and assert their own values. Perhaps abandoning good business relations with China would allow the government to listen to the people instead of taking orders from ‘Grandpa’ far away in the palace without a clear understanding and compassion to our needs. Perhaps such a way forward could lend itself to a day where government officials, businessmen, artists, academics, and doctors alike can sit together and have lunch in a close community like my day in Burma, just because they are united by a common vision of their community.

But this is not the end of the story. Just as Burma still has way to go in terms of development and democratization, Hong Kong is not economically independent. Instead of attracting investment with its free market and position of a portal to China, it should establish economic independence by gearing to a shift of developing its creative industries and services truly unique to Hong Kong. We can only truly assume a ‘Hong Kong identity’ this way and ultimately free ourselves from the reins of colonialism.