Author: stevefrechette

For the past few days I’ve had a head cold (surprisingly, the first non-stomach related sickness I’ve had since arriving a little over two months ago), so I have kept things pretty low-key (trying to sleep more and stay in during the days when I’m not working).

Fortunately, the apartment in Yankin is very open and airy, so I don’t feel cooped up when I am there. With the extra time on my hands I’ve been reading more about Buddhism, which is such a visible part of everyday life here for so many people. I found it interesting reading about the Buddha, a man (not a self-proclaimed god) named Siddhartha Gautama who lived around 500 BC and who claimed to have broken the cycle of suffering that he equated to life on earth. From what I’ve read, it seemed that the Buddha broke from Indian Hinduism and the idolatry and spirit-worship that formed a critical part of the religion (Buddha apparently did not consider himself a god and did not want to be worshiped). It’s incredible to see how much the religion morphed since then. Almost every pagoda I have visited has Buddha statues and open worship/prayer in front of them.

I have asked some Buddhists about paradoxes that I see, but have not received fulfilling answers. For example, many Buddhists believe that they should not kill (including things like insects), but many eat meat. I have also asked who they pray to.

Granted, I have not spoken to a monk, and only have a few data points, but I feel that Buddhism has become more about the rituals and traditions than the underlying teaching of the Buddha. Even in my own experience with Catholicism I know that it can be easy to simply not think about the tough questions and march through with rituals and traditions to keep a clear conscious. But I believe growth happens when those tough questions are engaged and wrestled with.

It’s interesting to consider the similarities between Buddhism and Christianity. In Buddhism, the concept of karma is similar to the Christian concept of sin. Many of the fundamental Buddhist commandments are similar to Christian commandments, as is the underlying drive toward compassion. A critical difference appears to be that in Buddhism the individual/community is responsible for clearing sins (or karma), which can take many lifetimes (thus enters reincarnation) and strict following of a series of rules, versus Christianity’s belief that Jesus came to Earth to free us from our sin, and that we need to recognize that we need his help and saving grace and can turn to him for love and forgiveness (by dying on the cross He has paid for all of our sins: past, present, future).

That really just scratches the surface, ad I am generalizing as there are many types of Buddhism, but I figured I would share some of my thoughts.

Here is a picture of a Buddha statue covered in gold leaf. People buy sheets of this and stick it onto the statue:

Days of the week are important in Buddhist culture (Buddhists name their children based on the day of the week that he/she is born — almost everyone here knows which day of the week he/she is born). Here you can see different statues for different days of the week:

So the apartment where I am staying I was sharing with two other people. Last weekend, one of those people moved out (he’s getting married), so now it is just two of us. We spent Saturday helping him to move, and then later that day (and a chunk of Sunday) we spent shopping for different things for the apartment.

Shopping was quite an experience. Luckily there is a place called Ocean that is the closest thing to a Target or Bed, Bath, and Beyond. However, stock was quite limited, which meant we went downtown to where there are tons of small shops that sell a menagerie of items. On one street alone, there may have been a hundred of these small stores, and each one sells the same or slight variations of the same items.

In the check-out line at Ocean:

Moving-day lunch (grilled chicken sandwich) from Lotteria (the first, and perhaps only, fast food chain that exists in Myanmar):

Meal from the first night at the apartment with just Taiei and me (I made the side salad and Taiei prepared the main dish — it was so good!):

Last weekend one of my friends from Boston (May Kyi Han — see the “People” section of the website) returned to Myanmar for a couple months. She introduced me to her family, which was fantastic. It’s great to have more friendly faces and to have the opportunity to push deeper into local Burmese culture.

Finally, work has been very busy. We are pushing hard to both restructure the business and work through the details of a new product. I’ve been working on everything from financial modeling, market sizing, product selections, and roll-out strategy. With the plan coming together, we will be looking to push forward on execution.

Some random other pictures:

Here is a Japanese dinner prepared by Taiei from not last Friday but the previous one. We invited a Burmese family that lives in our building. They were great.

Here is what our the ceramic filter looks like after filtering our tap water for a week. It was originally all bright white:

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am now in stable housing, which means that I can eat home cooked meals (it’s been great!). The very first weekend my roommates had some people over and we had paella, fresh salad, and oatmeal cookies.

The other day I also prepared a stir-fry with eggs, tofu, tomatoes, and cabbage.

And just yesterday I had some baked oatmeal that one of my roommates made that morning. I added some ice cream as well! (I ate half of it before taking the picture)

For lunches, I have been bringing my own food most days. I will prepare food in the mornings (or the night before) and pack it in a stainless steel lunch box (“tahmin jai” as they call these containers in Myanmar). The whole container system is actually awesome. There are three sections that all seal together when they are clamped into the frame. I typically put rice in one container, fruit or meat in another container, and a dessert in the third container.

This past weekend was great. I spent Saturday helping to clean up the apartment before some guests came over for dinner that night. We had guests come from different units in the building, as well as some other folks. There is an American woman living above us, a Burmese couple living in another unit, and a Kenyan family on the ground floor. It really seems like this could be a tight knit community, which is fantastic. I also got to meet some of the street vendors in the wet market outside the building (we had so much food that we gave some away to these people).

I also got a peak behind the curtain of what life is like for the people that live and work at these markets. One girl works at a street stall that sells egg rolls. We ordered 50 egg rolls from them, and the girl that helps prepare the food spent some time at the party after delivering them. Turns out that she lives with her aunt and uncle who own the street stall. Apparently her mother passed away and her father is a drunk. She is 24 but only went to school through 8th grade. She said if she had the opportunity she’d like to be an engineer. She said that she works 5am to midnight, 7 days a week. That night after the party she went back and started serving people at the stall. The next morning I got up early to go to church and she was out working (still smiling and waving though when I passed).

On Sunday, after church, I want to a Buddhist monastery for a birthday party for one of my colleagues (Lei Lei — the third picture below is of the two of us).

After the birthday party, three colleagues (Mar Mar, Duen, and Thiri) and I took a cab about an hour an a half south to go to a pagoda built in the middle of a river. After arriving, we took a boat to get out to the pagoda.

The woodwork on the buildings were pretty cool.

Here are the three colleagues I traveled with:

After visiting the pagoda we went to a local market.

Dried fish seemed to be a specialty.

The market itself didn’t seem to be in the best shape, but that appeared not to deter people.

That’s all for today!

I wanted to let everyone know that today I booked my flight for Christmas / New Year. Here is my itinerary:

Heading to US:

– Depart Yangon Dec. 19th at 11:55pm local time and arrive Seoul Dec. 20th at 7:45am local time (Korean Air Lines Flight 472)

– Depart Seoul Dec. 20th at 10:05am local time and arrive JFK Dec. 20th 10:00am ET (Korean Air Lines Flight 81)

Returning to Myanmar:

– Depart JFK Jan. 2nd at 12:00pm ET and arrive Seoul Jan. 3rd at 4:25pm local time (Korean Air Lines Flight 82)

– Depart Seoul Jan. 3rd at 6:30pm local time and arrive to Yangon 10:30pm local time (Korean Air Lines Flight 471)

I’m excited to see everyone when I’m back!

Feel free to go to the “Reflections” section of the site for the Month 2 reflection that I just posted.

I finally visited the largest pagoda in Yangon, called Shwedagon (shwe means “gold” in Burmese). I went with one of my Buddhist colleagues who typically goes to Shwedagon with her family. Her cousin also joined us. Given my Catholic beliefs, the religious component didn’t resonate, but the compound was huge.

There was also a section that animated the story of Buddha. Unfortunately it was in Burmese so I couldn’t read it.

I have asked a couple colleagues about Buddhism, but I only get bits and pieces. It would be interesting to learn more about the religion so that I have some context for when I visit these sorts of pagodas.

On a sour note, I just recently got sick again (the fourth time). I was so frustrated because this was at a very well known restaurant that many others go to, and the person I went with (a French guy) was fine. I didn’t eat anything raw, but I guess that still wasn’t good enough. I do have a garlic food allergy, and there appeared to be a lot of garlic in the dish that I had to pick out, so I’m not sure if that was part of the issue.

If you think about it though, I’ve been here for about 7 weeks, which is about 49 days. If you figure that I have been eating out every meal, that would be 343 meals eaten out at restaurants. Maybe you can shave off a few from when I’ve eaten at someone’s house (and a few from skipped meals from being sick), but nonetheless, if I’ve gotten sick 4 times, that means I’ve gotten sick just about 1% of the time that I’ve eaten out. When thinking about it in those terms, I guess it’s not that bad. The answer? Start cooking my own food! As for this bout of food illness, I am feeling much better today (I took some more antibiotics (Cipro) and anti-vomiting medication).

Finally, despite yesterday being a rough day on the health front, I was able to move from the hotel into more stable housing. I am now living with the co-lead of the Proximity design team, who is a very nice guy and a practicing Christian. His current roommate is also still here for the next couple of weeks.

The apartment is beautiful (they designed it themselves, down to the furniture), and I am blessed to have the opportunity to stay here.

I filmed a video walkthrough (apologies for the low resolution) which you can see here (the password is “Myanmar”):

That’s all for now. I hope you’re all well, and make sure to keep in touch!

This has been a busy week on the work front as I’ve been juggling work on both our existing energy business as well as a potential new product introduction. With that said, I’ve still been able to do some exploring and have noticed some interesting things.

First, I’m becoming better banked now. I set up a kyat bank account so that I can now avoid paying fees on ATM withdrawals. I also tested out making a withdrawal directly from my USD account (which has now successfully received a direct deposit from my salary (all good things!). I also got set up with the mobile banking app on my phone, and I also purchased a password generator from the bank so that I can access my accounts via a computer.

On the telecommunications front, this week the second private telecom operator has launched. The company is called Telenor, and they seem to have pretty good plan options for data (I heard that it is also pretty inexpensive to call the U.S.). I haven’t been able to pick up a SIM card yet, but I am hoping to buy one soon.

Here is a picture of one of their locations (in Hledan) on opening day (last Sunday):

On the social front, a couple friends and I went to a very cool art gallery / restaurant that helps employ kids who would otherwise just be living on the street. It is called Linkage.

That same night (before dinner) I went to a screening of a Charlie Chaplin movie called The Circus, which was hilarious. I think this was the first Charlie Chaplin movie that I’ve ever seen!

I’ll end his post with a couple other random items.

First, I saw a billboard around the Inya Lake area of Yangon advertising for what appears to be an MBA program. Seems to be another indication of development occurring in the country.

Second, I have been hearing that some of the taxis run on compressed natural gas, which is apparently cheaper than petroleum fuel. It was a little unnerving when I turned around and saw the container right up against my seat!

There are a few interesting figures that I’d like to share.

# 1: Americans in Yangon

I met someone one night when I was out who works at the U.S. Embassy here in Yangon and in charge of U.S. Visas and American affairs (e.g. if someone is arrested or is the victim of crime), and so I asked him about Americans here. He told me that there used to be about 200 Americans in Myanmar before 2009/2010 (the years when the country began opening up). Apparently then the number jumped up to 2,000, which is where it is now. He said that many people come here expecting to stay long term and then end up leaving after a few months. He also said that this number doesn’t really include Burmese-Americans, so the actual number is likely higher.

#2: Economics of Driving a Taxi

I have spoken with a couple different taxi drivers in Yangon (in broken Burmese/English) about what it’s like as a driver. From what I’ve learned, it sounds like if you own your own car, you can make $600 per month. If you don’t own your own car, you can make $300 per month. Based on $300, apparently about $200 goes to cost of living. I was also told by an Statistics graduate of Yangon University (now a taxi driver), that he is choosing to work as a driver until he can save enough money to move to Singapore where he can earn more. Apparently if you go straight from university to a company or the government, you’re monthly salary is around $100-$200 per month.

It’s been a while since I’ve written. This is largely because I have been traveling, have been busy at work, and haven’t had a good internet connection outside of the office.

Late last week I spent a couple days in the dry zone to help with concept testing for a new product we are developing (I visited two villages). It was an incredible opportunity to be out at villages and have so many people together to provide input. It was quite an experience stumbling through an introduction in Burmese in front of all the people!

This is from one village:

This is from another (the first picture is the left side and the second picture is the right side):

We provided a survey to the villagers to receive input about energy usage and product preference:

This is a group of leaders from a village:

The woman on the left here is the team member who led the design and structure of the process:

Here I am in action! (the woman on the right is our product lead)

Here is our business analyst, who speaks both Burmese and English, and did a fantastic job as the principal translator:

It was great being able to receive specific comments from individuals. This man gave us feedback during a smaller focus group after the survey. We provided stickers so that we knew the profile of the person who was speaking.

Here we are in a different village speaking with a group after the questionnaire session was complete:

Here is a picture of the one of the roads in a village we visited. This picture was taken by one of the Burmese Proximity employees:

The night of the first day I was in the dry zone, we went to some sort of geyser/volcano/mud pit. It was pretty wild. I dipped my hand into the bubbling liquid, which thankfully was not hot!

There was another one of these hills with liquid, and the terrain around them was very cool.

That’s all for this post, but I plan to add more to the blog shortly!

Last night a group of folks from the Proximity office went out to 19th Street (Chinatown) for dinner. It was the first time I’ve been able to meet up with the local Burmese employees outside the office. We had a bunch of laughs as I stumbled through my Burmese sentences.

The guy closer to the camera in the striped shirt (Valentino) is on the Energy team.

From left to right: Zaw Zaw Lin (Energy team), Kyaws Aya (IT), and Bob (Logistics).

Here’s Lele, who helps with some of the administrative items (e.g. booking tickets):

On the right is Myit Noe (People Operations) and on the left is E Chow (former Proximity employee):

After dinner we went to Inya Lake to hang out. This was very cool for me. If you remember in one of my first posts, I walked along this river seeing the locals congregate and chat by the water.