An unexpected meeting

by Jerome Warlow (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

Making a local connection Myanmar

Discontent with Mong La, a Burmese town on the border with China full of casinos, prostitutes and deeply depressing wild animal markets, I walked out of town, with no phone and no idea where I would arrive. Under the repressive military junta which was fighting rebels in Shan state, Mong La was one of three towns which travellers on a ten day visa acquired in Thailand were permitted to visit; what I was doing was therefore, strictly speaking, illegal. The path meandered through forest, valleys and rice fields with views of distant mountains and clearer air than the hideous town, until I came across an open field with a small collection of bamboo houses on stilts. I must have been a strange sight to the traditionally dressed locals who appeared from the houses, a scruffy, bearded foreigner, bearing a metal fire staff. I had brought the staff on my travels, taking any opportunity to practise twirling, throwing, and rolling it round my body, not able to make it burn without fuel, but improving my skill in its manipulation. A crowd of children and young adults began to gather. None spoke any English, and they seemed completely unused to visitors and fascinated by my appearance, giving the impression that they had never seen any foreigners before. I showed them some tricks with the staff, and they showed their appreciation with satisfyingly delighted sounds. A young, smiling man who knew a few English words appeared, who indicated that he had a motorbike and drove into town to work there. He invited me to enter one of the houses, and I happily accepted. I was fed red mountain rice, bamboo shoots and very spicy buffalo, while about twenty curious villagers watched me and attempted to communicate. Then I tried to explain what I was looking for: music. I had not taken a camera on my travels, just a mini disc recorder, in the hope of finding inspiring sounds. The young man fetched a small stringed instrument and played a little for me. The villagers were particularly intrigued by the recording device, and astounded when I played them back the recording. They let me play the instrument, and asked if I could sing for them, but I had no songs I felt confident to give them. What I could give, however, was a demonstration of beatboxing; another skill I had been cultivating for some years, the art of vocal percussion. The response was incredible, and almost impossible to imagine occurring in the frequently jaded Western world: howls of amazement, screams of apparent appreciation. Shortly after this I realised I had lost track of time, and how late I was to meet my fellow European travellers in Mong La and the man driving us out of there. The young man zoomed me back over the hills on his motorbike to meet them, all very unhappy that they had needed to wait for me, and our driver raced away from Mong La at a breakneck speed. Yet I felt heartened that a special recording remained with me, and above all, a sense of connection with another world, which transcended spoken language. A couple of months earlier I had got lost on a trek in Thailand, and found myself led by a dog to a makeshift bridge over a river to a house, where a strange man managed to reconnect me with my trek guide. Next to the bridge a wooden sign read: ‘I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.’ I remembered this sign, as I burned in embarrassment in the car; I have no idea whether I had done any good or kindness, yet I felt there had been a genuine connection made. I like to think that those gentle villagers are still able to live in their bamboo houses in the beautiful countryside and have taught themselves how to beatbox and twirl sticks, passing on the legend of a stranger who came to the village and demonstrated those arts.