Burmese days

Day 6 - Rangoon

My bucket list isn't well defined but Burma has long been on it. A combination of its long isolation under military control, which to me promised that elusive 'authentic experience ', and a evocation of an imperial past stoked my interest. I don't know if I much like either of those reasons for wanting to visit if I think about it but sometimes I need a break from being a liberal, lefty, guardian reader feeling guilty about absolutely everything. Speaking of guilt the British are second only to the Dutch in Europe in their positive feelings towards their former empire. 32% of Britons think that the empire is more a source of pride than shame. That is a more nuanced and layered question than the question of whether ex-colonies are better off for having been part of the empire. 33% of people believe that in the UK and it is, quite frankly, ludicrous bollocks. A globe-spanning empire like Britain's can only be built off the back of immense exploitation of naive people and to believe that the benefits were mutual betrays a woeful lad of education in the subject in the school system. There is a detectable generational divide though with the previous extant generations seeming to find it harder to change their views on the subject almost as if the younger generations are trying to steal a key part of their national pride. It feels absurd to be at a barbecue exchanging opinions with other middle-class white people about the rights or wrongs of pulling down statues of slave traders. I don't think we get an opinion on this one. If a black person whose forebears were affected by slavery says that they don't want to walk under the shadow of that statue everyday then that is reason enough and plaques be damned. I don't know if still using colonial names like Burma and Rangoon makes me part of the problem but I prefer to take my views from the pages of Orwell rather than Kipling. Conrad not Haggard. That and the fact the revised names for these places were instituted by the brutal military dictatorship allows my conscience some respite. 

The city of Rangoon sits at the confluence of the Yangon and Bago rivers in the very south of the country. The British captured it in the second Anglo-Burmese war of 1852 and made it the capital which it remained until 2006. It dwarfs other Burmese cities with a population of 7 million and has all the hallmarks of a grand colonial administrative centre. By the early 20th century it had public services and infrastructure on par with London. Colossal Victorian architecture in its decayed grandeur still dominates the downtown area. We took a room in the Botathaung Hotel, not a location that our taxi driver was familiar with. After 5 minutes of vigorous debate with fellow drivers about how to get there he grudgingly consented to take us. I cajoled Sandra into a nightcap at a bar near the hotel called Rosie's. A group of white male expats treated us to an ostentatiously loud rendition of 'My Way' while their Burmese girlfriends looked on with familiar boredom. They boomed out the words and revelled in the faded, jaded glory of their masculinity and I couldn't help but pity them.