The A to Z Guide for new teachers in Myanmar

For the new teacher in Myanmar. Here's an A to Z guide answering some FAQs. By Joko MacKenna, with help from Jack Bartram.

A – Arrival. You get off the plane at Yangon International Airport and walk across the tarmac, breath deeply. Take a good whiff of the air around you. Like every other country in the world I’ve been to, Myanmar has its own particular odor. Inhale it and appreciate it while you can in your first minutes or hours in this country because like all other odors, you’ll soon become accustomed to it and it will become imperceptible. 

B – Banking. One of the nice things about working in Myanmar is that the pay is pretty good. What then do you do with all those hundred dollar bills your company pays you in cash? You don’t want them lying around your apartment and susceptible to fire, burglary or unscrupulous cleaning ladies. Gotta put it in a bank. You’ve got two options. Open a Kyat account at any local bank. Bring a copy of your invite letter that you used for your visa and a copy of your passport. You’ll (eventually) get an ATM card with the MPU logo on it that you can use in tens and tens of places throughout the country. Then there’s the USD account. All the big banks offer this. You can stash up to $5000 into a Myanmar bank, and they keep it in USD, immune from Kyat depreciation. You don’t get any interest, but it’s safe and you get a Visa card with it. You can’t use the Visa card inside Myanmar, but it’s useful for booking or buying stuff online.

C – Cats.

Badger

  Your humble author is a big lover of cats and I encourage my fellow expats to not be shy about taking care of our feline friends. Get a cat if you want to. If you leave in a year, you’ll find someone to take care of it.

D- Door to Door.  Whereas their service has been declining lately indicated by longer and longer delivery times, I still recommend Yangon D2D as a go-to food  service for expats. They offer delivery service from about 100 different local restaurants, all of which are yummy.

E – Education. If you’re going to teach in Myanmar, you need to understand what our students’ experience has been in regards to education. If you like to drill students on pronunciation, they’re very much receptive to that. It’s what they expect. I say. You repeat. That’s the essence of the Myanmar educational experience. Ask them to think critically and voice their own opinions on a subject, that’ll be hard. You’ll get silence. Point being, it’s very important that you tell students “there aren’t any right or wrong answers here. I just want to hear what you think”…. They don’t want to be wrong, and they’re not used to settings where there isn’t such judgment.

F – FFFFFFFFFFFFF – You should try to learn a little Myanmar language. It will help you understand the challenges your students face in relation to their L1. For example, the letter “F” doesn’t exist in the Burmese language. Yet, they have no problems accurately producing the phoneme as it’s pretty simple. What does cause problems are consonant clusters at the ends of words. Heck, even any consonant at the end of word, even something as simple as an “S”. In

Burmese, like several other “lazy” Asian languages, they’ve gotten rid of consonants at the ends of words. All words here end in a vowel, or a soft “n” sound. So when asking a student to say the word “FIRST”, understand that every part of that word is different from what they’re used to outside of the letter “I”.

G – Grammar. Myanmar language doesn’t use adjectives.  None.  All adjectives are expressed as verbs. It’s isn’t hot today. It is being hot today. It isn’t an angry dog. It’s a dog being angry. Adverbs are expressed by doubling the root word. Sentence structure is Subject + Object +Verb, as opposed to Subject +Verb + Object like we’re used to. Again, knowing the L1 of your students will help you be a better teacher. 

H – Humility. Foreigners are treated well here. Perhaps it’s a colonial hangover. Perhaps it’s something else. Whatever the cause, just by being from another country, you’ll get treated with a lot of respect. Don’t let it go to your head! When it comes down to it, you’re not the royalty they treat you like, and their deference has limits. Don’t turn their attitude into your privilege. Be as respectful of the locals as they are of you.

I – Institutions. Understand that there are certain pillars of existence here. Buddhism. Charity. Family. And until recently, subservience to the state. Traditional Myanmar culture doesn’t value people being ‘edgy’. Point being, don’t ever insult Buddhism, understand that family values are all-important, and realize that freedom of speech is a new concept and tenuous. Your visa says you’re here to teach. Expressing political opinions (about Myanmar) online could be interpreted as acting as a journalist and subject to working outside your visa.

J -  Kyat. Another letter foreign to the Burmese alphabet is “J”… They don’t have a “J”… The combination of K” and”Y” is as close as they get. It’s pronounced “jat” or “chat”… actually, it’s somewhere in between.

K –Kilowatt.  The Irrawaddy river has always been the main arterial vein of Myanmar pumping the life blood of the rice crop from the delta to the upper regions of Myanmar. In the modern age, the river has evolved to also become Myanmar’s nervous system with most of Myanmar’s power being produced by Hydroelectricity.  Living in Myanmar, you’ll need electricity for your gizmos. First you should check that you have the correct plugs and adapters. The most commonly used are

·         Type C European CCE 7/16 Europlug

·         Type E/F European CCE 7/4 or 7/5 schuko

·         Type D Indian BS-546 (5A)

Make sure your DC adapters are multi-voltage. Like most of the world outside North America, Myanmar uses 220-240V power.

As for other utilities, Myanmar is fairly cheap. Electricity will run you Kys 15K to 30K per month ($12-25), water is free to a couple bucks a month, 125 channels of satellite TV is $10/month and internet through your phone runs about $3 per gigabyte depending on the package you sign up for.

L – Living space. Of course, when you get here, one of the first things you’ll want to do is find a place to live. Unlike most things, when compared to other SE Asian cities, Yangon’s housing markets tend to be a bit pricy. Expect to pay between Kys 250K to 500K to rent a flat. All accommodations are relatively spacious and all of them have the same basic floor plan. An apartment buildings here is 4 to 7 stories tall (no lifts) and each unit takes up half a floor. They’re long and narrow with living space up front and bathroom and kitchen in the back. At the low end, you will at least get AC, maybe a water heater for the shower. Furnished apartments are rarer, and they cost somewhat more.

M- Medical concerns. Myanmar has socialized medicine, even for foreigners. At the National Hospitals, you can get primary care for free.  As an American, with the current battle over Obamacare, I’m a bit ashamed that one of Asia’s poorest countries can do this, but it would be unthinkable in the USA. That said, I’d only suggest going to one of the state hospitals for the most minor things and only if you have a lot of time on your hands. For more significant issues, there are several decent private hospitals. Asia Royal Hospital in Sanchaung seems to be the one people go to. They’ll charge you an extra $35 just to see the doctor, but their staff seem competent, they speak English fairly well and the rest of the charges are reasonable. They also know what they can and can’t do. For example, I got treatment for a ruptured disc in my spine. The doctor laid out a couple initial stages of treatment which he said, if they turned out to be ineffective, the final stage would be surgery “in your home country” (I had it done in Bangkok).

N- Neighborhoods.  If you’re teaching at Edulink, you’ll probably end up living in Sanchaung Township. Most of the teachers live here and there’s a significant number of other foreigners in the neighborhood as well. Sanchaung has plenty of restaurants and mom & pop shops, although it could use some banks and supermarkets. The area known as Hledan (part of Kamaryut Township) is also a convenient area in relation to school. Some teachers choose to live downtown. You can actually rent a nicer place for less downtown, and it’s a more exciting part of town, but keep in mind that you’ll be spending a lot more time commuting. Things to look out for in a neighborhood include the quantity of street dogs (they’ll howl and fight at night) and the proximity to religious sites (most have loudspeakers which can go off at any hour for as long as they want).

O- Open sewers. This seems to be rather obvious advice, but keep an eye out for the open storm sewers. Walking the streets of Yangon comes with several hazards (blocked sidewalks requiring walking in traffic, dog poop, dangling electrical wires), but the most dangerous are the open access points to the deep and murky drainage channels. Don’t walk and use your smart phone at the same time; you could end up hurting yourself.

P- Pharmacies. There’s lots of them. Myanmar has excellent connections with both the Indian and Thai pharmaceutical industries, and so the most common medicines are readily available and quite cheap. For example, I take an omeprazole every day for my acid reflux. It costs me $.08 per pill. You can get Viagra, liver medicines and lots of other drugs that need a prescription elsewhere over the counter here. Some drugs still require a prescription. Benzos and opioids are strongly regulated.

Q- Quickness. I remember when I got off the plane 4 years ago and on the taxi ride to town, I asked the Myanmar person who was meeting me, “so, what do I need to know about Myanmar culture? As a foreigner, what’s different about this place that I need to keep in mind?”.  She thought about it for a moment  and told me that things were slower here. Things don’t happen as quickly or as efficiently as most westerners are used to. Be patient. She was right. Whether it’s the line at the supermarket or getting a document from a bureaucracy, things simply don’t happen at the speed we’d hope they would. The concept of “time is money” doesn’t exist here.

R- Rent. An addendum to the living spaces above. Rent is paid in advance in Myanmar. As the country has experienced some currency instability (the USD-Kyat exchange rate has fallen by 35% in 3 years), leasing agreements are pre-paid. When you sign your lease, you will have to pay 6 months rent upfront. Some teachers have negotiated a 3-month prepay, others have gotten a lower rate by paying a full year upfront. That’s how rent works here. The good thing is that you don’t have to pay rent each month! You’ve already done it. For new teachers, consult your employee handbook for information about the relocation loan that Edulink offers to help pay for this expense.

S- Sweltering heat. Even though it’s smack dab in the middle of the tropics, Yangon isn’t as hot as some cities, it still can be hot. Bangkok is hotter. New Delhi is a lot hotter. I’ve never been to Dubai or Riyadh, but it rarely hits 40C in Myanmar. There’s only three seasons here. The hot season runs from late February to the end of April. It’s hellish. It’s in the high 30s and there’s lots of humidity. Going outside is like going out on another planet. If you need to get stuff done, do it early in the morning; you don’t want to be out in the middle of the day. Sunset offers only a little relief. From May to October, we have the Monsoon. The daily thunderstorms bring relief from the heat, and provided you have a good umbrella, sensible shoes and the a positive attitude, the 2.5 meters of rain Yangon gets during this season can be quite enjoyable. Outside the monsoon, it doesn’t rain here at all, so enjoy it while it’s here. Lastly, we have “sweet December” and January. For the brief cool season, the weather is wonderful.  

T- Tourism. How to best experience what Myanmar has to offer in the way of tourism? First of all, there’s a lot of good stuff to see right here in Yangon. Shwedagon Pagoda at sunset is a must-see. There’s several museums of interest, and it’s not hard to get to some of the interesting little towns outside the city. If you’ve got a long weekend, the beach resorts of Ngwe Saung and Chaungthar are just a few hours away by bus. Arrange your hotel room here in Yangon beforehand, leave work, and the night bus will drop you off at your hotel’s door at 2 AM.  Spend the day at the beach, enjoying the beauty of the Bay of Bengal, and on the second day, get the bus back to Yangon. Another do-able in a weekend option is the Golden Rock. Kyaiktiyo is also only a few hours away and is spectacular and an inspiring mountain site.

U- Underwear. By this letter, I’ve started to run out of things to write about, so I’ll mention our unmentionables. Personally, I’m a big guy. So as it is with shoes, I can’t find underwear here that fits.  If you’re a big person, bring many pairs of underwear with you!  
     

V- Veracity. At the time of this writing, I have to say that you won’t find a more honest and indiscriminative culture in regards to foreigners anywhere in Asia. With the exception of the taxi drivers who will ask for a fare that’s 25% more than a local would pay, Myanmar people don’t ask you to pay more because of the color of your skin. In all the other countries in SE Asia I’ve been to, from clothing to just a bottle of water, merchants in this region try to rip you off at every turn. It’s not the case in Myanmar. Now, mind you, some institutions will try to charge you more because you’re a foreigner. There’s no getting around the 8000 Kyat foreigner entrance fee at Shwedagon Pagoda whereas locals get in for free.  That said, on several occasions, I’ve not had to pay the tourist fee just by saying “di hma nei deh” (I live here). :::Aternately::; Vice. If you enjoy your vices, you’ll love Myanmar. A pack of smokes is 70 cents. A 12 oz mug of ice-cold draught beer is 75 cents. Liquor is cheaper here than anywhere else in the world.

W-Water. It’s the stuff of life, but you can’t drink the stuff that comes out of your tap. I suppose one could if you boiled it first, but bottled water and it’s distribution are big businesses here. You’ll need to find a ‘water guy’ and your landlord is the person to ask about this. The water guy will tote your 10 liter bottles up your stairs and it costs $0.60 per big bottle. 

X- Xylophones. Myanmar traditional music is unusual. I can’t really say that I’ve found a non-native person who’s been able to say they enjoy it. Akin to jazz, I’ve heard it called xylophone players on methamphetamines. It’s kinda crazy. And again, going back to the proximity to the public loudspeaker thing, be sure you’re well away from sources of this music unless you’ve got a good pair of sound-cancelling headphones.

Y- Yangon. It’s a city of 5 million people and spread out over a large area. It’s by no means a megacity, nor could one call it cosmopolitan. As Rudyard Kipling famously noted: “This is Burma, and it will be quite unlike any other land you know about.” Yangon is the center of this land unlike any other, and Yangon is unlike any other city. 

Z- Zoology. Somewhere in Myanmar, wild tigers still roam. There are wild elephants too. Then there’s the infamous Burmese python. Deer, pigs, peacocks and bears are out in the jungle. As a country that is the size of France and has only 50 million people, when I’ve gone out into the countryside, I’m struck by how much undeveloped land there is. Poachers, illegal logging and the pressures caused by rural poverty continue to encroach on the wild parts of this country, but it remains, at the moment, a place where there are regions untouched by man. The Yangon zoo is worth visiting too. 

I hope you have enjoyed this A to Z. If you have any questions about living and teaching in Myanmar, I'm here to help. Joko(at)edulinkaustralia(dot)com.