Untying the String

I started to feel the gravitational pull to Thailand as soon as I jumped out of the truck.  Our driver had taken us to the hotel we had requested and looked at us intently to make sure we were happy about our destination before he felt comfortable about leaving us. What a great person he was!  How incredibly lucky we had been to find him.  I mean, what on earth were the chances of flagging down the first vehicle and that person bringing us all the way to Myawaddy!!  Unbelievable!  Pure luck.

But, back to that gravitational pull I was talking about.  As we stood there on the side of the road looking at the hotel I was feeling the pull to Thailand more and more strongly after our driver left relieved.  I could immediately feel Myawaddy was a border town, maybe on the wrong side of the border too.  The street went straight to the border, downhill.  I posed the question to Andrea about going to Thailand.  Part of my reasoning was that it was actually still quite early in the day so there was plenty of time to go through the immigrations on both sides and ride to a guest house in Mae Sot, Thailand before dark.  Andrea agreed to forego her much desired shower for a little bit longer.  

As we coasted straight down the hill towards Myanmar Immigration I couldn’t see reason enough to stay in Myawaddy.  It really did feel like a border town.  We passed more used (dead) washing machine repair shops than I could have ever imagined all, no doubt, from Thailand.  It meant something to me because just that morning at our guest house in Mawlamyine we had watched the owner pondering one of his washing machines and then his workers hauling it to the back corner of his compound to add it to two other dead washing machines.  At the time I didn’t yet have any inkling that they all might be used/refurbished Thai washing machines having first passed through Myawaddy.  

We rolled up to the Immigration door and I went in first.  Inside were two Immigration officers in their uniforms sitting at desks seemingly just waiting for someone like me to have fun with.  I had figured out that we had overstayed our visa by eight days so I felt prepared.  Myanmar is the only country I know of in Asia that allows overstay of a visa and simply charges $3 (crisp U.S. bills) per day per person.  I had the $24 in crisp U.S. bills all ready for the guys.   The two Immigration officers were a jovial couple.  I thought they spoke a very limited amount of English for the job they had but no matter.  Exiting their country was pretty straightforward, I thought, and maybe not much English was required. 

They jokingly made a big deal that I had overstayed and I heard the English word ‘overstay’ in the middle of a lot of Burmese many times.  They were trying to tell me that it was a bad thing to do but they also knew that I knew it was no big deal.  They told me that an overstay in Thailand by only one day was a fine of $500 and an overstay of more than a week meant you were kicked out of the country for years.  I guess this was all meant to make me realize how great Myanmar was and by association how great they were.  They even said, “We are nice.” 

After all this nonsense and looking at my passport for an unnecessarily long amount of time by each of them I gave them the money to try to speed things up.  They like the look and feel of American dollars and even though the bills were brand new the guys still had to assert their authority and scrutinize the bills searching for the tiniest flaw.  I knew they wouldn’t find any though.  They couldn’t but they sure tried.  

Then they finally started looking at the dated stamp in my passport from when we entered Myanmar.  They were confused because I had said it was eight days overstay but they were coming up with 6 no matter how many times they counted on their fingers.  I shrugged, “OK, six days then.”  At that the officer opened his desk drawer and slowly slid my money into it, folded his arms and leaned back in his chair looking at me.  Folded arms is something Asians NEVER do.  It’s a sign of authority or usually anger and is considered a very rude thing to do.  

I said, “If it’s six days that’s $18.  He looked at me as if he didn’t understand.  I said the same thing to the other officer and he twisted up his face and acted as if he definitely did not understand a word I had said.  I waited.  We all waited, for what I did not know but we sure waited.  Then one of them called for the boy.  A young man came running from a back room.  The officer gave him my passport and off he went, where I had no idea.  They we sat and looked at each other for a long time before I brought up the difference in payment again.  I was more forceful this time.  I said, “Give me back $6.”  He understood all right but still basically ignored my request saying, “Wait.”  

After some time the young man returned with a copy of my passport.  What, no copy machine in the Immigration office where obviously they make copies of every passport?!!  Then came more looking through my passport stamps and more counting on fingers, more calculating over and over about how many days overstay it was.  Finally he opened his drawer and took my money and acted as if he didn’t have the exact change but then for good measure scrutinized my money again and acted like he found a flaw anyway and rejected it all.  He shoved it rudely across his desk and waved his hand for me to get out of there.  

At that I was starting to lose my patience but I knew that would not speed things up one bit.  It had already taken about 45 minutes to this point!  I went to my bike and dug through my money and came up with $18 of crisp clean bills.  I told Andrea the Immigration guys were both pieces of work.  

When I went back in one of the officers was gone.  He had seemed to be a slightly higher rank than the other guy and probably the one I had to deal with ultimately so I was irritated at his absence so suddenly.  I asked the other guy where he was and he just waved his hand as if he couldn’t come up with one single English word to explain to me.  He actually didn’t want to be bothered because he was playing a video game on his phone!  He played for quite some time and I sat there thinking the other guy maybe went to have dinner!

Then a cute young Japanese woman came in and the officer immediately dropped his interest in his game and went right into speaking perfect English with her.  He could tell she was Japanese right away.  He was even speaking a few Japanese words with her.  He thought he was so cute coming up with all the basics.  She smiled.  What could she do, she knew she had to deal with this jerk and why not butter him up.  He said he had been to Japan and told her all about it.  She feigned interest in his stupid trip to Japan.  I’m just sitting there rolling my eyes and wondering if the other guy was on his dessert course yet.  After the Japanese buff had run out of Japanese words he told the woman to have a seat but there wasn’t a seat so he jumped up and found one for her, smiling a ridiculous smile the whole time.  What a flirt! 

He came back to his desk to get back into his video game on his phone.  We all sat there in silence for a long time.  I was getting really mad and I hung my head as if I was angry and bored out of my mind and just barely tolerating what was going on in that Immigration office.  Finally, his video game was finished and he jumped into action.  He moved to the other desk and acted like he was in charge.  The other guy had not returned so he started filling out form after form and checking them twice and again counting on his fingers my overstay days.  I gave him the $18 and he took quite a lot of time finding a good place to keep it inside a folder in the desk.  

The other guy finally returned from wherever and acted like he had been gone for only two minutes.  He told the Japanese woman to sit in front of his desk and he too suddenly knew English quite well! Then he had to put a form into an incredibly big roll of forms that was tied with a string.  He spent minutes undoing the string and added the form to the big wad of forms and then took many minutes retying the string.  We all sat and watched this, the Japanese woman, Video Game Immigration Officer, the young man and myself.  In silence we all watched this 19th century event take place; A two bit officer exerting as much authority and control over others as he possibly could by tying a piece of string.  We all hung in the balance and I seriously wondered what century Myanmar was in.  I was losing hope for the entire country by the second.  I was thinking that the two officers were about as ignorant as any grown man could be.  By exhibiting their math skills over and over, and their exceptional skills at wasting time, it was apparent they had no more than a third grade education.   There were buffoons.  I thought about how many people in the government at the highest levels had the same skills and how many years it will take to change that simple fact considering the quality of education throughout the country.  The people of Myanmar are really nice and most have a great drive to succeed but with the obstacles in front of them I just wonder how they can move forward.  My time in the Immigration office was a microcosm of the larger government and I was losing hope for the country. 

By this time I was sitting in front of the other desk which had a mounted camera.  Video game Immigration officer had me and was filling out yet another set of forms and all the information was done again which took many minutes.  Finally he was ready to take my photo.  I could not muster a smile, I was hot and covered in red dust.  I chose a disgusted look for whatever the photo was for anyway.  Maybe it will end up in some wad of papers rolled up and tied with a string that no one will ever see again.  

By the time we were all done and I had my passport back and they had scrutinized my money one more time and had both yet again counted the days on their fingers, I was out of there.  Andrea’s turn.

She went through much of what I did however I was outside struggling with finding some optimism for the country and not knowing what nonsense she was being subjected to.  After a long time she came bursting outside to inform me that they had discovered that we had in fact overstayed eight days not six.  They wanted more money from me!  

I went in with extra money to cover the difference for each of us and the mood of the two officers had changed from breezy day to ugly night.  They were mad.  They were acting like I had pulled a fast one with them and they were demanding more money NOW!  I tried to tell them I had tried to give them $24 and in fact I had!!  But they were back in the part of their brains where English was not accessible.  All they wanted was those dollars.  

It was amazing to me how they suddenly had to save face and not joke about it being a simple mistake they had made.  They were both in frantic action using White Out on all their forms and the take-an-hour-long-break officer suddenly could untie and retie a string really quickly.  It was as if the officer above them was watching their mistake and they had to correct it as quickly as possible.  They were obviously worried.  It was revealing of the many many layers of authority in the country, much like the caste system, and everyone was always trying to avoid getting into trouble with the person above them.  There are always more powerful people above you.  

Neither of the officers could joke one bit about their mistake and I thought it was very sad.  In Thailand it would be the opposite; people actually look for ways to laugh even at themselves.  It’s what makes Thailand a joy and where I guess we needed to go as quickly as possible.  It’s sad to leave Myanmar on such a note after yet another great visit.  The bottom line is that the Burmese people are the most wonderful people a person could ever meet and everyone should visit Myanmar.   

lovebruce

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Jen RahnThis tangled mess actually looks pretty tidy next to your experience in Myanmar Immigration.
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4 years ago

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