by David Eimer
Eradicating foreign influences was another priority. Western-style entertainment venues were closed down. Faced with rising official prejudice, Indians and Chinese began fleeing. Around 300,000 Indians and 100,000 Chinese had departed by 1967, as well as many Anglo-Burmese, an exodus which had an immediate and deleterious effect. Indians and Chinese were shopowners and wholesalers, the middlemen of the economy. Driving them out did nothing for Burma’s financial prospects.
Part-Chinese himself, Ne Win’s xenophobia didn’t prevent him from making a half-Australian woman one of his six wives. He was also a gambler and a regular at the Rangoon racecourse – where he met one of his brides – before he banned horse racing. Nor did Ne Win let his socialist beliefs interfere with his own life of luxury. Reputed to bathe in the blood of dolphins, he is said to have amassed a personal fortune of £2.8 billion during his time in power.
More than anything Ne Win enjoyed a round of golf, the sport introduced by Scottish expatriates in the colonial era. Nervous about being assassinated, he would take to the links in a steel helmet and with a battalion of soldiers guarding him. Golf became the favoured sport of Tatmadaw officers keen to ingratiate themselves with their leader – Ne Win once slapped the chief of military intelligence because he didn’t play. Now, golf courses can be found close to army bases across the country, even in the conflict-torn borderlands, often built on land confiscated from local farmers.
Abandoning the name he was born with, Shu Maung, Ne Win chose a moniker which reflected his revised perception of himself. Ne Win means ‘Brilliant as the sun’, and he adopted the name when he became one of the Thirty Comrades, the founding members of the Aung San-led Burma Independence Army, the organisation that would become the Tatmadaw. From 1949 Ne Win was its commander and he oversaw the battles against the Karen militias and communist rebels in the 1950s.
Deeply duplicitous, paranoid and ruthless – U Nu described him as ‘more terrible than Ivan the Terrible’ – Ne Win unleashed the vicious war against the ethnic minorities in the frontier areas that continues today and had thousands of dissidents imprisoned and tortured. He survived protests and plots against him to run Burma for decades. Even after stepping down as head of the regime in 1988 he continued to rule as the power behind the throne for many more years.
Building a new Burma was beyond Ne Win, though. ‘The Burmese Way to Socialism’ was an abject failure, like every other attempt at remodelling the state. Three years after his coup even Ne Win was forced to admit that the already precarious economy was unravelling, as Burma lost its status as the world’s leading rice exporter and the country became ever more isolated from the rest of the world. The generals and cronies were adept at enriching themselves, far less proficient at managing a country.
Yet Ne Win did not turn Burma into a totalitarian state on his own or single-handedly put its economy on life support. He did it with the help of astrologers and numerologists. On Ne Win’s watch Burma was a nation ruled as much by soothsayers as generals. U Nu may have tipped his hat to the nat spirits, but the junta governed in a fantastical fashion that defied logic, reliant on occult mysteries to steer the country.
Burma has a long history of whimsical rule. It is a profoundly superstitious nation, a land where a still potent spirit world coexists with Buddhism and fortune-tellers wield an influence that would be unimaginable in the West, and it has always been that way. Ne Win set up an official board of astrologers to advise on the timing of state events, but he was simply reviving a body that had done the same job for Burma’s kings.
When the Union Jack was run down the flagpole in Yangon for the final time on 4 January 1948, it occurred at 4.20 in the morning. Eminent astrologers had agreed that was the most auspicious time for Burma to begin its life as an independent nation. Sir Hubert Rance, the last British governor, didn’t question the decision. He made sure only to get up very early to be at the ceremony in downtown.
Under the junta, though, rule by necromancers was taken to extremes. The Japanese government funded a planetarium which hides in a corner of Yangon’s People’s Park. Locals were barred from stargazing. Instead, the planetarium was used by Ne Win’s astrologers for their calculations. Burma’s leader could also sometimes be seen walking backwards across bridges late at night, apparently on the advice of his seer.
In 1970 Ne Win switched the side of the road people drive on to the right, after his astrologer indicated that Burma was drifting to the left politically. He devalued the country’s currency deliberately by introducing forty-five and ninety kyat notes in 1987, because they were variables on his lucky number nine, while at the same time withdrawing the seventy-five kyat note issued to mark his seventy-fifth birthday, along with the twenty-five and thirty-five kyat notes. Ne Win gave no warning for this substitution, thus rendering around two thirds of the money in circulation worthless.
Than Shwe, who led the junta from 1992 to 2011, also sought the advice of soothsayers. He was a keen follower of ket kin, a form of fortune-telling where letters of the Burmese alphabet correspond to a day of a week that indicates a number and planet. Than Shwe and his wife were also practitioners of yadaya, rituals undertaken to prevent future misfortune. Yadaya can mean nothing more sinister than building a pagoda to make merit, but the junta employed its own rites in an effort to neutralise Daw Suu’s appeal.
Magic was not an effective way of stymieing political opponents. The junta’s astrologists picked 27 May as the day of the 1990 general election, because the date was a multiple of nine, a lucky digit in Burma. The NLD still won 80 per cent of all seats, even if the generals refused to accept the result and simply carried on ruling. Than Shwe had more success in ensuring that the prison sentences handed down to pro-democracy activists were variables of eleven. Known as the ‘master number’ by numerologists, the auspicious double one in the number eleven is believed to represent both male and female energy, a combination of power and intuition.
Most startling of all, Than Shwe relocated the capital from Yangon to the new city of Naypyidaw in November 2005 after his fortune-teller told him that Burma faced an impending attack from the West. The sight of foreign navy vessels in the Bay of Bengal during the 1988 pro-democracy uprising had focused the regime’s mind on the possibility of being overthrown by overseas forces. Than Shwe is thought to have reasoned that moving the capital inland to the centre of the country, away from the sea, would make it harder for any invading army to capture him.
Soothsaying is a risky profession at the highest level. Many astrologers to the generals, such as Ne Win’s, were imprisoned after their patrons died or were purged, their wizardry seen as a threat by the men who succeeded their former clients. Astrologers and numerologists are less prominent now than they were under the military. But the dates of important events, like the signing of ceasefires with ethnic armies, continue to be chosen because they are variables of nine or add up to the number eleven.
Not everyone in Burma is as obsessive about attempting to predict and control the future as the generals were, but consulting a fortune-teller is not considered unusual. Many people possess personal astrological charts, usually drawn up soon after they were born, and it is an important reference point for them. Visiting an astrologer or ket kin specialist to discuss a favourable date for a marriage or a change of name, to check your job prospects or to see if romance is in the air, is regarded as prudent rather than eccentric.
As a proud iconoclast Thida is, of course, as dismissive of divining destiny as she is of nat worship. But she is also superstitious, insisting on the existence of ghosts, and I knew she had met with astrologers in the past. Thida admitted that her cynicism was actually the result of an unpalatable prediction about her former husband that came true. ‘A fortune-teller told me that I had no future with my first love. I didn’t believe him, but he was right. Now I hate fortune-tellers,’ she said. Nevertheless, Thida agreed to accompany me to one.
Astrologers and numerologists can be found all over Yangon, many c
ongregating near prominent pagodas. Others squat on pavements in downtown, their charts laid out in front of them, waiting for passing trade. The most successful soothsayers have their own premises, or make house calls to the wealthy housewives of Golden Valley, as well as to politicians and senior army officers. A few commute between Yangon and Naypyidaw, home to parliament and the government.
Thida recommended a seer named Zay Yar San, the regular fortune-teller to one of her friends and family. We met at the apartment of the friend, a young doctor who told me she worked at home. ‘People call in with their symptoms and I tell them what they should do. What drugs they should buy, or whether they need to go to hospital,’ she said. Medical consultations by phone were a new phenomenon to me and she didn’t seem busy, soon sitting on the floor with Thida and I and listening to the fortune-teller.
Zay Yar San was middle-aged with thick hair and flyaway eyebrows. The pocket of his check shirt bristled with pens and after bowing to the Buddhist shrine in the room he got straight to work, extracting a notebook from his bag and asking my date of birth, as well as the day and time I was born. He started making calculations, referring periodically to a row of numbers I could see in his notebook.
‘You want to explore new things. You have a different mind. Most people go from A to Z, you go from Z to A. It’s hard to read your mind,’ Zay Yar San began. ‘Don’t wear red at important meetings or rent an apartment facing east. Try to eat less beef, it is not good for you. Don’t sign contracts on Thursdays or Sundays. You can’t rely on some of your close friends. Strangers are better for you.’
It was a barrage of advice, unleashed so fast it was hard for Thida to translate Zay Yar San’s predictions before he had moved on to the next one. ‘Your lucky colour is black, your lucky day is Wednesday. Thailand and China are lucky countries for you. I think you’ll be living in Buddhist countries for the next eight years,’ he continued. ‘You should think about taking up meditation. It will improve your thinking skills. I think you will become interested in religion and write a book about one. You’ll do that when you are fifty-eight.’
I was grudgingly impressed. He didn’t know that I was a writer, or a former resident of China and Thailand, although I was aware that the most talented fortune-tellers are adept at telling people what they want to hear. I was keen to know if Zay Yar San pulled his punches sometimes, keeping his prophecies positive rather than upsetting his clients. ‘I’ll tell people bad news if they need to know and I think they can cope with it,’ he said. ‘Some people like to test the fortune-teller. If they do that with me I won’t spare them bad news.’
An ability to read people is part of the job description for any astrologer, but I was curious how he had got into the business of predicting the future. ‘I studied and studied and then I became one,’ grinned Zay Yar San, who had clearly encountered doubters before. ‘I didn’t believe in it at first, but I studied with a monk from the age of eighteen and also from books and meditation. I’ve never done any other job as an adult.’
Now, he is normally only available to regular customers. ‘I’ll see ten to twenty people a week. Some of my clients are senior officials and they’ll come for advice before making big decisions. Other clients want to see me when there is a specific issue. Should I start a new business? What’s the best day for my child to marry? But I work with a football team also and today is a Friday, so they’ll be asking later what is the best colour for them to wear this weekend to increase their chances of winning,’ said Zay Yar San.
Tradition plays a part in the enduring appeal of fortune-tellers, as does the close connection between numerology and Buddhism. ‘Nine is a significant number because it comes from Buddhism. There are so many nines, or variables of it, in the history of Buddhism, like the forty-five years he was Buddha,’ said Zay Yar San. ‘The numerology derives originally from India, but it was adapted long ago for Burma’.
Ket kin is the most complex form of fortune-telling and I struggled to follow Zay Yar San’s explanation of ‘numbers magic’, as it is sometimes known in Burma. ‘In our alphabet sounds and syllables are related to numbers and days of the week, and in turn planets. There are good number combinations and bad ones,’ he told me. Reversing or manipulating the combinations is believed to be a way of influencing the fate of people, which is what Than Shwe is thought to have tried to do with Aung San Suu Kyi.
Employing numerology in an attempt to crush a nationwide democracy movement is both odd and optimistic. But Than Shwe’s reliance on fortune-tellers took on a more serious tone with his unexpected decision to create a brand-new capital at a cost estimated at almost £3 billion, a huge amount for cash-strapped Burma. On 6 November 2005 Naypyidaw became the country’s administrative centre and the first government departments to move there left Yangon the same day at 6.37 a.m., a time judged favourable by the junta’s astrologers.
Moving the capital to a purpose-built city was the ultimate hubris. The last local to relocate Burma’s government was King Mindon, who founded Mandalay in 1857 as his royal capital. Naypyidaw, which means ‘abode of kings’, was Than Shwe’s attempt to match Mindon. He viewed himself as the modern-day incarnation of Burma’s sovereigns, with the Tatmadaw as the inheritor and defender of their traditions. Both Than Shwe and Ne Win were fond of dressing up in antique royal costume at private parties.
The Tatmadaw idealise three kings in particular: Anawrahta, Bayinnaung and Alaungpaya. They were the most imperial and aggressive of the country’s monarchs, carving out what is now inland Burma as well as briefly creating an empire that pushed into present-day Thailand, India and China. Three giant golden statues of these warrior kings sit in Naypyidaw, overlooking the vast parade ground where the Tatmadaw marches on important national holidays.
Naypyidaw is above all an army town, and the military control everything from the sole taxi company to access to the neighbourhoods where senior officers and politicians live. Much of Naypyidaw is barred to ordinary people, including the parade ground, while its sprawling layout and lack of a real centre is intentional, designed to deny potential protestors a focal point where they can gather to shut down the city.
Lying in the far south of the dry zone, almost equidistant between Yangon and Mandalay, Naypyidaw is the junta’s monument to itself. The generals failed to modernise or improve Burma’s cities, or any part of the country, in their almost fifty years in power. But they did leave behind Naypyidaw, a dictator’s dream inspired by a necromancer’s vision. Five hours’ drive north of Yangon, it is a city like no other in Southeast Asia.
Wide, well-maintained avenues are interspersed with landscaped traffic circles sown with colourful flowers, the lawns watered daily and given a weekly short-back-and-sides trim. Newly planted trees and immaculate green verges line proper pavements you can stroll down without risking injury, unlike Yangon’s, although Naypyidaw is so spread out that walking anywhere is difficult.
Government offices are stationed around Naypyidaw, miles apart from each other. Parliament, a complex of thirty-one buildings believed to represent the thirty-one different planes of existence that Buddhists can be reborn into, hides behind a high fence that lines a ten-lane road in Naypyidaw’s north-west. The road was so deserted when I visited that I stood in the middle of it for five minutes without seeing a car. It was built not to cope with heavy traffic but to allow planes to land and evacuate senior members of the junta in the event of a revolt or invasion.
Apartment blocks housing civil servants – their roofs colour-coded red, green or blue according to their ministries – stand in isolation, separated from each other by wasteland. Villas and mansions, the biggest imitating the new-build houses of Yangon’s Golden Valley, their columns and balconies peering over tightly guarded gates and walls, house senior government and Tatmadaw figures. Lanes of single-storey houses on hushed, dusty streets act as Naypyidaw’s homage to American-style suburbia, with neat backyards and parking for cars out front.
Pedestrians are a rare sight
, except in a couple of areas where shopping malls can be found. ‘Asia’s Greenest City’ is Naypyidaw’s proud boast. It is certainly the most deserted, a place where you wonder where everyone is. But Naypyidaw is rural, a metropolis that has sprouted out of what was farmland and forest little more than a decade ago. Haystacks teeter by the sides of the roads where animals graze, while Naypyidaw’s far fringes blend into fields of rice, sesame and beans that run towards the foothills of the Shan Yoma range, which begin their ascent towards the Shan plateau to the north of the city.
Home to a million-plus people, although it doesn’t feel like it, Naypyidaw is now Burma’s third-largest city after Yangon and Mandalay. The official residents are almost all government or military employees. But many others have moved here, too, like camp followers trailing behind an eighteenth-century army, toiling as domestic servants or functionaries in the ministries, manicuring the flowerbeds that line the roads and staffing the many hotels.
Foreigners are not allowed to rent homes in Naypyidaw. Nor is there much sign that they want to. Despite the lure of living in ‘Asia’s Greenest City’, as well as the fastest internet in the entire country, almost all diplomats have flatly refused to relocate to the new capital, stubbornly keeping to their embassies in Yangon’s downtown and Golden Valley. Those foreigners who do have to move to Naypyidaw, mainly United Nations employees, occupy the hotels that cluster in two specific zones in the north and south of the city.
Many Burmese are unwilling Naypyidaw residents, required to live there by virtue of their work for the government, and their families often stay in their home towns. For foreigners exiled to Naypyidaw it is an alienating city, one where the dearth of human contact and entertainment venues, except for a few restaurants, and the city’s sheer size make it an isolated, lonely posting. But I enjoyed my infrequent visits, the extreme quiet, lack of traffic and studied neatness a welcome break from the bedlam of Yangon.