Tuesday 20 August 2013

Internship in Burma

I started to do my internship from yesterday in Burma, Yangon. So I decided to write some stories of what I have been experiencing here. It has been only two days but there are tons of stories to write. The place is called Pansodan Art Gallery and Canadian woman whose name is Nance and Burmese man whose name is Aung Soe Min started this gallery. Although it is called Gallery, they are working on other things, too.

So far, I am doing my job at the research center of this gallery, and there are tons of documents, photos, ads, paintings, and so on. They are all just squeezed into the room that it is almost like a jungle of documents. U Thein(I don't really know how to write his name) showed me around and I was just amazed with the rich Burmese history and his effort of collecting everything. So I've decided to clean up and organize that research center since everything is just piled up in chaos. I am especially focusing on the old photos of Burma where you can see some family photos, old architectures, news photos and so on. With this many documents, I could open up at least three museums, but they are still sleeping inside this room. U Thein showed me the old Japanese currency used in Burma during the colonization. I could read the old Japanese characters. 50 years ago, this money was used in this country!!! There were also some Japanese documents, too. I wish I could translate them into Burmese!!

Everytime I touch something, I feel the deep history behind it. And I feel the pressure and the excitement inside me. Although it has been only two days, I really enjoy my job. Nance actually let me do anything what I want to do, so the first week, I will just try to do my best to organize things and figure out in my head what I can do to be creative!

It is just nice to be surrounded by arts, and people who appreciate them. Burma is famous for its political and economical reasons mainly, but that is only one part of the country. I believe that there is no simple word to express a country and art explains that a lot.

Different kinds of people come and go to this gallery, Dutch guy filming a democratic debate in Burma, German guy starting his own Beer company, travellers buying lots of paintings, students exploring the country, artists selling their paintings, writers producing their books, and so on. I am willing to meet new people and discover more. SO if you are interested, feel free to follow my blog!

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