Lacquer Ware Have You Come From?

Day 2 in the redish arid landscape of Bagan. We drove across the street from the hotel (mind you, this was in a huge tourist bus) to view a cross built into the side of a pagoda. After our far excursion, we drove back to the hotel so our leader could do something he forgot. Our second outing of the day took us to the Thra bar gate where we stopped for 20 minutes to take pictures of two statues. This was truly thrilling.

When we had eaten lunch and rested at the hotel from 1-4pm (this was a good thing as it is the hottest part of the day and I had already died 3x over from heat exhaustion), we moved on to a lacquer ware shop to learn the lengthy process of bamboo and flexible horse hair lacquer pieces. High quality lacquer ware takes anywhere from 6 months to a couple years to make. First the lacquer must be harvested from lacquer trees—something akin to collecting rubber or maple tree sap. One needs something to lacquer next. Two main types of material used at the shop we stopped at: bamboo and horse hair. Bamboo is coiled or woven to form rigid shapes while woven horse hair is as flexible as rubber.

Once you have a specific object created, a coating of black lacquer, ash and clay is applied. The process shifts to a time consuming back and forth between layering lacquer, drying it in a cellar and sanding/washing it. When the desired shininess and thickness are achieved, the piece is either finished as a shiny black or sent on for scribing and coloring. Colored pieces have colored lacquer added until thick enough to scratch down into to create a design with various pointed tools similar looking to calligraphy pens or dental tools. Artisans can etch in lines or blocks for extremely intricate animals, scenery or geometric designs. In-between colors coats of clear lacquer are added. At this shop I only saw red, yellow, green and blue coloring. Pieces ranged from monochromatic to all available colors.

What makes lacquer ware unique is its ability to waterproof, shine, fireproof and make unbreakable whatever it coats. Road (or temple) side salespeople would often show us how a lighter would not burn the piece and smashing it on the ground would not nick or crack it.

For very in-depth information:
http://asianspiritgallery.com/burmese-lacquerware-burma-lacquer-ware/

Crowds Harassed and Helpless...But Nevertheless Persistent

We arrived in Bagan around 8am. Our first stop was to the only Christian church for worship. Apparently 2 weeks of not having an English worship service makes me bawl during communion. Perhaps I was simply that hungry for a word of life. I really didn’t think I would be feasting on Jesus here between Buddhism and Baptists. With little good preaching and no bible to read, I savor the moments that do come. Perhaps this is a tiny taste of what it’s like to be a persecuted Christian or a frontier people trying to keep faith, hope and focus on Jesus. It was all a very strange occurrence for sure.

In the afternoon we visited the Shwe gugyi and the Dhamayan gyi temples ending the afternoon with a boat ride on the Ayarwady River. On the boat I tasted some tamarind sugar wafers and toffee/brittle bars with nuts in them. Nothing like a sugar rush to keep you going.

Every site we stopped at greeted us with a crowd of locals flocking around us to sell souvenirs. After a few stops all I could think about was Jesus being harassed by the helpless crowds of people who follow him during his alone time bringing him to have compassion on them. I, however, had little to no compassion for these people. They pressed in on us as soon as the bus door opened and we set foot on the ground. Some of the more talented and experienced sales people made the effort to talk with us and share some of their stories before asking us to support them and their family. This is how I met Mu Mu.

Mu Mu is 35 and has 5 kids. When she asked how old I was (27), she responded that she had 3 kids by my age. Her nearby sales mates chuckled at this fact. Mu Mu lives near Bagan and speaks excellent English which she learned from the tourists over the years. She worked from 7:30am to 7:30pm. As we made our way toward the bus, she asked me to stop at her shop to purchase something in support of her and her baby. I was strongly considering getting a small lacquer bowl or a bracelet (as this was something on my purchasing list), but had left my money on the bus. When I told her that I was not going to buy anything a wave of sadness washed over her face. She offered to wait while I retrieved my money from the bus. Though I felt bad for not supporting her, I also didn’t want to encourage her to continue business near the temple sites. Being tired, wiped out from the heat and severely irritated by the relentlessness of the saleswomen, I had little patience for the repeated drain of “You are very beautiful. You buy a __(insert souvenir of choice)__ from me? Pretty lady! Good deal for you! Lucky money. You like? Just looking okay. You like necklace? You want bowl?”