I have decided to make a serious effort at learning Burmese. Back home in Canada I wanted to do the same thing but it is near impossible to do. In the dump thou I have 100 or more teachers willing to help me. The people here actually enjoy helping me learn, they enjoy giving back. They are teachers who will laugh and share their knowledge to this wannabe Burmese speaker. It is also indirectly a great way to connect and make friends. I have found that people from Asian cultures always love it when you try to speak their language.
Speaking a bit of Thai in the dump yesterday to a Burmese lady helped to clarify the importance of language to me. I have been sort of blindly watching for so long here (4 years or so), always only seeing and looking for visuals to photograph that I forgot the importance of listening and learning that way as well.
In the video I was trying to speak a bit of Burmese (only know a bit) to the 80 year old mother of Dowe-OO when a young child walking by with his mother started to cry. I looked over and the child went into a bit of "Who is that big white guy shock." and stopped crying out of curiosity, so cute to see. I found out the mother spoke some Thai. She told me she worked in Mae Sot, washing clothes (I think) and that she did not have a motorbike but cycled in each day to work. That is a bit of a long haul as even on my motorbike it takes me maybe 20 minutes to drive in from Mae Sot. She also later told me where she lived and invited me over the next day. My Thai seemed to be a bit better than hers but I am far from fluent. But just having a little bit of Thai speaking ability made all the difference, I learned many things from a 2 minute talk as a result.
Language, language, language. I got to learn me some Burmese! I am like a deaf man in the dump. I will only learn more about the families lives by first learning more language myself. I am now 53 so learning a new language at that age ain't the easiest of things. I have thou in the past had a bit of a language learning gift. It not easy for me to learn, not as easy as some people certainly but I think it is a bit more easy for me to learn Burmese than some of my friends back home, maybe I just work harder at it, not sure. Maybe the photography pushes me forward, I know with more language, better pics will come of it. Photography has always ruled everything in my life and seems to have lead me down the good path. I like to follow where it takes me.
Anyway, lets try to learn Burmese. Ouch!! My head and mouth hurt already! This should be interesting.
Lets summarize my goals this trip, make a documentary film, shoot 240 sheets of 8x10 and hundreds of rolls of 35mm film, do $3273.43 CAD worth of donation work and now LEARN BURMESE..
No problem! Easy Speazy. Let's get to it :))
Speaking a bit of Thai in the dump yesterday to a Burmese lady helped to clarify the importance of language to me. I have been sort of blindly watching for so long here (4 years or so), always only seeing and looking for visuals to photograph that I forgot the importance of listening and learning that way as well.
In the video I was trying to speak a bit of Burmese (only know a bit) to the 80 year old mother of Dowe-OO when a young child walking by with his mother started to cry. I looked over and the child went into a bit of "Who is that big white guy shock." and stopped crying out of curiosity, so cute to see. I found out the mother spoke some Thai. She told me she worked in Mae Sot, washing clothes (I think) and that she did not have a motorbike but cycled in each day to work. That is a bit of a long haul as even on my motorbike it takes me maybe 20 minutes to drive in from Mae Sot. She also later told me where she lived and invited me over the next day. My Thai seemed to be a bit better than hers but I am far from fluent. But just having a little bit of Thai speaking ability made all the difference, I learned many things from a 2 minute talk as a result.
Language, language, language. I got to learn me some Burmese! I am like a deaf man in the dump. I will only learn more about the families lives by first learning more language myself. I am now 53 so learning a new language at that age ain't the easiest of things. I have thou in the past had a bit of a language learning gift. It not easy for me to learn, not as easy as some people certainly but I think it is a bit more easy for me to learn Burmese than some of my friends back home, maybe I just work harder at it, not sure. Maybe the photography pushes me forward, I know with more language, better pics will come of it. Photography has always ruled everything in my life and seems to have lead me down the good path. I like to follow where it takes me.
Anyway, lets try to learn Burmese. Ouch!! My head and mouth hurt already! This should be interesting.
Lets summarize my goals this trip, make a documentary film, shoot 240 sheets of 8x10 and hundreds of rolls of 35mm film, do $3273.43 CAD worth of donation work and now LEARN BURMESE..
No problem! Easy Speazy. Let's get to it :))
