Just as I like to read geographically when I travel (i.e. reading The Death and Life of the Great Lakes while traveling from the Boundary Waters in northern MN to Sault Ste. Marie, MI earlier this month), I also like to research beforehand places I’ll eventually visit. That’s the case with this book selection from our local library, Cultures of the World: Myanmar.

My plans for visiting Myanmar in the coming year have garnered some interesting reactions from those who’ve heard about it, my wife not excepted! Despite the upheaval the nation has been experiencing ever since the military coup of 2021, those whom I hope to visit for a long-awaited meet-and-greet have been living there for years and say that its capitol (Yangon, formerly Rangoon) is totally safe for foreign travel…despite the death and despair that the villages and mountain areas are experiencing.

I’ve gotta admit, it’s a difficult trip to ponder. I anticipate it like one might anticipate experimental Lasik surgery—there’s risk involved, but if all goes well, I’ll exit with spectacularly improved vision. So you can join me in praying that all goes well!

This book was a fantastically honest look at a nation that appears to be one of the most difficult nations in the world to describe. It’s at once a nation which boasts a long ethnic history, and yet also a nation with a long history of ethic infiltration and dilution. It’s the quintessential mishmash of people groups—native peoples, immigrants, visitors, and colonists all intermixed—so that the nation has little semblance of who belongs and who doesn’t. This racial confusion and historical disparity of who deserves what is the main reason for its recent histories of internal conflict, revolutions, and coups. For this reason, the book offers a “Travel Tip” pretty early on that’s surprising for a book that tries to get readers to understand and interact with a particular culture of the world. It reads:

“In 2021, the U.S. State Department issued a travel advisory warning Americans not to visit Myanmar due to high risk of COVID-19 as well as civil unrest.” (16)

As of 1 minute ago, the State Department’s Travel Advisory remains at Level 4, stating:

“Do not travel to Burma due to civil unrest and armed conflict. Reconsider travel to Burma due to limited and/or inadequate healthcare resources. Exercise extreme caution due to wrongful detentions and areas with land mines and unexploded ordinances.” (travel.state.gov)

Despite all this, the book also successfully informs readers about the many cultural aspects that make Myanmar a place worth exploring. The chapters of the book are broken down thematically into the following big-picture topics:

1. Geography
2. History
3. Government
4. Economy
5. Environment
6. The Myanmar (which is meant to have a British and therefore silent “r” at the end)
7. Lifestyle
8. Religion
9. Language
10. Arts
11. Leisure
12. Festivals
13. Food

Each of these chapters offered brand new insight to me, the Newbie, so I appreciated the book most for its educational value. Despite the fact that it’s illustrated and printed in a way that makes it better suited to grace the shelves of your library’s Children’s section, the book is actually quite meaty, touching on areas that a kids’ book would most likely ignore. I found it helpful, extremely informative for the beginner, and well worth my time and yours…if a trip to Myanmar happens to be on your horizon as well.

©2023 E.T.