Yellow cheeks
I was planning to have another go at the fisherman's boat picture at the weekend, in hopes of coming up with the Definitive Version (ahem), but somehow I didn't really feel like it. So instead I'm going to post a couple of Burmese portraits. They're just snapshots, really -- nothing fancy -- but I wanted to include them in the series, anyway, as they're so quintessentially Burmese.
Quick introduction: Have you ever seen pictures of African tribes who put ochre-coloured stuff on their faces and bodies? Well, in Burma they do something similar, only there it's a light yellow pulp they put on their faces. Apparently, it's dried tree bark, ground and mixed with water to form a soothing cream which is said to protect the skin from the sun and keep it cool. Most people just put a massive dab on their cheeks and randomly smear it out, sometimes in such a way that you can see their handprints when the stuff dries up; others turn it into a fashion accessory of sorts, applying the cream as if it were some kind of make-up. When I was in Burma, I saw girls with concentric circles and coils on their cheeks, and one day I even came across a girl with yellow hearts on her face, which looked quite bizarre but really quite charming. Either way, it's a distinctly Burmese phenomenon; I don't think I've ever seen anything like it elsewhere.
Young boy, Mandalay harbour, proving that Hello Kitty is universal.
The cleaning ladies of the Shwedagon Temple in Yangon (Rangoon), taking a break from their duties. Sadly, due to a malfunctioning camera (...), I have very few photos of the temple itself, which epitomises everything Burma stands for.
Burma, 1998