James Cheyne, freelance journalist in Rangoon, Burma
Mid Afternoon.
I stepped from a seriously old and battered Toyota into Pazunduang Township, Rangoon, Burma. A sticky 35 Celsius, I felt like I’d just landed on Mars. Fittingly some of the locals looked at me like I’d just come from there. White western tourists are still very few and far between. I’d organized a place to stay. $15 for a double room. Not the best price ever but not bad. I handed the lady a $20 bill. She immediately gave it straight back to me. “Do you have another?” She asked. “Why what’s wrong with this one?” “It’s broken” she replied, pointing to a tiny tear near the top right hand corner. I dug out a second but to no avail. “It’s dirty” she gestured to an ink stain on the edge which hadn’t seemed important back at Bangkok airport. After a bit more back and forth it emerged around a third of my budget for the week was unuseable. “Where’s the nearest ATM to here?” I asked with slight but rising panic. You might already have guessed her answer … Bangkok Airport. And so began the battle to get rid of my dirty dollars. Which I did through the black market and by swapping with other departing westerners. They weren’t acceptable because of that very fact, there’s no banks here – at least none accessible to ordinary Burmese. Ordinary Burmese instead hand their dollars to the boss who hands them to a broker who gets them out of the country – often through the hands of people who deal in drugs and weapons as well – people who insist on crisp, clean, smooth notes. They, at the top of the chain, have the power of refusal; those at the bottom have no choice but to comply. It’s a depressing, frustrating situation, made worse by the fact that when you use some of the local currency, The Kyat, the notes come tattered, torn, faded and held together with tape – another offshoot of having no banks of course, few new ones are ever printed. A constantly shifting exchange rate between the two currencies can leave you ripped off or clutching huge piles of notes, depending on what hour you head down the local market and who you ask for help. Fifteen years ago there were some U.S. forgeries bearing serial numbers beginning CB, find yourself stuck with a real hundred dollar bill like this and it also becomes useless. This system seems insane but it’s by no means the biggest financial problem the country has faced. The old President Ne Win, had a habit of declaring certain banknotes officially useless, no longer legal tender. His random decisions would wipe out people’s savings overnight and he’d then introduce new bills with bizarre numbers. He dreamed up a 75 Kyat note on is 75th birthday and a 90 Kyat note because he was obsessed with the number 9. I know this is true because I managed to track a couple of these notes down, buy them for well over their value then break the rules by taking them out of the country. Many Burmese people are poor, many are hungry. Here in Pazunduang Township many of their children run around the backstreets naked and dirty with little future to speak of right now. Being forced to turn down a sale from a comparatively rich westerner because of a tiny tear in a dollar bill seems to add a pointless layer of sadness to the tragic situation they face. It seems to bring a whole new meaning to our beloved phrase ‘financial crisis.’ It just seems wrong.
I stepped from a seriously old and battered Toyota into Pazunduang Township, Rangoon, Burma. A sticky 35 Celsius, I felt like I’d just landed on Mars. Fittingly some of the locals looked at me like I’d just come from there. White western tourists are still very few and far between. I’d organized a place to stay. $15 for a double room. Not the best price ever but not bad. I handed the lady a $20 bill. She immediately gave it straight back to me. “Do you have another?” She asked. “Why what’s wrong with this one?” “It’s broken” she replied, pointing to a tiny tear near the top right hand corner. I dug out a second but to no avail. “It’s dirty” she gestured to an ink stain on the edge which hadn’t seemed important back at Bangkok airport. After a bit more back and forth it emerged around a third of my budget for the week was unuseable. “Where’s the nearest ATM to here?” I asked with slight but rising panic. You might already have guessed her answer … Bangkok Airport. And so began the battle to get rid of my dirty dollars. Which I did through the black market and by swapping with other departing westerners. They weren’t acceptable because of that very fact, there’s no banks here – at least none accessible to ordinary Burmese. Ordinary Burmese instead hand their dollars to the boss who hands them to a broker who gets them out of the country – often through the hands of people who deal in drugs and weapons as well – people who insist on crisp, clean, smooth notes. They, at the top of the chain, have the power of refusal; those at the bottom have no choice but to comply. It’s a depressing, frustrating situation, made worse by the fact that when you use some of the local currency, The Kyat, the notes come tattered, torn, faded and held together with tape – another offshoot of having no banks of course, few new ones are ever printed. A constantly shifting exchange rate between the two currencies can leave you ripped off or clutching huge piles of notes, depending on what hour you head down the local market and who you ask for help. Fifteen years ago there were some U.S. forgeries bearing serial numbers beginning CB, find yourself stuck with a real hundred dollar bill like this and it also becomes useless. This system seems insane but it’s by no means the biggest financial problem the country has faced. The old President Ne Win, had a habit of declaring certain banknotes officially useless, no longer legal tender. His random decisions would wipe out people’s savings overnight and he’d then introduce new bills with bizarre numbers. He dreamed up a 75 Kyat note on is 75th birthday and a 90 Kyat note because he was obsessed with the number 9. I know this is true because I managed to track a couple of these notes down, buy them for well over their value then break the rules by taking them out of the country. Many Burmese people are poor, many are hungry. Here in Pazunduang Township many of their children run around the backstreets naked and dirty with little future to speak of right now. Being forced to turn down a sale from a comparatively rich westerner because of a tiny tear in a dollar bill seems to add a pointless layer of sadness to the tragic situation they face. It seems to bring a whole new meaning to our beloved phrase ‘financial crisis.’ It just seems wrong.
