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Burma
By John Meade
Discussion and Interpretation with
Burmese Monks
One of
the most memorable experiences that I
had in Burma was my visit to a local monastery and nunnery in
Yangon. We arrived at the facility to the welcoming cheers of
young children from the surrounding neighborhood. As we were led
into the monastery we passed by dozens of monks going about their daily
business. Everyone seemed very pleased to see us.
We were brought into a large reception
room. Seated in the room were all of the juvenile monks and
nuns. There were at least two hundred children and young adults
waiting for us in the room. We lined up in front of the stage and
one of the older adolescent monks read a short speech welcoming us to
their school and home. A short song by the entire gathering
followed. We introduced ourselves, sang a short song in return,
and were then allowed to break off into groups to have a discussion
with the monks and nuns.
I approached a group of the older male monks
and sat down with a friend from the trip. We began to talk with
the monks. They were the same age as we, shared similar
interests, and enjoyed making jokes with us. We talked about
school, homework, and the stress of being in your early twenties, and a
multitude of other topics. It was very easy to speak with
them. There was no tension in the air and they truly seemed to
enjoy our company.
The only real barrier that we faced was the
difficulty of understanding each other’s language. We obviously
spoke quite limited Burmese and their English skills were
minimal. We had one of the administrators come over to help
translate so that we could have a more stimulating conversation.
With his help we were able learn a great deal from the monks. I
did find it difficult to ask the questions that were really concerning
me though. I wanted to know about their decisions to join the
monastery. I wanted to know how deep
their devotion to Buddhism
was.
I realized after my trip to Burma that I should
have been more prepared for my talk with the monks. Even if they
had been hesitant to answer my questions, I could have learned much
from their body language after I asked the questions. Laurie
Price points out this fact when she discusses structured observation in
chapter, "Carrying Out a Structured Observation" in Doing Cultural Anthropology.
She writes, “Ethnographic
observation is particularly important when the subject is one about
which participants might not be entirely forthcoming when asked
questions about their behavior”. Although I was able to infer
much from their mannerisms, if I ever have the opportunity to speak
with Burmese monks again (and I hope I do) I will enter into the
discussion much better prepared to ask the tough questions that I want
to know.
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