Myanmars = Myanmar
The man behind the portrait
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The man behind the portrait
MY first visit to the Bogyoke Aung San Museum was memorable, but not for all the right reasons. I had taken the opportunity to visit the museum on the one day of the year it opened - Martyrs' Day, July 19 - but in 2009 the reception was not exactly welcoming. The narrow Bogyoke Aung San Museum Road, which winds northward from Kandawgyi Lake toward Shwegonedaing Road, had been closed to traffic, so anyone wanting to pay tribute to the general had to file through a long cordon of police.
From atop the steep embankments on either side of the road, more police -who, in my memory, were silhouetted against the sky holding automatic weapons slung from their hip - watched on warily. This was at the height of Myanmar's trial of the century, when Bogyoke Aung's San daughter, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was accused of illegally sheltering a deranged American who had somehow managed to swim past dozens of police to her house in early May, so perhaps it was not surprising that the air was a little more charged than normal.
Of course, it was raining. I can't remember a Martyrs' Day when the heavens have not opened - the floods of 2014 being only slightly heavier than normal - but it seemed somehow appropriate for the somber mood that prevailed that afternoon. Martyrs' Day marks the anniversary of the assassination of Bogyoke Aung San national leader, father of independence, founder of the Tatmadaw - and eight others in the Secretariat building in an attack engineered by a political rival. It is an event from which Myanmar has spent decades trying to recover; for many, Martyrs' Day seems to ignite a "what if" line of thinking about Myanmar that is only now slowly starting to dissipate. Many people I saw seemed to be in a silent, almost meditative, contemplation, shuffling through the lower floors of the house in silence.
When I returned two years later, the solemnity remained but the oppressive atmosphere had already started to lift. There were few soldiers about and the number of visitors had swelled, with more than 100,000 visiting the museum throughout the day, including a large number of people with children. If anything, it had become slightly festive, with classic patriotic songs wafting through the air. Upstairs, one young man was writing down excerpts from some of Bogyoke Aung San's speeches in a notepad.
Whereas 2009 had seemed liked the depths of military rule, by mid-2011 the country's fortunes had begun to take a turn for the better. One of the early signs that the transition to civilian rule was resulting in a political liberalisation was the return of Bogyoke Aung San to public prominence, after years of state censorship that had relegated him to second place behind the current crop of generals. Around eight months before Martyrs' Day in 2011, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had been released from house arrest. Exactly one month after it she would meet President U Thein Sein in Nay Pyi Taw. In another sign of change, in March 2012 the government decided to reopen the museum to the public on a permanent basis. It's now open Wednesday through Sunday, with an entrance fee of just 300 kyat. For anyone with even a passing interest in Myanmar history and politics, it is certainly worth a visit. While relatively small, it is without doubt one of the more engaging museums in the country.
Set on 2.4 acres in Bahan township, the museum is housed in the colonial villa in which Bogyoke Aung San lived with his family from May 1945 until his assassination barely two years later. It opened as a museum in 1962 but shut in early 2007 for maintenance. The house was badly damaged by Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, and when I visited in 2009 the upper floor was off limits. In recent years, however, both emergency repairs and maintenance have been undertaken to strengthen the structure so that it could open regularly to visitors.
The first highlight comes just inside the gate, where the general's car, an 18-horsepower black Wolsley, sits idle in a small garage, behind a gate bearing a vintage padlock. The gardens are not exactly ornate, but are neat and tidy. In one rear section a staue of Bogyoke Aung San appears to tend some vegetables, while a sign tells the visitor that this was the spot on which he "cultivated himself". More poignantly, a sign beside a nearby pond - in fact, a deep pool with steep sides - informs us that this was the place where one of the general's sons, Aung San Lin, drowned in 1953.
The lower floors of the building contain a dining and sitting room, the former of which contains a table set for Bogyoke Aung San's family, including his young daughter, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who was born a month after they moved into the home. His favourite meal? Pe pyote (boiled peas) and nan pyar (Indian style flat bread). It also contains photos from Bogyoke Aung San's childhood, portraits and photos of the general as an adult and excerpts from some of his famous speeches, including one given to his Burma National Army soldiers in Yangon on March 17, 1945, shortly before they switched sides and fought for the British. It also features original furniture, including an old shortwave radio set.
Upstairs the highlight is the general's study, which contains a well-stocked bookshelf comprising mostly military books and other works of non-fiction. The upper floor also contains bedrooms for the children, as well as one for Bogyoke Aung San and his wife, Daw Khin Kyi. From their bedroom, a now-closed stairway leads up to the turret, which apparently features amazing views of Shwedagon Pagoda.
The overwhelming sensation as one wanders the museum is of being inside a time capsule. It doesn't quite feature the detritus of everyday life, but it seems fairly true to how Bogyoke Aung San would have left it as he drove to the Secretariat on that fateful morning in July 1947. Much of it has no doubt been recreated and curated, but it nonetheless seems to paints a fairly accurate portrait of a man who was by all reports quite an ascetic, devoted to both his family and country.
But there is an additional, aesthetic attraction to the museum. In Yangon, it is rare to get a glimpse inside a period villa such as this, and to appreciate the contrast of its design - crafted out of a careful consideration for the environment in the pre-air con age - with that of the mansions that have sprouted throughout much of Yangon in recent years. Its location in a leafy backblock, so close to the hubbub of Shwegonedaing Junction yet at the same time so peaceful, harks back to a different era, when the city's limits barely extended past Shwedagon Pagoda.
Thankfully, we can rest assured that the Bogyoke Aung San Museum will . remain in its unique state for many years to come, giving future generations an insight into both Bogyoke Aung San and the lifestyle of the pre-colonial period more generally.
Author by Thomas Kean(AirMandalay Inflight Magazine)
