The Irrawaddy Magazine |
- A Legendary Artist, an Austere Life: ‘Less is More’ for Kin Maung Yin
- The World Wants to Know: Where is Sombath?
- Burma Business Roundup (Aug. 31)
| A Legendary Artist, an Austere Life: ‘Less is More’ for Kin Maung Yin Posted: 30 Aug 2013 06:01 PM PDT  Burmese artist Kin Maung Yin, 75, paints on the floor at his home in north Rangoon. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) RANGOON — In a one-room wooden house in the northern part of Burma's former capital, happy the man is Kin Maung Yin whose only wish and care is to paint. Recognized as a leader in the first generation of Burma's modern art movement, Kin Maung Yin is a living legend in Burmese contemporary art today, but he leads an austere lifestyle. He does not own a refrigerator or a washing machine at his home in Rangoon. Blank canvases are piled high where a television might otherwise stand, and he sleeps on the floor, not far from the spot where he paints. He has no family. "Less is more," says the 75-year-old. "I have everything I need here." With no easel, the old painter sits on a floor littered with brushes and Winsor & Newton acrylic paint tubes, brushing vibrant colors onto a canvas that leans against a wooden shelf. He spends the day listening to his favorite European classical music, and when the power cuts, he shakes his head, wailing out in a trademark shrill crescendo and then uttering, "This is Burma, this is Burma." When he tires of working, he drags himself across the floor with his arms, unable to stand without assistance, He reaches his favorite chair, near the door, and pulls himself up onto the worn-out cushion, reading for a while or gazing outside to his overgrown garden. "These knees trouble me," he complains. "I can no longer move as freely as I did before. And I have some memory loss. Doctors blame that on the stroke I suffered in 2000.
"I want to survive for another five years. That's enough, as I have been through so many years." As a younger artist, Kin Maung Yin used to say that his paintings were not so popular in Burma. But he was a poor prophet, because collectors today are on hot on his trail. At his latest show, earlier this month in Rangoon, nearly all of his 50 paintings on display sold out. "Maybe they like it, I'm not sure," he says. But he's being modest. "He is a very rare artist," says Aung Soe Min, an art collector who co-founded Pansodan Gallery in Rangoon. "He's famous not only for his style—his personality and lifestyle have also become artistic. You cannot leave him out if you're talking about Burmese modern art. His paintings, Aung Soe Min says, feature unexpected colors. "His unique style and lifelong creations have become an inspiration for younger artists. … He is leading a solitary life, devoting himself only to art, paying no attention to popularity or making money." Kin Maung Yin started painting in the 1960s but trained earlier as an architect, gaining an appreciation for form and color that would later influence his art, according to his friend and fellow artist Sun Myint. As an architect, he devoured books about art and tried his hand at portraits, abstracts and any other form he learned through reading. "I'm a self-taught painter," he says. "All I know about art is that simplicity is perfection." Indeed, many of his paintings are almost child-like in their simplicity, according to Sun Myint, who wrote a forward in a biography about his friend and noted, "He thinks and paints freely." Anyone familiar with Kin Maung Yin's style would agree. His abstracts include riots of vivid colors and bold brushstrokes. He says the Italian modernist Amedeo Modigliani inspired him to paint portraits with mask-like faces and elongated forms. "I even prefer him to Picasso," Kin Maung Yin says of Modigliani, primarily a figurative artist. "So I painted in his style for nearly 10 years." He adhered to that style in his famous portrait series "Seated Dancers," as well as another series six years ago depicting democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi. The Suu Kyi series was especially renowned among collectors because it was created when the former military regime was still in power, Suu Kyi was being held under house arrest, and the police could arrest anyone in the country who possessed a photo or painting of her. These days, now that a quasi-civilian government is in power and Suu Kyi has won a seat in Parliament, the old Burmese artist continues to spend his hours simply, painting. He wakes up every morning at 6 and spends half an hour keeping still, thinking about the good old days and his parents. Sometimes he tries to visualize what he will create later in the day. "The result always turns out different," he says. He opens his house to anyone who visits, warmly welcoming strangers and friends alike to a seat on the floor and offering a cup of coffee or tea. If asked to name the most important thing in life for an artist, he answers frankly: food. "It would be nonsense for me to name something 'big'" he says. "We all need food to survive, whether you are an artist or not. That's all." | |
| The World Wants to Know: Where is Sombath? Posted: 30 Aug 2013 09:19 PM PDT  Still of CCTV footage apparently showing Laotian civil society leader Sombath Somphone about to be detained by unknown men approaching in a white car. (Photo: Youtube) BANGKOK — At a recent reception in Vientiane, a Western diplomat approached a senior Laotian government official with a query about Sombath Somphone, a respected civil society leader who was grabbed off the streets of the capital on a December evening and has not been seen since. The question elicited a rebuff. "It is the standard official reaction," a foreign guest at the reception recalled. "They get into denial mode even though there is CCTV footage of Sombath being forced into a vehicle near a police post in Vientiane." A similar wall of silence and denial was erected days later, when a delegation from the European Parliament landed in the Southeast Asian nation on a fact-finding mission over the whereabouts of the soft-spoken 61-year-old. "The Foreign Ministry [officials] presented ridiculous lies that the man abducted wasn't Sombath," said the visibly irate Danish lawmaker and head of the delegation, Soren Bo Sondergarrd, speaking to journalists in Bangkok on Wednesday. "They are unwilling to get deeper into this case." Sondergarrd's delegation was the third made by foreign lawmakers, both from Europe and from Southeast Asia, since January this year. And a fourth from Europe is expected on Oct. 28—an indication of the increasing pressure the notoriously secretive communist government is under from the international community. "There has never been such mobilization around one person before, considering that prior human rights abuses in Laos have attracted little attention," Anne-Sophie Gindroz, policy and advocacy advisor of Helvetas, a Swiss development agency, told The Irrawaddy. And Gindroz should know, since she was forced out of Laos, abruptly ending her work in the agriculture sector, a week before Sombath was "disappeared." But behind this façade of blank looks and "insulting denials" another story is unfolding. A campaign is underway within the hierarchy of the Laos People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP)—which has ruled the country with an iron grip since the mid-1970s—and sections of the government to "slander and discredit Sombath," a Vientiane-based source with links to official circles revealed. "They are sending the message right down to some village levels of the party to condemn Sombath." Even cabinet ministers have displayed this touch, as one did during a preparatory session ahead of the mid-year sitting of the rubber-stamp National Assembly. He discussed Sombath's work in "a negative way" and even refused to touch a book authored by the disappeared civil society veteran that had been on display at the session, according to a bureaucrat who had been present. Early signs of this strategy emerged in January, when the government of the landlocked, impoverished country released its first official response. "It may be possible that Mr. Sombath has been kidnapped perhaps because of a personal conflict or a conflict in business or some other reason," stated Yong Chanthalangsy, Laos' ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, in a statement that was published in the state-controlled Vientiane Times newspaper. Such a view was immediately pooh-poohed by locals and foreigners familiar with the work of Sombath, a winner of the Magsaysay Award, the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize, for his decades in rural development. They link his enforced disappearance to the leading role he played at last October's meeting of the Asia-Europe People's Forum (AEPF) in Vientiane. That four-day event, held ahead of a summit of Asian and European leaders, attracted an unprecedented gathering of local and international community activists. In the run-up to the 2012 AEPF, international development organisations and analysts based in Laos viewed the gathering as a sign of the country loosening its grip on community activism and opening to the world. "The Foreign Ministry had approved the space for civil society at the AEPF as proof that the country was comfortable with different views," says Shalmali Guttal, senior researcher at Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based think tank. "It fit in with the attitude of Laos policymakers over the previous five to six years of reaching out to their own people, their critics." But the aftermath of the AEPF proved both Guttal and Sombath wrong. Hawks within the party hierarchy and the security establishment had reportedly become alarmed, according to a diplomatic source, about some of the issues openly raised at the AEPF. They saw red at local communities and villagers complaining about being displaced or affected by the loss of land given to foreign investors. Ounkeo Souksavanh, a local journalist who hosted a popular radio program, had already got a foretaste of the government's displeasure. A weekly call-in show that he ran for four years was abruptly pulled off the air in January last year. "I had a hotline that the audience could call and they often talked about the rise in land conflicts in their community," he recalled. Laos, which opened its abundant natural resources to foreign investors in 1996, has attracted many foreign companies from Vietnam and China. An estimated two million hectares have been leased out or given as concessions, accounting for some 2,000 approved projects. They range from copper and gold mines to industrial scale rubber and cassava plantations. The state's heavy-handed response to criticism has prompted Ng Shui-Meng, Sombath's wife, to tread cautiously in the tireless quest for her husband. The Singapore national was travelling ahead of him in a car on that fateful evening of Dec. 15. Sombath was in his battered old jeep, heading home for dinner, when he was stopped at a police post at one of the busiest intersections in Vientiane. That scene and his being led to another vehicle were captured on a CCTV camera, proof of which Shui-Meng has. "I have deliberately not accused the state in my comments over the past eight months," the former UNICEF staffer admitted in an interview. "I have no bargaining chip on my side except to promise silence. And I don't know if I am doing the right thing or the wrong thing." | |
| Burma Business Roundup (Aug. 31) Posted: 30 Aug 2013 05:30 PM PDT Japan Spreads Business Tentacles Across Burmese Businesses Japan is widening its investments in Burma with moves into electricity generation, air transportation and agriculture. An agreement has been signed between Rangoon's Hlaing Tharyar Industrial Zone and Japan's Ministry for Economy, Trade and Industry to help finance a 500-megawatt natural gas power station, said Eleven Media, quoting the zone's chairman, Myat Thin Aung. The ministry will provide technical aid for the power plant, and also for a much smaller 50-MW project to help fuel development of the stalled Thilawa Special Economic Zone on the outskirts of Rangoon. However, it's unclear who will actually build these power stations and when. In the aviation sector, Japanese airline All Nippon Airways (ANA) will buy a 49 percent stake in local airline Asian Wings Airways, Reuters reported. ANA will pay US$25 million for the shareholding, Reuters reported. Asian Wings was established in 2011 and currently flies only domestic routes but has plans to expand abroad, starting with services to Thailand in October, said Reuters. ANA said earlier in August that it would begin operating daily flights between Tokyo and Rangoon from the end of September to meet rising demand from businesspeople and tourists. At present it operates direct flights between the two cities three times per week. Meanwhile, Megumi No Sato of Japan is teaming up with Burma's City Mart Holding Company in a joint venture to produce vegetables and fruit for sale in Burma. The venture will grow crops in the Pyin Oo Lwin area of central Burma, according to the Myanmar Investment Commission. In Japan, Megumi No Sato is noted for supplying quality produce to supermarkets and helping farmers to establish steady incomes, said Eleven Media. Hotel Rates for SEA Games Set by Ministry to Allay Inflation Fears Hotel room rates have been set for the Southeast Asian Games (SEA), which Burma is hosting in December and is expected to involve thousands of athletes, media and spectators. Hotels rates will range between US$55 and $150 a night, according to the travel industry magazine TTR Weekly, quoting Burma's Ministry of Hotels and Tourism. The lowest set price will be for journalists covering the 11-day event, and the highest prices will be paid by spectators, TTR said. The ministry set the rates following concerns among the participating countries that accommodation prices would be speculatively inflated for the event, said TTR. The SEA Games take place from Dec. 11 to Dec. 22. Reports have suggested that up to 5,000 athletes and supporters from 11 countries could put a severe strain on Burma's facilities. The games will take place in Naypidaw, Rangoon, Mandalay and Ngwe Saung beach in Irrawaddy Division. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has offered to provide technical assistance for the games. Siam Cement Factory at Moulmein to Feed Demand From Thailand Major Thai infrastructure component supplier Siam Cement is planning to start construction soon of a US$388 million cement production factory in Burma, according to a report. The plant will be at Moulmein on Mon State's southeast coast. It will have an annual production capacity of 1.8 million tons and could be in operation by the middle of 2016, said Reuters, quoting company officials. Siam Cement is also expanding into Indonesia and Cambodia to cater to Southeast Asia's developing economies. Although some of the new Burma production will supply the Burmese market, the Moulmein factory is expected to export cement across the border into Thailand. Siam Cement is one of Southeast Asia's two biggest cement producers. It is 30 percent owned by Thailand's Crown Property Bureau, an investment agency controlled by the Thai royal household. Multimillion Dollar Loans from Tokyo to Revamp Burma's Broken Roads The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will provide about US$900 million in loans for road renovation and other infrastructure enhancement in Burma, said World Highways magazine. The loans are separate from financial aid, which is also being provided for infrastructure development at the Thilawa Special Economic Zone. "Currently, JICA is working on a master plan to develop [Rangoon], including more than 70 programs that include renovation of the city's public transportation system," said World Highways this week. The magazine quoted an unnamed JICA official as saying about $900 million of loans for infrastructure projects are in the pipeline for Burma. "Of the total loan, $380 million will be allocated for the Thilawa Special Economic Zone project, which covers the construction of roads, bridges, drinking water and electric power generation," the magazine said. Bangladesh to Resume Dhaka-Rangoon Flights after Six-Year Break Direct flights linking the Bangladeshi capital and Burma's commercial center Rangoon will restart in November. The resumption, after a six-year break, follows an agreement signed in Dhaka this week between the Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh (CAAB), and Win Swe Tun, deputy director of Burma's Department of Civil Aviation, Bangladeshi media reported. Biman Bangladesh Airlines, the national airline, stopped flights between Dhaka and Rangoon in 2007 because of what it termed economic losses. CAAB said Rangoon was now more commercially viable and would serve as a stopover on routes between Dhaka and Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. |
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