1st Friday of September

On Friday, the director of the school Tim threw a going away party for his assistant Miss Phyu Phyu. She is a wonderful, organized and very cheerful woman about my age whom I will really miss even though I’ve only known her for a month. She took a job in Singapore for an international company and this will be a huge step forward in terms of both opportunity and pay. Everyone is happy for her, but sad to see her go.
The party was held at Tim’s and his wife Ann’s 5th floor suite at the Dusit Resort. This is the same place we live as well as about 15-20 other teachers. Being the director of the school, their suite is gorgeous, it opens to a living room with a half-circle of windows that opens to a half-circle veranda. He has views of Inya Lake, the pool, and most of Yangon. You can even see the golden spire of the Shwedagon Pagoda. I spent a good part of the night eating little homemade pizza bits and samosas, drinking wine and rocking on a rocking chair on the veranda enjoying the view.
We left the party around 9pm and took a cab to get some sushi at Samurai Sushi. This place does not have the best sushi in the world nor a great variety but it satisfies the craving when needed. The people who work there are pretty friendly as well as the customers. It is a teeny-tiny place with a 6 person sushi bar and 4 tables. Last time, we went there was a group of about 5 Japanese men there and one had brought his guitar and was playing some nice acoustic music. I’m not sure what he was singing but it was nice to listen to like your own private concert.
After Sushi, we took another cab to the British club, which is part of the British embassy. This is similar to the American club in Yangon, which is somehow related to the embassy. There is a big metal gate that serves as the entry to the British club, which is armed by guards, I believe the British version of the Marines. You have to bring a foreign ID in order to get. Once you are in, you make your way to the clubhouse which is mix of a bar, small restaurant and recreation room. The first Friday of every month, the British club hosts a party where any non-member can come. We have heard that this is the premier social event of the month to go to and its true. There are very few expats in Myanmar compared to the size of the place. No one knows for sure, but there are estimates that there are around 1000 expats in this city of 5 million. That’s a small slice of the population. At the British club, I had never seen so many white people in Yangon and I kept wondering to myself who are all these people? Where do they work? So it was fun in that sense to people watch, meet a few new people and socialize. Because it is such a small population of expats here, you virtually recognize almost every white person even if you don’t know them. Most expats are either teachers at international schools, work for NGOs, work for the UN or work for embassies. It’s a very fun crowd to hobnob with.
For example, on Thursday night, while I was at a ladies book club, Andrew spent the better part of the night hobnobbing with a Bangladeshi man who works for the UN. Our good friend, Stephen, is Dutch and works for a healthcare NGO. Stephen is probably in his early 40s and has some good stories to tell such as the time he was kidnapped in the Phillipines and held for ransom. Luckily, the kidnappers only wanted $4000 and then the Phillipine government/military got on their case and he was released unharmed.
Okay, getting back to British club. It was a happening scene with good music, people dancing, good drinks and good food. I will definitely look forward to attending that event every month. That is about as exciting as Myanmar gets in terms of people watching and nightlife. The funny thing is that you could find that scene in any hipster bar in a city in America, but not so much here because of the small number of expats and lack of bars in Yangon, so the British club is something to be cherished.