Culture shock

In early January, four students left 103-degree weather in Myanmar, the Southeast Asian nation formerly called Burma, and after a long flight found themselves shivering on the other side of the world at the Chico Municipal Airport.

“We were freezing and shaking!” said Mya Khaing, recalling the experience. “In our country, we don’t wear the jacket.”

Ni “April” Mawi, Than Zaw (who uses his last name as a first name in the States) and Kaung “Keith” Thu share an apartment with Khaing in southeast Chico. Since none of them has a car, they walk to WinCo to buy the rice noodles and curry ingredients for mohingar, their national dish, and they ride the bus to Butte College, where they’ve encountered an array of new experiences since leaving their home city of Yangon (formerly Rangoon).

On a recent April afternoon, Khaing, Mawi and Zaw (Thu was attending class) met at the Chico home of Butte College recruitment and outreach technician Tim Phelps, who helped the students get to the United States. All four had used the services of a Yangon-based educational placement agent, who initiated contact after looking at the Butte College website. The agent invited Phelps to Myanmar, and Phelps decided that, since he was already recruiting in Asia, it made sense to travel to Yangon.

After eating a mohingar lunch, the three students relaxed around the table and talked about their adventures so far in Chico and at Butte College.

Phelps said that people are “more direct” in the United States than in Myanmar and that hugging is an American custom a visitor has to get used to.

“In my country, I don’t hug other people.” Khaing said. “The first time a friend hugged me [in the States], I was surprised, but now I’m OK. I learned to adapt.”

The classroom has provided more surprises—they’ve been amazed, at times, by the boorish behavior of some American students. In Myanmar, Mawi said, “students are very polite in front of the teacher.”

Zaw said he’s puzzled by slang words in American English. Zhaing and Mawi concurred.

“[American] humor and slang are some of the toughest things for them,” Phelps said.

ATMs and online banking were new skills they had to learn when they first arrived, and all they ate in the beginning were hamburgers, because that was all they knew to ask for.

“No more hamburgers!” Mawi exclaimed.

Phelps said it wasn’t so long ago that the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning to Americans not to visit Myanmar. Now, however, Americans can more safely enter the country, and in return more opportunities are opening for students in Myanmar to travel and study abroad.

The changing political and social climate of Myanmar, Phelps said, shows in the recent election (by popular vote) to Parliament of Aung San Suu Kyi, an opposition leader who had been under house arrest for about 20 years. Aung San Suu Kyi is a national hero, the daughter of a great Burmese leader, and she’s a Nobel Peace Prize winner, as well.

Her National League for Democracy party won control of Parliament in the 1990 general election, but the military junta refused to validate the results. This year the NLD, allowed on the ballot for the first time since 1990, won an astonishing 43 of 45 open seats in Parliament but still does not have a majority.

The politics of Myanmar are shifting because the nation is resource-rich, Phelps explained, and still developing. Students who go abroad to gain education and experience in business have opportunities awaiting them. Accordingly, Khaing, Mawi, and Zaw—all 18—have declared business as their major.

“There’s a lot of incentive for them to go back and help build the new economy,” Phelps said. Now that the international sanctions imposed on the military regime are being lifted, “things are happening, and there’s a lot of growth.”

The students don’t know a lot about their own government because until recently it’s been a forbidden topic. “Only now,” Phelps said, “have people started to have conversations about the government.”

Mawi said students in Myanmar learn about government in history class, but it’s not about the current government—“it’s long ago.”

Khaing, Mawi, and Zaw hope the changes in Myanmar signal good things for their future. “We have a lot of natural resources,” Mawi said, “but the government has been selling them into other countries, and we [haven’t] even [been able to] get [regular] electricity.”