This project was exhibited at the Shooting Home Class of 2008 reunion show.

Project statement:

In The Modern Nomads, Jean Qingwen Loo pieces together a personal documentary project of her relatives in Beijing as they take on the Chinese dream.

Since young, she has been in awe of how her Uncle C.Y., his wife Fanny and their son Alexander ­­split their time and lives over homes in Beijing, Hong Kong and Melbourne. Even though they only visited Singapore twice a year, there was a tight kinship that grew stronger with distance and every moment together.

Regular visits to Melbourne were always the highlight of any school holiday. And somewhere, sometime in between feeding the geese behind her uncle’s lake house, running wild into fields of lavender and lapping up aunt Fanny’s cheesecakes, Jean caught the winds of wanderlust and decided she would try to see all of the earth when she grew up.

Today, as a 25-year-old trying to find a foothold in a world that’s moving too fast, these are the carefree memories of yesteryear that ground her. Some people grow up and grow apart, but Jean is determined to keep her family close.

 

I was invited by my Burmese friends to join in the celebration and prayer session at the Singapore Burmese Buddhist Temple for Aung San Suu Kyi’s 64th birthday. This is an excerpt of an article I wrote, partly inspired by the 64 for Suu campaign.

AS MAEMAE Myint entered a makeshift dining room at the back of the Burmese Buddhist Temple on Ah Hood road in Singapore, her eyes were drawn to the striking banner of Aung San Suu Kyi hanging proudly in the distance. “That is a very nice picture of our lady,” said the 34-year-old tour guide who was in town with her family from Yangon. “I am glad to be here today and be free to pray for her with everyone.”

She joined the crowd queuing up orderly for their free bowls of Mohinga or rice vermicelli in fish soup, who had all gathered for the same purpose –– pray for Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s imprisoned democracy leader who had just turned 64 under house arrest.

POWER OF THE POWERLESS

For 14 of the last 20 years, Suu Kyi has been placed under house arrest on numerous occasions. Disallowed contact with the outside world, she would busy herself reading, meditating and playing the piano. In recent times, she has been permitted to meet foreign diplomats like United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari.

During this time, her efforts to bring democracy to Burma and sacrifice of her personal life and freedom won her support and recognition from all over the world, including the Nobel Peace Prize (1991) and Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought (1990) which her sons accepted on her behalf.

Although she was offered the freedom to leave Burma on several occasions, Suu Kyi refused for fear of permanent exile. In March 1999, after several failed petitions to the Burmese authorities to visit his wife for the last time, Aris died of prostate cancer in London. The last of five times they had met since she began house arrest was at Christmas four years ago.

“Over the years her personal sacrifice and stoicism has stood in stark contrast to the opulent lifestyles of the military leadership,” said Dr Jason Abbott, an expert on Burma from Britain’s University of Surrey. “It is arguable that without Suu Kyi’s international fame and notoriety the regime would have long since dispensed with her.”

Her last public appearance was in 2007 at the gate of her home to receive blessings from Buddhist monks who were marching in support of human rights. In May this year, as her latest detention period was about to expire, the untimely intrusion of John Yettaw resulted otherwise.

CRACK OF DAWN?

WITH both the junta and Suu Kyi sticking firmly to their guns, it seems that the way forward would depend on how they react to persuasion from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a ten-nation organisation which Myanmar is part of and engagement from the west.

Dr Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies thinks it is very clear that the priority of the Burmese government lies in its maintenance of political power.  “Letting Suu Kyi participate in the upcoming elections risks the regime losing power so they have every reason to continue to lock her up,” he said. “After all Burma has shown that it has been able to manage its domestic politics without any restraint all these years.”

Furthermore, the growing strength of Suu Kyi’s popularity over the last two decades of her house arrest and the lack of a succession in the NLD party has made her even more indispensable in Burma’s political struggle, he adds.

Others caution on tying the political crisis in Burma too closely with Suu Kyi alone and see another possible way out beyond hard sanctions and boycotts.

ASEAN and the west should instead explore new avenues of connection with a paranoid military leadership defined by a nationalistic worldview that “Burma is beset by opponents within and without”, said Dr Abbott. “International pressure and condemnation simply confirms this outlook and even ironically strengthening their obstinacy.”

Yettaw’s release could be a prelude to a new era of politics between Burma and the west. The fact that US Senator Jim Webb was allowed to meet Suu Kyi after UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon was denied a similar visit earlier is icing on the cake.

The most significant development from this bizarre episode, perhaps, came from none other than the Lady herself. Reports of Suu Kyi softening her stance towards the tourism boycott and sanctions are emerging for the first time in many years, and could well be pivotal in steering Burma into brighter days.

 

Set in 10 acres of lush terrain in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, the Noah’s Ark Natural Animal Sanctuary (NANAS) is home to a mix of abandoned and stray dogs, cats, horses, rabbits and the random monkey.

From its early beginnings as an animal shelter in Singapore, what started out as one man’s enthusiasm and devotion to provide stray animals a home has developed into a movement that aims to reach out to Singaporeans and address the issue of abandoned pets and strays. Together with a team of dedicated volunteers, Raymund Wee tends to the day-to-day running of the animal farm, providing food and treating them when they fall ill.

To find out more about NANAS, please visit http://noahsarkcares.blogspot.com/

 

NESTLED in a quiet residential area in Mandalay, the Sulamuni Brick Monastery is home to seven young novice monks from the Palaung hill tribe, one of Myanmar’s 135 ethnic minority groups.

Under the care of abbot Ashin U Wiseinda, also of Palaung descent, the boys, who come from a village in the tea-producing province of Thibaw in the northern Shan state, will spend the remaining years of their childhood in a monastic school sheltered from the harsh realities of life in Myanmar.

“I want to help my tribe improve by teaching the children Buddhism and Myanmar language so they can work in the city,” says Ashin U Wiseinda. “Hopefully it will lead to better lives for them.”

For many hill tribe families, annual school fees, study materials and uniforms at a typical government primary school, which add up to at least 60,000 kyat (US $60), are heavy financial commitments to bear.

Monastic schools, on the other hand, provide a moral compass with its religious and cultural emphasis and more importantly, free education that will pave the way towards a brighter future for their children.

 

Saved by Buddha is an ongoing long-term personal project.

DATING back to the 11th century, the Buddhist monastic school system in Myanmar was a binding social tool that provided education for children from all walks of Burmese society. It also helped the country achieve a literacy rate that surpassed other Far Eastern countries in the early 1900s. Even the Father of Burmese Independence, General Aung San, received his primary education at a monastic school in Natmuak, Yangon.

However, as the pages of Myanmar’s turbulent history filled up over the years with scars from a messy era of colonialism and the disastrous establishment of socialist rule, the role of monastic schools changed in importance too.

As the British established their presence over 62 years of rule, missionary schools gradually replaced monasteries as educational hubs in the cities, despite still being the centre of learning in rural areas. It was eventually in 1962 that the junta abolished the monastic education system in a nation-wide effort to consolidate power and implement the ways of socialism.

While the rest of Asia jumped on the bandwagon of progress over the next few decades, Myanmar, once the wealthiest country in Southeast Asia and the world’s largest exporter of rice, sank into a black hole of poverty and civil unrest. It was only in the early 1990s that the government decide to revive monastic education as a way of coping with the growing number of orphans and children whose families were caught in the country’s deepening economic crisis.

NEW WAVE, NEW HOPE

TODAY, an estimated 190,000 orphans and children from impoverished backgrounds attend the 1,300 monastic schools in Myanmar. The number is growing, as monks and volunteer teachers work hard to spread the message of hope that education will bring.

Take Ashin Ardaksa, 42, who became a novice to escape a troubled childhood, for example. He opened his village’s first monastic education centre three years ago to help others like himself. From a humble 46 students, the centre now caters to 240 needy children from a cluster of villages in Bagan.

“Even though our economic and political situations are not good, people still have a healthy spiritual well-being and seek knowledge,” he says. “If we start from our home, I believe our actions can slowly influence the whole country to progress.” Around 89 per cent of Myanmar’s 50-million citizens are followers of Theravada Buddhism.
According to the Education Ministry, monastic schools are required to use the same grading system, curriculum and examinations as state schools. In addition, students develop an ethical and moral foundation through the teachings of Buddha.

Many of the larger monastic schools in cities like Yangon and Mandalay accept orphans from remote areas who have been sent by monks from their villages. Relying heavily on donations, they operate as boarding schools and provide the children meals and lodging. Although it is not compulsory for the children to become novices, it is encouraged so the child can collect his own share of daily food alms.

BEYOND THE MONASTERY’S WALLS

AS the monastic education system only provides for children up to 16 years of age, the road ahead for Myanmar’s underprivileged youth to continue learning is fraught with challenges. Other than the lack of a support network, many of them are also pressurised to return home and start work in the fields.
Daw Katthrakayi, 51, who runs the Withakha nunnery in the outskirts of Yangon, says that sometimes, the push for children to study is a lost cause, as most rural families do not understand the potential of the changes education can bring.

“For them, life is nothing more than good harvests and healthy children,” she says. “They don’t realise that with education, a child can be the master of his own life and have a chance to experience the world outside.”

 

Located on a cliff some 3,500 metres above sea level outside Paro town, the Kila Goenpa Nunnery is home to 35 nuns who live in self-imposed isolation. Life in the nunnery focuses on the study of Buddha Dharma where nuns spend their day alternating between prayer, self-study and meditation. They rarely get visitors as the hike up from the main road takes around two hours through forest and steep slopes.

 

Just like any other day, today’s passengers at a small tugboat chugging away on the Jurong river are the 1,100 pigs which have travelled overnight on a seven-hour journey from Pulau Bulan, a tiny Indonesian island one-sixth the size of Singapore. The island is dedicated to pig farming, and is the only farm approved by the Agro-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) to export live pigs here.

The Buroh Lane Abattoir, Singapore’s only slaughterhouse, was set up on 27 April 1999 to compliment the adoption of the cold chain system where an integrated system of processes in the abattoir keeps meat chilled or frozen when it is sold. These measures were taken in response to the 1999 Nipah virus outbreak where diseased pigs imported from Malaysia infected a number of abattoir workers here. Currently, the abattoir accounts for about 20 per cent of Singapore’s pork supply. Owned by Primary Industries, a subsidiary of the Singapore Food Industries group, the slaughterhouse employs around 60 locals and Malaysians.

 

It was four years ago killer waves devastated a long stretch of the coast and left more than 40,000 dead and 2.5 million people displaced. Waves as high as six meters had crashed into coastal villages, striking with huge force that swept as far as five kilometers inland. Today, while most of the southern coast has seen restoration work completed, progress in the east sorely lags behind.

Working with Habitat for Humanity, a non-governmental organization that specializes in building affordable, decent housing, the team identified villages and refugee camps in the towns of Trincomalee and Batticaloa, which were two of the worst hit areas in the east. In all, a total of 4,000 kg of rice was distributed among 100 families. Canon, which was the project’s main sponsor, paid for the rice.

Trincomalee, which has a population of around 57,000 people, is home to major Sri Lankan naval bases and has been a seaport that played a major role in the country’s history. It is famous for the Uppuveli and Nilaveli beaches which boast nothing less than seemingly stretches of white sand and magnificent waves from the Indian Ocean.

On the other hand, the city of Batticaloa and its 486,400 inhabitants have witnessed much suffering since Black July in 1983, which was seen as the beginning of full-scale armed conflict between the Sinhalese-dominated government and Tamil separatists who claim the area as part of an independent state called Tamil Eelam. It used to be the Tamil Tigers’ last stronghold in the east till they were ousted by the military last year.

Having their homes wrecked by both the tsunami and civil war, it is a tough battle for the people to pick their lives up.

“As we distribute rice we hope that the stomachs of the tsunami victims will be momentarily filled,” says Alex. “This is just a small step towards rebuilding their lives because we believe that rice is the catalyst that will trigger off the restoration of the houses in the area.”

 

This project was shot for Shooting Home 2008, a photography workshop. Dedicated to the photographer’s grandfather and mother, the reasons why she loves going home every day.