Week Seven: National Museum & The KFC Theater
Week Seven: National Museum & The KFC Theater
My exciting weekend excursions outside of Yangon are almost over. As of now, I’m only planning on taking one more trip up to Mandalay and spending the rest of my weekends visiting the various tourist sites around here.
I decided to stay in Yangon this weekend. I woke up on Saturday morning to some rare sunshine and decided to go for a walk through downtown Yangon before heading to the National Museum. Luck was on my side as it began to pour within minutes of arriving at the museum. On Sunday I walked through Bogyoke Aung San Market (also known as Scott Market) and went to see Toy Story 4 at a theater located in the brand new mall across the street.
My research has continued to be interesting and never ceases to challenge me. I’ve said it before, but I am missing Lexis and Westlaw more and more as the weeks go by. Many of the links I need to use lead to error messages and blank pages, and I spend much of my time parsing through contradictory information to find what is most accurate and up to date.
National Museum:
I decided to go to the National Museum on Saturday morning, and it proved to be quite an interesting experience. It was much like the rest of Myanmar: run down in many aspects but also fascinating. The museum is quite large and is comprised of four stories holding historical artifacts and art. I had read that the museum was dimly lit, but nothing prepared me for just how dark it actually was; I even needed to use my phone as a flashlight in one spot.
Given that I arrived in the middle of the afternoon on a rainy day, I expected it to be quite busy. To my surprise, I only saw two or three other visitors in the couple of hours I spent there, making it feel like I had the entire place to myself.
One of the more impressive exhibits was the Royal Lion Throne that dates back to the 19thcentury. It is incredibly ornate and stands nearly two stories tall. It is an impressive artifact of the opulent wealth that once existed in Myanmar.
The KFC Theater:
My experience seeing Toy Story 4 took me back to the movies I went to in Tokyo as a child. The theater was packed, and I found myself barely able to fit in the seats. Something that immediately caught my eye was the name of the theater the movie was shown in: The KFC Theater. Each seat had a white cover with a KFC logo on the headrest.
I was caught off guard when I was handed a pair of glasses as I walked into the theater. It turns out that I had accidentally bought tickets to see the movie in 3D. The 3D glasses they provided didn’t fit over my glasses, so I was in for quite a blurry couple of hours.
I was also surprised during the previews when, all of a sudden, everyone around me stood up in unison. Looking up, I saw the Myanmar flag on the screen, but before I could move, the flag disappeared and everyone returned to their seats. A couple minutes later a message appeared on the screen asking the viewers to stand in respect for the flag. Then, the flag appeared on the screen and a song (I assumed the national anthem) played. It was similar to the national anthem playing before a football game in the States.
The movie was great, and it illuminated some of the cultural differences and language barriers. I found myself laughing at lines that earned silence from the rest of the theater and silent for lines that brought uproars of laughter. It was interesting to see the difference in humor between cultures. I was also amazed to see how quickly everyone stood and the respect people showed during the anthem that played before the movie began. Thinking back to games in the U.S. where the National Anthem plays, people are often slow to stand or various degrees of distracted: something that was markedly absent from the theater.