Tsang Kin-Wah, “The Fourth Seal”
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ART ON THE UP Why Hong Kong’s forthcoming M+ Museum will be good for all of Asia by shane suvikapakornkul eard of the West Kowloon Cultural District? If you’re a regular visitor to Hong Kong, chances are you soon will. Since 2006, a waterfront wedge of reclaimed land in the affluent city state’s West Kowloon has set the scene for the development of the WKCD – a massive cultural project that will, on completion, comprise no less than 15 performing arts venues and a large waterfront park. For art enthusiasts there is good news, too. Amid this diverse collection of cultural institutions will sit a museum of modern and contemporary art that will rival the Centre Pompidou in Paris and London’s Tate Modern for scale and ambition. Back in June 2013, the Swiss architecture firm Herzog + de Meuron and its Hong Kong partner TFP Farrells won the competition to build the WKCD’s museum, dubbed M+ (“M Plus”). The design they came up with serves the practical need for an art space while also fulfilling the advisory board’s recommendations for a structure that is “iconic, innovative and forward-looking.” Whether walking in WKCD’s park or along its two-kilometre-long waterfront (with its 270-degree harbour views master planned by London-based architectural firm Foster + Partners), M+’s inverted
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T-shape will be impossible to miss. A horizontal platform will extend towards the park, with a façade, bathed in sophisticated lighting, that will rise up like an immense canvas. Inside, there will be approximately 60,000 square metres (580,000 square feet) of floor space, making it almost twice the size of the Tate Modern. An underground level will connect the building’s entrance to the airport express tunnel and to a new high-speed train line that connects to various cities in mainland China. More importantly, the structure will house a sunken space perfect for large-scale installations, sculptures and performances. Called “Found Space,” this enormous sky-lit atrium will be flexible in function, although its proportions are set to challenge artists and curators alike. Meanwhile, above ground, the horizontal plane of the building will accommodate exhibitions in three main rooms, plus a sequence of galleries
Christian Jankowski, “Museum Director’s Chair”
accessible from each corner of the building. The vertical building will house offices, educational facilities and a multi-storied interior courtyard, plus a rooftop sky garden with restaurants and bars, offering breathtaking views over Victoria Harbour. Just as impressive as the M+ building will be the art contained within it. At its core will be one of the world’s biggest and most comprehensive collections of contemporary Chinese art. Spanning from the 1970s to the present, the Sigg Collection was donated in June 2012 by Uli Sigg, a Swiss collector instrumental in bringing Chinese contemporary art to a global audience. Swigg first travelled to China in 1979 as a representative of the Schindler group – one of the world’s largest manufacturers of escalators and elevators. In 1995, after living there for nearly 20 years, he was appointed Swiss ambassador. In the course of doing his official duties, Sigg
found himself familiarised with Chinese art and took great interest in the emerging contemporary art scene. He started to systematically collect contemporary works in all genres back when few collectors had any interest in it. The Sigg Collection’s value in aesthetic, cultural and financial terms cannot be overstated. Consisting of 1,463 artworks and valued by Sotheby’s at $1.3 billion HKD, it includes many rare works from the early 1970s, and from Chinese artists who are now internationally renowned, such as Xu Bing, Yue Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang, Zeng Fanzhi, and the omnipresent Ai Weiwei. It provides a solid foundation for the M+ to build upon, and the terms of the donation should ensure the collection continues to grow. In exchange for housing the Sigg Collection, M+ has agreed to add to it a further 47 A birds-eye view of the West Kowloon Cultural District
Ai Weiwei, “Whitewash”
works for $22.7 million HKD. The purchase, accounting for roughly 15 percent of the total valuation, allows Sigg to continue to engage in the Chinese contemporary art scene. M+ has been allotted a total budget of $1.7 billion HKD, to be used in two-year installments from 2012 until the museum’s official opening in 2017.The acquisitions have already started. Amongst its first was Factum Tang by Berlin-based South African artist Candice Breitz. In this looping video installation, Hong Kong triplets Joelle, Jade and Mariah Tang talk about their experience growing up in Canada, their rivalries, moving to Hong Kong, and their struggles to be different. It illustrates M+’s acquisition strategy: to take risks on relevant local content by expat artists. Looking forward, there are also likely to be acquisitions that fall
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The Sigg Collection provides a solid foundation for the M+ to build upon, and the terms of the donation will ensure it continues to grow.
Choi Jeong Hwa, “Black Lotus”
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under the broad umbrella at the heart of its remit: 20th and 21st century visual culture. In a recent story in the South China Morning Post, the curator of design and architecture at M+, Aric Chen, said he was considering adding iconic Hong Kong neon signage to its collection. “We will most likely be presenting a neon sign-based project to the public within the next year,” he said. Already M+ has been engaging with, and commissioning, local artists by staging exhibitions and installations throughout Hong Kong. “The museum is not the same as the building,” is their catch-cry – not just a soundbite, but the M+’s strategy to open up dialogues between audiences and exhibitions before the building itself opens. The M+ West Kowloon Bamboo Theatre exhibition in 2012 featured Cantonese opera and cinema
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Leung Mee-ping, “I Miss Fanta”
and celebrated the unique Hong Kong tradition of building temporary theatres from bamboo. The Mobile M+ Yau Ma Tai features installation projects, such as Lueng Mee Ping’s I Miss Fanta, or participatory projects, such as Kwan Sheung-chi and Wong Wai-yin’s To Defend the Core Values is the Core of the Core Values. The M+ team has also been collaborating with local art organisations in such shows as Song Dong: 36 Calendars, which was co-presented along with the Asia Art Archive, a group founded in 2000 to document art activities and developments in Asia. There is excitement about all this – as evidenced by headlines such as “Hong Kong M+ Museum May Put the Met in NYC to Shame” – but also some scepticism. Critics have expressed concern that M+ could become little more than a mallconnecting extravagance. Recent news about rising costs has some concerned. But on this matter, Dr. Lars Nittve, the executive director of M+, says, “from a
financial point of view, M+ is still, despite what one reads in the newspapers, unchallenged. As a matter of fact the whole West Kowloon project has more money in the bank than when it started. Admittedly, if construction costs continue to soar it may find itself challenged at some point in the 2020s, but that is three years after the opening of M+ and several other performing arts venues.” Clearly, if it is to allay the sceptics and thrill audiences, M+ has a hard task ahead of it. Balancing ideas and expectations and, ultimately, raising the bar for museums in Asia will be no mean feat. Will the M+ Museum become an international institution that lifts Asia’s game, and herald a turning point in the region’s visual culture? While it has plenty of promise and is already contributing to the contemporary art scene, we’ll unfortunately have to wait until 2017 to find out. www.wkcda.hk/en
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How Hanae Mori’s delicate designs created a hurricane in the Japanese fashion industry.
by samila wenin / photographs by tanapol kaewpring
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orn in a small village in Shimane Prefecture in 1926, Hanae Mori knows harsh mountain winters. She endured them as a child, but without them this iconic Japanese designer may never have found the inspiration for her memorable aesthetic. The “Madame Butterfly” behind those flowing gowns may never have existed without a childhood spent waiting for the snow-covered slopes of Yoshiko to thaw. “On the mountainside, the winter is very long,” she recalls. “I was always excited to see butterflies, as they are the first sign of spring. Of course, their shape and especially their colours are very beautiful, but for me, the basis of my butterfly design is about the experience. I’m conveying my exhilaration at the arrival of spring.” At 87, Madame Mori, as she is sometimes called, has now retired from the runway, although she’s nothing close to actual retirement. She remains in great health and can recount episodes of her life with clarity, bringing to life dialogues as if they were spoken just yesterday. Madame Mori is nothing short of a legend – she’s an iconic designer, a pioneer of feminism, and a Japanese cultural ambassador. Yet, as she tells you her stories, there’s a familiar air about her – nothing that would hint that she’s the head of a $500 million fashion empire. Speaking in Japanese with her son acting as interpreter, Madame Mori exudes a cordial warmth, sprinkling the conversation with bursts of laughter. It’s a pleasant surprise from a designer of her calibre, a woman who has worked for such names as the film directors Yazujiro Ozu and
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Yoshimura Kozaburo, ballet dancer/choreographer Rudolf Nureyev, the late Princess Grace of Monaco, Imelda Marcos, Nancy Reagan, and Hillary Clinton. A strong familial bond has played a crucial role in the life of Madame Mori. She married her late husband, the son of a wealthy textile manufacturer, before graduating from Tokyo Christian Women’s University. In her free time she studied fashion design and sewing with keen support from her husband. At 26, after graduating from sewing school, she set up a studio, a month later giving birth to her first child. At a time when it was unusual for Japanese women to work unless they really had to, Madame Mori launched into a full-blown career. “At first, I wanted to make clothes for myself that I couldn’t buy or find, so I went to study sewing and fashion after finishing university. I learned how to make clothes for myself. It became interesting so I made clothes for my children and eventually I wanted to design and make clothes for other people,” she says. “I rented a small space on the second-floor of a noodle shop when I opened my first studio at Shinjuku. It was a hobby at the beginning but I really enjoyed what I was doing. I had a glass wall installed and displayed the clothes on Western mannequins, which were very expensive – and unusual – back then. They were different from Japanese mannequins and attracted many people, including movie directors. That’s how I got involved in designing costumes for movies.” Madame Mori spent the second half of the 1950s
A women’s knees shouldn’t be exposed. They’re not a very beautiful body part at all.
modern crafts Woven silk jacket, black lace blouse, feather & lace flower brooch, all by Hanae Mori
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eden of the east Garden motifs embroidery dress by Hanae Mori
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Madame Butterfly was so inelegant and pitiable. Obviously the director understood nothing about Japanese culture. designing for films. This was the Golden Age of Japanese cinema. She became the number one choice for iconic filmmakers such as Yazujiro Ozu and Yoshimura Kozaburo, and her exclusive access to the intellectual perspectives of these cinematic greats proved invaluable. “I did costumes for many movies and all the directors were men so I learned a lot about men’s view of women, which is different from the way we view ourselves,” she said. “For movies, there are stories, and roles are written for actors to play according to scenarios and the ideas of the director. My role was to make these messages, these roles, as clear as possible, which is very interesting. I learned about how clothes become an image or an impression of each person.” Another crucial lesson Madame Mori learned from film design is how a person’s lifestyle is affected or influenced by their wardrobe. “Mr Yoshimura, who made Women of Ginza, taught me a lot of things. He was interested in how women should be, intellectually. He said he wanted to imagine a geisha wearing western clothes... what would she be wearing? I had never met a geisha, so the director explained to me that kimonos are basically just a wrap and that traditionally women didn’t wear underwear, so they walked in a timid manner. They walked inwardly, so how would they walk once they change to western clothes? How would the clothes affect the way they would walk? These are things I learned from male directors about women that even women didn’t know.” When the Golden Age of Japanese cinema was eclipsed by
television and Madame Mori’s career in film design came to an end, she decided to take a vacation to Paris, agreeing to attend the haute couture fashion presentations and write about them for a friend’s publication. Little did she know that this long awaited holiday would pave the way for a legendary career. f course, it would be difficult not to be impressed watching presentations by legendary couturiers such as Christian Dior, Pierre Cardin and Hubert de Givenchy. But nothing compared to the experience of witnessing the final show by Chanel. Fascinated by the simplicity and elegance of the Chanel haute couture collection, Madame Mori was determined to acquire a Chanel suit herself, and she telephoned her husband in Japan, asking him to send money so she could buy one. At 31 Rue Cambon, the young fashion aspirant got much more than that. The fitting process made her realise, as she would later tell the New York Times, that “fashion should bring out individuality.” Madame Mori was advised to wear orange, the colour of the rising sun, to compliment her long, jet black hair. “But I said ‘I’m a mother’,” she recalls. “I had to take my children to school, and in Japan I couldn’t go to my children’s school in an orange suit. So they compromised by doing a beige tweed suit, with bright orange used in the lining.” “I was the first Oriental woman to wear a Chanel suit and it became quite a story in the house of Chanel.
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When the Costume Institute held an exhibition for Chanel, the director contacted me to see if they could borrow my Chanel suit. I still had it, but the problem was that the original skirt was long – long enough to hide my knees. Part of the Chanel philosophy was that women should never show their knees: they were considered very unattractive. But in Japan everybody was wearing miniskirts so I had to make it shorter. I didn’t want to let the Costume Institute know that I had the length altered so I said I couldn’t find it anymore But, now I agree with Chanel’s idea that women’s knees shouldn’t be exposed. They’re not a very beautiful body part at all.” If Coco Chanel influenced her fashion views, Hanae Mori’s determination to embark on a fashion career still wouldn’t arrive until later. Following the inspirational journey to Paris, Madame Mori visited another country whose clothing culture and lifestyle had had a huge impact on post-war Japanese ways of life – America. If Paris was inspirational, the States were motivational. What Madame Mori encountered in America weren’t revolutionary or eyeopening design ideas, but cultural discrepancies between the American people’s perception of Japan and the reality. At department stores where American-designed clothes were sold on the top floors with the highest price tags, blouses made by Japanese designers were sold in the basement for $1 each. Adding to her disillusion was a visit to the Metropolitan Opera to see Madame Butterfly which
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she felt misrepresented the Japanese mentality and culture. “Madame Butterfly was so inelegant and pitiable,” she recalls. “Obviously the director understood nothing about Japanese culture. I was shocked but those shocks gave me motivation. My dream and goal was to go back to Japan and make clothes using Japanese fabrics with Japanese labour and to bring that back to America to put on the top floor of the department stores.” It didn’t take her long to reach her goal. Madame Mori began with kimono fabrics, the heart and soul of the Japanese identity. Understanding the limitations of the handmade, gorgeous fabrics, she explored ways to change the weaving so they could be used for Western patterns. To ensure that the collection would perfectly fit her Western clientele, Madame Mori sent her assistants to San Francisco to learn pattern-making. By bringing together her unmistakably Japanese roots and technical precision with Western fashion styles and dressmaking, Hanae Mori wowed the American crowd during her first New York show in 1965. In doing so she captured the attention of two of America’s most influential fashion personalities. “When I came back from Paris and New York, I regained my energy and wanted to do something in the West with Japanese identity,” she says. “I’m very lucky I had support from two people who made my success in New York possible. The first was Diana Vreeland who, when I was still nobody, loved my designs and put great editorials of my work in her magazine.
It’s difficult to pinpoint one particular Japanese aspect in my work because I see it as a representation of a way of life.
oriental twist
Hand-woven cotton dress with black organza details by Hanae Mori
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wearable art
Woven-silk jacket, black bace blouse, black lace & blue silk skirt, feather & lace flower brooch, all by Hanae Mori
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She brought New Oriental aesthetics to the West at a time when Orientalism was more of an exotic ideal of fashion. The second was Stanley Marcus, the owner of Neiman Marcus, who came to my first show. I didn’t know who he was but apparently he was there and loved the collection and bought all the pieces. He first ordered something for his wife – clearly it was a test. He ordered three-piece suits, cocktail dresses and evening dresses, all in size 8, to see if my fittings were accurate. And I delivered – they fitted perfectly on his wife. After that, buyers started to come every season.” Unlike the couturiers of the preceding eras, Hanae Mori started with readyto-wear before attempting fashion’s highest form: haute couture. She ambitiously tried haute couture after watching a fashion show in Monte Carlo as a guest of her royal client, Princess Grace. As Madame Mori later recalled, a reporter from the International Herald Tribune came over to congratulate her after the show, saying that Hanae Mori truly belonged in Paris, not New York. On the flight back to Japan, Madame Mori began to dream of showing an haute couture collection in Paris. Her first step into the world of high fashion began when she opened a maison in Paris in 1977, closely followed by her first couture show, which was warmly received. The collection brimmed with a breathtaking mix of colours, patterns and embellishments that evoked her Japanese childhood, contrasted against a striking Western sensibility. That same year, she became a member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne – the first Asian woman to be honoured by the ruling body of French high fashion.
o deliver ready-to-wear to New York and haute couture in Paris, Madame Mori had to fly back and forth between the two cities many times a year. “Ready-towear is business. I needed to sell and the production needed to be well-prepared – the fabrics, the sizing and fitting, and meeting the ordered quantities,’’ she recalls. “Haute couture is another challenge. It’s creation by an artist. It’s an experiment; some creations are successful and some of them not. But what becomes successful in haute couture can be used for ready-to-wear in the next season, too.” It’s difficult for those of us who grew up in contemporary times to imagine the revolutionary impact Madame Mori had on both fashion and Japanese society. She brought Oriental aesthetics to the West at a time when Orientalism was more of an exotic ideal, not a recurring mainstream trend popping up on the runway every other season. Most intriguing of all is the fact that what Madame Mori pioneered in terms of Orientalism in fashion has more to do with sensibility – feelings – than forms. It’s not as much about the kimono per se, as how the dress hangs on the body in a way similar to a kimono, and it’s not about the kabuki makeup so much as it is about the combination of colours borrowed from the wealth of Japan’s natural and cultural landscapes. “I would say that the contrasts between serene landscapes surrounded by mountains and the outfits bought by my father from the department store, which were very modern, affected my way of thinking. It’s not just about
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nature and it’s not just about modernity. These two aspects – or the contrast between them – affected my view of beauty. It’s very difficult to pinpoint one particular Japanese aspect in my work because I see it more like a representation of a way of life – the fabrics, the colours, the wraps, the materials and techniques all come naturally for me. I never made it a theme or anything.” “But if you look at the current use of Orientalism in fashion, it’s probably a different thing. I’m a designer so I expressed what I felt at a particular time. When I showed my East Meets West collection in New York, it was because I felt obliged, as someone from Japan, to show what Japan really was to America. The theme East Meets West felt appropriate. Now the world is so small I don’t feel it’s relevant at all.” 136
t has been almost sixty years since Hanae Mori opened her little studio above the noodle shop, and as things change and time passes, the butterflies have given way to cranes. They are Madame Mori’s latest fascination, a result of her current costume design stint for an opera. Talking to her about this and her other projects, you get the distinct impression that the Hanae Mori empire is a family business where everyone helps out. Her son acts as interpreter; her granddaughter as guest model for the shoot. This familial bond harks back to those days when her late husband let her take fashion and sewing classes just after they were married, bought her that Chanel suit, and even took care of her business when the tax collector came knocking. “You know, at the beginning, he sent me money and that Chanel suit was very expensive! He was a very smart
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businessman who really loved fashion, though he didn’t have particularly good taste,” she says. “My husband was very supportive and understanding; he loved fashion and what I was doing but he preferred to stay in the background. He never claimed to be a part of it or wanted to be in the spotlight. It was a good balance, because he was very good at the money side of things, but didn’t interfere with the creative side. If he had started to have opinions on taste we would have fought all the time.” Although she retired from the runway in 2004, the designer has hardly been idle. As well as lending her golden touch to a few product design projects and designing costumes for theatrical productions, Madame Mori also established her own foundation. Aiming to foster young talent, the Hanae Mori Foundation is a manifestation of her desire to preserve something she strongly believes in – Japanese craftsmanship. “The whole idea of the foundation is to encourage the creation of anything made by hand. There are artists whose exhibitions we support. It could be paper crafts or textiles or anything. I think our obligation as humans is to use our hands. I feel that the more advanced technology becomes, the more we as men and women have to take care of our hands and cherish what is made by them.” It was the belief that her hands and fingers were capable of more than mere household chores that led Madame Mori to pick up pencils, scissors and needles in the first place. It is something she vows to continue to do as long as she can. “I never recalled saying I would retire,” she says. “As long as I’m alive and well, I won’t.”
My husband was very supportive; he loved fashion and what I was doing but he preferred to stay in the background.
couture curve
Black sequined embroidery balloon-shaped dress with white silk flowers, all by Hanae Mori
model: Hikari Mori @ Creem International Ltd.
make up artist:
Natsuko Nakayama (Shiseido)
hair stylist:
Joji Taniguchi (Shiseido)
photographer: Tanapol Kaewpring
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On the verge of a new chapter in its storied history, Yangon, Myanmar has a chance to become one of Southeast Asia’s finest cities. Will the “Garden of the East” regain its former glory? by nicholas grossman
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from abandoned buildings onto the sidewalks of dusty, unpaved roads, or lies piled high on vacant plots – and it is not always clear why. Was a building just demolished? Is there a construction project underway? Or is this just refuse caused by decades of neglect and decay? Even though motorcycles are banned from its roads, traffic now snarls Yangon’s streets as well. A new flyover is grinding one main thoroughfare to a standstill for 30 minutes at a time. Ask any resident of Myanmar’s largest city what the country’s recent democratic reforms have brought and the first answer is often “traffic”. Yet don’t be deceived by first impressions because Yangon is also blessed with all the hallmarks of a great city. Here, gorgeous British colonial-era mansions, hotels, former business headquarters and administrative buildings share space with ancient Buddhist temples, mosques, synagogues and churches. This stunning architecture is surrounded by parks, lakes, and centuries-old trees lining wide streets. The entire mélange is appealingly set along a river plied by ferries. Indeed, it is easy to imagine that with some polish and organisation Yangon could become one of Southeast Asia’s most beautiful cities. But that will depend on how this next chapter in its storied history is written. Myanmar’s largest city began as a simple Mon village known as Dagon. Its name derived from its most notable landmark, the more than 1,000-year-old Shwedagon
Yangon is blessed with all the hallmarks of a great city.
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Pagoda. In 1755, when the Mon Kingdom fell, Dagon was renamed Yangon, which means “end of strife”. After British troops arrived in 1852 to colonise Burma, Rangoon, as Yangon was called by the Brits, was re-planned in essentially two parts: a downtown in chessboard fashion along the riverside, and meandering lanes and roundabouts in the outer reaches. Over the latter half of the 19th century, Yangon was literally built up – swampland was filled in and padded with millions upon millions of cubic feet of earth in order to raise the downtown by two to three feet. At the turn of the century, with the British now in full control of Burma, Yangon became an important capital of the British Empire. The city was rapidly expanded into a major trading hub and administrative centre. The large merchant class required banks and offices as well as department stores and theatres at which to spend their money. In 1901, the elegant Strand Hotel opened its doors to tourists. Over the first half of the 20th century, Yangon became a famously cosmopolitan city known as the “Garden of the East.” Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, later a Nobel Prize winner, took up residence there in the 1920s and supposedly fell deeply in love with a local woman. In 1940, W.G. Grant, the English editor of the Rangoon Times (as cited in the excellent book, 30 Heritage Buildings of Yangon), wrote: “[Yangon] houses Indians in thousands, and there Europeans build bungalows, run commercial concerns and smoke in clubs.
She has a Chinese quarter where you can pray to Sun Yat Sen or merely have your milk pail repaired. Along her mathematically precise streets walk Japanese, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Australians, Americans, Spaniards from Brazil and Malays from Singapore. Rangoon opens her arms to the world. She is the soul of hospitality, the ideal hostess.” During World War II, Yangon was bombed first by the invading Japanese and then the responding Allied forces, but its fin-de-siècle architecture remained intact. US serviceman and author John L Christian was clearly struck by Yangon’s beauty, writing in 1945 in his book Burma that “Rangoon was a city of electric lights, paved streets, cinemas, night spots, garish neon signs and all the comforts of home … Some of its buildings, such as the Port, the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company’s headquarters, the Imperial Bank of India, the National Bank of India, were as modern as any to be found in an American or European city of the same size.” After Myanmar regained its independence in 1948, control of Myanmar’s capital finally reverted to local hands, but the inept socialist government of General Ne Win, which assumed power in 1962, did little to improve its fortunes over the next 30 years. Not until the 1990s did Yangon see significant development, mostly shoddy and ramshackle, inspired by the need to accommodate the city’s population growth. Nearly a half century of isolation had one odd side effect: it
Nearly a half century of isolation had one odd side effect: it preserved the city’s core.
effectively preserved the city’s core. Whereas other country’s governments razed historic neighbourhoods in the name of concrete apartment blocks, Myanmar’s leaders languidly inhabited the relics constructed by their colonial forebears, although not all were conserved. Still, by most measures, Yangon still contains the highest density of colonialera architecture of any city in Southeast Asia. In 2005, Yangon underwent yet another twist of fate. The bureaucrats up and left, moving the nation’s capital to Nay Pyi Taw, where they built a shiny new seat of government and army barracks from scratch. Almost overnight, Yangon’s colonial buildings were abandoned. When Cyclone Nargis swept over the city in 2008, uprooting trees, blowing off roof tops and destroying much of the city’s infrastructure, it seemed to be a harbinger that Yangon’s fate was irreversible decay. But then, almost as suddenly, new life. Since 2010, Myanmar has rather surprisingly made good on its promises to reform its political system and economy. The country has opened back up to tourism. Dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest and elected to parliament. Western countries have lifted sanctions and even US President Barack Obama has visited. The tourists are back and optimism has returned. While the turnabout has brought new pressures, such as sky-high demand for hotel rooms and office space, skyrocketing rents and traffic, there is now a blank slate of
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sorts: this city, partially in ruins but as yet ruined, can be reinvented once again. Enter the Yangon Heritage Trust, whose mission is to make sure that Yangon’s wonderful potential is maximised. The organisation is chaired by Thant Myint-U, author, historian, advisor to current Myanmar president Thein Sein and the grandson of a former Secretary General of the United Nations. Thant Myint-U has made it one of his personal goals to see that Yangon does not repeat the mistakes of other Asian cities. “Getting Yangon right is critically important, not just for the future of the Myanmar economy, but to the country as a whole,” he says. “If we can make this city one of the best cities in the region, an attractive, beautiful city that works, that is modern, that protects its old architectural heritage, that keeps its unique features, that tries to integrate its old landscape, like the pagodas, but also the old ex-colonial downtown into a more modern landscape, that uses the parks and lakes we have, we will have something unique that will be a priceless asset moving forward.” As Thant Myint-U knows, that will be easier said than done. As in any city, there are many competing, even irreconcilable, interests at play. First, you have the buildings’ owners. In many cases, they belong to the government, but not always. Some are privately owned. Then you have the ambitions of the private sector and business class, which see opportunities and demand for new office spaces, hotels and shopping complexes catering
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“Getting Yangon right is critically important to the country as a whole.”
to tourists. And then there are the local communities. As Thant Myint-U explains, “you have this incredible ethnic and multi-faith diversity – Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Chinese, Indian, Burmese communities living within a few square miles. It’s a unique cultural heritage that should be preserved as well.” Nearly 200 buildings have been earmarked for special consideration. Among them are pagodas and churches and other religious buildings, but those that attract the most concern and attention are located in the former business district from the Yangon River to the Sule Pagoda, formerly Yangon’s centre point. There, a collection of grand structures built by the British face an uncertain future. Among them are the Central Post Office, Port Authority, Yangon Division Court and Custom House, which face the Yangon River. There are the former headquarters of Lloyds Bank, Grindlays Bank and Chartered Bank, as well as that of the famous Irrawaddy Flotilla Company and Burmah Oil Company. Most famous of all is the sprawling Secretariat, which housed the British Empire’s colonial government and is often considered the most magnificent of Yangon’s buildings. Built after the British annexed upper Burma in 1886, the Secretariat contained no less than 10 different departments, including Police, Revenue and Judicial, from which the colony was administered. The British themselves were often disparaging about
the building and its design. Lord Mountbatten thought the President’s House (now demolished) was hideous and joked that it was an oversight of the Royal Air Force for not having bombed it during World War II. For the Burmese, however, the Secretariat forms an important part of their collective memory, in part, because it was in the southwest corner that independence leader General Aung San (father of Aung San Suu Kyi) and six colleagues were assassinated in 1947, changing the course of Burmese history. The Secretariat today, abandoned and decaying since the capital was moved to Nay Pyi Taw, serves as an example of how such buildings may be repurposed and the competing ideas that must be evaluated. An initial attempt to transform it into a hotel, run by private operators, was met by local outrage. The Association of Myanmar Architects and Yangon Heritage Trust have suggested alternatives. They include converting one of its wings into a national museum. The enormous site could also accommodate a memorial, a theatre, cultural centre and commercial space, including shops and restaurants. Such mix-use would allow the Secretariat to attract both locals and tourists. “I think what we don’t want to see is the complete gentrification of these areas,” says Thant Myint-U. “The tourist sector is growing; attracting tourists and having a downtown that works for tourists is important. But the most important thing is that it works for the people and
Two invaluable sources, among others, focus on protecting Yangon’s heritage: The architectural heritage of Yangon is wonderfully profiled in 30 Heritage Buildings of Yangon: Inside the City that Captured Time, written by Sarah Rooney and published by Serindia Publications with the Associations of Myanmar Architects. This illustrated book profiles 30 of Yangon’s most special buildings and offers ideas for their future use. It also includes interesting asides and anecdotes that reveal Yangon’s rich history and character. Meanwhile, the Yangon Heritage Trust was created to promote and protect Yangon’s urban landscape. The Trust has a list of 188 buildings it considers valuable and deserving of protection from decay or wholesale destruction. The list includes religious buildings, such as churches and pagodas, but also the former headquarters of colonial-era businesses, many of which comprise the former business district that served as one of the most important trading centres of colonial Britain. For more information, visit www.yangonheritagetrust.org
the communities who’ve been living there for a long time.” To achieve this, the Yangon Heritage Trust must help the city attract the investment that is necessary to convert some of these buildings into modern offices, retail or residential spaces. “We have to put in place the market incentives to make that happen,” says Thant Myint-U. While Yangon is certainly a new frontier for global business, these ambitions exist in essentially virgin territory in a country which is only just emerging from Western sanctions and decades of misrule. Credit card use, to provide just one example, is still only possible at a small list of businesses. But everyone can agree on at least one point: Yangon’s potential is enormous. Today, the city is once again a place for dreamers and grand designs. The former Printing and Publishing Enterprise, formerly the Government Press during the British era, is now being reimagined as a majestic library. The palatial residence of a wealthy Chinese shipping and rubber baron could be turned into a museum or gallery. The former Pegu Club, a once prestigious country club that saw British lieutenants face off on tennis courts and discuss the future of the Raj over gin and tonics, might become a historical site for a new tourism trail or a grand hotel. But this won’t happen unless it is repaired and rebuilt first. Like so many of Yangon’s marvellous buildings, it is in need of not only protection but some old-fashioned elbow grease. Then maybe a city once the envy of the entire region and renowned throughout the world will shine again.
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The opposing faces of Guatemala. by keith mundy
ach December, hordes of devils come to Guatemala. Clad in fierce red, carrying pitchforks for stoking the fires of hell, sharp horns on their heads and evil grins on their faces, the devils appear everywhere on the main streets of Central America’s most populous nation. Fortunately, they are not alive, but effigies that are for sale. These eerie figures presage one of Latin America’s more bizarre festivals – and undoubtedly its hottest. In the first week of December, all over Guatemala, in villages, towns and cities, people clear out their rubbish and make piles of it in the street. Then on December 7th, they stick a devil on top and at precisely 6 o’clock in the evening they set fire to the garbage heap.
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As the old newspapers, worn-out furniture and other trash go up in flames, taking the devil with them, people set off firecrackers and indulge in general merriment, with marimba bands playing. Why? Well, you see, the devil lurks in all Guatemalan houses. Under beds, in closets and in garbage that has piled up all year. By clearing out all his possible hiding places and making a fire of the rubbish with him on top – presto! – Satan’s gone. Until the next year. It’s said the custom began in the old colonial capital of Antigua, which today has what many people regard as the most beautiful Fiesta del Quemado del Diablo, as the festival’s called in Spanish. The origins,
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gradually became a national festival, and a great day for naughty boys and pyromaniacs, much like Guy Fawkes’ Day Adorable Antigua in Britain. Today, Antigua’s In anticipation of the Catholic Quemado centres on the main feast of the Immaculate square where a devil effigy rises Conception on December 8th, three storeys tall, constructed honouring the Virgin Mary, of wood and stuffed with wealthier people adorn their house fronts with lanterns, whilst firecrackers and rubbish, which is doused with gasoline and the poor, unable to afford such set aflame at exactly 6pm, as lamps, instead pile rubbish in front of their houses and burn it. custom dictates. The setting is At Santo Domingo Monastery in wonderful, for this is by Antigua, an annual tradition had common consent the most impressive colonial city in been to burn a devil figure and Central America. set off firecrackers on the Day Founded in 1543, boasting of the Rosary in late October. After local priests began stressing a tremendous wealth of architectural riches, this was, in the Virgin’s triumph over evil, its heyday of the 17th and 18th the celebration was pushed centuries, one of the great cities back to December to precede of the Spanish empire, serving her Immaculate Conception as the administrative centre for feast. Over time the two things all of Central America and part coalesced into a distinct festival of Mexico. The remarkable with people burning the devil wealth of colonial buildings – to banish evil ahead of churches, convents, monasteries Mary’s big day. Spreading out from Antigua, and mansions – provides an idea of its former status. The great the Quemado del Diablo unsurprisingly, are Catholic and colonial.
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In anticipation of the Catholic feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th, wealthier people adorn their house fronts with lanterns, whilst the poor, unable to afford such lamps, instead pile rubbish in front of their houses and burn it.
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volcano which looms above the city is a constant reminder of the geological instability that killed it as a place of power; in 1773 an earthquake devastated Antigua, and the Spanish authorities moved the capital to a location 40 kilometres to the east – Guatemala City. Superbly situated in a sweeping highland valley, Antigua’s cobbled streets and charming squares are ideal to explore on foot. Housing less than 40,000 people, having an unhurried ambience, a sociable bar scene and a wide choice of restaurants, Antigua has become Guatemala’s top tourist destination, a favoured hangout for travellers and affluent Guatemalans. A centre for learning Spanish, the town has language schools that attract students from all over the world. Located so close to the capital, it’s a favourite weekend escape for middle-class Guatemalans who come to eat, drink and enjoy themselves.
dates from late-colonial and early-independence days, but the district is now reviving as streets have been pedestrianised, buildings restored and new cafés and bars opened. With so many streets and so many Quemados, the city becomes one vast pall of smoke on that evening. Even worse, the junk tossed out by relatively affluent citizens is often toxic when burnt, containing many noxious substances. What started with a folklore cleansing ritual has now become an opportunity for people to light great pyres of household refuse, including mattresses, appliances, plastic goods and tyres. Small wonder, then, that many people are not keen on the Burning of the Devil. Even the government thinks it’s gotten out of hand, and the environment ministry has asked Guatemalans to dim their pyromania. Newspapers have grumbled that polluting the air is the opposite of purification – to little effect so far.
The Big Smoke The capital, Guatemala City, hosting four million inhabitants – about six times the number of the second biggest city, Villa Nueva – and growing fast, naturally has the most fires each December 7th. A maelstrom of industry and commerce that sprawls across a huge upland basin, surrounded by craggy hills and volcanic cones, this is Guatemala’s undisputed centre of politics, power and wealth. The capital has an intensity and vibrancy that are both its fascination and its horror, and for many visitors, dealing with it is an exercise in damage limitation, as they struggle through congested streets suffused with traffic fumes. For years urban decay has tainted the capital’s historic heart that
The Real Devils If only the custom dealt with the real devils, there would surely be no complaint from most Guatemalans. For in Guatemala true demons exist in considerable numbers and their deeds in the last four decades are shocking beyond belief. Human rights reports from the 1970s through to the present document savagery unparallelled in the Americas, most horrifically the systematic massacre of rural communities by the armed forces in the 1980s – part of a long civil war in which an estimated 200,000 Guatemalans lost their lives, the bulk of them indigenous people completely innocent of any offence. “Draining the sea to kill the fish”, the army cynically called it, the sea being a village, the fish
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Few countries have sights to match the dawn over volcano-ringed Lake Atitlan or the view of the pristine jungle from atop a great Mayan temple at Tikal. Few countries have such dazzling traditional peoples, such abundance of wildlife, or such a fine old town as Antigua.
being a few suspected guerrillas. The vast majority of Guatemalans would dearly love to be able to sweep these devils out of the country just as they brushed the folklore devils out of their houses. But the ingrained system of impunity for the powerful does not allow it. Even when the man regarded as the absolute Satan of human rights abuses, the former general and president Efrain Rios Montt, was finally put on trial this year [2013] for genocide committed under his rule in the early 1980s, and – by a miracle – convicted, a few days later a higher court voided the verdict on a technicality. The first former head of state to be prosecuted for genocide in his own country, the demon responsible for
killing tens of thousands of Guatemalans was free again. This is a country with two faces, a land of peerless beauty masking demonic brutality. Long after the civil war officially ended in 1996, the level of violence is still extreme and the judicial system is incapable of coping with it. Recent official records have showed 97 percent of murders of women going unpunished and 70 percent uninvestigated. A UN official once made the sardonic comment: “Guatemala is a good place to commit a murder, because you will almost certainly get away with it”. The traveller, however, is rarely the target, and for many experienced wanderers – including the great travel writer Norman Lewis – this is the world’s most beautiful country. On his first visit in 1946, Lewis saw “a country of extreme, often unearthly beauty, lying in the shadows of 32 volcanoes, its towns rattled constantly by earthquakes like dice in a box, its villages peopled by a race who rarely smiled”. All that is equally true now. So let’s turn away from the devilry to the beauty of this land, of which there is so much. Few countries have sights to match the dawn over volcano-ringed Lake Atitlan or the view of the pristine jungle from atop a great Mayan temple at Tikal. Few countries have such dazzling traditional peoples, such abundance of wildlife, or such a fine old town as Antigua. A Land Apart In that isthmus which snakes from Mexico down to South America, the Caribbean Sea on one side, the Pacific Ocean on the other, Guatemala is the largest and most populous country. Amongst the region’s seven nations it is unique, with
extraordinary natural, historical and cultural appeal. Central Americans are generally of very mixed blood, blending Amerindian, European and African genes. Guatemala is different. It is the only country which has a high proportion of pure-blooded Amerindians – 40 percent – and the only one in which Amerindian culture continues in a largely traditional way. This is the legacy of the ancient Mayas, whose remarkable civilisation arose and flourished in what is now Guatemala and adjacent parts of Mexico.Their ceremonial cities were abandoned centuries ago, but Maya people continue to thrive in the highlands, where traditions and rituals, mingled with Catholic practices, endure to form the richest and most distinctive indigenous identity in the Americas. Witnessing the Friday market in the highland town of Solola rams this fact home. There, seated all across the formal gardens of the central square, pure Spanish colonial in style, are hundreds upon hundreds of Indians, their brilliant red woven clothing dazzling the eye, the mournful resignation of their expressions and postures demonstrating an ancient culture dominated yet largely unmoved by that imported one which has grown up amongst them over five centuries. Their strength is that of the Mayan civilisation whose descendants they are. Along with the Andean civilisations that climaxed with the Incas and the Mexican civilisations which culminated with the Aztecs, the Mayas were one of the New World’s most sophisticated peoples. Reaching its zenith around 700-900 AD, their urban civilisation collapsed due
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capital city’s elite. In those highlands lies Lake Atitlan, one of the most beautiful places on earth. Some 15 kilometres wide, this bowl of deep cool clear water is encircled by volcanoes that rise sombrely and symmetrically from its shores. The three largest cones stand sentry above the lakeside town of Santiago Atitlan, where the people, as in each part of the Indian highlands, wear clothes of a Indian Highlands distinctive pattern and cut. Visiting highland Guatemala Most striking are the men in today, you encounter a people their black-and-white striped characterised by a sweet pants of three-quarter length, melancholy. They are almost unfailingly polite but consistently a mark of the Tz’utujil Maya. From Panajachel on the sad. Though not averse to northern lake shore, the views fun, they typically possess a demeanour of withdrawn dignity. are magical. From dawn to dusk, Excellent craftsmen and women, the lake and its backdrop of volcanoes pass through varying and practising their age-old agriculture, they run an economy moods, first soft and misty, next warm and brilliant, that contrasts strikingly with then windy and cloud-decked, the country’s macro-economy until at sunset a Technicolor – the agribusiness of the large drama fills the skies. From the landowners and the industrial lakeside, cobbled streets rise and service economy run by the to climate change long before the Spanish conquest of the 1500s. Shorn of their temple cities and sunken back into a small-scale agricultural way of life, their prior experience of catastrophe enabled them to cope with the conquistadors much less traumatically than did the Aztecs or Incas, whose civilisations were overthrown at their height, making the fall so demoralising.
photo: ©corbis / proile
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gently through lush gardens, but things are far less tranquil than they were in the hippie days when this was a counterculture haven for gringos. Now a brash tourism reigns, with strings of cafés and craft shops catering to the palates of the white folks of the North. A bohemian element remains, but the village is having its Koh Samui moment, seguing from a budget traveller’s mecca to a resort for tour groups. Higher up in the hills is the Mayan heartland of the old Kaqchikel and K’iche kingdoms. Its main town, Chichicastenango – an important trading town long before the Spanish conquest – is a remarkable place in which colonial vestiges are outdone by a bustling market and bizarre religious customs. The Mayan descendants have never really accepted Catholicism, but adapted it to fit their ancestral religion. Eschewing pews, choir stalls, pulpits or high altars, the town’s principal church of Santo Tomas has a bare stone floor along the centre of which stands a series of low platforms, upon which the people place candles and floral offerings in worship of a hotch-potch of Christian saints and Mayan gods. A dense fog of incense shrouds the scene, its powerful scent joining the low chanting of worshippers. In the 1980s, a new parish priest fresh from Spain was sent to Santo Tomas. He saw what took place in his church and the same night threw every vestige of pagan worship out into the street. Upon word of this, an angry mob surged forth and the priest ran for his life. He did not return for six months, and then allowed all to continue as normal. (Discretion is wise for tourists too: take a picture inside the church and an enraged worshipper might smash
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In the 1980s a new parish priest was sent to Santo Tomas. When he saw what took place in his church he threw every vestige of pagan worship onto the street. Upon word of this, an angry mob surged forth and the priest ran for his life. He did not return for six months. 327
your camera.) This is a culture that is deeply enduring and self-protective, personified on the international stage by Rigoberta Menchú, the K’iche Maya activist for indigenous rights who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992. This highland area was a major sufferer of the state’s violence in the civil war, in which Rigoberta herself lost her father, mother and brother. Whilst today’s Maya people have the highlands as their heartland, in ancient times the great Maya cities were far away in the forested lowlands. Northern Wilds Far in the north lies the lowland Peten region, about 70 percent of which is still covered by primary forest. Easily accessible only by air from the main population centre in the south, Flores is one of the few towns of any size, a remarkable settlement on an island in a lake, reached by a causeway. Dense with old
red-roofed buildings and narrow cobblestone streets, Flores is like nowhere else in Guatemala. Special as it is, it’s really just a staging post to the main attractions. Much of the forest is protected as the Maya Biosphere Reserve, the largest continuous tract of forest in the Americas after the Amazon jungle. Packed with ceiba, mahogany and sapo dilla trees, the forest has a canopy that towers 50 metres above the dense vegetation that cloaks its floor. Most of the reserve remains miraculously undisturbed, although recent oil finds and migrant settlers are putting strains on the Laguna del Tigre National Park. The Peten’s star attraction is the Tikal National Park, still an ecological paradise that protects an amazing biodiversity yet to be fully explored, where birds are extraordinarily varied and jaguars hunt in the night. Yet even that is not the main reason to come here. In the heart of this jungle lies one of the major sites
of Mayan civilisation, inhabited from the 6th century BC to the 10th century AD – Tikal. A millennium has passed since Tikal was a living city with possibly 90,000 inhabitants. Now, in the tourism age, many visitors reach it, but still they are far fewer than the original denizens. The limestone ruins of the city’s grand ceremonial centre – temples, plazas, palaces – were only dug out from centuries of overgrowth and partially restored in the 1960s. Wildlife has long regarded them as its home – howler monkeys, harpy eagles, white-nosed coatis, toucans, ocellated turkeys and many other species. Tikal’s temples, ziggurats of daunting steepness, only just hold their heads above the forest canopy. If you brave the vertiginous stairway to the top of the tallest temple, you are rewarded with 360-degree views of primary forest – no less majestic now as it was to its ancient Mayan inhabitants.