It’s been three months now. Three months in the Golden Land, three months of chaotic asian everyday life. Three month of constant astonishment.

Yangon caught me, she sucked me up in her spiral of colors and noises, she is holding on tight and not letting go of me. (Yes, I decided that Yangon is a female. It feels natural to refer to this city as a lady). She is exhausting and mysterious, dirty and yet charming. I do think of home sometimes, I do miss Europe and all my people there, but it feels good to be here. The days are packed with work, the nights are full of friends, rooftop bars and beer. Life is flowing, time is running, everything is alive and in motion.

But between all of this, sometimes, I still find the time to think, to reflect. I reflect quite a lot, even if very often the conclusion I reach is „don’t think too much, just feel it“. As far as certain matters are concerned (girls and stuff…) I am a big enemy of rational thoughts, but I am also fascinated by the power and the huge range of human mind, by all the things we can think of, both with consciousness and unconsciousness.

If there is one great thing that I’ve learned from kulturweit and my first three months in Myanmar, it’s questioning things. Actually the German word describes it more accurately: „hinterfragen“, literally „to ask behind“. I try to observe the world that runs in front of my eyes from a critical perspective; I try not to give things for granted; I try to dig deeper, to find the reasons, to turn it upside down.

I question the common behavior of many expats here, who I only hear complaining about the lack of efficiency and progress in this country. I question the attitude of tourists who are annoyed because locals don’t speak English, find accommodation in luxes hotels and then proudly tell their friends back home about how they’ve visited a place with such low living standards. I question myself, when I occasionally complain about having to kill cockroaches that come out of my shower or about not having electricity in the house for one week, but then see people just outside our house showering from bouquets on the street and sleeping on the wooden tables where they sell their vegetables during the day. I also question those who pity these people and, when I hear them laughing with a beer at night or singing to the cords of a untuned guitar, I think that maybe they are happier then us. I question using categories like „us“ and „them“. I question being able to measure happiness.

I question the fact that foreigners have to pay a lot more than locals for certain services. I question questioning that, since the average income here in Myanmar is 60$/month. I question embassies of countries from all around the world, who come here to diplomatically and financially help Myanmar, but at the same time live in huge villas with fancy gardens all around, security guards, high fences and barbed wire to divide them from the dirty streets.

I question that western, “civilized” countries set the standards of what is “civilized”, and the rest of the world runs after that utopia. I question that we set a capitalistic society based on consume as the standard of “modern” and “progressive”, and sell it to them as the example to follow. To me, all the trash and pollution problems Myanmar faces are related to that.

I question that we rank countries into categories like First, Second, Third and even Fourth World. Why is it, why we are the First World? What gives us the right to place ourselves before others? Centuries of colonialism, based on pure racism and exploitation? I ended up questioning our education, that beloved and holy education that I always praise over everything and give as an answer to solve all the problems in the world. I used to say “education is the key”, but now I ask myself: what education? Our education, that shows us only world maps where Europe is in the middle, or teaches us from childhood onwards what a great man Columbus was, how Britain brought civilization to India and how USA invaded Afghanistan and Iraq to “defend values of democracy and freedom”?

I question this fucked up world, where I can travel around the globe without any problems because I am white and own a German passport, but so many others cannot. This fucked up world where I can say “Yo, I don’t really know what to to with my life, let’s go to some exotic place for one year and experience, financed by German taxes”, but people who flee their homes to escape war and destruction are not welcome in wealthy Europe. This world where everyone should have understood that war is just wrong and that walls and bombs are not the solution, but hey, let’s build a wall around the West Bank, and hey, let’s go and bomb Syria!

I also question the extreme racism that sometimes shimmers below the surface when I talk to some Burmese people. I am surprised by the comments that I catch about “black men”, especially Muslims. I am annoyed every time I get the “oh, you are from Germany? I know Germany – Hitler, Hitler!” (trust me, I get this pretty often). I am shocked by the whole Rohingya Muslims story, the “most persecuted ethnic population in the world”, one million people in the west of Myanmar who are being denied citizenship and right to vote, are closed up in refugee camps and are often violently kicked out of the country. Not even peace-angel Aung San Suu Kyi has stood up for them, she didn’t mention the topic during the whole campaign before the elections last month.

But then I question even this: maybe these people believe in stereotypes because that’s how they have always learned it. Maybe they don’t know what Hitler really did, and they only want to chat with me about Germany. Maybe they see that I am white and they treat me differently, because that’s their image of white people, for them we are rich foreigners that come from far away and expect to be treated differently. How can I tell? What do I know? How can I blame them, if they have never received the education that I received? If I push deeper, I reach questions like “why are men bad? Where does the evil come from?”. I always have to think of my beloved ancient Greek philosophy (thank you, Eurocentric education system!), of Plato, who simply explains that the evil comes from “not knowing what the good is”. I wish it were like that, even if it might seem a little naive.

It doesn’t stop here though: when I tell my friends in Europe about Myanmar, I am seen as an expert on the topic: I have been there, I have lived with those people, what I say must be true, right? So if I say “Myanmar is this and that, Burmese people are so and so”, they will believe it. Why shouldn’t they? But who am I to talk like this about Myanmar? How can I dare to make a statement about a country and its people? I have only met a fraction of 55 million population, I have only seen a fraction of the places, I have only been here for a couple of months, spending most of my time in an office with other Germans. So what can I say? I’ve learned to be very careful with sentences that involve the terms “always” and “everyone” (*alle, immer!). These sentences are never true, everything is relative, there is always the exception. But I started questioning communication itself: how can we talk to each other? How can we tell the truth from the lie, when there are so many shades of it? What is truth, can we define it?

What’s more, I found myself questioning what I am doing here, questioning kulturweit and everything around it. I could think of so many better ways of investing thousands of euros than to give me an awesome experience to add to my already awesome life. But maybe without kulturweit I would not be questioning all of this and seeing the world as I do, so I am just immensely glad and grateful for this chance I have. I feel like I receive so much more than I can give, but I promise that I try very hard to give back as much as I can.

– There is no black and no white, only shades in between –