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Questionable Karma in Myanmar
Unlucky “Good Luck” Birds
A Myanmar woman set up shop on the steps to the temple, a cage of restless, rustling birds besides her. A strange place to sell pets, I thought, removing my shoes and socks to gain entrance to Shwedagon Pagoda. The pagoda is both a tourist attraction and active temple, adorned with 27 metric tons of gold leaf, thousands of gems, a 74-carat diamond and somewhere in the maze of brilliance, strands of Buddha’s hair. From the stacks of shoes at the entrance, it was a busy day at the sprawling temple complex. But I could not figure out what why the woman in front of the entrance was selling what looked like sparrows.
Glancing at the birds, I could not imagine anyone buying a pet before visiting a temple, especially this most sacred of all to Myanmar Buddhists. Were the birds reverent in some way I did not understand?
The woman with the birds extended her closed hand toward me, and said what sounded like some number of kyats — Myanmar money. At first, I thought she was offering to safeguard my shoes for a fee. Then I saw one of the tiny birds in her hand. It looked like a sparrow but with flecks of yellow on its tiny head.
All became clear when a man walked up and handed the Myanmar equivalent of 50 cents to the seller in exchange for the release of one of the birds. The woman stuffed the money in…
