Hooray, Burma also has WTF?!-worthy moments!
Please keep in mind that WTF?!-worthy moments for me are also just things that make me scratch my head or kind of go–huh! Not passing judgment (I mean, sometimes I am, but not always!).
Erm...Is it the human hair that's working OR are humans working the hair? I NEED ANSWERS, MYANMAR.
Yikes. I know this probably isn't uncommon, but we were all still kind of weirded out by it.
I'm including this in WTF?! just because I don't have anywhere else to put it, but I loved this aspect of Burma. Cell phones aren't common, and I don't know how many people have home phones, so people set up phones on the street and charge for calls. Like phone booths, only not. It was brilliant.
Now whenever I complain about Thai sidewalks, I think of these and feel better.
All photo credits to Melanie.
Happy Friday and Buddhist holiday to those of you in Thailand!
Bangkok Reality Smackdown 
Haha, that sidewalk is ridiculous! I imagine the hair workshop is using human hair to make hair pieces (wigs, toppers, falls, etc.). Not pleasant to think about them being made (working with other people’s chopped off hair all day? Ewww!), but there’s a huge market for them in places like New York and New Jersey!
Ha! It *is* ridiculous! I was like–but…but…the sidewalks are all nice and wide, but you still can’t walk on them!
Oh gross, thinking about working with other people’s hair–yuck! Although I suppose there are worse jobs…
Did you buy the Osama Bin Laden DVD/CD? thingy, I’m intregried… I’d have to buy it
No way! Not even a little bit interested, to be honest!
To be honest, I’d probably leave it too. God knows what it contains and I’d rather not be found with it in my bag going back through customs. Just can’t imagine seeing that over here and would be curious to what it is.
Hahaha this post made my day! Totally WTF!?!
:) Thanks! There were a lot of things in Myanmar that were kind of WTF?!, so I had to narrow it down…
Try jogging on *those* sidewalks — eep!
I couldn’t tell from the photo with the umbrella that there were phones til I caught the caption. *shakes head* Love it :-)
There would be no possible way to jog on those sidewalks. Not only were they all broken up, they were filled with people and stuff. And if you did jog, I can only imagine the stares you would get. SE Asian countries are not meant to be jogged around! :)
Love these.
Human hair is definitely a WTF moment. The Osama bin Laden thing … uhhhh, what?
RIGHT?!
Actually, I thought the sidewalk was an interesting bit of recycling [reusing old bits of concrete, which would otherwise end up in the landfill]…
What really struck me about that photo was the sartorial juxtaposition of the men wearing polo or western dress shirts ALONG WITH sarongs.
((ha! ha! I used “juxtaposition” in my remarks, and therefore win the prize of Most Pretentious Word Used in the Responses Section…if not an outright win, at least an Honorable Mention…))
Wasn’t it the original sidewalk, just broken up?
Oh my god, the western dress shirts with the longyi (the Burmese? word for the sarongs) was AWESOME. I meant to wax poetically about the longyi on men. Hubbahubba, that’s all I’m saying!
I’ll give you an Honorable Mention for “juxtaposition”, but an outright win for “sartorial”! I didn’t even know what that word meant until, like, 3 years ago. And I was an English major. Yikes.
i love people’s imagination and ingenuity. people don’t have phones?! ok, i’ll just buy a few and set up shop wherever and let people make calls through me. you’ve got to hand it to people; when there’s a will there’s a way. my mom’s family lives in the Philippines and they used to sell paper and pencils to the kids at school. my aunt runs/lives in her very own store house that provides products to lots of people in the neighborhood. it’s fast, convenient, and lucrative.
I know! It’s pretty awesome, although how people can live on selling a few pens and notebooks from a table on the street, like they do here, is beyond me. Sounds like your aunt actually has something going on that makes money for her! Here, I see literally 10 pencils and 4 notebooks, and I wonder…
Sell them! you might just get a taste for entrepreneurialism! or however you spell it. your blogging skills and wit will definitely help in your new endeavor.
Skills and wit!
You are my new favorite person.
Yeahhhh and the next time someone complains about their cell phone not working I’ll send them over to your site!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, that should drive my readership right up, if my cell phone is any indication…
for the picture and AND – good readin’ :P
cheers
:)