Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: The meat eating monks of Myanmar (video)

Friday, August 28, 2020

The meat eating monks of Myanmar (video)

Host Sonny Side, Producer Lady Goo Goo, Shizuka Anderson (Best Ever Food Review Show, March 25, 2020); Ellen Page; Sayalay Aloka, Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Donated diet of Myanmar monks

Monks rise up to overthrow military dictator.

MANDALAY, Burma - Myanmar is a war-torn country under little known military dictator General Than Shwe, now hiding with his junta and billions of dollars of embezzled funds from resource-rich and utterly impoverished Burma, which Gen. Shwe renamed Myanmar after putting Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest after she won democratic elections.

Ellen Page introduces us to Asia's "Hitler" General Than Shwe of Burma

I sold out to be in Parliament.

(See Beyond Rangoon for the Hollywood version and Burma VJ for documentary footage shot during the subsequent "Saffron Revolution," as monks stood up in protest to bring down the corrupt government only to be met with extreme military violence and fake democratic reforms ushered in by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and best-fake president ever, B.S. Obama).

The Irish monk a century ago

ABOUT THIS EPISODE: Sonny goes to Myanmar, all the way to Mandalay, to see what they eat on the streets and, more importantly, in the temples. Buddhist monks and novices rely on alms, donated food prepared by the local community.

Although the country is very Buddhist, like neighboring Mahayana China, monks may eat most donated things -- even slaughtered animals -- so long as they neither "see, hear, or suspect" that such animals have been killed to feed them. (They do not seem to concern themselves too much with this rule from the Monastic Disciplinary Code or Vinaya, and the locals do not seem to know the rule at all).

InsightMyanmar's Western view on Buddhism

So as long as they are neither killing nor tacitly/implicitly approving of killing, all kinds of spicy and somewhat low-grade foods (white rice, stale oils, toxins, preservatives, chemicals, MSG, flavorants, etc.) are donated and consumed. The villagers are poor but generous, and they give the best they have.

To find out what that "mystery dish" the monks eat in the morning is, Sonny becomes a novice or samanera (a "little shaman," a wandering ascetic in training), a temporarily-ordained monastic, to find out. He gains rare insight into the Theravada monkhood, living conditions in the developing world, Asian customs, and the vulgar "street" food of poor countries. He ordained at AUNG MYAY THAR ZAN MONASTERY, Shwe Sar Yan Pagoda Road, Pathein Gyi Township, Mandalay.

There are no full nuns in Burma only sayalays..

BREAKFAST: Deep fried tofu, fish curry with tomatoes, fried chili with white rice.

At A MYE KAUNG RESTAURANT, 30th Street, between 66th and 67th Street, they dared him to sample stir-fried chicken butts (anus, entrails, offal, intestines, fecal matter tainted flesh) with chopped up veggies and heavy garlic mash. Smoking hot pan of low-grade cooking oil and ginger, garlic, chili, onion, chicken butts (anus tips), carrot, bell pepper, oyster sauce, soy sauce, chicken powder, and salt coated in sweet thick soy sauce and scallion and stirred.

Little has changed in ancient parts of Asia.

He also swallowed boiled beef (cow) tripe (anal tract) and tongue (with white coat of saliva, mucus, and film of bacterial colonies): Tripe and tongue doused in salt, garlic, ginger, and rice wine boiled served with the biel sauce (ground coriander, basil, herbs mix with biel juice).

He also got drunk and tore into grilled sparrows (little city birds) and doves (white pigeons) marinated in pungent garlic, ginger, paprika, and rice wine, then burned to a charcoal crisp headless.

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🥒ABOUT BEFRS: Sonny is from the U.S. currently calling Vietnam home. He’s been living in Asia for 10 years and started making food and travel videos to document his experiences. He travels [like murdered Anthony Bourdain] to different parts of the world, hunting down and documenting unique foods in each country.

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