This is, I promise, my last posting on the complex issues of betel this week. When Myanmar's first Pulitzer Prize winner writes, I read.
More on betel next week.
Jamie
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Myanmar’s betel chewers swallowing hard at high prices
Min Kyi Thein, Esther Htusan
Associated Press
Originally published June 9, 2016 at 1:03 am Updated June 9, 2016 at 1:20 am
THANPHYUYONE, Myanmar (AP) — It’s as vital to life in Myanmar as cheese is to France or tea to Britain. For millions of people in the Southeast Asian country, the day is incomplete without chewing the juicy, teeth-staining parcels of betel leaf wrapped around areca nut and a slake of lime.
But Myanmar’s dedicated legions of red-toothed betel nut chewers are now having to swallow hard — at the thought of paying double for what’s known as “kun-ya,” thanks to extreme weather that has caused a sharp spike in prices of the ingredients for the addictive stimulant.
A severe drought this summer wreaked havoc on betel leaf and areca nut farms, which rely heavily on irrigation. This was followed by violent rainstorms that debilitated the remaining crop.
Nowhere is the poor harvest more greatly felt than in Thanphyuyone, a village where every morning farmers pick mature leaves that are lined inside bamboo baskets and sent to wholesale markets in nearby Yangon, the country’s commercial capital.
“Betel farmers usually rely on the water from the village reservoir to grow betel leaves, but as this year brought us drought, we lost a huge amount of betel leaves and there was nothing we could do,” said Kyi Lwin, a 42-year-old betel farmer.
The extreme weather variations have been blamed on El Nino, a warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide.
The bright green betel leaves, as large as an adult palm, normally cost $1.80 to $2.50 per kilogram (2.2 pounds). But because of the shortage, the price has gone up nearly four times to 11,000 kyat or $9 per kilogram. That’s as much as the daily wage of a construction worker.
“It has only happened this year,” said Myo Lin Tun, a seller in the Thirimingalar wholesale market in Yangon.
Chewing of kun-ya goes back centuries in Myanmar. Every village, town and city in the country has small kiosks that usually sell packs of four kun-ya portions for about 10 cents. In Yangon, 25-year-old construction worker Phyo They Paing grumbles that he now gets only half the usual bang for his buck.
“I used to get four packets for 100 kyats and I was happy with that,” he says. “But now I just get two. I’m pretty disappointed with that.”
The betel leaf is wrapped around a mixture of areca nuts, lime, spices and sometimes tobacco. Aficionados chew them throughout the day, filling their mouths with a red sludge of betel juice and saliva that they dispose of with abandon in the open. Great red streams of the juice line sidewalks, bus stops, walls, public restrooms and everywhere else.
What’s left are teeth and gums stained red.
A recent Health Ministry and World Health Organization survey showed that 62 percent of men and 24 percent of women in Myanmar use smokeless tobacco products such as kun-ya, carrying a serious risk of oral cancer.
Many who sport the giveaway red teeth are bus, truck and taxi drivers who say its stimulant quality helps them stay alert.
Last month, the government issued an order instructing all employees not to chew betel during office hours and not to allow betel vendors inside government facilities.
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/myanmars-betel-chewers-swallowing-hard-at-high-prices/
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Government Polls the Public on Betel Nut
San Yamin Aung
The Irrawaddy
Friday, June 10, 2016 |
RANGOON — The President’s Office opened an online poll on Wednesday night to collect the public’s thoughts on reducing betel nut chewing and spitting in government offices and public places.
On May 27, the Burmese government launched a new anti-betel policy, which includes educational programs about the diseases resulting from betel nut chewing, and the enforcement of an ban on chewing, spitting or selling betel nut in or near government offices, schools and hospitals.
This policy, seemingly more strident than that espoused by previous governments, would have to contend with what is a highly ingrained habit among men and women in Burma.
Critics have since contended that the government should instead prioritize ridding drugs, alcohol and gambling from urban spaces, since these are far more injurious to public health—for the youth in particular—and are leading contributors to criminality. Critics have also pointed to the welfare of Burma’s many betel quid sellers, who could be deprived of a livelihood.
At 4 p.m. on Thursday, 2,284 out of 4,804 (47.5 percent) stated that gambling, drugs and alcohol should be targeted in tandem with betel nut. The second largest percentage group agreed with the policy aims but disagreed with the implementation strategies. The next largest group totally agreed with the government’s plan. Only 120 disagreed with the plan outright.
“We conducted this poll because we wanted to know the public reaction’s to the policy, positive or not,” President Office’s spokesperson Zaw Htay told The Irrawaddy. He expected the poll would continue for five more days, but this has not been confirmed.
Zaw Htay said that individual government departments would also conduct non-online polls in select parts of the country, to check for variant reactions.
Under the previous military-backed government under President Thein Sein, an online poll was conducted only once, to gauge the public’s opinion on increasing civil servants’ salaries. The betel nut poll is the first to be conducted by the new democratically elected government.
Zaw Htay said that the polls’ results would be considered when state and divisional governments across Burma implement the policy.
“Though the government issued the policy, it needs to be acceptable to the public, so that they may follow it. We need a positive reaction to be able to successfully implement it,” Zaw Htay said.
“We are also working against drugs, illegal medicines and bad food hygiene. But for these, we don’t need to conduct a poll, since the public’s opinion is already clear,” Zaw Htay said, responding to criticism that the government should be prioritizing the control of drugs and alcohol rather than targeting low-income betel nut sellers.
In most cities in Burma, drug and alcohol addiction is of great concern to the public. In recent years, police across the country have been seizing record quantities of illicit drugs. In February, police in Rangoon seized over 260,000 methamphetamine pills worth over 1.3 billion kyats (around US$ 1 million) that had been abandoned in Mingaladon Township.
http://www.irrawaddy.com/burma/government-polls-the-public-on-betel-nut.html
