Traveling on Yangon’s circular train one hot March afternoon, Slovakian national Laco Gaspar saw a beautiful woman.
The above sentence is how a romantic novel (okay, maybe not a good one) would begin to describe what happened next, but what happened next was unlike most romantic novels.
Gaspar took a photo of the Burmese woman (pictured above, though we have obscured her identity for privacy reasons) as she disembarked and walked along the platform. He then uploaded it to Yangon Connection, a popular expat group, and asked people to help him track her down, presumably not for the sole purpose of discussing the future of railway travel in Myanmar.
“Dear friends. Can you please help me to find this girl? I know it is tricky but maybe some of you&your friends will recognise her & I’ll have luck. She was travelling on the loop train (took of about 5 or 6 stations from central)… Thank you.”
In a follow-up comment, he encouraged users to distribute the photo and help him on his quest.
“thank you for all inputs by the way… welcome to share between your friends, we can make an online love story from this.”
While he received a large numbers of supportive comments (“Best of luck bro, and keep us updated” was one) several people weren’t overwhelmed with romantic feeling. In fact, many were downright horrified.
“RESPECT privacy and culture of Burmese people . Just remember that you are in Asia . I m sure you do not want to be in trouble,” wrote one commenter.
“Myanmar or no Myanmar. This would be unacceptable anywhere,” another opined.
And our favorite, for its brevity: “Not cool man – pretty stalky.”
More than 100 comments from foreigners and Burmese were still pouring in as of this writing, with the pro-Gaspar and anti-Gaspar camps almost evenly split.
So is Gaspar a Don Quixote or a Don Creep-ote?
Many countries have “missed connection” ads and the like, but throw social media and a relatively conservative culture into the mix and even the most benign attempts at romance can be seen in a completely different context.
For his part, Gaspar, a blogger and photographer who lives in Bangkok and is active on twitter, where his motto is “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it…”, seemed a little mystified that anyone would have a problem with his post.
Though he defended his actions repeatedly in the Facebook thread, he explained to Coconuts Yangon that he went on Yangon Connection with the photo after getting a positive response to another post there regarding waste issues at Bagan, Myanmar’s famous temple site.
Here’s most of the story behind the photo itself, followed by Gaspar’s response to the responses. Errors in grammar that might create confusion in meaning have been corrected, but the comment is otherwise republished as it was written in a Facebook message.
“I was working on my photos from last trip to Yangon and I stopped by this one particular photo of a beautiful woman at Thyamine myo station on the loop train trip. The photo reminded me that day, that trip and a feeling which struck me when I saw her sitting in a train (we exchanged a couple of shy glances at each other) and even I don’t have a problem to speak to women i find interesting on the streets or where ever else – I was in the train with a group of my friends and I was trying to make best photos for them. I was busy & sweating & had 2 cameras on my neck… I analysed the situation and that moment i decided not to approach her and wait a couple of minutes. I regret that today as she got off the train, something which i realised (being busy by taking other pictures) too late when the train started to move. So I took that picture of her walking at station…Working on the photos back in Bangkok (where I recently live) I realised how much I am still interested in this woman. To post her picture in Yangon Connection was maybe not the best idea how to find her again, but I didn’t see many other options / chances. So here we are today. As I am also quite surprised by all kinds of reaction to a post, let me just say this – I am really pleased by mostly positive & kind responses. (I am sorry for all negative people around, their life has to be pretty sad but let’s don’t give them more space… We live just once&don’t waste energy on that kind of attitude.) Thanks for a positive responses again! There are people writing me private messages trying to help (even there are ones who might see her frequently & willing to help) As I am visiting Yangon in a near future, there will for sure be a more to my story… So by than, to be continued.”
Gaspar also had this to say:
“As i am living&working in south east asia i do respect local manners & culture. So I understand if somebody might find that post offensive (too open or anything). Just want to assure everybody that if the girl turns out to be married or not interested in getting in contact with me – I fully respect this and everything would be deleted.”
Photo via Yangon Connection
