Burma: Suggested Reading

One would not want to be accused of not having your literary welfare at heart. So even though the title of this post might scare you. Take heart, over the course of these silly little drivel travel blog posts (say it five times fast) of mine you have worked yourself at least through a supermarket checkout magazine. At least in size, if hopefully not in style or content. At which point I find it appropriate to once again do a kowtow as I feel quite flattered that you all would bother to come back to reading about my travels again and again.

... kowtowing...

In this spirit I would like to draw your attention to two rather well known greats of English Literature, who both started their careers in Burma. I figure if you are going to be reading about this place might as well be some of the truly great stuff ever written, anywhere.

On the Road to Mandalay
Rudyard Kipling

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat -- jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,
An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,
An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:
Bloomin' idol made o'mud --
Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd --
Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow,
She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "~Kulla-lo-lo!~"
With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin' my cheek
We useter watch the steamers an' the ~hathis~ pilin' teak.
Elephints a-pilin' teak
In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

But that's all shove be'ind me -- long ago an' fur away,
An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;
An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:
"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else."
No! you won't 'eed nothin' else
But them spicy garlic smells,
An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells;
On the road to Mandalay . . .

I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones,
An' the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;
Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but wot do they understand?
Beefy face an' grubby 'and --
Law! wot do they understand?
I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be --
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

Now, I ain't saying that my emotional state in regards to, or understanding of Burma is anywhere close to Kipling's. After all he spent a couple years more there than I did (Rereading this I realize it implies that the difference between me and old Rudyard is a couple of years in Burma - oops). But, that second to last verse sort of hits my current state of mind on the head. Except that I am going to Seattle instead of England, which will probably be worse in terms of precipitation.

Guess who started his literary career in Burma. George Orwell lived in quite a few places in Burma but Kathar provides the setting for his first novel Burmese Days.

My Uncle at Kathar

This one is required reading before you go to the Golden Land. As obvious as that is, it is way more surprising to actually be offered that book everywhere in Burma, because the Burmese, as much as the British overlords, could probably complain that Orwell must have been in a bad mood when he wrote that thing. Seldom have I come across a more sarcastic, cutting description of British Empire, or native populations for that matter.

Soccer playing monks in Kathar, I played with these cats,
thinking "How cool, playing random soccer with Monks in Burmese Days Location".
Until I read later in Lonely Planet that this is quite normal in that Monastery.
Trust LP to screw it up. Yup, they wiped the floor with me.

In SEA one is constantly offered books to read about the Killing Fields, and What they did with one girl's Father, and whatever else you like to depress yourself with. Of course it has nothing to do with generating pity for those poor downtrodden peoples; that they sell you only books of rape and pillage about their countries. Burmese Days is one that is offered everywhere, and particularly in Burma. These books are all copies, as in pirated. I am not sure if I am more amused that they think white people actually like to read, or that I can buy pirated books for a dollar the same way I steal movies and TV shows online.

Yeah, I said it!

I read Burmese days on my father's shelf in Vienna, and did not realize that it was a pirated copy until I saw it in Burma on the road to Mandalay. I just thought that it was a bad print job back home, and wondered at the Quality Assurance process of that particular publisher. But as it turns out one can get it on most street corners where there is the slightest chance of a tourist walking by, which is where Pa got it from.

None-soccer-playing monks in Kathar

Of course, closer examination of reading materials that I see in Burmese hands on Buses, ships, and planes reveals that their tastes run more to the mundane Zwei Groschen Roman - we would call it in German - romance novels and crap like that. I was waiting for one of them to say to me "I cant believe it's not butter". So really the Generals do not have to worry about the Word, as it were, to be the cause of their downfall. But was there ever a revolution without it before?