From the Land of Green Ghosts - #53

Image sourced from here

Growing up, I knew of the country Burma. I knew of Aung San Suu Kyi and that it was terrible she was locked up in her house. I knew Burma was a dictatorship, and depending who you talked to, the word "communist" was thrown around now and then. And... that's about it.

So after my fail of a read for Burma earlier in the tour, I really wanted to make sure I read a book that taught me something about the country. So when someone in our Around the World group suggested a book written by a member of the Padaung tribe, widely known as the tribe where some women have brass rings lengthening their necks, I had to read it.

What we get is a beautiful, slightly poetical, incredibly South East Asian account of Pascal's life. We start with his life in the tribal hills with the Padaung, looking at the beautiful mix of missionary Catholicism with animist, Buddhist and tribal beliefs. Then his transition to seminary school in the city, to University student in Mandalay. You get a wonderful insight of the incredibly remote village boy changing to a city dweller.

This is where the story starts to change a bit from the usual coming of age story we are used to. While in university in the 1980s, Pascal is involved in the student uprising and demonstrations against the dictatorship. In the first third of the book, we had been given insights what it was like living under the regime, their propaganda and their whims and how this affected the Burmese. In the 80s, some students and monks protested against the regime and some people were shot. Then more protested, and more were shot, and so on and so forth. Then we have Aung San Suu Kyi enter on this wave of unrest and talk about democracy, and provided a united front to the people.

Pascal takes a while to come around to the movement and cause, but ends up being pursued by the regime. He ends up as a fugitive in the jungle, with other rebels who have been fighting the government for years with different causes, living on the Thai border. Eventually, after all of this, he gets rescued by a Don of English from a Cambridge college whom he met briefly in Mandalay before the trouble, and granted permission to travel to the UK and study English at Cambridge.

It's a book of contrasts in a way. Tribal verses city. Fugitive verses complying citizen. Seminary student verses other ways of life. Burmese verses UK. I must say it's the last contrast that does make me feel a bit ill. He talks about the way of living after he is rescued and it makes me sick with the extravagance compared to the poverty not only in the next country, but within Thailand. Having been there in the last year or so, it's apparent how much we have compared to every day Thais, let alone people who's entire country and economic status has be completely destroyed and devalued in the nation next door.

But this astonishment and even understandable bitterness is not displayed at all, if it is there, even when he talks about times of despair and depression. The book has this air of gratitude about it. Gratitude for being alive at all. For surviving childhood. For getting a chance at education. For being rescued. For having a chance a handful of his fellow countrymen have ever been offered in a foreign country. And I think that is the takeaway from this book. You should read it and understand the story of this country we all know little about, and the diverse cultures and traditions within it. Read it and be grateful that you are in a place where you can read these stories, that you are healthy, have means and education, and overall are safe. We are so very lucky for that.

Saving Fish from Drowning - #11

I wish this novel lived up to it's name. Instead of Saving Fish from Drowning as it claimed, this story slowly suffocated. Amy Tan let it flip flop all over the place in front of you, and then, when you thought it couldn't possibly still be alive, it would spring up and kinda flop over again.

The story is apparently about a woman called Bibi (which is a ridiculous name... no offence to any one reading called Bibi, you can't help your parents). She's dead. That's not a spoiler, it happens on page one. She's self obsessed, incredibly learned and cultured. And she's haunting her friends who are going on a holiday she organised. She sucks at haunting though as she just kinda follows them around like annoying small animal. But one you don't notice.

So you follow her friends around, after you get through 50 pages about her funeral. Which you don't care about as you don't like her. And her friends are awful, stereotypical travelling Americans. They are the people that walk into your hotel breakfast and you shudder with embarrassment as you feel terrible for being white as people may think you're from the same country, or worse, family.

I'm sorry. It's true. American's have the stereotype of being obnoxious, loud and ignorant while travelling. With the Brit's, they look down their nose at *everything*. Australians have the stereotype of being constantly drunk and obnoxious. You learn to work with it, and prove you are the exception.

Anyways. These are people you do not want to be around. All of them. Dead fish people or alive people. So after 100 pages, they got abandoned. And I hate myself a little for it. But after 100 pages, you had a good shot, and I couldn't see it getting better.

Also, I should have been warned when I found out that Amy Tan made up some stupid story about the book coming out of automatic writings she stumbled across in some Psychic Museum. So this was a "real story" told to a "real psychic". While my personal bullshit meter was going into overdrive, I then learnt that she made up this story to get more interest in the book. If you have to make up some story about automatic writings and psychics to sell your book, that should scream that it's not worth reading. Next time, I listen to that meter.

The problem is now, I don't know what to do with my journey. I think I have to find another South East Asian story, as I already felt my SE Asian pickings were rather slim. And for that, I am, just frankly, annoyed. Ruining my list *mumble mumble mumble*.



Next: To Romania, and let's hope it does better with The Appointment