Burmese Lessons (22 page)

There is a long pause. When Maung speaks again, the velvet has been replaced by bewilderment. “Why did you tell me that?” he asks, but doesn’t give me a chance to explain. “If you are not too busy now, you could make some phone calls. I will give you numbers of people who would like to talk to you.” He pauses again. His voice drops to a whisper. “But please do not talk to them while you are naked. Put some clothes on.”

I roll my eyes and sit up. “All right, then. Who are these new people you have for me to meet?” I still prefer to meet people through other sources, but the thing is, Maung knows everyone.

“Two women. Though only one is a member of ABSDF.”

“Oh! This is exciting. I was beginning to think that you guys never let women do any of the talking.”

“That is unfair. You know it isn’t true.”

“But it’s true a lot of the time. It’s often the men who do the talking. The women do the cooking, or watch from the background.”

“You don’t understand Burmese culture. The women are more shy. Not like Western women.”

“In Burma the women didn’t seem very shy.”

“That’s part of the problem. The women are more shy here because they are not in a familiar place, and sometimes they can’t speak English well.”

“The way to solve that problem is to give them the same opportunities that the men have, for training and education.”

“Karen, there are not so many opportunities.” I hear the admonishing tone.

But I don’t care. This subject has been festering in my thoughts ever since I met my first group of Burmese dissidents here in Bangkok—all men. “That may be true, but women should get half of those few opportunities. They shouldn’t be left behind just because they’re women.”

“We’re doing what we can. I know women need more chances, and they will get them. But it is not so easy. Sometimes, if the women have children, they want to stay in the camp. And if they come into the cities and towns there is the problem of the immigration police. There’s also the problem of money, and where to live, and what work they do if they come out. We bring people to the towns and cities for short periods of time, to do computer classes, to do diplomacy training, to learn about documentation—all workshops run by different organizations, sometimes for a few days, or a week or two. Then they go back, both women and men.” This is an honest response, I believe, but it’s also mollifying.

He’s a natural politician. I’m still thinking of how to bring up the much thornier issue of why there are no women in positions of power within the ABSDF. Does a revolutionary organization mean any revolutionary changes for women? From what I’ve seen so far, no.

I’ve read Aung San Suu Kyi on this subject, too. In interviews, she says she’s not a feminist. I wish there was a less frightening word for declaring, “I care about women’s lives.” She believes that change needs to come for all Burmese citizens before it comes for women in particular. I know she has to be careful of what she says; the SLORC is always looking for ways to undermine her. But waiting for larger systemic change does nothing for women. Whether in a democratic country like India or under a dictatorship like the one in Burma, millions of women and girls in the developing world have to fight for education, for reproductive freedom, for pay equity, for protection against domestic violence—and for justice after that violence is perpetrated, if the victim survives it.

If the women who came before me had waited to improve women’s lives until “democracy” became a better system, I would not be a writer, because I would have started having children at seventeen, like my mother. Instead, I had an abortion, left for Thailand, and found my subject matter. And my mother might have died in childbirth, as she almost did, hemorrhaging out her last baby. But because women fought to change a lousy law, and won, she finally had the right to have a tubal ligation
without my father’s consent—something he had always refused to give her.

What the ABSDF does when it comes to women is none of my (white, foreigner) business, I know. Except that it frustrates me when the men do all the talking while the women are in the kitchen frying the noodles.

“Are you upset with me for asking these questions?”

“I am not upset. But I want you to understand our situation.”

“I’m trying to. That’s why I ask so many questions.”

“Ah. I see.”

“Remember, patience is important. So who are these women you want me to meet?”

A
ye Aye Lwin says little, at the beginning. She ducks her head down and lets the conversation proceed without her participation, saying that her English is not very good. Yet when a discussion of age comes up she offers her own, proving how carefully she listens. She is thirty, almost thirty-one—three years older than me—but she looks sixteen, partly because she is small and slender but also because her pale face is framed by short, uneven black bangs, which add to the girlishness. The rest of her long hair is tied cleanly in a straight, gleaming ponytail. She sits across from me at the small square table.

We eat peppery cold noodles and
let-phet
, the delicious tea-leaf salad I’ve become addicted to, plus a Thai dish of green curried beef that I contribute—from a famed street vendor on Phaholyothin—and copious platefuls of rice. My hosts kindly offer me a spoon, but I decline and eat with my right hand. I’m still a mess-maker, but more skilled than I was in Rangoon.

The dinner takes place at the apartment where Aye Aye Lwin, who is an ABSDF member, lives with Ma Tu and Chit Hlaing, who are English
teachers. Though Thailand has surpassed Burma in every area of development and education, it still needs the skills of Burmese men and women who learned colonial English as children. With their fluency and fine accents, they make excellent teachers. Chit Hlaing, a quick-humored yet earnest man with thinning hair and a round face, puts up his hands in a gesture of defeat. “I didn’t want to come! But the money I make here teaching is many times what I make in Burma.”

Ma Tu adds, “There are not many chances in our country. It can take years to get the visa arranged, but if people can get out they will go. My best friend’s children are in Germany, Switzerland, Singapore. It’s sad for Burmese people, who love the family so much.”

Chit Hlaing puts another dollop of curry on my plate. “The foundation of our Burmese culture is caring. On the street, if you see an old lady struggling with her parcels, or a boy who is lost, you say, ‘Daw-Daw—Auntie—can I help you?’ or ‘Nyi Lay—Little Brother—what’s wrong?’ We can address strangers as though they were part of our family. That is what a country is. But now the immediate families are broken up; they go away from each other. This will happen more and more, until the regime changes. And if the first family is broken it disrupts the bigger family, too—the whole country.”

“You don’t mention the military intelligence networks. Doesn’t that disrupt the family?”

Ma Tu shakes her head. “People in immediate families still trust each other. Usually. The MI makes it difficult for those who have one son or daughter involved in politics—they will punish the other children, even if they are not involved. You always have to be careful of who you bring into the family. There are informers everywhere. Even if there are not informers, we believe there are, so we are afraid. But Chit Hlaing describes the public forms of caring—the worry for strangers, the kindness. Gestures that are cultural, or just human. They should not be political. They are part of being Burmese, part of our Buddhism. But those kinds of gestures
will be destroyed also, because the MI creates suspicion and fear among our people. It can make life lonely.”

“It reminds me of a line by a Greek poet: ‘The world becomes a limitless inn for strangers.’”

Chit Hlaing says, “Yes. Like the West.”

“Do you think the West is like that?”

“It’s what I observe, from television and the newspaper. People in the West are not committed to anything, and they do not believe in sacrifice, so they are lonely.”

I agree with him to a certain extent, but the generalization irks me. “Western cultures are different from Asian ones,” I say. “Westerners are committed to different things.”

He gives me a stern look, which makes me want to laugh—it’s so teacherly! He snappily asks, “And what are you committed to?”

I calmly reply, “I’m committed to writing a book about Burma, which is partly why I’m here.”

“Ahh! Please write a good book so that it will become a bestseller and bring much attention to my little disaster country.” He gets up and disappears into the little kitchen. Water splashes into the sink, clattering on loose cutlery.

Ma Tu’s voice takes on a confiding tone. “He is shocked by Western consumerism. And the children can be so disrespectful to their parents. Even to their grandparents. We have seen tourists …” She shakes her head. I expect a woeful tale of rampaging white fifteen-year-olds, but she proceeds in a different direction. “Thailand is more Westernized than Burma—the Thais have lost their culture. Or they have sold it. We are afraid this will happen in Burma, too.” She cranes her head over the table—Chit Hlaing is still busy at the sink—and turns back to me. “The prostitution here bothers us a lot. There are brothels in this neighborhood. The girls sit outside. There is prostitution in Burma, but not like here, like a factory. Burmese girls also come to Thailand and end up in brothels.
Sometimes they live like slaves, but their families are too far away to help them. Or the families are desperate for the money. When we talk about the things that the SLORC has damaged, not even the family is safe.”

“I don’t often think of the damage in terms of the family, but it makes sense. Every other civil institution has suffered.”

“A family is the first union. And all the unions in Burma are outlawed.”

Chit Hlaing returns from the kitchen and rejoins the conversation. “The journalist and lawyer and doctor organizations, they are also illegal now, because people are not supposed to meet together unless it’s for the SLORC’s purpose. If an organization is allowed to have a big meeting, you can almost be sure that some of the people are friends with the generals.”

Ma Tu quickly interjects, “Except for the monks, the holy Sangha. The regime cannot own them. A few abbots have accepted big gifts from the SLORC, it’s true, but they are exceptions. Most of the Buddhist Sangha are good. They want to help the people, and they’re able to help because they can travel around and communicate, not only with each other but with the people in the villages and towns. And these people truly love and trust them. The people take care of the monks, and the monks take care of the people.

“Some people believe that political change needs the Sangha. They were very active in the 1988 demonstrations—thousands marched with their alms bowls upside down to show they wouldn’t accept any merit-making gifts from the SLORC. It was like a spiritual punishment for the generals. But some people believe they will do more. Did you know there are as many monks as soldiers? Close to four hundred thousand of each.”

“But why would it be the monks who do something?”

“Because soon they will be the only ones left. The students can’t organize because of university closures, the unions are illegal. The NLD is constantly harassed, and Daw Suu is back under house arrest.”

“But it’s hard to imagine that monks could lead an uprising.”

For the first time since dinner began, diminutive Aye Aye Lwin speaks up. “Was also hard to imagine students could lead an uprising. But we lead an uprising.”

It’s taken her awhile, but she’s ready to talk. Like so many others, she left Burma in 1988, joined the ABSDF, and has spent most of the past decade in a jungle military camp. “I trained in the field. After training, I carry gun, very heavy,” she says proudly, then adds something else in Burmese.

Ma Tu translates, “With the bayonet, the gun was as long as she is tall.” Ma Tu asks her something, and again translates the answer. “She could carry this gun all through her watch, sometimes eight hours long. She says living in the jungle made her strong.”

Aye Aye Lwin smiles sweetly.

“What’s it like, in the military camps?”

“Now is not so hard. We know water collection, we know gardening. More rice. We not getting sick. Sometimes we getting sick, but is not the same in the beginning—sick all the time, with malaria. You get it first time, you sick, then it goes away. Then is back, every month.”

“Recurrences every month?”

“Before. But not now. We get recurrences only when we get sick with flu or hurt. Then malaria comes again because we are weak. But when we first come living in the jungle we are sick all the time. That’s why I am skinny. Eat and eat but always the skinny.”

“How does malaria start?”

She looks at me in surprise. “Mosquito bites.”

“Oh, yeah, I know. I mean, how do you feel with the first symptoms?”

“You feel sick. You get fever. Then cold. The cold is more bad than fever. So cold the teeth move—what is this?” She clacks her teeth together.

“Chatter.”

“Teeth chatter. Then you throws up—you throws up, with fever and
cold, and you don’t have to do any work. That is the one good part. Vacation time.”

I shake my head in awe at how people live through such hardship—for years—and then joke about it. “Don’t you need to take some kind of medicine?”

“You have to break fever with the paracetamol and take the quinine, or you can die. Some people die.”

Chit Hlaing has been watching me. He observes, “You are also committed to malaria.”

“Just curious. It seems like a basic experience when you live on the border. I don’t want to be committed—that would mean getting it!”

As Aye Aye begins to remove our plates from the table, she says, “Don’t get committed. Malaria is not good.”

One of the reasons Aye Aye has left the jungle camp is to improve her English. We chat for a while longer about life in the camp compared with life in busy Bangkok. I realize that I have an ulterior motive in wanting to meet women. I just miss women’s company, their conversation, the shared experience of being female. Talking with Aye Aye and Ma Tu makes me happy.