british

The Burmese Coconut Tree

 

A friend of mine is married to a chef. He was recently invited to do a cooking presentation in Rangoon, Burma (Myanmar).  I would love to know what he is preparing for them. Perhaps it includes coconut.

 

The Origin of the Coconut

Many hundreds of years ago a raft with three people on it reached a city on the Burmese coast. The three strangers were taken before the king. In answer to the king’s questions, the strangers said that they had been set adrift on a raft on the orders of the king of their own country across the sea, because they were found guilty of certain crimes. One of the strangers was a thief, another a witch, and the third a mischief-maker who harmed people by his tittle-tattle.

The king gave a house and one thousand silver coins to the thief, and allowed him to settle in Burma. “He was a thief only because he was poor,” explained the king, “and now that he is no longer poor, he will make a good subject.” To the witch also the king gave a house and a thousand silver coins and allowed her to settle in Burma. “She bewitched people merely out of jealousy,” explained the king, “and she was jealous of others only because she was poor and unhappy. Now that she is rich, she will no longer be jealous of other people’s happiness.” But the king ordered the mischief-maker to be executed at once. “For,” said the king, “once a mischief-maker, always a mischief-maker.” So the mischief-maker was taken to the place of execution, and his head was cut off.

The next day one of the king’s officers passed by the place, and to his surprise he found the head of the mischief-maker rolling about on the ground. He was the more surprised when the head of the mischief-maker opened its mouth and said repeatedly, “Tell your king to come and kneel to me here. Otherwise I will come and knock off his head.” The officer ran back to the palace and reported the matter. But nobody believed him and the king was angry, thinking that the officer was trying to make fun of him. “Your Majesty can send another person along with me,” suggested the officer, “and he will surely bear me out.” So another officer was sent along with the first officer to the place of execution.

When they reached there, however, the head lay still and remained silent. The second officer made his repot, and the king in anger ordered the first officer to be excutied at once as a teller of lies. So the unfortunate officer was taken to the place of execution, and his head was cut off in the presence of his fellow officers. When the execution was over, the head of the mischief-maker opened its mouth and said, “Ha,ha, I can still make mischief by my tittle-tattle, although I am dead.” The officers, realizing that a gross injustice has been done to the dead officer, reported what they had seen and heard and the king was full of grief an remorse.

The king, realizing that the head of the mischief-maker would make further mischief by his tittle-tattle if it was to remain unburied, ordered that a deep pit be dug and the head buried inside it. His orders were obeyed and the head was duly buried. But the next morning, a strange tree was seen growing from the place where the head had been buried. The strange tree had even stranger fruit, for the latter resembled the head of the mischief-maker. The tree is the coconut tree. It was originally call ‘gon-bin’, which in Burmese means ‘Mischief-maker tree’, but during the course of centuries, the pronunciation of the name has deteriorated, and it is now called ‘on-bin’ or ‘coconut tree’. And, if you shake a coconut and then put it against your ear, you will hear a gurgling noise for, you see, although now a fruit, the head of the mischief-maker still wants to make tittle-tattle.

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Maung Htin Aung was born on 18 May 1909. He was the great grandson of a military officer who fought in the first war against the British in 1826. There were two more wars against the British and eventually Burma was completely overtaken in 1885.

Maung Htin Aung was part of an aristocratic family and received a Bachelor of Laws from Cambridge Univiersity, a Bachelor of Civil Law from Oxford University, a Master of Laws from the University of London and doctorates in Anthropology and Literature from Trinity College, Dublin.

He wrote books on Burmese history and culture. The above is an excerpt from his book Selections from Burmese Folk-Tales published in 1952 by Oxford University Press.

A later edition: Burmese Folk Tales is available at Amazon.com

 

Burmese Coconut Rice

Serves 8

Ingredients
5 cups rice
3 coconuts
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp sugar
1/3 tsp salt
2 onions

Grate the flesh of 3 coconuts. Pour some hot water and squeeze the milk through thin muslin. Repeat till all the milk is extracted. Wash rice thoroughly. Put rice into pot. Add this milk until it stands ¾ inch above the rice. Peel, quarter and wash the onions. Add to the rice, oil, sugar, salt and onions. Stir till well mixed. Cook till the milk is evaporated and the rice tender.

 

Poppy Day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went to a British grade school in Mexico City.  We wore a uniform.  It was a grey skirt, shorts or trousers for the boys, white sox, black shoes, a white shirt, a green tie (both girls and boys) and a green blazer with the crest of the school sewn on the upper left hand pocket. My brother used to get into trouble because his badge kept getting ripped and he would take it off.  That crest had to be on there.  I learned to tie my own tie at 7 years old.  Some kids wore clip-ons but most of us tied our own.

In November my first year, kids started showing up with red paper poppies pinned to the lapel of their blazers.  I had never heard of Poppy Day but I loved the color added to the otherwise mundane clothing.  I bought one and wore it even though I didn’t understand why. I looked forward to it every year. That splash of red.

When I was working at the British Embassy in Moscow, I saw people wearing poppies on their lapels and it took me right back to school in Mexico. I had forgotten all about those red paper poppies.

Recently I have been watching the BBC to give me a more worldly perspective on the news. And lately they are wearing poppies. I have poppies on the brain.

It was the 11th month, 11th day, 11th hour when hostilities ended.   It was the end of the First World War, the war to end all wars. Poppies bloomed all across the fields where the battles were fought and lives were lost. A sea of red.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

                        Lieutenant Coronel John McCrae, 1919

Also known as Remembrance Day, Armistice Day, Veteran’s Day, it is honored around the world in different ways.

In the USA poppies are assembled by disabled and needy veterans in Veteran Hospitals.   The poppies are given in exchange for contributions.  The contributions provide financial assistance in maintaining these veterans’ rehabilitation and service facilities as well as the Verterans’ of Foreign War National Home for orphans and widows of the nation’s veterans.  They aren’t as common here as they are in Britain but you can find them.  Wear your poppy proudly!

An Englishwoman in India

An Englishwoman in India

The Memoirs of Harriet Tytler

1828-1858

Edited by Anthony Sattin

Harriet wrote her memoirs when she was in her late 70’s.  She was a Victorian woman and represented her class and period well.

Her grandfather and uncle were prisoner’s of war in France under Napoleon.  Her grandmother and mother lived nearby for 15 years so the family could be together.   After the battle of Waterloo, they were released and returned to England.  That is where her mother met her father while he was on furlough from India.

Harriet was born in 1828 to a British military family in India.  At 11 years old, as was common practice at the time, she was shipped off to England with two younger siblings to continue her education.  When they landing in England their clothes were so outdated everybody laughed at them.  Her brother was immediately sent on to boarding school where two older brothers were waiting for him.  She and her sister lived with a family they had never met before for about a year, until her aunt came to collect them.  Her aunt was strict and cruel and Harriet hated every minute of her time there.

At seventeen she started her journey back to India to be reunited with her parents who she had not seen for 6 years.  She traveled by steamer and by land until she reached Aden just off the Red Sea.  The group traveling with her were friendly and she had a happy time.  At Aden she received a letter from her brother-in-law in India and feared her sister was sick.  It was worse, her father was dead.  When she finally reached Calcutta, there was nobody to meet her.  She saw her mother two weeks later only to discover that she was on her way back to England with the younger children.  Harriet was to stay with another aunt and uncle who was serving the in Punjab Campaign.

At 19, she met and married Robert Tytler, a Captain in the British Army who was also a widower with two children.

This woman did not have an easy life.

On May 11, 1857, she was living in Delhi, eight months pregnant with two small children at home.  That was the day of the Great Sepoy Mutiny.  The “Sepoy” was the Indian soldier serving in the British Army.

Harriet writes:

“It is wonderful to think how unanimous they were, Hindus and Mohammedans, in the one object of exterminating the hateful Christian in India.  On this occasion the Mohammedans and Hindus were one, their bitter antagonism to each other, which had always been our safeguard so far, was for the time overcome.  The gullible Hindus, two to one in each regiment, firmly believed Prithee Rai’s raj would return and then they would be masters of India.  The wily Mohammedans, who were using these poor deluded men as a cat’s paw, encouraged the belief, knowing all along that they would soon find their mistake, for the Mohammedan meant to reign by the edge of his sword, which would also be used to proselytize the poor idol worshippers.”

However Philip Mason notes in the Introduction: “Harriet, of course, like everyone else, has heard of the cartridges (smeared with pork and beef fat) but does not seem to have known that the original offensive cartridges were withdrawn (therefore confirming that the rumor was true).  Like every other young wife in India at the time, she thinks that the Mutiny was a deep-laid plot, instigated by the sons of the king and spread by wicked Muslims who played on the fears of the simple gullible Hindus.”

Harriet ran for her life that day.  She, pregnant, with her two children, 2 and 4 years old, eventually loaded themselves onto an already overloaded carriage and rode hard out of town.  Her husband riding back and forth checking on other people.  The carriage broke to pieces.  They found another one, it also broke down.  They ended up walking to the next outpost where luckily there was no uprising.

Eventually the British took back Delhi.  Harriet bore 10 children, 8 of whom lived, and spent the rest of her life an expat in India.  She died in 1907 at the age of 79.

 

Photo credit:  Richard Collier

Book Excerpt

Moscow 1993

I always checked the bulletin board at the US Embassy and one day I saw an ad for a position at the British Embassy.  I called them up and went in for an interview.   This was 1993 and there were still very few expats in Moscow.  The first guy I met used to live in Nigeria so we hit it off.  Then he drove me to the Commercial Section, as it was in a different building in a different part of town.  I met with three or four people over there.  They had just purchased a Windows computer and needed somebody to learn how to use it and to type letters, do formatting and transcribe dictation for them.  I could type and I had played around a bit on Windows so they hired me on the spot.  I don’t think Nicholas was too thrilled because they didn’t pay much, but I was excited to have a job.

My first pay from the Brits was all in 5 dollar bills!  What a wad I came home with!  I felt really rich.  I was paid in cash so we had money without having to write a check and any extra went to American Express in Moscow.

I enjoyed working with the Brits.  In some ways I think I felt more comfortable with them than the Americans as they immediately grasped my humor (or sarcasm). The British Embassy was on the river, directly opposite the Kremlin in an old, beautiful mansion.  However, I didn’t work there.  The Commercial Department was in a separate building on the other side of town.  I would get a ride in the morning from one of Nicholas’ drivers and then I would take the metro home.

Soon after I started, I went to a reception at the British Embassy and met Ann, the Princess Royale and her new husband, Commander Lawrence.  We all stood in groups (assigned “clumps”) in a semicircle and the Commander and the Ambassador’s wife (who was an American) started at one side and Princess Ann and the Ambassador started at the other so they spent about 2 or 3 minutes talking to each clump.  The Commander seemed a little nervous but he was nice and Ann had on a bright green straight silk skirt and a fuchsia silk top. She carried a black silk purse with matching black shoes and sported long white gloves.  She was prettier in person than in her pictures and was very relaxed and charming. We drank Pimms out on the lawn and it was lovely.

 

Note:  photo and story are about the old Embassy.  They have since built a new one.  Pretty different, eh?