burma

Travel in Burma and Chinese Exhibit

Kalaw Hotel

In the continuing saga of my mother’s letters from Burma, 1955… The family took a trip from Pyinmana to Kalaw for a mini vacation. Kalaw is in the mountains so cooler than Pyinmana (and of course was where the British spent their holidays in colonial times). Traveling in those days and places was not an easy task.

“We started out from here last Wednesday morning at 7:30 – The Hewitts and Doss, our bearer, in their jeep, and us and Doss’s mother (who lives near Kalaw) in our jeep. Kalaw is about 160 miles northeast of Pyinmana. In true Burma traveling fashion, we had our water, coffee, lunch, soap, and all other necessities right along with us. Hewitts even took an extra 5 gallons of gasoline, but we passed three oil stations between here and Kalaw, so used up the gas and thew the smelly can away. Since our jeeps are new, we did not bother to take extra tires and parts, as people do who travel in older vehicles.

The worst part of the road is the first 20 miles north of Pyinmana, and that wasn’t nearly as bad as I had been expecting, so rather enjoyed even that. The roads are only one car width with all passing vehicles putting one set of wheels on the often muddy and always rutty shoulders. One bridge was out, but there was a definite rut around that was passable. This end of the trip is in the arid valley and very dry and hot. Not much vegetation – sort of like scrub-brush land at home. There are no fences along the roads, no road signs to speak of, and certainly no billboards or advertising of any sort. We didn’t see a single real automobile – only jeeps, a few station wagons, many trucks all overloaded and often in a dilapidated condition, pony carts, bullock carts (which often have a separate rut on the shoulder), and lots of pedestrians; besides herds of cattle, ponytailed sheep, goats and water buffalo grazing over the roads. As I say, there were three oil stations – one at Tacon, one at Meiktila and one at Thazi – all without restrooms! We got to Meiktila, about 90 miles from Pyinmana, about 11am and ate our lunch in a sort of park on the highway mid the stares of many local people. Then we headed east toward the Shan States and the mountains. The road starts to rise and we found lush jungle growth on all sides with a big snake slithering across the road once, monkeys chattering, flowering teak trees, and perfectly gorgeous views on occasion. The roads are not so bumpy, but are still without fences or barriers of any kind, and passing one of those big trucks on a sharp mountain curve often made one catch one’s breath! We arrived in Kalaw (rhymes with guffhaw) about 2:30 after making excellent time. (Note: 7 hours to go 160 miles was considered excellent time.)

The main attraction in the hill areas besides the cool weather and lovely scenery is the interesting bazaars where the different hill tribes sell their crops and handicrafts. These hill tribes are very colorful and usually quite friendly. I am always interested in their jewelry which is solid silver usually in the form of heavy bracelets or heavy large earrings. One tribe of interest is the one in which the women wear brass bracelets just below the knee. I’m sure these must be painful at times – especially if the woman has gained weight, for they are soldered on and never taken off. These people make lovely trinkets out of silver which they sell, and also very interesting and pretty baskets of different designs and uses. You may be sure we came home well-stocked with jewelry and baskets – as well as delicious fresh vegetables and a bunch of blue orchids which we hope to grow here.

On Saturday evening we were invited to Kingswood School – a Methodist Mission boarding school, also a day school. A friend of ours, the minister’s wife from Rangoon, was running it for a few months until a regular headmistress arrives from the States, and so she wanted us to see the school and get to know some of the children. We found the school to be a beautiful place with fine brick buildings set in the hillside amid more beautiful flowers. It conforms to government standards for schools and prepares children for entering the University of Rangoon. It’s teachers are all very well qualified and the Christian atmosphere, although most of the children are not Christian, is a very fine influence besides being very pleasant. Pre-war the school was filled to capacity but now with the troubled times there are only 30 boarders but almost 300 in the day school. I feel sure now that the internal trouble in this country is diminishing, Kingswood will regain its former popularity. After dinner that evening we played games with the children and then all sat around the fireplace (with a real fire) and sang songs, ending with a prayer to the tune of Brahms’s Lullaby. It was a lovely evening for all of us.

Most of these bazaars are what we call “a five day bazaar” which means the hill people come into town once every five days, and that is the big bazaar when all the place is full of products for sale. It happened the big day was on Sunday – the day we left to return to Pyinmana – but we got up early and went bazaaring before we started for home. Our trip home was uneventful and we drove in here about 3:30 pm.

There was just one blot on our otherwise delightful holiday – while we were bazaaring in a little village not far from Kalaw one morning, a dog bit Bill on the leg. Since we do not know the dog and have no way of seeing it within a week or ten days to know if it has died of rabies poor Bill will have to take the 14 rabies shots to be sure! They are perfectly terrible to take, but we can’t take the chance, for dogs with rabies are very prevalent in this country and everyone takes the shots if there is any question at all. But I guess we should be glad that such shots are available and that we know enough to take them.“

I wonder if the trip is very different today. They stayed at the Kalaw Heritage Hotel, built in 1903, the second oldest hotel in Myanmar – still there today (pictured above in 1955).

This week I took a trip to the MIA (Minnesota Institute of Arts) museum to see “Eternal Offerings, Chinese Ritual Bronzes”. The bronzes were from the museum collection but the display was what made the show. It was very atmospheric. At first I felt disoriented. It was dark and there were mirrors and “pools” and silks blowing in the wind. Once my eyes adjusted and I figured it all out, it was impressive. The rooms were Setting the Scene, An Animistic World, Temple, Ritual, Banquet, Rule of Propriety, Coming Full Circle.

Temple

Ritual

Banquet

Rule of Propriety

Like I said, atmospheric…

It is kind of snowing, sleeting, slushing today. Winter’s last hurrah.

Cooking in the Snow

a man in black jacket lighting up a cooking fire — Photo by Koen Swiers on Pexels.com

No, that’s not me…

It’s snowing again. What else is new. I saw a movie years ago, I don’t remember the name of it or really much about it except it was about some nuclear war in the future. What I remember about it was the nuclear winter. It looked like it was snowing all the time. (It might have been The Day After) When I moved to Moscow I used to say I lived in the nuclear winter because it snowed constantly. That light steady snow that never accumulated much but just kept coming down. This winter feels like that. Constant snow.

I’m typing my mother’s letters she wrote to her family from Burma in the early 50’s. I’m almost done with 1953. She helped to edit the Rangoon International Cookbook put together by women, both expats and Burmese… and Indian and Chinese, American, English, French, Australian…In the Forward it says:

“There is a Thank You written invisibly to every contributor and source of treasured recipes, named and nameless. But here we wish to record our special thanks to Mrs. Sung San, honored with Burma’s martyr-hero, and beloved herself as Daw Khan Kai for her service to her people. In the midst of new and heavy responsibilities as Chairman of the Social Planning Commission for the Union of Burma, she has found time to give us her entire delicious “company menu”, with the recipes for the nine distinctive Burmese dishes therein.” (She was Aung San Suu Kyi’s mother)

One recipe contributed by my mother is an old favorite of mine. There were no lemons in Burma but she substituted limes and that worked fine.

Lemon Sponge Pudding

Combine:

3/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. grated lemon peel
1 1/2 Tbsp. soft butter
3 Tbsp. flour
2 egg yolks, beaten

Add: 1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup milk

(Mixture may have curdled appearance, but no matter)

Beat: 2 egg whites until stiff and fold into mixture.

Pour into buttered 1.5 quart casserole.
Place in pan of hot water
Bake at 325°F uncovered 40-45 min or until set (1 hr).

Serve warm or chilled. I like it warm!

The cook book was published by the Woman’s Society of Christian Service of the Methodist English Church, Rangoon, Burma 1954

About this time my father was traveling around Burma visiting schools to potentially help with agricultural education. He writes:

“I returned last Friday evening from my trip up country. We had a very enjoyable trip for that area is comparatively free from insurgent activity. We were able to drive about 150 miles away from Mandalay without a guard. That has been impossible until recently. On Sunday we were in Maymyo (by car) and the following Wed. the insurgents blew up the train and killed 14 between Mandalay and Maymyo. Day before yesterday the insurgents blew up the guard train and the regular train following behind between here and Moulmein. They then attached the train and killed several and robbed all the passengers. On our trip we were royally received everywhere we went. These people genuinely seem to like to have us visit their schools. At several schools we were presented bouquets of flowers and at practically every school we had to have tea or food. All the schools are clamoring for agricultural teachers so my program should continue to grow. They have never had teachers of agriculture in the schools before and the ones I turn out this year will determine how effective my program is for I’m the only one in Burma doing this work.

The Honorable Vice President of the U.S. is visiting here this week. There was some comment in the papers before his arrival that the Communists were going to demonstrate to protest his visit here but nothing has come off. There was a short meeting on Tuesday of the Embassy and TCA personnel to meet Mr. Nixon. So, when I get home you can shake the hand that shook the hand of the Vice President.”

So, interesting times…

Cheers

Footprints in the snow and other thoughts

More snow today. I’m getting tired of it. I drove across town yesterday to meet my cousin for lunch. It honestly felt like I was crossing a minefield. I was dodging potholes all the way. Some of them were very large. I feel lucky and surprised when I find a street that is fairly smooth.

I bought my train ticket from London to Dundee online but somehow I must have screwed it up because it turns out I have two train tickets from London to Dundee on the same train, three seats apart. There are so many different ways to buy tickets I guess I went back and didn’t realize I doubled up. Now I have to go back and try to figure out how to get a refund and hope I still end up with one ticket. I am obsessing over every detail of this trip. I was fine until I realized that I arrive the morning after Coronation Day. I’m sure London will be a zoo.

Today’s featured postcards at PostcardBuzz are of Guatemala. The postcards are paired with a couple photos I took when I was was there in the 1960’s. Here is more about that trip:

My first plane trip in many years was in the first class section on a PanAm flight from Mexico City to Guatemala City when I was twelve. We were the only ones in first class so I got to be kind of chummy with the flight attendant. Toward the end of the flight he asked me how I liked the flight and how I felt about it. I thought that was kind of odd and didn’t know what he was talking about. Apparently my parents had briefed him on me and my troubles with flying, and so he had made a special effort to distract me. (We had been in a plane crash when I was 5 years old.)

In Guatemala, we rented a car and drove up the mountain to Lake Atitlan. Volcanoes surrounded the city and the lake itself was a collapsed volcanic cone. On the way up the mountain, we saw people lying by the side of the road. We didn’t know if they were dead, passed out or taking a nap. It was very odd. We later found out that the previous day was payday and they had done their celebrating and not quite made it home. Apparently it was a familiar site in the countryside. We also went to Chichicastenango and to Antigua. This was major earthquake country. Antigua was the original capital of Guatemala but in 1776 there was such a bad earthquake they moved the capital to where it is today – Guatemala City. Antigua was surrounded by three volcanoes.

There was a new part of Antigua and an old part. The old part was all ruins. It was an eerie place. It was once a major city that tumbled down and was left there like a memorial. We stopped at a small restaurant and ate our meal in the yard. There was a group of musicians that wandered from table to table. We could see laundry hanging at the end of the lawn.

From there, we continued to El Salvador. One night in San Salvador we were staying in a high-rise hotel and I was sleeping on a cot. The building started to sway and my cot started moving across the room. All I could do was laugh at the crazy “ride”, as earthquakes were so common at home in Mexico City. In retrospect I guess we were lucky the building didn’t come down…

(excerpt from Expat Alien, My Global Adventures)

I continue to work on my mother’s letters. In one of them she describes a meal they had at a Chinese restaurant in Rangoon (1953).

The dinner was held at one of the Chinese restaurants, and consisted of about a dozen courses of perfectly delicious food. The one good thing about Chinese food is that it is served steaming hot, so that one may be sure that most germs have been thoroughly cooked. There was shrimp and vegetables, duck served with head and tail on and covered with big mushrooms and nuts in gravy, then a whole baby pig with head and tail of which we ate only the skin which was very crisp and chewy at that course, a whole fish with delicious sauce with vegetables, then the pig came back all cut up, soup with abalone, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, etc. served in a big gourd, fried rice, dishes of Chinese vegetables, tea with real flowers in it and cookies, then lychees for the final course served in ice water. I probably have forgotten some courses, for it is very hard to remember back. I liked most of dishes, and at least tasted all except a noodle dish (which I forgot to mention above). I’m not fond of Chinese or Burmese noodles! The fish and soup were my favorite dishes – always are of Chinese food.

March first. Winter is almost over?? So I never knew this but today is National Pig Day in the USA. Apparently National Pig Day is “to accord the pig its rightful, though generally unrecognized, place” as one of the most intelligent domesticated animals. Of course anybody who has seen the movie Babe already knows that about pigs… Happy Pig Day!

Travel to India

I have been typing up my mother’s letters from the 1950’s when my family moved to Burma. In 1953 my parents took a trip to India:

“Once again it seems almost impossible that I can be here in India – but here we are! We had a pleasant flight over Sat. Aft. and Eve. – arrived here at 10 and dragged through customs (actually we went rather quickly for our Country Director was along and helped “rush” us thru). Then, instead of staying in hotel as we had supposed, they put us up in private homes! It turned out it has been very wonderful. Especially since they bundled Bill off on Sun. eve with a bedroll and sack lunch and he was gone until 7 this morning (Wed.)! We are staying with a couple who own a farm near Washington, Missouri and who are lovely people. They have taken me shopping and sightseeing, and a friend took us on a picnic among some 700 year old tombs (an experience I had never dreamed of) and it has been lots of fun.

Sunday we all went sightseeing and saw the famous Red Fort here in Delhi. The simply gorgeous government bldgs., and other interesting places. New Delhi is a beautiful, clean city with many trees, gardens, open lawn spaces and smooth unclogged roads! Old Delhi is more like Rangoon, but it is positively cold here except at midday. So different from Rangoon – we about perished waiting for the plane to leave Rangoon it was so hot and humid.

Last night went to see an Indian dancer and his program. It was positively enchanting! And then we went to a Chinese restaurant for delicious (and safe!) Chinese dinner. I so thoroughly enjoyed it and the entire evening.

Shopping has been loads of fun, but I see so many pretty and interesting things that it is hard to decide which I would like for the money I have. So many many things which are colorful and so typically Indian. naturally, I’m most interested in woven things – tablecloths, bedspreads, saries, (the things Indian women wear, you know) scarves, and just materials by the yard! I have tried to choose things especially for Jean – I sure which you were here to choose for yourself. But you’ll just have to accept my poor taste till you get to the Orient, I fear!

Bill had a glorious, if not altogether luxurious, experience on his field trip by Indian train and truck but I haven’t heard the details yet myself. We leave at 4 this aft. for Agra. Will add some later.

Feb 27 – Agra – We are in a nice English hotel which looks and is exactly like motels at home. I has a fancy dining room, swimming pool, expensive shops and hundred of servants with kaki coats and red turbans! There are about 50 people here for Bill’s conference , I guess, some from India.

FROM THE DIARY

Feb 22 – New Delhi and Lucknow. Sight seeing and shopping in New Delhi. Bill left about 6:30 pm with bed roll, sack lunch and water on night train to Lucknow to visit agricultural projects. Train quite different from U.S. Had a compartment (first class) with other person. Found that you can’t go from one car to another on the train except in station and can only get food at station. Some trains have dining cars but you have to enter and leave train while in station.

Feb 23 – Lucknow/Fyzabad. Hot and dusty – night cool. Lucknow was a city that showed a strong Mogul influence in the architecture of many buildings. Visited villages around Lucknow and then drove to Fyzebad after dinner. A very hot, dusty trip over very bad road. Stayed in Fyzebad at guest house and visited villages the following day. Returned Lucknow by car and again was a dusty ride in open jeep. Saw thousands of wild monkeys and every means of transportation – car, bus, train, water buffalo, elephants, donkeys, camels and oxcarts.

Feb 24 – Lucknow/Delhi. Took overnight train from Lucknow to Delhi. Had a better compartment this time and a good supply of food and water.

Feb 25/28 – New Delhi/Agra – Hot with cool evenings. By car to Agra. About 4 hour trip from New Delhi. We ate lots of oranges and bananas on the way. Saw all sorts of transportation as well as many monkeys. Drove through several villages and waited for what seemed like hours at train crossings. Arrive Agra about 9 pm. Ate dinner in Lauries Hotel and retire for night in our 3 room suite with fireplace. Very comfortable. Visited Taj on 26th but Bill in workshop most of time 26th and 27th.

Feb 28 – Agra/NewDelhi – After delightful time in Agra (Virginia saw Taj Mahal 4 times in one day and evening) we returned to Delhi. Our plane was TWO DAYS late leaving Delhi so we had much time for sightseeing, shopping and resting.

March 2 – New Delhi/Rangoon – Arrived Rangoon via British Overseas Airways Corp (BOAC) about midnight. Good trip with afternoon tea and dinner aboard. Quickly through Immigration and Customs and friends met us at airport. Tom had been bitten by their pet monkey but no problem and both boys were fine.”

Later

“Our trip to India was most interesting. The people with whom we stayed in New Delhi were just wonderful and enlightened us so much about India in so many ways. They took us sightseeing besides explaining so much about the people and the country. Then Bill took his field trip which we mentioned before and he saw the villages firsthand, also the trains which is an experience in itself! We had planned to come home on Sunday on the British airlines, but the plane was delayed until Monday afternoon, so Bill and I did more sightseeing, more shopping, and visited an honest-to-goodness ice cream parlor and had real banana splits and chocolate nut sundaes just like you have at home. Boy! were they good! We have ice cream made in our refrig. with powdered milk, but there is very little resemblance to good American ice cream. I attended a delightful Indian dance program and had dinner in a Chinese restaurant while in Delhi. Then in Agra we had a pleasant time altho were rushed for time, for the conference consumed so much of Bill’s time that even had to skip a meeting so that he could get a picture of the Taj Mahal by sunlight. We also visited it by moonlight, and even though there was a ground fog that night it was most inspiring and a little magical. The building is just beautiful – so white and clean (compared to other monuments) and so perfect. The formal gardens are lovely – and the way to really enjoy the whole place is to have lots of time to just sit and meditate midst all the beauty or room at leisure thru the gardens. There is an atmosphere of peace and rest that I have encountered very few other places in the world. as you can tell, we were much impressed.”

I painted my “accent” cupboards in my kitchen this week. They were just so dull and boring, I felt the need to liven them up a bit. The first photo looks kind of like a Dali painting with the weird perspective.

The days are starting to get longer and the sun is showing up more often. Lifts the mood. Still sorting out retirement paperwork, insurance nightmares, it’s a process.

My Burma memories in photos

I am re-posting from Eclectic Global Nomad

I was wandering around the National Gallery of Art the other day and stumbled across the exhibit “Captain Linnaeus Tripe: Photographer of India and Burma, 1852-1860.” Since I was born in Burma was immediately interested. I walked right in without reading any of the preamble and just started looking around. Many of the photographs were from Amarapura, the capital from 1842 to 1859 under King Tharrawaddy which is now part of Mandalay.

After the Anglo-Burmese war of 1852, the British annexed a part of Burma. This was the second of three wars. The third war in 1885 resulted in the British taking over the entire country. In 1855 Lord Dalhausie, the governor general of India, went on a political visit to Burma.

– See more at: http://baltimorepostexaminer.com/burma-memories-photos/2014/10/14#sthash.1VzbRUPr.dpuf

Brand New Expat 1953

I found this letter in an old scrapbook. My family was living in Rangoon, Burma. The letter is from my mother to a friend in Iowa.

February 15, 1953

Dear Mildred:

I’m sorry not to have written you sooner – I have thought of you so many times. I would like to tell you so much about Burma and our life her, but it is hard to condense all these new experiences and decide which might be the most interesting.

First, I think you might like to know what your home is like. We are fortunate in having a good-sized brick house, which is rented from a Burmese woman. It has 20 ft. ceilings, ceiling fans, concrete floors, and every piece of wood in the whole house from rafters to coffee table is of beautiful teakwood. Due to the high ceiling, fans and brick walls we hope to be as comfortable as is possible here during the humid hot season, which is just now beginning. To help run our household we have a cook who is indispensible, for he does the marketing, acts as interpreter since he speaks excellent English as well as four or five other languages, and he miraculously runs the temperamental kerosene stove! There are very few Burmese who work as house servants and our cook is Indian. He is a Hindu and does not eat beef, but does not object to cooking it for us. Then we have a sweeper who does the cleaning with includes scrubbing the concrete floor and waxing all the furniture at least once a week o prevent mildew. Then since babysitters are unheard of here as such, we have a nanny who lives with us and, besides babysitting, takes care of light laundry, helps me with mending and sewing and is a most pleasant person to have around. She is a young, pretty woman and a good Baptist. I usually take her with me when I drive so that she can interpret for me if the car should break down or if we should become lost (I’ still learning my way around the city).

Now, as Mother keeps asking, you might be wondering what I do with my new “life of leisure”. Well, everything is not perfect and leisurely even with so much help, believe me. Since many people in this part of the world do not have the same ideas of sanitation as we do, I have to constantly check on the kitchen to be sure the water is boiled before placed in the refrigerator for drinking, to remind the dishwasher to use soap, to see that clean dishtowels regularly replace dirty ones, etc. Our help is very fine, and they do everything to make us comfortable, but they often don’t realize how particular we must be to avoid becoming sick. One day I found nanny straining freshly boiled drinking water through a very dirty napkin into a pitcher! Language differences sometimes cause confusion – such as the time Bill asked our cook to get a mess of lime to mark out our new badminton court, and the cook appeared later with 3.5 lbs. of fresh green limes! Needless to say we are still drinking limeade. But, all in all, our household is very pleasant and as much like it would be in America as we can make it under the circumstances. I manage to keep busy – I am trying to learn to speak Burmese, I keep all the household accounts, of course, and do most of the meal planning, attend meetings of several organizations, read as much as possible, go out socially, some, and write letters. It doesn’t sound like much, I guess, but time is passing very quickly.

Our two boys both go to school from 8:30 to noon every day except Thursday and Sunday. Their school is English-speaking, but children rom all nationalities are represented. Some are learning English as they go to school. Our boys have very good friends who are Chinese, French, Dutch, and Burmese – some of whom speak no English at all. But neither race nor language is any barrier to their friendships – an example from which we all might profit.

Rangoon is a most colorful and interesting city with large Chinese and Indian populations as well as the pleasant, friendly Burmese. The city is dominated by one very tall gold-roofed pagoda which is a most interesting place to visit besides being a landmark for Rangoon and one of the outstanding pagodas in this part of the world. One climbs hundreds of steps to the top where there are many statues of Buddha of different sizes, colors and positions. The roof or dome of the pagoda is pure gold leaf and it has many valuable gems sealed inside. We enjoyed the long climb to the top almost as much as the worship center, for the stairs are lined with little shops where everything one can imagine is sold – Burmese, drums, ankle bracelets, cymbals, flowers, lacquer ware, Ivory combs, flutes made of bamboo, brassware, toys, etc, etc. Once Bill and I wanted to buy a delightful-sounding Burmese gong, and since one bargains over the price of most everything here we started bargaining. The merchant asked 15 rupees, we offered 6 and finally after much haggling got it for 8 rupees – very pleased with our bargain. When we got home one of our servants pointed out the price mark written in Burmese – 5 rupees!! But we had had fun anyway, and you can be sure we learned how to read Burmese numbers that very day.

We are at the moment thoroughly enjoying our Iowa news since the monthly ship from New York came in this week. We got about a month supply of newspapers. We get all our letters in about 10 days, but the magazines and papers take about 6 weeks.

We really like it here in Rangoon and are so glad we had the opportunity to come. It is a joy to find that these people halfway around the world are just as human as Americans are, and that it is as easy to become good friends with Asians as it is with Iowans. This is one thing that gives me a renewed faith in the world.

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.

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.

Burmese Elephant Camp

My house in Rangoon

When I was five I lived in Rangoon, Burma.

That year we took a trip up the Irrawaddy River on a boat that had a small cabin area, but was mostly open-air, with people packed onto it like sardines. We travelled to an elephant camp on Lake Indawgy, about 120 miles southwest of Myitkyna near the Chinese border. The boat stopped occasionally so people could get on and off which gave us a chance to visit a village or buy something from peddlers. We quickly decided exiting the vessel wasn’t worth the trouble because we had to either wade off the boat or try our luck on a treacherous plank.

There were six people in our group and everybody dined with the British captain in his private dining room except me because I was too young to be allowed to sit with the adults. All I remember eating were vanilla wafers and Lipton’s dried tomato soup. Yum.

At elephant camp, we stayed in tents and slept on cots with mosquito nets. I remember it was miles to the outhouse – at night we had to go with a flashlight down a rutted mud road—very scary for a five year old! We watched timber being cut by workers and then hauled by the elephants into the river where it flowed downstream. The elephants all wore wooden bells that were hand-made and had a unique melody. At night the elephants were left to wander the forest, and in the morning the handlers could find their elephants from the sound of the bells.

While kids in the States were probably learning to ride their tricycles, one afternoon I learned to ride an elephant. In order to get up onto its back, we climbed onto its knee and then to its shoulder and up its neck, behind the ears. We were supposed to go down the same way. My mother was impatient and decided it would be quicker to slide down the back, instead of waiting her turn for the elephant’s knee. You should have seen the look on her face. Elephants have long, stiff hair that stung her as she slid down. The highlight of the trip was one of the elephants had just given birth to twins and we spent hours watching them play.

Jim Thompson and the Burmese Kalaga

Jim Thompson was an American expat living in Thailand. During World War II he worked for Office of Strategic Services (OSS). He was a spy. He arrived in Bangkok shortly after the end of the war to organize and open the OSS office there. In Bangkok he worked with Kenneth Landon who was first a missionary in Thailand and then was hired to work for the OSS. Kenneth’s wife, Margaret, lived with him in Thailand and wrote the book “Anna and the King of Siam” which was also made into the musical, “The King and I”.

By 1948, Jim Thompson had left the OSS and become interested in Thai silk. He formed the Thai Silk Company and his goal was to revitalize the industry. In 1951 designer Irene Sheraff was designing costumes for the Rogers and Hammerstein musical “The King and I” and decided to use silk from Thompson’s Thai Silk Company. That was what he needed. He was a success! Jim Thompson’s company and the Thai silk industry is thriving to this day.

At one point he thought it would be a good idea to go into Burma and try to revitalize their silk industry as well. He did not have much luck but there he discovered the royal Kalagas. These were heavily embroidered tapestries made for the royal palaces of Burma. The last King of Burma, Thibaw Min, was persuaded to abdicate by the British when they took over the country in 1885. Some of the tapestries have been around for 150 years.

Jim Thompson had several of the Kalagas copied and sold them in his shop. During this time, the late 1950’s, my family was living in Burma and knew all about of Mr Thompson and his silk shop. They purchased one of these tapestries and it hangs in my parents’ living room to this day. It is beautiful.

In 1967 Thompson took a trip to the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia on holiday and mysteriously disappeared. There was an extensive search made but nothing was found. Nobody knows what happened to him or why. There is much speculation around him and his disappearance.

He left a house he had designed full of art and antiques from Southeast Asia. It is now a museum open to the public.

Food Friday: Burmese Chicken Curry

Back in March I wrote about a cookbook my mother had worked on when we lived in Burma in the post, The Lady. The Rangoon International Cook Book is dated 1954.

Aung San Suu Kyi is much in the news now as being the “unofficial” leader of her country. She stood by her beliefs and suffered for many years under house arrest because she longed to see Burma free. She comes by it naturally. Her father was the founder of the Burmese army and negotiated independence from the British Empire. Burma was the first country to leave the Empire. He was assassinated the same year they gained independence. Her mother, Daw Khin Kyi, became Chairman of the Social Planning Commission for the Union of Burma under the newly formed Burmese government and later was sent to India and Nepal as the Burmese ambassador.

Daw Khin Kyi also found time to donate some of her recipes to my mother’s cookbook.

Chicken Curry (Burmese)

2 chickens 65 ticals (2.5 lbs each)

0.5 cup vegetable oil

3 chillies

3 cloves garlic

3 small onions

1 tsp salt

1 tsp curry powder

1 tablespoon Chinese soy sauce

5 cups water

pinch of saffron powder