time Archives - Expat Alien

Daylight Savings Time. It is controversial. It is way too complicated for me to go into it. It is kind of like jet lag. Takes about a week to adjust to it. Messes up your schedule. Makes you tired, disoriented. But without the exotic new location.

Book
I finished reading Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig. It is a novel but it is based on the author’s family and her mother Louisa, who won Miss Burma in 1956. It was a beauty pageant she won twice. The beauty pageant was held from 1947 to 1962 when the government banned it. (Interesting fact, one of King Thibaw’s grandsons started the beauty pageant. I learned about that in The King in Exile).

Louisa’s mother was a Burmese woman of the Karen (kar-en) ethnic group who married a Jewish man who was born in Burma but grew up in India. After World War II, Burma became independent of Britain and set up its own government. The Karen ethnic group wanted to be an autonomous state and were promised this if they joined forces with the Burmese. After the new government was set up they discovered they were to be absorbed into the new Burmese state. So they became rebels and continued to fight for their independence. In the book, the Jewish husband, Benny, decided he wanted to align himself with the Karens and do everything he could for them. This included procuring guns and working closely with the rebels. He ended up being tortured and locked up both in jail and in house arrest.

His wife, Khin, was a survivor and went through many hardships. She had an idea to enter her daughter into beauty contests because the head of state’s wife was involved with them. This made it possible to become close enough to talk her into helping Benny get out of jail. Louisa went on to win the Miss Burma contest and become famous both for that and for acting in several movies. And then she married the head of the Karen opposition and ended up running for her life.

It was a good book. Lots of ins and outs, surviving war, getting by, being rich, being poor, suspense. And some history. Louisa certainly had an interesting life.

In 1959 my family was living in Pyinmana, Burma, and my mother writes:
The all-Burma beauty contest for both men and women (“Miss Burma” and “Mr Burma”) was held here last weekend. The ice cream party was held here at the Institute on the day they all arrived from all over Burma, and then for two nights they had programs, weight lifting contest, demonstrations of boxing, and beauty contests until 2:30 am the first night and until 4 am the last night! They started at 6:30 pm. Bill went the first night for a couple of hours, and I went the second night for about 4 hours. It really was very interesting, and one accordion solo with accordionist singing Burmese songs was perfectly lovely. He was worth the whole evening for me. But we didn’t get to see hide nor hair of the beauty contests because those were the very last thing! The weight lifters broke several SouthEast Asian records, and the beauties told someone they had never been treated so nicely as they had been here, so we are most glad for the good publicity for Pyinmana. Usually all people hear about us as a city is bad.

Random
I dreamed that I met somebody with beautiful pink hair and I decided I wanted pink hair but I didn’t want to copy her. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do. Maybe if it was a very light pink?

Almost 2023. Very odd. Time is a very strange thing. When you are young it can’t move fast enough. Then it just sort of stalls for a while. As people start getting married and having children and busy jobs.. it speeds up. And in a blink of an eye, the children are off to college and doing their own thing. The job either slows down or overcomes you. Or burns you out. And then time just warps. It becomes unpredictable. It breaks down into segments. The day could be long but the week could be short. Unpredictable.

This week I read Travel Light, Move Fast by Alexandra Fuller. She is watching her father die in a hospital in Budapest. Actually in Buda. Her parents were on vacation when he collapsed. Alexandra flew from the USA to help her mother and be with her father. It took him ten days to die. In that time she flashes back on his life and on her life. He was English but moved to South Africa at a young age. She was born and raised in South Africa. Or I should say Southern Africa. She lived through the war that converted Rhodesia into Zimbabwe.

I enjoyed the book. She writes well and her family is full of interesting characters. She has written several books, mostly about her childhood. She has not had an easy life, but an interesting one.

Years ago we had a tradition of having cheese fondue and ratatouille, usually on New Year’s Eve. This year I was craving cheese fondue. I ate it on Christmas Eve. Couldn’t wait. It was yummy. It goes really well with ratatouille.