My Myanmar Days Ep 4: Mandalay to Hsipaw Train Journey, an education on privilege
15 October 2017: It was around 7 am and my friend and I were in a minivan with three Shan dudes, her sitting shotgun because of her long legs (lucky!) and me in the backseat sitting snuggly with the dudes. There were corn fields and hot wind was blowing in my face. I was listening…
My Myanmar Days Ep 3: Corporal punishment in the good ol’ land of the pagodas
No matter where I am, Burma is where I grew up and it’s my home. And thinking about Burma and going to school there is incomplete without the memories of corporal punishment my friends and I endured. Government school teachers in Burma are like ninjas without a cause. They’re swift and you don’t know when…
My Myanmar Days Ep 2: My days as a nun
In Myanmar, it is a custom for young Buddhist girls to enter temporary nunhood or get ordained as a novice monk for boys. My family being a Buddhist also meant that it was imminent that one day soon we will have to shave our heads and so we did one summer. Turned out I was…
My Myanmar Days Ep 1: Secret Video Tape Rental Annexes
Recently I started talking to a friend and he has a really good way of drawing out my very fond memories of growing up in the 1990s Myanmar. Since then I have been thinking a lot about the uniqueness and the gift of being born Myanmar and growing up in Yangon. So I decided that…
