Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Now scramble for U Win Tin's intellectual legacy begins --

Now the scramble for U Win Tin's (intellectual) legacy begins.

I am reminded of what my mentor Josef Silverstein wrote in 60s, that he suspected some of Bogyoke Aung San's last letters was forged by Dr Maung Maung, to say Bogyoke believed in socialism.

It is very likely, as Dr Maung Maung even forged/wrote an entire constitution all on his own, the way Ko Ko Maung (U Chit Hlaing) wrote Burmese Way to Socialism. (FYI, USA Federalist Papers were written by about 5 people, incld Madison and Jefferson, published as the writing went on and debated quite a bit in Phildadelphia and in print. Benjamin Franklin had a printing press.)
--
That article by Silverstein was in Asian Survey, look for it.

Silverstein gave all his back articles to The Burma Fund, spending a bundle on postage, but when they moved premises in 2004, they hired an intern (radio womanizer's daughter) to help tear out the articles and junk the rest. I don't know where all the material is now.

I never told Sayagyi Silverstein as it would break his heart.

Sayagyi is very yoe siin te, straight forward, and in 2011?? he was still hopeful and happy that Burma was democratizing--and as I disagreed--

but I must call him.

KMKaung
4-29-2014

From Facebook, U Win Tin got his national ID in Burma 3 days before he died!!!

  •  It means he was identity or state-less before it was issued!
  • Kyi May Kaung OMG--stateless in his own country he loved so much and gave so much for.!!!!!
  • Kyi May Kaung I really respect the families who looked after him all these years, decades, and we should say Thank you, and see that no harm befalls them--such as property being taken over, you know these guys.
  • Well SPDC and the current government marked U Win Tin as persona non grata. The latter gave way only for the people's immense support.
  • Kyi May Kaung they shld be sued for damages by win tin foundation -- and proceeds given to other victims of the regime. You know Terry Anderson? won millions fr Iranian frozen assets overseas--
  • We were briefed at the University by S1 General KN that UWT was a Communist because he read so many Marxist books. I joked that   could also be accused like that as the RU Library has so many such books. And S1 confiscated UWT's room at Lanmadaw government qrs. It was very unfair.
  • Kyi May Kaung When --which year did the S1 briefing take place.

  •  It may be 1990 or 1991. It occurred at the Educational Research Bureau within the Institute of Education Building.
  • Kyi May Kaung Thank you. I am keeping comments on file as I am translating What's That?

Monday, April 28, 2014

Two classic Sci Fi novels and prescient futuristic visions

I finished reading Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

It is beautifully written and imagined, and is a bit like my other favorite, A Canticle for St. Liebowitz, which I have read twice.

Fahrenheit 451 is poetic and sparse in the writing, but not in the brutal, totalitarian, anti-intellectual world it depicts.

It's strange that I should be reading it the same week I went to see Book Thief, but these serendipidous things often happen to me.

I had F 451 a long time, but I only started reading it about 2 or 3 weeks ago.

It's definitely a classic and I am going to keep my rather large print copy forever.

KMKaung
4-28-2014



Arya from Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire--

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Arya_Stark

My review of U Win Tin's What's That? A Human Hell-

My review of U Win Tin's What's That?  A Human Hell, in Truthout

http://www.truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/89101-a-review-of-u-win-tin-whats-that-a-human-hell-in-burmese?Itemid=228article

So happy--by KMKaung

I am so happy I don't need to live my life all over again.

No more not being told of the facts of life in detail nor in a timely manner.
No more preying male servants.
No more unwelcome adolescence.
No more getting married and having children, no matter how wonderful.
No more in laws, sigh sigh, what a relief.

No more the stink of the clogged up lavatories at the Inst of Eco.
No more only one map of the world to look at my whole life.
No more stinking The Monkey Cries Tree.
No more Burmese culture.
No more pretend pretend till your dying day.

No more thinking how to leave.
No more adapting and trying to survive in a new country.
No more calculus.

No more radio station from hell with its jerks, transgendered big bust women, womanizers and air heads.

No more media and interviews and being politically correct, and truthfully incorrect and diplomatic.

Now more reaching over my right ear to touch my left one.  No more contorting myself like  a pretzel, flung around, twirled around, twisted, boiled, then baked.

No more conferences and seminars.
No more simultaneous translation of
essential junk and lies.  No more reading the news under pressure.

No more make up.
No more hair dye.
No more hair dresser.

And one day I ran into J. and asked how Pearl was, and he said, "She died last Monday."

"Oh.

I hope her passing was peaceful."

"Oh yes, oh yes," J said.

Pearl once married to such a rich Mexican, she lived in San Miguelle de Allende http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Miguel_de_Allende
Her in laws bred horses and her brothers in law and her husband rode around in red livery.

No more feeling so guilty as that day the snow just stopped for one day, and I went grocery shopping,
black crusted snow caked up in piles 3 feet high on cleared paths
one of the most affluent and well-educated
counties in the USA.

And looking over the green pineapples and the not ready yet mangoes and seeing
J hanging helplessly on his shopping cart.

And being unable to go help him as so shaky myself.

No more.

And J the head of the Cuban section, and wrote a best selling book about an earthquake that still reads well.

And J and Pearl on 9/12, setting out by Greyhound bus to take a look at newly re-named Ground Zero because,

"Well, that's his job," and both already about 80.

And Ground Zero still probably smoking and smelling of
Death and dead people.

And Pearl telling me, "Today I fired my doctor
because he does nothing but keep giving me medicines, and making me feel bad.

And now I am going to a Tibetan healer."

And you wonder why I am selective about who I will befriend.

Well, just look at them.

KMKaung
4-28-2014



Sunday, April 27, 2014

Sherpas on strike at cut throat Everest business

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/27/us-nepal-everest-insight-idUSBREA3Q06720140427

Highly recommended, VOA interview of renowned 1988 democracy leader, U Moethee Zun

Highly recommended--Interview of 1988 leader U Moethee Zun by VOA correspondent Thar N Oo--in Burmese, about 8.30 minutes into the You Tube clip.

MTZ talks about admin barriers to his resuming Burmese citizenship, setting up a party and entering the 2015 elections.

It does not look very hopeful, but MTZ himself has a good vision.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtUQ-aCZYw4&list=UUv-YbGueeYCp8_CdjgXQD3A

The Felicity Harwood of my novel Wolf, coincides with the name of a real person!!

Wow, a fictitious name I picked out of the air, Felicity Harwood, was a real person, and the daughter of Clement Atlee!!

http://www.socialregister.co.uk/felicity-harwood/

Wow, what a coincidence.

I liked the surname Harwood, as a director of an art co-op I was in had that name, and also, much later 2012, I realized that a first cousin --

anyway, I thought a first name for the great love of my hero Wolf, should have a simple, pure name, and so I gave her the name Felicity.

Now I find her listed in the society columns.

I can't get over it.

It must be a sign for me to hurry up the Wolf novel.

KMKaung
4-27-2014

My Twitter page has a new profile --

My Twitter page has a new profile, with an oil painting of a bikkhuni (female monk, not nun) that I painted myself.

I like it/her.

She has had a home since about 2007, and therefore she is not for sale. 

She is in our Kaung Family Collection.

https://twitter.com/KyiKaung

Maybe the antidote to Das Kapital--

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117498/pikettys-capital-sold-out-harvard-press-scrambling

Amazon bestsellers are on the economy

Amazon bestsellers= books on the US Economy- and Capital --

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/24/elizabeth-warren-amazon_n_5208807.html?hpt=hp_bn18

Amazing--

Saturday, April 26, 2014

From Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is excellent--here's an excerpt fr the climax of the story--p. 123

The house was silent. 
Montag approached from the rear  .  .  . 
"Mrs. Black, are you asleep in there," he thought.  This is not good but your husband did it to others and never asked and never worried.  And now since you are a fireman's wife, it's your house and your turn, for all the houses your husband burned and the people he hurt without thinking.
.  .  .
He hid the books in the kitchen  .  .  .

.  .  . he phoned (in) the alarm at a lonely phone booth  .  .  .

Then he stood in the cold night air, waiting  .  .  .
Good night, Mrs. Black, he thought.

Friday, April 25, 2014

Burma-USA--Time to stop drinking the think tank kool aid--



Help is on the way for the sight impaired--

Help is on the way for sight impaired--

http://ext-vttts-us.readspeaker.com/cgi-bin/nph-voicetext/a728916405af1b3c94d3831b6429df17.mp3

This is Al Jazeera on U Win Tin.

BTW, all my books published on Kindle are also with text to sound (auto voice) option. 

When I have time and or money, I will produce audio editions of all my books.

Right now I am only focusing on text editions.

KMKaung
4-25-2014

Gift offer for SIX book reviews-- Inkkas Shoes

Hey hey,
If you review all SIX of my new novellas and go all the way through to posting those on your website or blog site AND ALSO on the relevant Amazon (Kindle and Create Space) sites and send me links--I will give you ONE pair of Inkkas shoes, (I will choose the design and color), as a Gift.  At that stage you may give me your shoe size.
Go for it.
KMKaung
4-25-2014

My novella The Lovers, set in Chile and the USA, is now available in a Kindle edition as well as a print edition

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JX3IG0Q#reader_B00JX3IG0Q

The print edition is on Create Space and all my books are published by Words Sounds and Images.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

How very strange--poem in honor of U Win Tin by Kyi May Kaung

How very strange
(in honor of U Win Tin)
that someone who had no time to get married
no time to have a family
should now have a family numbering in the thousands.
A place to sleep
people to bathe him in death
bury him
see him off on his last journey
share merit for him, not that he does not have enough of his own
rich people to set up a foundation
help the people he wanted to help.
I am truly sorry I never got to meet you
I am not able to come to your funeral or yet le soon.
But I will do as I promised
get your words translated into English
publish What's That? A Human Hell.
That's all. As you would say.
K.M.Kaung-- 4-24-2014
Washington, D.C.
Like · ·

Market or real prices, my Black Rice phenomenon--

Market or real prices.

My Black Rice phenomenon.

I haven't sold that many copies, and as it's POD (Print on Demand) there aren't that many copies out there.

The Kindle editions (of almost everything, not just my books) are controlled as to electronic shares, though some authors opt to give out copies free.

Anyway, a curious thing is, whenever I look at my Black Rice page, I find more and more used copies on sale, and the price of the used copies are higher than the list price of new books.

Now, I am certainly not the one buying and then reselling.  I don't even know how to do it and don't think it's worth the trouble, and like art, the original creator does not benefit.

But for a maybe very good reason, such as the quality of the goods, and I stand by my products, it must be being considered a collector's item.

It's very strange as it's only been out  a year.

I actually had to raise my list price in response.

It may be due to there being a small supply out there, and only available on line, as again it's POD.  NOT "pay on delivery"

Anyway, as the market test is the best test, why should I complain.

It is worth $10 if it remains a true gem forever.

BTW, I only autographed one copy for a special friend, she knows who she is, and that's the only copy I ever signed.

I hope my other gems also will sell well and become instant classics.

Like Paul Bowles' The Delicate Prey.

KMKaung
4-24-2014

A mother tells her child of seven to go work in Thailand

My two stories, Dancing like a Peacock and Koel Bird are also available on Create Space, print edition.  Published by Words Sounds and Images--

A seven year old girl is sent off across the border to earn a living and send money home to Burma.  A computer expert finds--

https://www.createspace.com/pub/simplesitesearch.search.do?sitesearch_query=K+Kaung+dancing+like+a+peacock&sitesearch_type=STORE

Good news from inside Burma--my novella Black Rice

Good news from inside Burma--my novella Black Rice almost sold out.

Available on Create Space and Kindle, Amazon.

Traversing Burma in 1947 with very dark skin.

Please be aware, books etc don't grow on trees--

If you are one of those people who is "afraid to use his or her credit card" on line, and therefore wishes me to send you copies, I am afraid I cannot do it now, because of legal requirements. 

The only exception may be for reviewers with major outlets, in which case I would have to buy the books myself as review copies to send out in press kits.

In this system, authors even have to pay for each and every proof copy themselves.  That is the way it is set up.

I am afraid you will have to get used to it, in this modern world.

If you can buy shoes, clothes, concert tickets, education, groceries and trips on line, pay your phone and internet provider, then so also you can buy books.

I don't hold by the view that writers and artists should give everything away free, as we also need to eat, pay for housing and make a living.

At the most it could be a barter of services.  But money is better as it does not require a coincidence of wants and needs.

Everyone already gives away a lot of material free.

Books, songs, poetry, paintings don't grow on trees.

Thank you for your Understanding.

KMKaung
4-24-2014

My short stories and novellas No Crib for a Bed and Other Stories, now available on Kindle

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JW2ZD40

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

My fiction now all available--

These now all available on Create Space--

by K. Kaung or K.M. Kaung  --1.  Black Rice  Also on Kindle
2.  The Lovers
3.  No Crib for a Bed and Other Stories
4.  Dancing like a Peacock and Koel Bird.

The rest on this schedule--
Create Space--immediately
Amazon.com and Amazon Europe, 5-7 business days
Expanded distribution (libraries) 6-8 weeks.

KMKaung
www.kmkaung.com

My short stories, No Crib for a Bed and Other Stories, now available on Create Space

https://www.createspace.com/4768879?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026

My novella The Lovers, now available on Create Space--

https://www.createspace.com/4767856?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

My interview of the late poet Tin Moe and translations of some of his poems

Tra la tra la tra la--here comes Htee Ka Lay ne Ma Ni.

Miss Red with the (red) umbrella.

I once dressed all in red at that radio station from hell, but already struggling when Burma Debate commissioned me, for a small sum, to translate these poems and this interview I did of U Tin Moe, that was originally broadcast in Burmese.

http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs15/U_Tin_Moe-poems.pdf
And somewhere there's a video (not the same as the broadcast piece) that my friend made (hint hint--do look for it)--in my apt,  when U TM's cheroot popped out of his mouth and fell on my carpet, and my friend Khin May Zaw scrambled around to look for it.

Good thing is did not cause a fire among my dear books.

Kyi May Kaung  4-22-2014
www.kmkaung.com

NYTS on U Win Tin--

NYTs article on U Win Tin--they also called it What's That?  A Human Hell.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/world/asia/u-win-tin-writer-jailed-by-myanmar-junta-dies.html?_r=0

His losses, I described in a FPIF article.

Will post link later, bills to pay.

kmk

Monday, April 21, 2014

Full text Irrawaddy article on U Win Tin


The Irrawaddy Magazine
Burmese Democracy Activist Win Tin Dies
By On Monday, April 21, 2014 @ 2:44 pm
RANGOON — After supporters across Burma staged prayer services and a candlelight vigil for his recovery, Win Tin, one of the country’s most famous democracy activists, passed away on Monday after suffering from multiple organ failure. He was 84 years old.
Win Tin, who co-founded the National League for Democracy (NLD) party with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was a veteran journalist known for his relentless activism against the former military regime. After a new government came to power in 2011, he condemned the military’s continuing role in the reform process and was one of few people who dared to also criticize the tactics of Suu Kyi, whom he described as “too conciliatory” with the military leaders that once imprisoned him and put her under house arrest.
“Some of us would like to push the military into the Bay of Bengal. She only wants to push them into Kandawgyi Lake [a lake in the heart of Rangoon],” he told the Washington Post last year, referring to Suu Kyi’s willingness to compromise with the government over amendments to the military-drafted Constitution, which currently bars her from the presidency.
Win Tin was one of Burma’s longest serving political prisoners. Starting in 1989, he spent almost two decades behind bars for co-founding the NLD and later for attempting to inform the United Nations about human rights violations in the country’s prisons.
“I spent more than 7,000 days—one-fourth of my life—in prison. It’s very heart-wrenching,” he wrote in his prison memoir, “Man-made Hell,” which describes instances of torture, malnutrition and limited access to medical care.
After he was released in 2008 at the age of 78, Win Tin was hospitalized frequently for heart problems and other health concerns. Late last month he was transferred to the intensive care unit of Rangoon General Hospital for respiratory problems and hip pain. His doctor told The Irrawaddy that he passed away on Monday morning due to multiple organ failure.
Win Tin worked as a journalist for nearly three decades before becoming one of nine founding members of the NLD in 1988, but he told The Irrawaddy last year that he preferred to introduce himself as a journalist rather than a politician because he sought to contemplate different views.
“Some people say I’m a hardliner. No, I am a man of principle,” he said.
The winner of the Unesco/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize and the World Association of Newspapers’ Golden Pen of Freedom of Award was outspoken in defense of free expression. He accused the former regime of “crimes against humanity” while refusing to support President TheinSein’s current government, which he described as a semi-military regime led by the junta’s former generals. He repeatedly called on government leaders to apologize for their wrongdoings.
“It’s not only for me, but for all the political prisoners mistreated by the country’s military dictatorship since 1988,” he told The Irrawaddy last year, while wearing his blue prison-issued shirt to show solidarity with political prisoners who remained behind bars.
The journalist with wavy white hair and prominent glasses was known for his charming manners. He spoke softly and listened carefully while receiving guests—including diplomats, journalists and activists—in the living room of his two-room cabin home, where he spent many late nights watching Champions League football matches on television. After his release from prison, he had no surviving immediate family members, nor did he have any savings, but he received help from a lifelong friend who gave him the cabin as well as free meals to eat.
Win Tin will be remembered not only for his relentless efforts to promote democracy, but also for a foundation that he founded in 2012 to assist current and former political prisoners as well as fellow journalists lacking financial security. As of last year, the U Win Tin Foundation had given more than 90 million kyats (US$90,000) to over 300 people, with donations coming from Win Tin’s supporters at home and abroad.
Of Burma’s contemporary political landscape, Win Tin once said that the Burmese people needed to completely free themselves from the former regime’s grip.
“What we have to do these days is make way for a new politics that can break down the mechanism of the military dictatorship, rather than being corralled into a political arena made by the government,” he said.

Article printed from The Irrawaddy Magazine: http://www.irrawaddy.org
URL to article: http://www.irrawaddy.org/burma/burmese-democracy-activist-win-tin-dies.html
Copyright © 2012 The Irrawaddy Magazine. All rights reserved.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Honoring U Win Tin who passed away Monday 6 AM BST.

Honoring U Win Tin--

Very sad.
I felt this time U Win Tin would not make it, as he has been in a coma? for approximately 3? weeks.
Also when Daw Suu went to see him, immediately after she arrived home from overseas, she was myet hnar ma thar buu--looked sad, and I knew it was not a good sign.


I never knew him nor saw him in person, but I feel I know him as I followed him on line, whatever he said, in interviews and so on.
And I have worked on translating his memoir.
As I have written before, his language in Burmese when he writes is a language that only he could write, poetic and blunt, truthful, short and condensed and full or rhymes and spoonerisms.
I regret that health wise I have had a bad year too, and thus could not give him the satisfaction of showing him more than a few completed translated chapters.
However, I expect I will be able to resume work on What's That?  A Human Hell and see it all the way through, as a posthumous Tribute.
After all, he told me only I could do it.

The life or lives of those who stand up for the truth is always fraught with trouble.

I wish both he and Daw Suu and others had been able to have a more calm and restful life.

But that was not to be.

What I was most impressed by when I read What's That? is that in spite of 19 years of incarceration, U Win Tin was able to create for himself, a respected, generous life within and without prison walls.

He described many people who "lost it" including one political prisoner who laughed his way to death, having lost his mind.

With U Win Tin, he was like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in that he must have been writing in his head all those 19 years.

So when he was released, he just had to write it down in 2 weeks or so.

Show me anyone else who can do that.

Also, to the last, he wore his blue prison shirt and he spoke what he thought was the right thing.

And also, a mutual friend sent me the famous essay Ganan or "Crab" in which U Win Tin pointed out the vulnerability of the armored military government.

"Crab", quite a short, metaphorical and poetic essay, may have been the reason he was so hated by the regime and kept behind bars so long.

I don't know what else to say.

A human being like that comes onto the world stage only once in a while, like Haley's Comet.

RIP, but if he could, I am sure he would give an interview.

So the rest of us should not keep our traps shut.

We should say what we think, just like he did.

KMKaung
Washington, D.C.
4-20-2014




Excerpt from my novella Band of Flesh--

From my novella Band of Flesh, about conjoined twins--first published in The Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday Magazine in 1997.  Editor Avery Rome liked it so much she commissioned a full page illustration for it, and I was paid $700.

"My mother says from the time we were born, Yang was bigger and cried more lustily. 

As the Burmese saying goes, the baby who cries gets more milk. 

I, Ying, she said, was always fine and delicate. 
She always had to make sure I got enough.

When we were younger, the band was shorter.

It had not yet been strained to the limit by fat Yang’s constant pulling away. 

Even then, people said, it was a logistical impossibility for my mother to feed both of us simultaneously. 

She had, of course, two breasts. 

They say her breasts were always overflowing with milk. 

We each had a hungry mouth, but we both faced forward--"

Copyright Kyi May Kaung
4-20-2014
www.kmkaung.com


Friday, April 18, 2014

Excerpt fr my story--A Real Romance--

Excerpt from my story--A Real Romance--

"Now their daughter-in-law’s chemotherapy and the fact that the cancer had not been stopped seemed to weigh on them, but they both looked very young, even though they were  several years older than Khine Khine. 
She remembered reading how partnered people lived longer.
But single women live longer than single men. 
Widowers fall apart fast. 
Widows endure and survive."

Copyright KMKaung
4-18-2014

The Rider of Crocodiles is coming to you--

The Rider of Crocodiles is coming to you--

I will give you the Amazon link when it's ready--not ready yet.

Maybe a few more days or weeks. Sometimes there are text issues such as too small font or things like that, or tech issues such as the story starting on the LHS page rather than the RHS.

Some small typos I don't see till my printed proof comes in the mail, and so then I have to repeat the whole process, but be patient, The Rider of Crocs will come to you.

Then he will stay in Burma till he dies in Ava with his King.

Really, I kid you not.

The village is still there.

KMKaung
4-18-2014

From my story, No Crib for a Bed--

Also from my story, No Crib for a Bed--

"How do they do a post mortem? 

Well, it isn’t very nice and it doesn’t look very nice." 

Copyright KMKaung
4-18-2014

Ivy League School of Nursing --

University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing--some of my friends went there.

I am just looking it up as one of my fictional characters went there too.

http://www.nursing.upenn.edu/academic_programs/

Excerpt from my novella No Crib for a Bed --

Excerpt from my novella No Crib for a Bed.

These are the exact lines I read at Politics and Prose Bookstore in DC.

This story was first published in Gravity Dancers, DC Women Writers, edited by Richard Peabody.

"You know he had a heart valve problem, from rheumatism as a child during the Japanese Occupation. 
His heart was fine later. 
I just can’t get over it. 

Danny wants to sue the hospital in Houston. 
I asked for a post mortem. 
What! 
Telling me he died of cardiac arrest. 
Everybody dies because their heart stops."

Copyright KMKaung
4-18-2014 

Back text for my novella The Lovers

Back text for my novella The Lovers--

Originally published in Wild River Review on line, The Lovers is the story of a ballet dancer from Chile, who has to leave her native land for political reasons, and emigrate to Phildelphia, in America.
Burmese-born author Kyi May Kaung lived many years in West Philadelphia while pursuing her doctorate in Political Science.
The Lovers has vivid local color while traversing the uneasy life of political asylees.

New back text for my novella The Rider of Crocodiles

New back text for my novella:  The Rider of Crocodiles--

Kyi May Kaung  (Ph.D.) was traveling in Thailand when a colleague told her his ancestor was not killed because he knew how to ride crocodiles. 
From this one factoid, Dr. Kaung reconstructed a story set during the last invasion of Ayuthia in 1767 by the Burmese king, Hsinbyushin or the Possessor of the White Elephant.  
Now somewhere near Ava and Mandalay in Burma live the descendants of the Rider of Crocodiles and the Fig Flower King, still awaiting your visit.

KMKaung
4-18-2014

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Excerpt from my novella The Lovers, upcoming soon--

From my novella The Lovers--which will be out soon too--set in Chile and the USA.  About a ballet dancer.

'In the end he was crying too. 
He leaned over so suddenly to hold my hand, the cobalt blue glass flower vase full of orange zinnias in the middle fell over and broke. 
My friend picked up the pieces of glass while all the time I kept fussing, “Be careful.  Be careful.  Don’t cut your fingers.”'

Copyright K.M.Kaung.
4-15-2014. 

Monday, April 07, 2014

Who is white washing the oppression of The Rohingya-- part 1

Who is white washing the oppression of the Rohingya--(You Tube via Dr. Maung Zarni)

Part 1.

Greg Constantine's photos were also shown at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. but I could not make it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lITfdqO49Nc

Man in photo is Jacques Leider, notorious Rakhine/regime apologist, very anti-Rohingya.

I did not watch his presentation, neither did I listen to it when I was sitting right next to him on the Columbia Univ panel in Sept 2012, because I literally got a stomach ache and had to hurry to the loo.

He wasn't among the names that I suggested Columbia U. invite, but they did, apparently for "balance."

500 people signed up for that session, and his speech was applauded, I don't know why;  I only came back into the auditorium when his talk was completely over.

If this post uncovers any racists among you 951 (on my FaceBook), you will be immediately blocked as per my oft-stated editorial policy.  Don't expect an explanation or prior warning.

KMKaung
4-7-2014
FB post

Bizarre Medical Museum in Philadelphia--

This one I've never been to, and will never go to, but my writing group members wanted me to go, because I wrote Band of Flesh, my short story about conjoined twins--but it's enough to read about this medical museum of physical freaks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCtter_Museum

Sunday, April 06, 2014

From Dr Maung Zarni's FB page --

"If I were a Muslim in Myanmar I would be looking for an exit or a place to emigrate with my family. My birthplace is making a frighteningly Nazi turn. If you think this is an hyperbole you don't understand fucking shit about my country, its cultures, and its peoples."

Thursday, April 03, 2014

Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Drink the Bitter Rain--by Kyi May Kaung

Moe Kha Ye Thauk (Drink the Bitter Rain)

Last night as I was making red velvet cake from a mix
I took photos at various stages
and I thought
how like a red mud volcano
na ka bwet   this looks.

The 1 1/4 cups of water
the 3 egg whites beaten
added
(because I can't eat egg yolks
which are beaten with water
and fed to my sanseveria/mother in law's
tongue and my wandering Jew--

all purple and always
growing
downwards.

Then when I added the 1/4 cup
cooking oil  and stirred some more
with my whipping implement

it looked even worse
like a cake dough
made of
blood.

Tonight as I wash out my very successful
muffin pan for cupcakes
bought on sale at Williams Sonoma

and use the rough sponge and the
pot cleaner
to get all the red stuff out of the
rounded corners

I think

What is wrong with me?

It must be that people don't want to hear what I say.

They want to hear the marriage is good

that they are not wife and child beaters.

They want to hear they are saviors of the nation

not land grabbers and hardwood and petroleum
auctioneers and cronies
and cronies of cronies.

They want to hear that they did a good job and are not
rotten self-appointed "leaders"
with a monopoly on
Violence--
as my pol sci texts say.

They want to hear they are great employers
who run a clean shop
a good shop

not a shop where sleeping around
sleeping your way to the top

back and front stabbing each other
slanting the news and

getting away with it
are de rigueur.

As I took a photo of the pebyoke
boiled vattana beans bought

at the Indian grocery in MD

I realize the label says

"ah lwan pye pe boke"

(Home-sickness curing boiled beans)

Did these come all the way from Burma?
No, made in L.A.

The Indian shop owners are such
wonderful merchants
they smile all the time

ah pyone ma pyet buu

They take credit cards.

They have a small statue of Ganesha  (Maha Pein Ne Nat)
they tell me they are from Gujarat.

Just like 3 separate friends of mine.

As I crumble up the dried fish
and pour 3 or 4 tablespoons of oil on it

I think

What's wrong with me.

What's wrong with free trade.

Now I don't need to go all the way to Thailand--to buy Burmese food.

What's wrong with me?

Am I the only one saying

The Rain is Bitter?

Copyright Kyi May Kaung
4-2-2014




Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Specialpost--Ellen Bernstein--expose of World Bank Rohingya project--

https://www.irrawaddy.com/culture/books/hellfire-and-damnation-in-myanmar-ex-world-bank-country-head-recounts-rohingya-catastrophe-response....