Monday, December 29, 2014

High homicide rates in Burma--

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Check out this map--Burma has one of highest murder rates in the world, and I do not think it includes "murder by army and military government."

I always knew Burma had a high murder rate in colonial times--but now also??

I think this is because Burma is poor on mediation, legal process, fair courts, good laws (coming from the people), independent judiciary, negotiation and dialog.

What a shameful thing to have to say, "I come from a country that deals with anger etc. by killing people."

You still have a long way to go Baby.

KMKaung
12-29-2014

For your reading pleasure around the Winter Solstice--

Winter Solstice--shortest day in Northern Hemisphere, longest in Southern, was on Dec 21, but I did not even notice as looking forward to my family, especially the children.

Anyway, the nights are still pretty long, and here are the links to all my novellas published in 2014--If you bought them already, thank you--

All the links to buy print and e-versions of the 6 novellas and short story collections I published last year--

posting on request.

About the author:
K.M.Kaung started writing fiction as a teenager in Burma.

She comes from a family of story tellers in Myingyan in Upper Burma. Her paternal grandmother May May Gyi, saw the last king of Burma - Thibaw, taken away on a steamboat on the Irrawaddy River by the British in 1886.

Kyi May Kaung's father U Kaung was named after the King's first envoy to the West, Kinwun Mingyi U Kaung.

Her father was a well known educationist and the first chairman of the Burma Historical Commission.

As a child Kyi May was privileged to have noted scholars and artists come to visit the house.

Dr. Kaung holds a doctorate in Political Economy from the University of Pennsylvania.

Her work has been previously published in anthologies and literary journals, and she has read widely in universities and bookstores in N. America and Southeast Asia. From 1997-2001 she had a poetry and political commentary program on air, broadcast to Burma/Myanmar. Edward Albee praised her two act play, Shaman, and she has won Pew, Fulbright and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grants.

This is her first CreateSpace publication.

Upcoming are a full length novel Wolf, and a novella, The Rider of Crocodiles.

You may find her on her blog
http://kyimaykaung.blogspot.com
on Facebook
www.facebook.com/kyi.m.kaung

and at Kyi Kaung@kyikaung on Twitter.

Her web site is
www.kmkaung.com

She divides her time between N. America, travel in Asia and on cyberspace. Links to my recent publications of novellas and short stories.

1.   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 Philadelphia, 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. The Lovers, print edition
https://www.createspace.com/4767856?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026
The Lovers, Kindle edition
http://www.amazon.com/The-Lovers-Novellas-K-M-Kaung-Kaung-ebook/dp/B00JX8NZRU
2.   Black Rice is a Burmese man with very dark skin, almost purple, and almond eyes. What happens when he is captured in an ambush in Burma's delta in 1947, as ethnic strife rages, a year before Burma's Independence from Great Britain? Find out here as K.M. Kaung takes you on a heart stopping journey through life. An intensely flavored pill of a story in 48 pages. A view through oddly made eyes.

"You've got to be taught, to hate and fear, you've got to be taught, from year to year. . . ."

Song lyrics, Rogers and Hammerstein, South Pacific, the Broadway musical.
Black Rice, print edition
https://www.createspace.com/4232789?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026
Black Rice, Kindle Edition
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Rice-Novella-K-Kaung/dp/0615797520
3.   The Rider of Crocodiles
Dr. Kaung was traveling in Thailand when a colleague told her his great great grandfather was not killed in Ayuthia in 1767 when the Burmese invaded, as he knew how to ride crocodiles.
https://www.createspace.com/4738699?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026
print edition
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KZ6W8I6
Kindle edition
--

4.  Dancing like a Peacock and Koel Bird
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

My short story collection-

Dancing like a Peacock & Koel Bird, also includes Little Transparent Fetus Buddha.

Print (soft cover) + Kindle editions

http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Peacock-Bird-Border-Stories-ebook/dp/B00JWZSL3C
5.  FGM—Kindle edition
FGM: A Story about the Mutilation of Women.
Dr. Aset, a trained gynecologist with several post graduate American degrees, lets herself be drawn into an inappropriate
relationship.

My novella FGM is now available on Kindle--http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KJ3FUOE

there is also a print edition on the CreateSpace/Amazon store.

https://www.createspace.com/4738586
6.  Dealing with death and old age in the USA as immigrants--
No Crib for a Bed and Other Stories, Kindle Edition
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JW2ZD40
No Crib for a Bed, print edition
https://www.createspace.com/4768879?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Just like Burma!  Cuban dissidents also say Presdt Obama raised sanctions too soon--

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/21/cuba-dissidents-caution-assumptions-complacency-political-opposition

Monday, December 15, 2014

audio version of GRR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones)

This--below--seems to be a new audio edition of GRRMartin's Song of Ice and Fire--from the sample, very well read--

as I remember, the first book, The Game of Thrones did not start with this "historical" exposition.

I think I prefer the original opening.

Anyway, good for the eye-challenged--over 21 hours for 42 dollars.

I have read it already, so--

http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-World-of-Ice-Fire-Audiobook/B00M22DPWO?source_code=FB2GB0054WS111513

Thursday, December 11, 2014

High jinks on the high seas--

High jinks on the high seas--

I really liked this movie Master and Commander--http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311113/

especially the opening scene (Russel Crowe)
and the book on which it is based.

But it is the only book by Patrick O'Brien which I read--I think I read it sitting in a chair in the bookstore called Olsens in Bethesda MD which went out of business around 2004.

A pity, got very nice CDs too at Olsens various locations for my radio programs.

KMKaung
12-22-2014

Introduction to my book Remembered Recipes--by Kyi May Kaung

Introduction to Remembered Recipes--by Kyi May Kaung--

When I first reconnected with my favorite Aunty A after a gap of about a dozen years in upstate New York, she came out on the front driveway of her son, my cousin Mongoose's house.

She was really happy and the first thing she said as I got out of the car was "You look so like old U Kaung,"  (my father).

I was at the age when he died, in his early 50s, and wearing the round black-rimmed style of glasses he used to have.

"You are exactly like him in your interests too."

"And your mother, does she still recycle leftovers?"

Aunty forgot I had not seen my mother for the same length of time also.

I promise, in this book, there won't be too much recycling of leftovers.

As my maternal grandparents were tai pan in Moulmein, over the years, Uncle and Aunty and I had many food memories in common, Uncle and I once in a duck-deboning contest which Uncle won hands down.

He and I also tried to reconstruct a Chinese pastry with see jone and yay jone--dough made with oil and dough made with water, but we were not successful as Uncle did not remember the proportions from his childhood.  And we had no cookbook/s to consult.

Now I have a Chinese dim sum cookbook and many other cookbooks.

Some of the food memories were mixed in with the economic situation and the stress of family fights, usually me fighting with mother, husband, etc.

Some are mixed in with sneers from the former in laws--

But I believe people who fight, or fight back, which is more true in my case, have a legitimate reason for doing so.

I have never been in a fight that I instigated myself.

I NEVER instigate fights.

I am a peaceful person who wants peace and quiet and time to think.

In this book, family recipes, remembered and reconstructed, will be combined with memories going back to as far as pre-World War II in Burma.

How did I know?

Well, when we meet, and this also includes family friends, we not only cook and eat, we also tell stories, and this oral tradition has been going on a long time.

So here, for your entertainment, with imprecise recipes, are some of those happy and not so happy times and foods.

Enjoy.

Copyright KMKaung
12-11-2014 


Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Quote of the day--from Intimations of Immortality--

Quote of the day--from William Wordsworth--Intimations of Immortality--

    Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
    The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
    Hath had elsewhere its setting,
    And cometh from afar:
    Not in entire forgetfulness,
    And not in utter nakedness,
    But trailing clouds of glory do we come
    From God, who is our home:
    Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
    Shades of the prison-house begin to close
    Upon the growing Boy,
    But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
    He sees it in his joy;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode:_Intimations_of_Immortality

Tuesday, December 09, 2014

Excerpt--from my novel--Shee-Monkey goes West.

And so one day, day by day, gurus left cloud walking West.  Some went East and North and South; most of all they all went OUT of Monkey Land.

Copyright KMKaung
12-9-2014

Monday, December 08, 2014

Worked so hard--

Worked so hard the whole day, missed my writing group, as editing and finalizing.
Sent play version of Shaman to agent.
Now working on She Monkey goes West, as agent requested this too.
Enjoying re-reading what I wrote myself.
She-Monkey has a lyrical, magical quality.
See cover at www.kmkaung.com
Had a simple dinner of one baked potato dressed with parmesan cheese, a little Marmite and fake butter.
Reminds me of time when I was 8 or 9 when I had jaundice and could not eat fats.
I came downstairs and was so tired I fell asleep on the cane chair downstairs.
I remember talking in school about how tired I was.
Dr. Daniel my great favorite came and my mother made me baked potatoes.
KMKaung
12-8-2014

My play Shaman still reads well--

I am re-reading and editing my full length play Shaman.

I wrote it in 2 weeks in 1996 for the Pew competition.

It is still a masterpiece and I have already cried once during the first act.

I do not think the Pew judges were wrong, nor that Edward Albee (not on the Pew panel, who saw it in 2004, was wrong either)

And I was not wrong either.

My play is an amalgam of maybe 5-10 stories, not counting the stories of some of the nats, which are only slightly changed.

Act 1 takes place in Burma and Act 2 in the USA.

More later, have work to do.

KMKaung
12-8-2014

My short stories from the Burma-Thai Border


Dancing like a Peacock and Koel Bird
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

My short story collection-

Dancing like a Peacock & Koel Bird, also includes Little Transparent Fetus Buddha.

Print (soft cover) + Kindle editions

http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Peacock-Bird-Border-Stories-ebook/dp/B00JWZSL3C

Saturday, December 06, 2014

Just posted on Yangon Stories--

Just posted on Yangon Stories--

Decided not to go to Rangoon as suffering from macular degeneration, therefore everything I see will be mashed up in the middle. 
Bwa ha ha.

KMKaung
12-6-2014

Friday, December 05, 2014

favorable reviews for my novella Black Rice--

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Rice-Novella-K-Kaung/dp/0615797520

My alt Christmas stories and links--by KMKaung

My alt-Christmas stories and links--

have a dark X'mas--:)


About the author:
K.M.Kaung started writing fiction as a teenager in Burma.

She comes from a family of story tellers in Myingyan in Upper Burma. Her paternal grandmother May May Gyi, saw the last king of Burma - Thibaw, taken away on a steamboat on the Irrawaddy River by the British in 1886.

Kyi May Kaung's father U Kaung was named after the King's first envoy to the West, Kinwun Mingyi U Kaung.

Her father was a well known educationist and the first chairman of the Burma Historical Commission.

As a child Kyi May was privileged to have noted scholars and artists come to visit the house.

Dr. Kaung holds a doctorate in Political Economy from the University of Pennsylvania.

Her work has been previously published in anthologies and literary journals, and she has read widely in universities and bookstores in N. America and Southeast Asia. From 1997-2001 she had a poetry and political commentary program on air, broadcast to Burma/Myanmar. Edward Albee praised her two act play, Shaman, and she has won Pew, Fulbright and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grants.

This is her first CreateSpace publication.

Upcoming are a full length novel Wolf, and a novella, The Rider of Crocodiles.

You may find her on her blog
http://kyimaykaung.blogspot.com

on Facebook
www.facebook.com/kyi.m.kaung
and at Kyi Kaung@kyikaung on Twitter.

Her web site is
www.kmkaung.com
She divides her time between N. America, travel in Asia and on cyberspace. Links to my recent publications of novellas and short stories.

1.   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 Philadelphia, 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. The Lovers, print edition
https://www.createspace.com/4767856?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026
The Lovers, Kindle edition
http://www.amazon.com/The-Lovers-Novellas-K-M-Kaung-Kaung-ebook/dp/B00JX8NZRU
2.   Black Rice is a Burmese man with very dark skin, almost purple, and almond eyes. What happens when he is captured in an ambush in Burma's delta in 1947, as ethnic strife rages, a year before Burma's Independence from Great Britain? Find out here as K.M. Kaung takes you on a heart stopping journey through life. An intensely flavored pill of a story in 48 pages. A view through oddly made eyes.

"You've got to be taught, to hate and fear, you've got to be taught, from year to year. . . ."

Song lyrics, Rogers and Hammerstein, South Pacific, the Broadway musical.
Black Rice, print edition
https://www.createspace.com/4232789?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026
Black Rice, Kindle Edition
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Rice-Novella-K-Kaung/dp/0615797520
3.   The Rider of Crocodiles
Dr. Kaung was traveling in Thailand when a colleague told her his great great grandfather was not killed in Ayuthia in 1767 when the Burmese invaded, as he knew how to ride crocodiles.
https://www.createspace.com/4738699?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026
print edition
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KZ6W8I6
Kindle edition
--




4.  Dancing like a Peacock and Koel Bird
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

My short story collection-

Dancing like a Peacock & Koel Bird, also includes Little Transparent Fetus Buddha.

Print (soft cover) + Kindle editions

http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Peacock-Bird-Border-Stories-ebook/dp/B00JWZSL3C
5.  FGM—Kindle edition
FGM: A Story about the Mutilation of Women.
Dr. Aset, a trained gynecologist with several post graduate American degrees, lets herself be drawn into an inappropriate
relationship.

My novella FGM is now available on Kindle--http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KJ3FUOE

there is also a print edition on the CreateSpace/Amazon store.

https://www.createspace.com/4738586
6.  Dealing with death and old age in the USA as immigrants--
No Crib for a Bed and Other Stories, Kindle Edition
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JW2ZD40
No Crib for a Bed, print edition
https://www.createspace.com/4768879?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026

Union Station, DC--copyright Kyi May Kaung (KM Kaung)



Union Station DC--by Kyi May Kaung--from my novel Solo Woman Traveler--

I don't drive in the USA, and so places like Union Station (photos further below) are full of memories, not all pleasant.

I don't "live in the past" but as I am writing my memoirs now, I use things like photographs to remind me of the past.

At first I came to DC from Philadelphia via Maryland, near Laurel, where Joe & Scallion Shoot lived.

From their home they drove me into town for my first visit to the National Gallery, to see Turner's The Peacock Room at the Freer, to the Old PO building.

I can remember everything, from what they said, to the reproductions of the Matisse cut outs, which are still doing well at the Gallery gift shop.

Then I needed to come in by train, starting in about 1985, as the Burmese embassy in DC started to harass me and the other 5 Fulbright students.

By 1988 there were only 3 women left including me.

The terrible people at the Military Attache's office left a bad taste in the mouth, as would the radio station from hell 1997-2001.

A friend Myles Glasgow and his wife Edee Maeda helped me as earlier The Princess had introduced me to Myles.

My other friend Yasmin and I stayed at Edee's house (Myles and she were temporarily separated at the time)

Edee made us a Japanese dish with seaweed--shabu shabu, but I apologized as all the time Y and I discussed our troubles in Burmese in stressed, loud voices verging on hysteria.

E. then dropped us off at Union Station, where the ceiling had just been restored--so it must have been 1988.

Now, 2014, it is being restored again, with inner scaffolding and nets to catch debris.

Once, about 2006, I hurried through Union Station and met Jack Healey, former head of Amnesty International, and his lady sitting near the flower planters in the main hall.

We talked of how we missed our mutual friend and colleague Z, who had left FBC when it split.

--Nowadays, my passes through the station are somewhat happier--

but I cannot ask the Syrian-born limo driver who usually drops me off about his country of origin or his (extended) family.

I did ask briefly as we approached the station--

"So how is your family?"

He made an unhappy sound--

"Oh--"

I quickly said, "Forget I asked you."

He pulled up at the curb, he helped me with my bags, and I paid him.

I told him to take a $5 tip, but he did not, maybe because he remembered he owed me $5 from last time when he did not have change.

I hurried into the station.

Copyright KMKaung
12-5-2014
FB
DC Union Station--all photos copyright KMKaung
Kyi May Kaung's photo.
Kyi May Kaung's photo.
Kyi May Kaung's photo.

Singer with a fantastic voice--I should have tried taking a video, but was too tired and weighed down with baggageKyi May Kaung's photo.

Top of Form

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....