Contrary to what a friend thinks, "What are you wishing
for, you who chooses to live in a condo in a sophisticated city?"
I am not yearning for a return to the land--except when
dead, and even then I might ask to be cremated.
I am not a Christian and don't believe things have to be
preserved for the Judgement Day.
But what reading Stephen Ambrose's Crazy Horse and Custer,
Michael Blake's Dances with Wolves and now Dee Brown's Bury my Heart at Wounded
Knee, has done to me is, I feel a great sense of injustice at what was done to
the Native American, and I thought it might be better now, but it is not with
the fracking in N. Dakota on reservation land.
Now I do not even know how to get myself to a reservation to
see for myself, or to the Black Hills or just Pine Ridge Reservation.
This same friend about ten years or fifteen years ago,
accused me to "being in love with danger" for going to Thailand and
the Burma-Thai Border (never got there because no one wanted to take me),
but that is not it either.
Only Sebastian Junger is "in love with danger."
I am as scaredy cat as anybody else.
I asked famous National Geographic photographer Reza in 2011
at an NEIU photo session--how he dealt with the constant threat of death and
the fact that like all or most of us, he has a family too.
His reply--"Well, I suppose somewhere out there, there
is a bullet with my name on it. But I
have been dodging it for so long,"
here he made zigzag motions in the air with his hands and
his body
and he does have, I think, a very good sense of direction,
for when a whole carload of us was lost from trying to follow the directions
from the GPS at the same time as we followed what we thought was the other car
we got hopelessly lost in Chicago.
I recognized the fake leaning tower of Pisa that I had seen
on my way in from O'Hare to the campus.
Finally, R. took charge and walked us in on the telephone
with our host.
What I mean to say is, he did not say he would stop going on
these dangerous assignments.
He did not say he would retire and cut down on work.
I can't say I will stop reading, thinking, writing and
painting either.
But I do feel more needs to be done for Native Americans.
And all I know how to do is to write and paint, so I will
write about this and paint their portraits.
Surprisingly, except for Toshunka Uitco who refused to have
his photo taken, there are photos of almost all the main leaders of the Tribes.
I don't think one "stumbles on one's subject
matter" by accident.
It may not be preordained as I don't believe in god or
destiny, but there is a logical progression.
In 2011 I stopped writing about Burmese issues because I
felt the wave of "Burma is changing rhetoric" was too much.
So I moved back to an emphasis on fiction.
I am naturally drawn to rebels.
My novel Wolf was originally called Burmese Rebel.
Then I picked up again my Genghis reading which I started in
Philadelphia about 1994 when I lived in a rental upstairs of this same friend.
How I got to reading again of the Native Americans (I read
Ambrose in about 2001) is there are certain similarities between Plains Indians
and the grassland Mongols.
And I just wanted to read all these books that I had heard
so much about.
No, I don't want to return to the wild, I don't even want to
return to Birama--
but I do want to see some kind of justice done, and the only
way is through fiction.
People may not know this, but writers are motivated by a lot
of things.
In the case of Dominique Dunne, he wrote that the man
(boyfriend?) who strangled and killed his daughter got away with a very light
sentence.
For a while Dominique and his son stalked this man--then he
decided to do it another way.
He started his TV program on killers who got away.
He has even written one novel he calls fiction as memoir, in
which he describes his role in covering the OJ Simpson trial.
He also wrote about a murder in the extended JFK family.
He said that "fiction has a way of shaking free
fact"
and while he was promoting this book, he was approached by
many people who knew the murderer.
I follow his philosophy of writing.
I think few people know what makes me tick, except for one
person whose name I do not recognize at all, who very perceptively analyzed my
Goose poem.
I did not even think in such depth when I saw the geese
flying and wrote it.
I am afraid to say it, but sometimes friends and relatives,
even close relatives are amazingly twisted in their thinking, and very
personalized.
And strangers too.
One classmate thought I wrote about a Hispanic woman presdt.
of the USA during 9/11 (in my story Saving the World Bit by Bit) because I
wanted to be presdt. of the USA myself.
Ha ha--that is not possible for the foreign-born, even for
The Philanthropist.
And how I "chose to live in a condo in a sophisticated
city" was I came here for a job broadcasting to Burma, bc I thought I
would give it three years.
I bought my own place bc I took one month's leave without
pay in 1999 to write, and I decided if the turkeys at work could buy their own
place, so could I.
Nien Cheng told us in person she had --$$ in blue chip funds
when she came to the USA, and wrote Life and Death in Shanghai in a condo.
What's so bad about a small condo?
I don't get it.
I don't say "You who choose to live in an elegant
townhouse in an equally sophisticated city."
I have millionaire friends, but I am just happy if they
choose to do some social justice work.
In Boulder, CO, one musician told me "Everyone is a
liberal here, but it all stops at private property."
and my Burmese-Muslim friend said,
"Well, except for the Native Americans, everyone came
from somewhere else."
It still does not change the fact that this nation was based
on a planned and systemic mass genocide.
My City Planning professor called it--Righting Ancient
Wrongs.
Copyright KMKaung
6-15-2015
Photos from 2011
Candle is sacred fire I brought from Chicago, from a Native
American Teacher.
KMKaung
