DIY

Photo from LA Times: the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis

LA Times said: MAKING DO: Using basic hand tools, two men in Yangon, like many Myanmar residents, are performing much of the cleanup work themselves for lack of foreign or domestic assistance.

DIY Way of Life

We, the Burmese, are used to solving problems on our own because we all know our government does not care about us. Almost everything in Burma is DIY (Do It Yourself), to borrow a geeky terms.

Electricity

In our town in Southern Burma, the electricity from the government is not reliable at all (We honor Thomas Alva Edison every day by staying in the dark) Guess what the solution of the community is? A well-to-do family would buy a generator and install power line -- only the home-quality one -- to each house in the street, who wants the electricity. The family runs the generator, let's say, from 6:00 PM till 9:00 PM. The family then collects the fees every two weeks, based on the number of fluorescent lamps you have agreed to install in the first place. How democratic and market-oriented our community is! :)

Telecommunication

Burmese migrants in Thailand have been using the family-run telephone exchange in the border area to call their family back home. Here is what you do. You dial a Thailand registered number of the family-owned telephone switch in the border and tell them the number in Burma you are trying to call. The exchange having several phones registered both in Thailand and Burma, can route your call from Thailand's phone system to Burma's. You have just dialed a telephone number in Thailand and yet you are talking to your family in Burma. They collect the fees at the end of the month based on how many minutes you talked (or hours if you talked to your sweethearts :). Well, the Burmese have just installed a home-made telephone switch without any investment from governments or businesses.

Survival of the Fittest

We have learned to survive and live with inefficiencies, thanks to our government. The educated Burmese also acknowledge that this is not good in the long run. But what else can we do, except to live with it? To fight the mighty guns pointing at us is an insurmountable task (at least for me).

Back to Nargis

If the government does not care about the victims, and relief experts cannot get to ground zero in time, we will have to do what it takes to survive. Not a good solution, I agree. But what else can we do? What would you do?

Help as much as you can

This morning, I talked to one of my former students from the seminary (Myanmar Institute of Theology), who lives in Shwe Pyi Thar, a poor suburb north of Rangoon. He is highly educated, graduated from the best seminary in Burma (Myanmar) with a degree in English, and very bright. He said he and his family were fine. But people in his neighborhood in Shwe Pyi Thar were going hungry. He said he was quite depressed, not knowing what to do next. If a bright and educated person like him is depressed, please think of how poor and uneducated families who have nothing to eat and no shelter will have in their minds right now.

The victims cannot wait for MRTV (Myanmar Radio and Television) crews to come in with some government officials handing out nicely packed rice bags or Mama noodle from Thai army.

So please act with your own network as much as you can to mobilize the people in the ground so the relief aids will get to the victims before they die of diseases and hunger or MRTV get there. :)

Weak planning and slow decision making

Weather Forecast from the Burmese official newspaper (Photo taken from Khin Min Zaw's blog)

The above warning on April 29 in the state-owned newspaper said the storm would not be devastating and the wind would be only 40-45 miles per hour.

Mungpi from Mizzima reported:

Though Burma's Meteorology and Hydrology department posted a warning on its official website on April 27, the information was not widely disseminated. The department said that a cyclone was forming in the Bay of Bengal and was heading towards Burma.

State-run media did not issue a cyclone alert until the afternoon of Friday, May 2. The storm first struck the Irrawaddy Delta in late afternoon Friday and swept into Rangoon early Saturday.

Many Rangoon residents said they missed the announcement, broadcast on state-run TV and radio, which usually runs state propaganda.

If Rangoon residents missed the announcement, the worst hit delta residents would not even get wind of it. Here is Mungpi's report again:

"Though my daughters said they knew about the announcement, I was not aware of the cyclone because I am not interested in watching TV, and there was no public announcement in the locality," said a Rangoon resident whose house was smashed by a falling tree.

A leading Thai meteorological expert said the failure to issue a timely warning may have costs thousands of innocent lives.

Dr. Smith Dharmasaroja, chairman of Thailand's National Disaster Warning Centre, said the Burmese government's response was insufficient.

"The government must issue an early warning and send teams to evacuate villagers in the disaster-prone zones as a preparation for the cyclone," Dr. Smith told Mizzima.

Dr. Smith famously predicted that a tsunami would strike Thailand long before the deadly Indian Ocean waves of December 2004, but was widely ignored.

While it is important for the government to issue an announcement, the warnings must be properly disseminated, Dr. Smith said. The authorities must also take precautionary steps, including relocating villagers in the path of the predicted cyclone to higher ground.

The Burmese officials ignored warnings from Indian Meteorology Department and Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) (McCartan, 2008). On a side note, Thai government also ignores Tsunami warning in 2004. (This shows how ASEAN governments do not give planning and decision-making powers to the officials in the field and do not care about the poor and weak).

As of the latest situations, Burmese government is very slow in issuing visas for relief workers (Denby, 2008). They are working at a snail space while people will be left to struggle on their own in the delta areas in Burma.

Holmes [the emergency relief coordinator of the United Nations and under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs] said that during discussions with Burmese officials, the explanation given for the delay in issuing visas was that it was a question that needed to be decided by higher authorities. (Jha, 2008)

I am sure the officials are covering their asses waiting for the decisions from "higher authorities" at the expense of suffering victims who need help right now.

Source:
Denby, K. (2008, May 7). Burma junta drags its feet over visas for aid workers as cyclone victims suffer. The Times Online. Retrieved May 8, 2008 from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3887278.ece
Jha, L.K. (2008, May 8). UN Frustrated over Visa, Custom Delays The Irrawaddy. Retrieved May 8, 2008 from http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=11837
McCartan, B. (2008, May 7). Myanmar courts political disaster The Asia Times Online. Retrieved May 8, 2008 from http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JE08Ae01.html
Mungpi. (2008, May 6). Burma knew of cyclone nearly a week before it hit. The Mizzima. Retrieved May 7, 2008 from http://www.mizzima.com/nargis-impact/18-nargis-impact/445--burma-knew-of-cyclone-nearly-a-week-before-it-hit

UN Begins Food Distribution in Cyclone-ravaged Burma

The agency [the UN's World Food Program] now has more than 800 metric tons of food stocks in Rangoon, "and will deliver these food resources to all areas in need," it said. The agency also plans to airlift additional supplies into Burma, such as high-energy biscuits, "as soon as possible." (Higgins, 2008)

I think the response is very slow from authorities concerned regarding the dispatch of rescue teams, experts and food supplies to the most affected areas. Nobody seems to know the exact time when the rescue team will be at ground zero. The locals are left to struggle on their own, which is quite a norm in Asian countries. I hope that food and aids will get there to the locals "as soon as possible", to quote the World Food Program Agency.

According to an email from one of the employees from the World Food Program (WFP), the WFP officials have met with the Burmese Deputy Minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Recovery. The government officials mentioned that the needs for affected areas were:

• Shelters (iron sheets, nails, plastic sheets)
• Medicine
• Water purifying tablets
• Drinking water
• Hand saws and chain saws

They have set up a distribution channel from the Yangon (Rangoon) International airport to Pathein (Bassein). A liaising team at the airport will accept the donated materials and deliver them by helicopters from Yangon (Rangoon) to Pathein (Bassein). The social welfare department will then deliver the donated materials to the Pathein (Bassein) communities.

I didn't see any mentioning of how to get to the affected villages yet.

Source:
Higgins, A.G. (2008, May 7). UN Begins Food Distribution in Cyclone-ravaged Burma. The Irrawaddy. Retrieved May 7, 2008 from http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=11807

ကံဆိုးမ သွားလေရာ မိုးလိုက်လို့ရွာ

Cyclone Nargis hits Burma

Severe tropical cyclone Nargis lashed Myanmar's main city Saturday, downing power lines and tearing rooves off houses as residents took shelter in their homes as they waited for the storm to pass.

Electricity supplies in Yangon have been cut since late Friday night as the storm bore down from the Bay of Bengal, packing winds of 190-240 kilometres (120-150 miles) per hour, residents said.

Meteorologists have warned of a tidal surge up to 3.5 metres (12 feet) due to the cyclone.

State-run radio was off the air Saturday and Internet connections were down, with even government sites unavailable.

The storm ripped the rooves off several houses in the city. There were no immediate reports of casualties but a Red Cross official said they had lost contact with Ayeyawaddy district since Friday.

Read more at AFP.

Emma Lazarus's The New Colossus

Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was an American poet. She wrote "The New Colossus" in 1883, that is now engraved on a bronze plaque on a wall in the base of the Statue of Liberty.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Paul Auster wrote that "Bartholdi's gigantic effigy was originally intended as a monument to the principles of international republicanism, but 'The New Colossus' reinvented the statue's purpose, turning Liberty into a welcoming mother, a symbol of hope to the outcasts and downtrodden of the world".

At the Statue of Liberty in New York

Thein Sein and Samak

Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein, left, and his Thai counterpart Samak Sundaravej. (Photo: AP)

There is something about this picture that made me want to print it here even though I don't have the permission to do so -- my apology to the AP photographer. Please look at the picture again and draw your own conclusion.

Thai PM jokes that neighbor Myanmar's draft constitution offers a '50 percent democracy'

Thailand's prime minister joked Wednesday that neighboring Myanmar is striving to become a "50 percent democracy" because the ruling junta's draft constitution would keep detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from elected office.

"Myanmar's prime minister said they are holding the referendum on the constitution because they want the world community to know that Myanmar is a democracy lover," Samak said on behalf of Thein Sein, who declined to speak to reporters.

It's beyond me why Thein Sein wouldn't speak to the reporters. He basically let the world know that the prime minister of Burma is a useless puppet, who couldn't speak for himself. Thai prime minister had to speak for him. What a shame!

Source:
Thai PM jokes that neighbor Myanmar's draft constitution offers a '50 percent democracy' (2008, April 30). The International Herald Tribune. Retrieved May 1, 2008 from http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/30/asia/AS-GEN-Thailand-Myanmar.php

Burmese-English dictionary

I have been busy working with the visual input system for our dictionaries. Check out the beta version for Burmese.

Go to http://burmese.sealang.net

Click on the keyboard icon (on your left panel) as shown in the following picture.

Click on the input characters so you can see the prediction. Please wait for a fraction of a second (because of the server delay) after you click on the characters. You will see the predicted Burmese words based on the dictionary order as in the following picture.

Warning about fonts

• If you use Zawgyi font, you won't see the correct rendering of some characters, especially subscript forms. Zawgyi is incompatible with the Unicode standard.
• Our dictionary uses the old Unicode standard with UTN #11 (the documentations are listed below)
1. Representing Myanmar In Unicode, Details and Examples by Martin Hosken and Maung Tun Tun Lwin
2. Myanmar Unicode Standard
• The old unicode standard was implemented in some fonts, such as Padauk, Myanmar1 and MyMyanmar. Get MyMyanmar here.

A voter's experience in the Burma's constitution referendum

Those who dare

The lights had gone down, the film was about to begin, and the young Thai couple were cosily ensconced in the big Bangkok cinema when the popcorn started flying. Most of it landed on the woman, hurled by a man to her right. Soon he was slapping her with a rolled-up film flyer, and screaming at her and her boyfriend to get out of the cinema.

As the rest of the audience joined in, jeering, throwing water bottles and urging on the assailant, the two made their retreat. The incident reached its climax this week when the boyfriend, Chotisak Onsoong, was charged with an offence that could land him in jail for 15 years. His alleged crime was simple: during the playing of the royal anthem which precedes all films in Thai cinemas, he had remained in his seat.

Mr Chotisak, a 27-year old businessman and political activist, is the latest person to be prosecuted under Thailands stringent lèse majesté laws, which make it a crime to defame, insult or threaten the King, Queen or heir to the throne.

Unquestionably, many Thais revere 80-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej, whose image is seen in almost every office, many homes and on giant billboards hung every few hundred yards above Thailands roads. But others see the law as a tool of oppression and a means of intimidating those who peacefully question the status quo.

"Not standing up is not an offence against anyone --- that's what I think," Mr Chotisak said in yesterdays Bangkok Post, after being charged on Tuesday. "The public have the right to make a choice whether to rise or not . . . I would like to stress that what I did was not intended to insult or express vengeance to the King. I was simply enjoying my right to freedom of expression." In Thailand academics struggle for the right even to discuss the monarchy, let alone criticise it. And in recent years there has been an increase in accusations of lèse majesté.

Mr Chotisak is that rare thing in Thailand --- an overt Republican. His girlfriend is a Muslim, and objects to the idolisation of a human. But their ordeal was mild, compared with those of some dissenters.

I have to respect Chotisak, who is brave enough to challenge and question status quo. He also said the following:

"In a country where the majority of the people eat rice and I choose to eat noodles, it is my right to choose. It's legal."

Source:
Parry, R.L. (2008, April 24). Filmgoer faces jail in Thailand for sitting during the national anthem. Times Online. Retrieved April 24, 2008 from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3803939.ece
Thai activist challenges royalist ritual at nation's cinemas (2008, April 25). The International Herald Tribune. Retrieved April 25, 2008 from http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/25/asia/AS-GEN-Thailand-Royal-Anthem.php

Testing Burmese typing

I tried to type out the following text using Padauk Unicode font. It was from http://www.planet.com.mm forum. I thought it was a nice irony about Bagan for banning gtalk/gmail.

ဆိုဒ်တစ်ခု ကြိုက်လို့ငါ၀င်
ရတ်ဂျစ်စတာ လုပ်ဖို့ငါပြင် တော့
ပေးစရာ မေးလ်မရှိ
ဒီဒုက္ခ  တော့ ပြေးစရာ နတ္ထိ ပါတကား။ 

စော်မကြည် ကျုပ်ဘ၀ 
ဆိုင်ဘာဂဲများနဲ့ 
စကောပြား စကားများပြောရအောင် 
အော် ဆရာသမား 
ဘန်းတာ တွေ ဖွင့်ပေးပါ ခင်ညား။ 

အနေဝေးကာနေ
သူဇာပျို နိုင်ငံခြားမှာ တခြားသူလုမှာစိုးလို့
စကားများ ပြောရအောင်
အော် ဆရာသမား 
ဘန်းတာ တွေ ဖွင့်ပေးပါ ခင်ညား။ 

သားတစ်ကောင် နိုင်ငံခြားက
တစ်ပတ်ခြားတစ်ခါ ဂျီတော့မှာတွေ့ ရာက
အခုတော့ ငါ့မှာလွမ်းရ
အမယ်မင်း ငါ့သားတို့ရယ်
အမေ့ကိုစာနာကြပါလား။

အများနာတကာနာကြားဖို့
တရားစာအုပ်များလဲတောင်းရအောင်
ဟဲ့ ဒကာ ဒကာမများ
ဂျီမေးလ်တော့ဖွင့်ကြပါလား။ 

အင်တာနက်သုံးနိုင်သော်ငြား
ကောင်းတာမှန်ရင် ပိတ်ကာထားမှတော့
အို............ ဂေါတမဘုရား
တပည့်တော်ခင်မျာ လူဖြစ် ရှူံးလူလုံးမလှ
ခွေးလုံးလုံးဖြစ်နေရပါပြီလား။

Unicode Notes

Zawgyi, although widely used by many Burmese web sites, is sadly not compliant with the Unicode standard. Let's hope they will support Unicode 5.1 in their future version. This page from zawgyi.org describes which fonts are compatible with Unicode 5.1 standard.

The Burmese text above can be viewed by any of the standard-compliant Unicode fonts: PadaukOT, Parabaik, ParabaikSans, and Myanmar3. I have the download link for PadaukOT and Parabaik in the following list.

Here is the list of tools/software, which I used.

• Keyman 6.0.15 from Tavultesoft: Keyman Desktop is a keyboard mapping solution, designed with the user in mind.
• myWinE keyboard [Right click and "Save link as"] from thanlwinsoft.org and the layout: MyWinE is an extended keyboard implementing Myanmar and Sgaw Karen support in Unicode.
• PadaukOT and Parabaik fonts: download

People as tourist magnets By Christiane Oelrich

The residents of the village of long-necked women in northern Thailand say they feel like prisoners in a human zoo. The government says that is absurd.

Kayan Tayar, Mae Hong Son (dpa) - When Mu La talks, her voice sounds muffled because of the 27 heavy brass rings that the 44-year-old wears around her neck.

But the message from the refugee from Burma - who lives in northern Mae Hong Son province in a mock village purpose-built for tourists - is crystal-clear: "We want to leave here, never mind where to, only away from here. We feel like prisoners."

Visitors call the village a "human zoo," but Thailand's government rejects the term as "absurd."

Mu La is a member of an ethnic group whose women wear brass rings around their necks as status symbols. For them, the longer the neck, the more beautiful the woman.

Their rings can weigh 10 kilogrammes or more, and over the years, the weight pushes down the collar bones and shoulders, making necks appear longer and giving the women their nicknames of "long-necked" or "giraffe" women.

They are part of an ethnic group called the Padung in Thailand, but they reject that term as denigrating and call themselves Kayan and their village Kayan Tayar.

An Italian tourist couple has paid an entrance fee of 250 baht ($8) each to visit Kayan Tayar, which lies at the end of an unpaved road north-west of the provincial capital of Mae Hong Son.

The young woman shoots photos while repeatedly muttering, "Incredible," and getting as close to her subjects as her lens permits.

The village's oldest female resident, Ma Le, 80, was undisturbed. She is used to such intrusions.

"Sometimes we receive three or four, sometimes up to 20 tour groups a day," says Mu La, sitting on her wooden hut's veranda and weaving a scarf.

The village's huts are built on stilts because the dirt track in front of them is regularly flooded in the wet season. There is no electricity.

"The tourists think we are primitive people," 23-year-old Zember says. "The guides say they don't want to see good roads or clean villages or anything modern, so we have to live like this to please the tourists."

When business is good and enough tour groups arrive, each of the 60 women wearing neck rings receives 1,500 baht a month from the village's Thai operators. The children and men get nothing at all, so the money has to support all 260 villagers.

During the off season, they get nothing, the villagers say. They rely heavily on donations from charities to survive.

Like most of her fellow villagers, Mu La fled her home country in the late 1980s to escape its brutal military regime.

"The soldiers came all the time," she says.

They forced the men to become porters on the front lines of the government's war against rebel armies and drove the women ahead of their ranks in case land mines were laid in their path.

She and many like her fled. Initially, she was sent to one of the many refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border.

But when Thai business people recognized the money-earning potential of the exotic-looking women, they suggested they move to three artificial villages near Mae Hong Son.

Some of the families aren't bothered that they have become "tourism magnets."

The village of Huay Sua Thao is populated mainly by economic migrants who were enticed to settle there to create a tourist attraction. Most of the villagers agree that their current lives are better than in Burma.

There also are people in the village of Huay Pu Keng who don't complain about their lot.

"We hope that more and more tourists will come," 52-year-old Mu Nan says.

She weaves shawls and sells souvenirs in front of her hut. She has worn her neck rings since she was a small child and says she has gotten used to tourists gawking.

She intends to sit it out until "better times arrive" and then return to Burma once peace returns, but Mu La in Kayan Tayar has given up hope after almost 20 years as a refugee.

In 2005, she applied with 20 other people from the three tourist villages for resettlement to New Zealand. The country accepted them and the United Nations agreed to cover the air fare, but her plan to start a new life was shattered when the Thai authorities refused to issue an exit visa.

"Those who don't live in the temporary shelters are not considered as refugees," says Tharit Charungvat, a spokesman for Thailand's Foreign Ministry in Bangkok. To grant the exit visas "would be unfair to those in the camps who are waiting in line for resettlement," he says.

"Apart from that, they voluntarily went to live outside of their camps," he adds. "They are free and earn money."

But the term "free" leaves a bitter taste in the villagers' mouths.

If they are caught outside their villages, they are arrested, they say, because they are not permitted to seek jobs elsewhere.

Kayan Tayar's women are particularly upset. They think the Thai authorities might deny them exit visas so their country doesn't lose a lucrative tourist attraction.

Disillusioned and angry, some of them decided to protest by removing their neck rings. They say they hope this makes it easier to get exit visas.

One of them, Zember, recalls: "After I had learned English, I was shocked when I finally understood the tourists' comments. They said they were disgusted that we displayed ourselves for a little money like animals in a zoo."

That was never the case, she insists. She remembers that she once was proud of her neck rings and that she even wanted to wear more.

"I wanted to be a proud Kayan woman," she says.

Today, Zember looks like any other young woman. "I just want to lead a normal life," she says defiantly.

Only her sloping shoulders belie her past years of wearing the heavy rings.

Mu La, a mother of eight, also contemplates taking off her 27 rings, which give her the longest neck in the village.

"I am proud of our tradition," she says but concedes that she is willing to sacrifice for a ticket to freedom.

"If that is the only way for me to leave here, I will take them all off," she asserts.

Ma Lo, another young woman, is equally frustrated and fed up with living in the village. She took her rings off, too.

There is a picture postcard in circulation that shows her breastfeeding her baby. Nobody asked her permission to publish the photo.

"I was so ashamed when I saw the postcard for the first time, but I couldn't do anything against it," she says. "I don't want to be treated like an exhibit anymore. I want some respect."

Source:
Oelrich, C. (2008, April 28). People as tourist magnets. Bangkok Post.

Illegal Burmese Labor Fuels Thailand Economy by William Boot

The deaths of more than 50 Burmese migrants last week in a sealed container truck transporting them to illicit jobs in southern Thailand starkly illustrates the growing reliance Thailand places on unofficial labor to help run its economy.

The Thai authorities acknowledge that there may be 1 million Burmese migrant workers living in Thailand, yet Thailands Migrant Assistance Program recently recorded that only 367,834 were registered with work permits in 2007.

Various NGOs campaigning for the rights of abused minorities and refugees say the number of illegal Burmese in Thailand is closer to 1.5 million. Many of them are children.

The Migrant Worker Group, a coalition of NGOs pressing for human rights, documents many instances of abuse by employers.

The MWG estimates that illegal Burmese laborers, especially in the booming construction industry, are paid up to 50 percent less than Thai unskilled labor and have no rights.

Migrant workers are very badly regarded and very badly treated by Thai society, wrote academic and former Thai Senator Jon Ungphakorn in the Bangkok Post. Yet it is hard to imagine how our economy would manage without them.

Ungphakorn says that since illegal laborers are not taking jobs away from Thais they should all be given legal status and employment rights.

Source:
Boot, W. (2008, April 19). Weekly Business Roundup. The Irrawaddy. Retrieved April 23, 2008 from http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=11461&page=1

A boom at the border By William Sparrow

I went to a "mom and pop" store for cigarettes. A very young woman was handling the transaction; thin, long hair, long legs, pretty face with no makeup. I wondered if she was 18.

As she turned and descended into the dark shop, an elderly women, presumably a relative, emerged from the shadows. She lunged from her seat, sensing opportunity. "You want she?" the woman asked, meaning "her" - the young woman.

I was shocked and caught off-guard and couldn't respond. In the silence, the elder woman continued "You want daughter? You take," she said, pointing. "Have hotel. Fifteen dollar."

"No," I said firmly. With that, the old woman scowled and slunk back to her seat.

The shop girl never met my eyes as she handed over the cigarettes. Still, I perceived a small smile.

A sex slave working as a shop girl; a young woman being sold by her own mother. It was a sad situation that I won't soon forget. Sadly, scenes like this will likely continue until the Myanmar government can improve the lives of its 55 million people. I was overcome by this realization as I settled the bill in that tiny shop on the Myanmar-Thai border.

As I turned to leave, I heard the shop girl whisper "thank you".

Read more at Asia Times

Politicizing Olympics

The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

George Orwell said those words in his 1946 essay "Why I write."

Pro-Chinese governments, including Burma, and the Chinese government have been saying that olympics should not be politicized.

[Chinese] Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang says the Beijing Olympics is a grand event both for China and for the whole world, and that the Games should not be politicized.

The statement by Qin Gang is in itself a political one, describing a "grand event" showcasing the "rich and powerful" China. Olympics have long been used by various governments to promote their ideology. Hitler used the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany as a tool to promote Nazi ideology by allowing only members of the "Aryan race" to compete for Germany.

Looking as far back as ancient Olympics events, winning athletes were heroes who put their home towns on the map. Winning medals at the Olympics signify the wealth and power of a town. A young Athenian nobleman used the number of his entries in chariot-race in the Olympics to defend his political reputation. [From Tufts]

Therefore, as far as I am concerned, olympics is a sporting as well as political event. As much as the Chinese government has the right to make the "grand" event successful, activists around the world should also have the right to express their anger towards the Chinese government and its policy.

Laos trip

I went to Laos last week on a business trip. I met some of my former students from Laos. I gave them IT training while I was working for Digital Divide Data in Vientiane.

Lwin with his Laos students at the Friendship bridge on the Thai-Laos border

This is a business

"This is a business! Don't call me again!" said the owner of a Chinese restaurant in Hinthada Township before hanging up the phone abruptly.

http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=11367

One of the business owners responded to a phone call from the Irrawaddy magazine regarding the survery about the referendum.

I want to quote Lord Byron:

Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.

Ludu Daw Amar's Funeral

Master's in Computational Linguistics

I want to go back to the US next year for this Master's program at the University of Washington in Seattle. I need to raise $27,000 for tuition fees and maybe nearly $10,000 for the cost of living in Seattle area.

I am hoping to be able to do that.

Burma -- a Land Where Nonsense Holds Sway

I want to share the following funny article by Dominic Faulder.

Call the country what you will, it's no place for a visit. By Dominic Faulder, in Asiaweek published on August 13, 2001.

A combat-ready infantryman fixed me with an unfriendly gaze, his assault rifle pointed in my direction. Before I could pass, he flicked open the flap on my bag and rummaged through my cameras, lenses and tape recorder. Presumably satisfied that I was not an off-duty ninja, he pushed open the door into a gloomy chamber I knew all too well. Right beside the Sule Pagoda in the center of Rangoon, I was once again in the reception room of the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism. In fact, I was there to meet Burma's 'Mr. Hospitality' himself.

The gentleman concerned rose from his chair. He wasted little time on pleasantries before sounding off on one of his pet peeves: foreign journalists. Lt.-Gen. Kyaw Ba was a powerfully built man who bristled in his crisp, dark-green uniform. He brought rare experience to Burma's embryonic hospitality industry. Previously, he had held one of the northern commands, a job that involved shooting Kachin insurgents when they popped up from their jade mines. One of the greatest disappointments of his career was failing to capture a Swedish journalist who had taken an extended walking tour across northern Burma with his wife and daughter but without, shall we say, "official permission."

Kyaw Ba was still vexed by this incident from nearly a decade before, and an aide had to remind him gently that I was actually a different journalist. With that cleared up, we got down to talking serious hospitality. We discussed hotel developments, airline capacity, visas, and promoting winter sports (that's another story). I have to say this was one of the stranger interviews in my career. Kyaw Ba spoke good English but was a big-picture man who didn't trouble himself much with detail. Whenever I asked a specific question, he would nod in the direction of a large pot plant. A junior officer would pop up from behind this camouflage, stand to attention and bark out the correct answer. "Can you tell me how many visitors came here last year?" Pot plant rustles. "Sixty-one thousand, sir."

That odd encounter came flooding back to me as I read the latest issue of Holiday Asia, which devotes many pages to the charms of Burma, unquestionably one of the most enticing and photogenic countries in Asia. Some things never change. Amid glorious scenes from the Irrawaddy, Pagan and Inle Lake was an announcement from Burma's Ministry of Transport concerning a new aviation tie-up with Singapore's Region Air. And what Burmese delight is showcased in the accompanying photograph? A welcoming inflight crew? A golden pagoda? No. It is a mug shot of the transport minister, Maj. Gen. Hla Myint Swe, in full uniform with all his campaign medals on display. Nice gongs.

Clearly, it still has not dawned on the powers that be in Burma that the last thing prospective visitors want to see is generals flaunting their battle honors. Holidaymakers and soldiers just aren't a natural mix. But it's very hard to explain this kind of thing to soldiers. Take just one example: Burma's delegation to the Beijing Women's Conference in 1995 was led by a man, the social welfare minister, Maj. Gen. Soe Myin. Keep that in mind next time you read some overly optimistic prediction of an early political settlement with Burma's most famous lady, Aung San Suu Kyi. In November 1996, Kyaw Ba launched a massive charm offensive on all fronts. Visit Myanmar Year was slated to attract 500,000 foreign tourists, never mind the problems of accommodation and airline capacity. "Negative publicity will not dampen the success of Visit Myanmar Year," boomed Kyaw Ba. The target was hopelessly missed -- even after Visit Myanmar Year had been extended for another year. Did foreigners stay away because they perceived Burma to be unsafe or because of the boycott campaign endorsed by Suu Kyi? Hard to say. But however safe Burma actually was and is, there is no question that most foreigners do not want to visit a country where the military may be prowling around on the streets living up to its well-earned reputation for treating the locals badly. That's a bit of a non-starter, boycott or not. Perception is everything.

The generals can't understand this sort of argument because for them uniforms, gongs and guns are the stuff of normal life, just like ordering people around. The bizarre highlight of the Visit Myanmar Year opening ceremony was a vast parade, mostly of young women dressed in ethnic costumes. They looked superb, but the effect was totally ruined by a senior army officer standing ramrod straight out front barking instructions at them over the PA system. To Kyaw Ba and the other generals beaming from the grandstand, this was just a march past in fancy dress with everybody following orders. Situation normal.

Of course, in most other places army officers marching ethnic maidens around stadiums would be considered distinctly abnormal. But if you want clearer evidence of the huge gulf between the way the generals think and the way most others think, look no further than the country's name problem. In 1989, it was changed officially from Burma to Myanmar by the de facto military government, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). In fact, the country went from Union of the Socialist Republic of Burma, to the Union of Burma to the Union of Myanmar in about six months. A lot of people were very upset, and have carried on calling the country Burma to register their disgust with an illegitimate regime that rose up out of a sea of blood. Twelve years on, most English-speakers still call it Burma. If that is not a ringing, inexpensive, international, vox pop rebuke, what is?

Some argued that it should have been Myanma, and others plunged into obscure and pedantic debate about whether Burma or Myanmar was more etymologically correct. In fact, if the generals had renamed the country Slorcland, the issue would have been the same. "Although in Burmese 'Bama' and 'Myanma' are used interchangeably for the name of the country, the choice of names in English has political connotations," explains Cristina Fink in Living Silence, a recent study of the country under military rule. "The military unilaterally changed the English name of the country without consulting the country's citizens."

To be even more contrary, the generals changed a lot of place names too. Rangoon became Yangon, Pagan became Bagan, Pegu became Bago, and so on. For a country supposedly promoting tourism, this was asking for trouble. The confusion continues to this day. There is also a muddle over the correct related adjectives and nouns. For example, are the good people of Myanmar (the Burmese as most people still call them) Myanmars, Myanmarish, Myanmaries, Myanmies, Myanmaies, Myanmaese, Myanmese, Myanmarese, or what? Got a headache? Join the club. I fear the militarily correct, but linguistically sad, answer is that the Burmese are now, officially, Myanmars.

The good news is that this battle will be fought not in Myanmar, but in the English-speaking world, and it will be common usage that dictates whether the people of Myanmar are referred to as Burmese or Myanmars, not the junta. I hope it's Burmese because at the end of the day it is simply a much more beautiful word in English. Saying that, of course, invites immediate official condemnation for being a sentimental colonialist stooge, so I'll go a step further: Burma is one of the most evocative and enchanting place names in the world -- a name to conjure up unforgettable holidays.

The more clipped Myanma would be an improvement on Myanmar, but I fear that irritating 'r' will be rolling around for years to come. But I shall of course be calling the country Myanmar in print except when referring to it when it was still known as Burma. Like it or not, this is the official name of the country accepted by the United Nations, ASEAN, etc., and tacitly by any country that accredits an ambassador there.

It does not matter whether I approve of that state of affairs or not. The world is chaotic enough already without having journalists running around making gratuitous political statements. Perish the thought.

Retrived from www.voicesforburma.org

Web server upgrade

My site was down for a few days because of the server upgrade. I am still fixing some problems after the server is up again.

Please bear with me :) I am sorry for the inconvenience if you receive some of the old posts, which were accidently pushed up to recent dates during the upgrade process.

Thai Prime Minister's stupid comments regarding Burma

"Killings and suppressions are normal there, but we have to understand the facts," said Samak.

"And Senior Than Shwe practices meditation. He said he prays in the morning ... and the country has been in peace and order."

The Nation

The Irrawaddy

Psalm 137

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land? 

Gambari in Burma

Kyaw San's words to Gambari

Kyaw San is the information minister.

"We are very astonished and dismayed for your involvement in this matter [releasing a letter on Aung San Suu Kyi's behalf in November]," Kyaw Hsan was quoted in the newspaper as saying.

"Sadly, you went beyond your mandate. Hence, the majority of people are criticizing it as a biased act. Some even believe that you prepared the statement in advance and released it after coordinating with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," he said.

"The statement was dangerous to the degree of hurting the prevailing peace and stability of the nation," the minister said.

Read more

In Myanmar, a resistance hero on the run

Somewhere in the dilapidated city of Yangon is a man on the run since August last year. He has sheltered in over 10 homes so far. But he expects to continue avoiding arrest by Myanmar's dreaded military or intelligence forces.

When Tun Myint Aung shifts from one safehouse to another, he goes armed with two items that have become indispensable. They are a mobile phone and a portable, Chinese-made radio, to listen to such anti-junta stations like the Democratic Voice of Burma, based in Oslo, Norway.

Read more at Asia Times

China importing cheap and unsafe materials to Burma?

Most of the Adidas and Nike shoes I bought in the US were made in China. The quality was good, at least, because of the quality control imposed by the US government.

However, the products imported to Burma from China are dirt-cheap. There is also no quality control on both sides of the border. People with low income needs cheap and affordable materials.

The following quotes are from Fires Continue to Plague Mandalay.

A Burmese engineer now working in Singapore explained that the frequent occurrence of fires in Burma is largely due to the poor quality of materials used in the country.

There is no quality control by authorities in Burma, and most of the electrical materials that Burmese people use are imported from China. These are very cheap and don't last very long, he said.

No Olympics

Think global, act local.

Logo from http://uscampaignforburma.org/

Injured Burmese from Mae Sot bomb blast detained and sent back to Burma

Eleven persons who were injured in a blast apparently caused by some kind of homemade bomb at the Mae Sot dump on Thailands border were themselves detained and then sent back to Burma on February 26 because they didnt have ID cards.

Read more at Ratchasima

Mon National Day

A letter from the land of smiles

Hey,

Hope you are having a good time there and things are going well with you.

Anna May, the former president of the Myanmar Institute of Theology (MIT), was in Bangkok on her way to Switzerland last week. After church, Saya Aye Min (who used to work at MIT), Anna May and I went to a book store. We bought several books. I got a collection of some short stories by Chekhov.

I am reading Chekhov and O'Henry now. I am learning how to write short stories from their books. I want to write short stories (at least for the time being), only giving subtle messages about lives in Burma in my blog. I will have to ask David on suggestions for writing tips (he has a sense of humor when he writes.)

I don't want to write about Burma directly anymore. Writing about Burma is so depressing that I feel burned out. Since September after the failed attempt by the monks and 88 generation students (a few of them, such as Ko Htay Kywe, who I became acquainted with over my years in Burma are now in prison) , I have felt burned out when writing about Burma. I have decided to switch my writing styles because direct writing about Burma seems so depressing.

Regarding my studies, my thesis is going fine without many problems. I am thinking about extending it to finish by the end of Summer instead of in April (for visa purposes at the research center I am working for). I met somebody from the London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) who can speak Wa and Burmese. So Wa dictionary is online now --- thanks to him (he is a lecturer of Burmese at SOAS) They all impressed me. So I am wanting to learn more languages from Burma such as Lisu, and Shan. My friend is Lisu, so I am trying to learn it from her. I have forgotten a lot of Karen words that I learned over the years while living at the seminary. I will have to refresh my memories if the opportunity arises :)

In general, my social life in Bangkok is wonderful. I like the convenience here --- 24 hour electricity with the supply of gas from Burma and a reliable Internet connection with minor censorship, which I can easily bypass if I want to. I have to meet a lot of migrant workers even though I can't help them much with my limited Thai language skills. I am having a wonderful relationship with my Lisu friend, whose picture I sent you a while back ago.

Recently, I am wanting to try to get my Ph.D back in the U.S. I wanted to discuss with Adam to get his insights and opinions. What do you think of that idea? Is that just crazy? :)

I want to work on Burmese word segmentation. Segmentation is an important issue for Southeast Asian languages such as Burmese, Thai, Khmer and Lao. In English, we have spaces between words. So it's trivial to recognize word boundaries. It's not that simple in Southeast Asian languages, Burmese, for example. We don't have a definitive rule on how to put space between words. My boss (a former lecturer from UC Berkeley) told me that it is a Ph.D topic.

He hinted me to go to AIT (where I am now for my Master's) so I can work with him while doing my Ph.D. But I don't feel like going here even though I enjoy working with him and learning a lot from him.

I am wanting to do it in the U.S because that will be a break for me from these depressing Burmese issues and it has better Ph.D programs than the rest of the world (at least for what I want to do). I looked at Hong Kong because OSI has scholarships for Ph.D programs there. I even looked at some schools in the UK and Canada. But I don't like any of those schools. US schools seem to have a stronger research oriented program compared to other countries.

In the US, I will be able to focus on my studies for a few years. My topic is on Burmese language anyways. So I will be contributing to the cause of Burma.

The challenge for me is to find a professor (in any country I want to do Ph.D) with an expertise in computational linguistics with some interest in Southeast Asian languages such as Burmese or Thai. My boss is a perfect fit. But he doesn't have a Ph.D so he can't be in my dissertation committee. If he can't be in my thesis committee, I don't want to do it in Bangkok.

After my Ph.D, I can come back to Asia and I am sure I am marketable in any Asian countries in case Burma is still doomed (the sense I am getting from reading the Irrawaddy). Aung Zaw, the editor, yesterday wrote that Gambari's mission is dead in the water. Then again, the only predictable thing about Burma is its unpredictability. I need to have a backup plan, though, in case things don't work out the way I want to in Burma just like the September revolution.

Well, my letter is getting very long :) Just catching up with you what's going on here :) Please say hi to my buddies there!

Take care and with love,
LM

AlinEin Publishing House

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Blessed are the meek --- the adventure of an unknown girl on a Sunday

It was a cloudy Sunday morning and humid outside as I got off from the sky train.

I was on my way to Bangkok Christ Church.

The church was founded by Burmese people who were working in Bangkok at various professions -- from housemaids to university professors. It was a hang-out for many Burmese who wanted to get away from work-related stresses. They wanted to be together with God and friends, seeking peace, serenity and a sense of family and friends in a land away from home and loved ones.

Many Burmese came to church as Sunday was their day off. It was a relief for them to be away from construction sites where they worked and lived, from houses where they worked as maids, and from schools where they studied. Meeting and mixing with people who shared the same faith but came from different backgrounds was also a great experience of coming to church.

My friend, Saw Chan Nyein Aung, was no exception. He was on a business trip to Bangkok and wanted to come to church. His Singapore company sent him here to do some work for their client. He was working hard the whole week. He wanted to rest on the Sabbath, and talk to friends and God.

I told him, on the phone, that I would wait for him near Asia hotel because it was easy to give directions to the hotel.

Before going straight to church, I had to wait for him near the hotel, which was just next to the sky train station.

Asia hotel was full of Western tourists who were running away from freezing winters back home. Taxi drivers were looking for tourists for solicitations as if eagles were looking for their preys. Tuk Tuk drivers were also there.

I was standing near the unofficial taxi stand where tourists and taxi drivers were negotiating for fares.

Near the corner of my eye, I saw a policeman on a motorbike. He was talking to a girl in a black T-shirt and pants.

That instantly reminded me of familiar scenes in which Thai policemen were distorting money from helpless migrant workers.

The policeman picked her out to be a Burmese. Her facial characteristics stood out among the crowd. The black T-shirt and pants, which she was wearing to conform with the locals mourning for the death of the Thai king's sister, did not help her.

I was watching them from far away. He was on the phone, probably talking to the broker who helped her get a work permit in Thailand (if she ever had one), or her friends to come and rescue her with a ransom of about US $ 100 (if she did not have a work permit). After about 5 minutes, he finished talking on the phone.

They came towards me. The policeman was riding the motorbike slowly ahead of her. She was walking from behind. As the policeman got a bit far ahead of her, she ran into an alley. However, the policeman looked back and saw her disappear. He headed his motorbike back. Somebody pointed to the direction she ran. The policeman followed her and caught her. He at last put her on the back of the motorbike and came towards me.

They got into the hotel compound, passing me. They stopped near the door leading to the lobby under the portico. The girl sat on the stairs near the door. The policeman was sitting on the motorbike.

I didn't exactly know what was going on because I was a bit far from them. They seemed to be waiting for something. Maybe the girl's friends would come to pay ransom for her release.

I was there for about 10 more minutes. My heart was starting to beat fast, wanting to document or do something. I couldn't imagine how she would be feeling at that moment.

My friend finally came. I asked him if he got a camera. He said no.

I wanted to take a picture to make awareness of the plight of the migrant workers in Thailand. If he had a camera, I would go take a picture of my friend with the hotel background so the policeman and the girl would appear in the photo.

Unfortunately, my friend and I left the scene, heading for church. I felt guilty that I couldn't really do anything for many helpless migrant workers like her from Burma.

Burmese man slipped through the airport security and onto tarmac at Bangkok International Airport

A man from Myanmar who claimed to be a convict on the run was arrested on the tarmac at Bangkok's international airport after having slipped through security, authorities said Friday. Police said the man, who identified himself as 28-year-old Zu Aung, was found Tuesday aboard a Turkish Airlines jet ....

Read more.

This is a sad news, actually. It shows that ordinary Burmese citizens are not happy with their own country and are trying desperately to get out in search of better lives. Yet, they end up in jails in neighboring countries.

Outgoing Myanmar envoy plans retirement life in RP

And educated people do not even want to retire in Burma. How sad it is?

The outgoing ambassador of the Union of Myanmar, Thaung Tun, said that he and his family plans to stay in the country [Philippine] once he retires.

Read more.

New Year Wish

Greetings from across the ocean! I just want to wish you a happy new year! I am sending my greetings only now because I don't want to compete for your attention during around Christmas!

The year of 2007 went past fine for me. Most of 2007 was spent writing my Master's thesis proposal. I am working on the task of aligning English sentences with their equivalent Thai translations using various approaches in computer science. (I don't want to elaborate on that :)

I am still working at the Center for Research in Computational Linguistics (www.sealang.net) in Bangkok. I am learning so much about the field that I want to go on to a PhD program. If I ever do a PhD, I would like to work on Burmese word segmentation.

I also travelled to Chiang Mai (a northern Thai town). I visited Saw Htaw and Kelly, my college friends, who are now living there and working for the Summer Institute of Linguistics. I had a wonderful time there with them and their adorable son, Jeremiah.

Lwin and Jeremiah

Chiang Mai is a lovely small city. If you are thinking about early retirement, it's the right place. The living cost is so low that you will probably be able to retire without working until 60. :) And, of course, you will have an opportunity to help the helpless and needy people from Burma, who, instead of working in poverty-stricken Burma, came to Thailand in search of better lives.

I hope that 2008 will be a prosperous and happy new year for you. Thinking about you now at this time of the season for family and friends!

With love,
Lwin Moe