The Young Karens
I was aroused from my deep slumber by the crowing of the rooster. I hardly slept a wink yesterday night; it was hot and humid and the frequent din generated by the wild dogs and cats outside fragmented my sleep. In stark contrast, it is cool now and there is a breeze blowing. The sky above is overcast and it appears we may soon encounter the first drop of rain since our arrival in Myanmar.
I took a stroll outside, enjoying a brief respite to calm my edgy nerves after a long tiring journey yesterday and a sleepless night. U Tin Aung’s residence is a two-storey house built with concrete walls and wooden planks as the floor. On the outside, it looks like a box with holes. It was tucked neatly away from the main road and the city center. The houses nearby are similar to it in terms of architecture and design but further in, bamboo huts and make-shift shelters dominate the landscape, their haphazard arrangement resembling a slum.
U Tin Aung’s son, Khun Ng Ng was accompanying me, perhaps he was afraid I might wander too far off and get lost. He was carrying a small book with him and would constantly flip through its pages briskly as he tried to talk to me in English. I soon realized the book is a basic English-Burmese conversation guide book and he is trying to brush up with English by talking to me. Khun is 15 years old and is currently attending middle school. He claims that English was taught in both primary and middle schools and he was able to read and write in English, but judging from his command of the language, it may only be at the nursery level if you go by Singapore standards.
Due to the isolationist policies of the ruling regime and international trade embargo and boycott, Myanmar is one of the few countries in the world still relatively unaffected and uninfluenced by the spectre of globalization and Western “values”. There are no McDonalds or Pepsi here, the sign- boards, street names and even the car-plates are in Burmese. With little opportunity to use the language, it is unlikely Khun is able to improve his English.
A young lady was following us around. She lives besides U Tin Aung and was curious to find out more about this foreign visitor who was loitering around her residence. She invited me to her house and got her mother to be the translator. Her mother is Daw San San, who teaches English at a middle school. Her name is Ma Aye Kyint Oo. She is ten years of age and studies at a primary school. She knows where Singapore is and asks me many questions about it. I’m quietly honored that all the Burmese I’ve met so far knows about Singapore and they seem to have a positive impression of Singapore as a developed and prosperous nation.
Ma Aye Kyint Oo doesn’t speak or understand a
single word of English and her mother wasn’t very fluent in English either.
Before I left, she rushed to dress up in her traditional Karen costume and
insisted I took a photograph with her family. As I bade her farewell, I can’t
help feeling a tinge of sadness in my heart. Without being able to converse,
read or write in English, what does the future holds for Kyint Oo and Khun? It
may be a deliberate attempt by the government to limit the younger generation to
the access of English which have kept the Burmese isolated from the rest of the
world. English is the gateway to the world and in a way, to a better life, but
the knowledge of English will also introduce one to new ideas, demands and
aspirations, a scenario every dictatorship in the world will seek to prevent.
In the broad daylight, Hpa-an looks livelier than the ghostly town which greeted us the night before. It is like any other typical Burman town with its box-shaped houses, narrow alleys, road-side stalls, horning jeeps and trucks except there are gun-tottering youths roaming the streets with their uncharacteristic military uniform and insignia. I was tempted to take a snapshot of them but refrained upon seeing the scowl on their faces the moment I revealed the camera.
According to Human Rights Watch, there are some 300,000 children in the world
serving as soldiers in current armed conflicts. These young combatants
participate in all aspects of contemporary warfare. They wield AK-47s and M-16s
on the frontlines of combat, serve as human mine detectors, participate in
suicide missions, carry supplies, and act as spies, messengers or lookouts. With
little possibility of an imminent end to the current conflict between the
Myanmar government and the Karen National Union, these children will continue to
carry these weapons of murder around and they will never know what it is like to
live in a world without guns, fighting and killings.