Lucas Stewart's Blog, page 10

# 7 – Wunpawng Shingni

Literally in English, ‘Kachin Arts’, Wunpawng Shingni is Kachin State’s first independent, secular, multi-ethnic arts organisation.  Residing in a two-storey wooden house in Myitkyina’s famed Manau Cultural Park, the whole organisation was formed in May 2013, taking advantage of the liberalising reforms of the Thein Sein administration.  Split into several departments, including music, fashion and textile, dance and audio visual they are mostly known for their bi-monthly publication of the sa...

U Win Pe – Journalist to Critic

U Win Pe is a prolific author, poet and journalist.  Born in 1927 in the then Burmese capital Rangoon, raised further north in Monywa and attended primary school at the prestigious St Joseph boarding school in the colonial summer retreat town of Pyin Oo Lwin.  At the outbreak of the Second World War, U Win Pe was back in Yangon and eventually matriculated secondary school with the highest marks in the country.  Attending Yangon University to study English he started his journalistic career as...

Strand Hotel

This iconic hotel was built as a wooden boarding house by an Englishman and in 1901 sold to the Sarkie brothers, the famous Armenian hoteliers, who renovated it to the structure more or less how it is seen today.  It soon became ‘the’ top hotel in the country and the first port of call for many writers who visited Burma, including George Orwell, Somerset Maugham, H.G.Wells, Noel Coward and Rudyard Kipling.

During the war, the Japanese occupation forces renamed it the Yamato hotel.  In the 195...

Sadaik Shorts: The Lonely Land

Possibly the first novel written by a writer from an ethnic community, certainly to first to have been translated into English, The Lonely Land was originally written in the Lai Hakka language and follows the trials of a small village in the Chin Hills as it copes with isolation, the loss of its youth and the transition from the animist traditions to a Christian faith.  It is no easy task to write nor translate a novel, especially when it is the first in your language and Joel Ling Richard Za...

Exploring Burma’s Bookshops: City Books

Not quite a bookshop but rather a few racks of mixed books and magazines in the most prominent supermarket chain in Myanmar.  Imagine a Tesco’s if someone had just thrown a bunch of randomn books onto a shelf and said ‘There you go.’  City Books has been referenced more than once as another outlet that will put the final nail in the coffin on physical bookstores in Yangon, but they are far away from the decimation caused by Tesco’s and Asda to UK bookshops in the late 90’s.

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# 6 – Kachin Dictionary Committee

One of the oft-ignored legacies of the conflicts in the Myanmar and the self-isolation of the country is the effect on the still nascent languages and literatures of the ethnic communities, many of who had only embraced a written language at the turn of the 20th Century.  The Kachin are no different.  A Western imposed umbrella term for the six ethnic communities who live in Kachin State, Sagaing Division and northern Shan State, the most numerous of the Kachin are the Jinghpaw and their lang...

Saw Khet – Headmaster to Novelist

Saw Khet is an ethnic Rakhine novelist.  Born in Myepon Township in Rakhine state, he has spent his career in education as headmasters of various primary schools before retiring to Yangon in 2003.  Many of his novels revolve around the life of Rakhine fishermen, with one collection of short stories ‘Colouring the Good Deeds’ winning a National Literary Award in 2008.  His nonfiction on youth education and literary manuscripts have been awarded the Sarapy Beikmann Manuscript award 11 times.

 

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Zei An Gyi Village

Namhsan, a town in the hills of north eastern Shan State, has taken on an almost mythical status – at least among foreign writers – a town hidden among mountains, unreachable, a lawless place where anything can happen.

Some of that is partly true I guess.

Namhsan is a bit of a geographical oddity.  It lies on the swollen knuckle of a mountain ridge, overlooking a series of sharp valleys coated in small, locally owned, inherited tea-plots.  Where most settlements this far in would be smaller v...

Sadaik Shorts: Origin of the Kachin Manau

A 100 word summary just doesn’t seem enough to describe how important this book is.  Though less than 50 pages long, the author, one of the most respected literary figures in the Kachin community, has demonstrated how oral legends and myths should not be relegated to a past that doesn’t concern us.  Myths have a purpose for us all no matter how ancient and here the lesson of the hundreds year-old origin of the traditional Manau dance is woven into the contemporary social, political and enviro...

Mra Hninzi

Mra Hninzi is a renowned Burmese to English to Burmese translator.  She was head of the foreign relations division at the department of immigration from 2000 – 2005, after she retired from government service she began her translation career.  Her translated books include ‘A brief History of Globalisation’ by Phillippe Legrain (which won the Sarpay Beikmann translation award in 2005), the ‘Bonesetter’s Daughter’ by Amy Tan, ‘Small Miracles’ series by Yitta Halberstam and Judith Leventhal and T...