______

BULLETIN OF THE GROUP ______

In honor of our teachers….

John Okell in 1967, Anna Allott and Professor Hla Pe in Burma, 1988 Photos from John Okell and Anna Allott

Number 78 Fall 2006

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group Council Association for Asian Studies Number 78, Fall 2006

Editor Ward Keeler Department of Anthropology University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX 78712 email: [email protected]

Assistant Editor Jake Carbine CONTENTS Department of Religious Studies ______Franklin & Marshall email: [email protected] In Honor of our Teachers ...... 2 Book Review Editor Leedom Lefferts Trying to Learn Burmese ...... 2 Department of Anthropology Drew University How I Learned Burmese ...... 9 Madison, NJ 07940-4000 email: [email protected] A Tribute to the Late Maung Htin ...... 12

Subscription Manager Book Reviews ...... 15 Catherine Raymond The Center for Burma Studies Literature Project ...... 18 Northern Illinois University DeKalb, 60115-2853 Myanmar/Burma Update ...... 19 office: (815) 753-0512 fax: (815) 753-1776 Exhibit at NIU……………………………20 email: [email protected] web: www.grad.niu.edu/burma

Subscriptions Individuals and Institutions: $25 (Includes Journal of Burma Studies) Send checks, payable to The Center for Burma Studies, or email Beth Bjorneby at [email protected].

Next Issue Spring 2007 (Submissions due March, 2007) ______their students (official or unofficial) a sense In honor of our teachers: learning about that every step forward we make in Burmese how our teachers learned Burmese constitutes a little bit of a return on the debt ______we owe them. –Which is one more reason that we all feel so endlessly grateful to them. A while back I was talking with Nance Cunningham in Rangoon about the This issue contains another remembrance, challenges learning Burmese poses to a this of the scholar, translator, and writer native English-speaker. We both remarked Maung Htin. Two book reviews, one of a on how much help we had gotten over the book on Burmese illustrations of the life of years from Anna Allott and John Okell, both the Buddha, the other on Chin textiles, bring from their various published works and in readers' attention to noteworthy person, that is, from courses they had publications. Finally, there are brief organized or even just conversations we had accounts of a Burma-related conference that had with them in passing. It occurred to me took place in Singapore this past July that as we spoke that an issue of the Bulletin many of us had the pleasure of attending— should be given over to these exemplary an exhibit/symposium on the na' held at NIU saya, to whom so many of us owe enormous this fall—and an ongoing project on debts. But as I thought about it, I realized . But most of this issue that much more engaging for us all than a concerns the matter of learning Burmese, a series of encomia addressed to them from topic that will be the focus of the Spring scores of students and friends would be their issue of the Bulletin as well. —The Editor own reminiscences about learning Burmese. ______Can you honor your teachers with an issue of a bulletin but ask them to write most of Trying to learn Burmese—50 years on the contents themselves? I decided not to ______worry about that and asked both John and Anna if they would give us brief reflections It's hard to believe that Anna Allott's on their experiences studying Burmese. induction into Burmese studies was as Proving once again their generosity, they accidental as it appears to have been. We both agreed at once and soon sent along can only assume some benevolent nat was delightful accounts. Most of this issue pulling strings behind the scenes at SOAS at consists of their respective contributions. the time. We hope that the same nat will see Those of us who have had the pleasure of fit to right the unfortunate situation she meeting each of them will hear their very mentions toward the end of this account that distinctive, and inimitable, voices. But even has her barred from further visits to the people who have not yet had that good country. —The Editor fortune will come away with a sense of how modest, charming, and dedicated these two What made you want to learn Burmese? scholars of Burmese are. This is always the first, or maybe the second, question that I am asked when I tell Anyone who has spent time in Southeast someone what I do. Well, it wasn't actually Asia knows that a student's debts to teachers my wish to learn this language: I was asked can never be repaid. The wonderful thing if I would be willing to do so. about John and Anna is that they convey to

2 / November 2006 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group I was a post-graduate student in the country that I had never even thought about, Phonetics and Linguistics Department of the in October, 1952. School of Oriental and African Studies in the . The then head of I had two teachers, H.F. Searle, an elderly the department, Professor J.R. Firth, wanted former member of the Indian Civil Service someone to make a special study of Chinese (ICS) who had served in Burma, and U Hla phonetics and I was being prepared for this Pe, Lecturer in Burmese. The former taught work by taking basic courses in linguistics me the script and read with me some and phonetics and elementary Mandarin. My primary school readers; the latter composed equipment for undertaking this work was a for me some simple dialogues which he not particularly relevant degree in Russian wrote out in his beautifully legible and French, and a reasonably good ear, handwriting and then took me through. inherited I think from my mother who was Happily I also had, to help me understand Czech. the seemingly back-to-front syntax of this new language, a copy of An Introduction to However this plan did not work out, as Colloquial Burmese by J.A. Stewart which Professor Firth was told that SOAS could he had published in 1935, after retiring from only afford one new post for his department, living and working in Burma. As the first not two. He needed more urgently to appoint nine exercises of this work had been made Eugenie Henderson to a readership in into old- 78 RPM gramophone records, Southeast Asian phonetics so the study of I also had some recorded material to listen Chinese phonetics was put on hold. But in to. Without Stewart's clear and logical the meantime, what would happen to me? exposition of the grammar and very practical This is where Burmese comes in. It dialogues I would have had a much more happened that SOAS had, in 1950, taken difficult task learning to read. As for over from the University of Rangoon learning to speak the language, this was responsibility for the continuation of a major evidently going to have to wait until I went Burmese-English dictionary project. This out to Burma on what was known as project, which was to be a revision of Overseas Study Leave. Judson's invaluable work, had been started as far back as 1924 by the Burma Research Learning proceeded at an unhurried pace, Society. By 1950, when the first very short partly because my teachers had no part of this new dictionary was published, experience of what they could expect such a only C. W. Dunn and Dr Hla Pe, a young pupil to achieve; partly because I was also lecturer in Burmese, were working on it full- continuing my training in linguistics; and time, and there was a very long way to go to partly because, in November, 1952, I got complete it. married to a member of the staff at SOAS. I was introduced to the work in the I think Professor Firth felt he could help me Burmese Dictionary Office, shown the and also the dictionary project by suggesting corpus of books that had been read and the that I could study Burmese and equip myself half a million or so slips that had been to help with editing the dictionary. I extracted from them by readers in Burma accepted the suggestion, which is how I before the war, and shown how to correct came to start learning what I now consider the proofs of drafted entries. By the end of to be a pretty difficult language spoken in a the academic year I had learnt a lot of words, knew a lot about the pronunciation of

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group November 2006 / 3 the language and was able to read and enjoy all speak English quite well but cooperated (with the help of Mr Searle) passages from a from the beginning in speaking to me in diary that had been written by a well-loved Burmese and helping me to talk with them. Burmese author, U Sein Tin, about his time They also fed me, helped me to cope with spent studying at Oxford in 1927. I the unfamiliar food, and explained how I especially treasure his tactful description of should and shouldn't wash. It was arranged the English way of taking a bath, which the for me to sit in on classes that were reading Burmese find somewhat repulsive. I could Burmese literature texts. I did so regularly, utter a few simple sentences in Burmese but but in fact these were far too advanced for I certainly could not claim to be able to me at this early stage, I could barely follow speak the language. what was going on and I needed to fix up some lessons with people who could work Students who come to learn Burmese with me at my level—people who would be (intensively) at SOAS today can expect to both teacher and informant. Back then in attain much greater fluency than I had then, 1953 there was no experience at all in the and a similar reading ability, in about 2-3 Burmese department (Myanma-sa hta-na.) months. But they have the use of taped or in the University of Rangoon of teaching materials, the language lab, teachers used to Burmese as a foreign language. I asked for explaining the grammar, John Okell's help with finding a teacher and by the excellent four introductory course books, beginning of November, Professor U E and since 1993, a modern, up-to-date Maung finally managed to find someone to Burmese-English dictionary. What a take me on. This was a certain Mya Mya difference these make to the task of learning Htun, a post-graduate with a degree in law, a Burmese! member of a well-connected ; one of her brothers-in-law was U , the In September 1953 I left for Burma, not by then Professor of English. From her I learnt plane but on a Bibby Line boat, the a great deal about upper-class Burmese Worcestershire, from Liverpool, a journey family life, about Buddhist ceremonies, as which turned out to be a most enjoyable well as about feeding monks in one's home, month-long cruise, past Gibraltar, through and how to play badminton, which I was the Mediterranean and down the Red Sea, shamefully bad at compared to my teacher. calling at Cairo, Port Sudan and Aden and on to Colombo. Having left England, where Not long after my arrival in Burma I had some food, especially meat, was still been taken to meet U , who rationed, the huge tender steaks and the had presented me with a copy of his recently luscious pineapples which I ate in Ceylon published book, Burmese Syntax. I didn't are what I remember most vividly. realise at all what a distinguished scholar Apparently it cost SOAS less to send me on this handsome and charming, grey-haired a month's cruise than to send me to Burma gentleman in his 60s was. In my diary I by air, and I didn't complain. wrote, "We chatted. I still have only about 50% comprehension. I can't catch the units It had been arranged that the University of of speech, if I could I would understand Rangoon would look after me so when I got more." In my lessons with Mya Mya Htun to Burma on October 10th, I was taken to we tried reading Burmese Syntax, but she Inya Hall, one of the girls' hostels, and given was not very good at explaining things in a room to myself. The senior students could English to me and was quite confused by the

4 / November 2006 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group Burmese grammatical terms which I was SOAS had given me a tape recorder, a huge, just trying to get to grips with myself. I heavy wooden machine which I could just decide to change to reading Burmese about lift, with large-size reels of tape and a newspapers with her, which was more heavy microphone. The customs officers at rewarding. Local news reports were often the harbor had never seen such a thing and quite disturbing: I had noted "Last week the didn't know how much duty to charge me, Rangoon-Moulmein train was blown up and with the result that I had to make several 60 passengers were kidnapped." And again, journeys to the customs house before I was "Lashio train blown up by insurgents, 16 allowed to take the machine home to the killed, 24 injured." And friends in Rangoon hostel. I had not had any practice at using it told me that it might even be dangerous to beforehand and was not helped by the heat, drive to Pegu by car. which often caused the driving band to expand so that the machine wouldn't work. I In mid-November I was able to arrange to did manage to make a number of recordings spend fewer hours with Mya Mya Htun and but I think they have all vanished by now. to have three meetings a week with U Pe More important for my progress was the fact Maung Tin. As he told me that he became that I was mixing all the time with students, bored teaching someone for more than an hearing Burmese spoken all around me, hour, I wrote in my diary, "I hope he doesn't having lessons with Mya Mya Htun and find me boring—he is after all Burma's discussions with U Pe Maung Tin, and even foremost scholar, actually a Pali scholar." I some classes on literature with U E Maung, would spend the morning before my lessons and on inscriptions with Daw Than Swe. I reading his book on syntax so that when we was very fortunate that so many people met I was able to discuss his grammatical befriended me and helped me to progress. analysis with him. "No, he was not bored," he said, at the end of an hour and a half's It was considered essential that part of my discussion. It appears that we saw eye to eye training should be spent in royal Mandalay, on several language matters. He said that I the seat of true Burmese culture, noted for asked good questions and that it made him the way its citizens spoke. After Christmas, think. He explained to me that he was not a on January 12th, I flew up to Mandalay in an poet; that he had initiated a movement to elderly Dakota; it was too unsafe to travel by increase the importance of prose; and that he train. I was rather apprehensive about my didn't like long sentences and wanted first ever airflight, as on January 11th there Burmese to write more as they spoke. Even had come the news of the Comet that had if the Burmese I had learnt at SOAS before crashed into the Mediterranean with the coming out had not equipped me to cope death of all on board. with the spoken language, my training in linguistics and phonetics had introduced me Now began what was perhaps the best part to ideas about analyzing and describing the of my stay in Burma, living with the Toke- grammar of a language and had equipped galay family in a fine taik-hkan house (brick me to question usefully someone as able to base, wooden upper structure) situated in the answer my questions as my new Hsaya-gyi. Civil Lines in Mandalay. Straightaway I wrote in my diary, "around me all the time I doubt if any one reading this account will the most exquisite Burmese is being talked. be able to picture to themselves the And the bad habits I have got into have been difficulties I had trying to make recordings. immediately corrected. My chief fault is

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group November 2006 / 5 always putting a stress on the low tone what aspects of the language I should words." A few days later I again wrote, concentrate on. I used to be slightly annoyed "Every minute of the day is spent listening by local Anglo-Burmans saying to me that I to a flood of exquisite Burmese—it is tiring had 'picked up' Burmese very well, which but wonderful—I should improve by leaps was not the expression I would have used to and bounds." Like most foreigners who have describe the time and effort I was putting spent time in both major cities, it was into my studies. However I was not very Mandalay that cast its spell on us. certain where I was going. In mid-January I wrote myself a severe note, "I have no Talking of bad habits, once acquired they method. Firth would laugh at me. I have are difficult to unlearn. I can't now recall started a hundred things and finished just how I learnt, or how I was taught to nothing. What material shall I take back? I write Burmese, but it was not the right way. must organize it a bit." I don't seem to have I was not shown that most of the circles are taken my self-criticism too seriously. My written clockwise, not counter-clockwise as interest was primarily in the spoken in English, nor what to write the on- language and in mastering the everyday top and underneath vowels in, so I have language and content of the newspapers. I spent a lot of my life trying to improve my was not studying Burmese literature, modern Burmese handwriting by unlearning the bad or early, and was not attempting at all to habits that I picked up at the very beginning. learn about poetry. The SOAS linguistics This is why an important part of learning the department had made me interested in the Burmese script is learning how to form the analysis and description of grammar, and letters correctly, i.e., to write them as this interest had been encouraged by Burmese write them. This knowledge helps discussions with U Pe Maung Tin. greatly if you are trying to decipher bad handwriting! Just before leaving Rangoon I had met some Americans who were learning Burmese and The Tokegale household was run by three using Spoken Burmese, a war-time course unmarried sisters, Ma Ma Gyi, Ma Ma Lay produced in 1945 by W.S. Cornyn. They had and Khin Shwe Mar. Their great-uncle, their invited me to come and visit their language grandfather's brother, had been an laboratory, which I hadn't had time to do. ambassador to France from the court of The course was to take 6 months and was on King Mindon; Ma Ma Gyi showed me tape but did not include any introduction to proudly and read through with me two the writing system. This meant that they documents given by the King to her uncle. were living in the country, surrounded by All three sisters became my teachers, giving signs and written in Burmese script me regular lessons, going for walks with me, which they were not even trying to learn. All introducing me to friends, showing me the their vocabulary material had to be written sights, answering my questions, correcting in transcription. Then and now at SOAS we my Burmese. They also helped me to find have always been convinced that students of and buy books asked for by SOAS library. Burmese should learn to read and write the script from the very beginning. The preparation that I had received at SOAS There were several linguistically-trained had not actually included guidance as to American teachers of English working in how I should proceed with my study of the Rangoon and Mandalay at this time, and language, what tasks I should set myself, they decided, together with the Burma

6 / November 2006 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group Research Society, to hold a Linguistics make much more rapid progress and would Seminar at the beginning of March, 1954. have been able to profit more from being Burmese participants included Professor Pe immersed in Burmese surroundings. By Maung Tin, Dr , Professor Myo June, 1954, when I boarded another Bibby Min, Professor E Maung, and U Wun. Line boat to return to England, I had been G.H.Luce gave a paper on Karen, David away for 10 months and was missing my Morgan from the British Council gave a husband, whom I had abandoned only nine paper entitled ―An English teacher looks at months after our wedding. Among the Linguistics,‖ and I was invited to come passengers on board was a group of down from Mandalay to talk about Burmese Burmese state scholars on their way to studies at the University of London. I felt England and America; they had never been somewhat overawed in front of all these to sea, easily felt sea-sick, and were now experienced teachers; happily I didn't have faced with strange food and different eating to try to speak in Burmese. (The full details habits. I had been so often helped by so of this ground-breaking seminar are many friends in Burma, and now I was able recorded in the appendix to my article on U to help these young students a little by Pe Maung Tin in JBS, vol.9.) joining them at meal times and explaining the numerous items on the menu. This is not the place to record my adventures travelling by boat down from Mandalay, in This time in Burma was just the beginning the course of which I spent two days and of a lifetime spent trying to learn Burmese in nights under protective military escort in the all its many styles and contexts. Once back old rest-house in Pagan. After the seminar I in England, I returned to correcting proofs flew back up to Mandalay, packed up my and to working on part 2 of the dictionary. work there and then went to spend some Soon, I had to think about how to help my time with friends in Taunggyi. Here I met up SOAS Saya U Hla Pe with teaching a young again with a friend from Inya Hall, Khin Hla Foreign Office trainee called Martin Hla, a tutor in the English department, who Morland, who was due to go out to the had been learning some French from me and British embassy in Rangoon in 1957. We teaching me Burmese. She introduced me to were also trying to recruit another person to her five sisters all of whom I had the great join in the work on the dictionary, and after pleasure of meeting again as recently as a disappointing trainee who gave up after 2003 at the wedding in Rangoon of Khin one year we had the good fortune to be Hla Hla's daughter. I was also privileged to joined by John Okell in 1959. That was the be staying in Kambawza College, whose beginning of another story which you can headmistress was Mi Mi Khaing; her also read here.1 enchanting book Burmese Family is the first one I put into the hands of every new student of Burmese. 1Once Saya Hla Pe retired, John and I agreed that the Burmese-English dictionary By the end of nine months in the country I project, which had been the cause of our was beginning to feel more confident of my learning Burmese in the first place, should ability to speak and understand the language not be continued. Work on a new dictionary but I was still a very long way from was going on in Rangoon, and in 1993 it mastering it. I realized that if I had come out was finally published. It was no longer better prepared I would have been able to necessary to spend hours writing out by hand vocabulary lists for our students. And

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group November 2006 / 7 From 1959 onwards John has been the most incarnation of our 2001 Dictionary of understanding, the most helpful, the best of grammatical forms. At one point several colleagues, and I consider myself extremely students of Burmese history (Jeremy Cowan, lucky to have worked with him. Our life David Wyatt, later on Vic Lieberman) patterns were completely different, which became interested in learning to read turned out to be a good thing from the point historical material and I was able to extend of view of SOAS Burmese studies and my knowledge by preparing texts for contact with Burma. After coming back to historians to learn from and to read. This England in 1954, I didn't return to Burma for didn't require fluency in the spoken seventeen whole years as my husband and I language. had three children whom I didn't want to travel so far away from until our youngest Finally in December, 1976 I plucked up daughter was about fifteen. During this time courage to go back to Burma again. my husband, a member of the SOAS Law Although it was difficult to arrange for a Department, traveled extensively throughout two-month visit, it was a good time to go Africa and was often away. The confidence politically. The British Foreign office helped that I had felt in my command of spoken and all problems were overcome. The visit Burmese grew less and less as it was went extremely well and I wondered why I difficult for me to find opportunities for had been apprehensive. I regained some of keeping it up in London. At the same time, my fluency in the spoken language and, John went out to Burma for eighteen months even better, was taken to attend in 1960 and again in 1969. He had become unforgettable sa-pe haw-pyaw-bwe, mass completely fluent after his first visit, was literary gatherings under the stars. Old able to spend a great deal of his time at friends were still there, and I met and made SOAS talking in Burmese with Saya Hla many new ones. I established a close Pe—I remember that in those days they both connection with the Myan-ma sa department smoked!—and managed to keep up with of Rangoon University, where I was made many Burmese friends in London. He was most welcome, in fact given the freedom of still then a lu-byo-gyi. the department, and I started on what became my main area of study from then Saya Hla Pe patiently took us through on—modern prose, especially the modern classical Burmese poems, definitely of a short story. Roundabout this time, John higher order of difficulty than anything in married and started a family, so just when I prose, and the three of us worked together was free to visit Burma several times in the on the Burmese-English dictionary. When 80s (1981, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1988) he was we had beginning students to teach, John less so. Now of course we have both been taught the spoken language and I took over back many times. Unhappily, I am now teaching the written formal-style language. honored by having been placed on the A ten-page list of grammatical particles used present government's black list, and so will in the written language was the first probably not be able to visit again.

I shouldn't finish this story about learning roundabout this time, too, it became possible Burmese without mentioning Daw May Kyi to use the computer to type out teaching Win (1947-2002), the friend who helped me material, thanks to the beautiful Ava font in every imaginable way from the time I first designed by John, and now used throughout met her at the University library in 1981 Burma.

8 / November 2006 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group until she left Burma for America in 1990. Burmese, and I was taken on as a trainee. She would arrive at my hotel room with a My educational background was in Latin selection of longyis for me to wear, bags of and ancient Greek, but happily for me the bananas and oranges to eat, plans for selection board thought that was a suitable expeditions with my special friends. She foundation. I spent a year and a half at arranged transport, booked tickets, showed SOAS, then a year in Burma, and I've been me how to get to places, and when I was laid learning ever since. low by a malign stomach bug she would bring me delicious and fortifying soup. Most The Burmese staff at SOAS when I joined important of all, she wrote me letters, consisted of Saya Hla Pe, who was wonderful long letters—often 4 typed subsequently appointed Professor of pages—full of the latest news and real Burmese, and Anna Allott, who had arrived Burmese life. Happily these letters came via on the scene a few years before me. Anna friends, so she wrote absolutely freely, was generous with help and advice, and which is what makes the letters, all of which Saya tirelessly gave me almost full time, I have saved, so valuable. I particularly one-on-one tuition. Teaching materials in treasure her hilarious account of how she those days were less than ideal. We used J. underwent military training at the camp and A. Stewart's Manual of Colloquial Burmese, training school for government servants at published in 1948, and some fragments of Hpaung-gyi. Dear, kind, ever-thoughtful other incomplete courses. And I made up May Kyi Win, how we all miss you! exercises and lists of questions to submit to my long-suffering Saya. Anna Allott ______At the same time I was encouraged to attend lectures in the Department of Phonetics and How I Learned Burmese Linguistics, so I had the benefit of some ______inspiring and eye-opening linguistics courses taught by the well-known Professor Endless energy and boundless goodwill may R. Robins, and excellent phonetics courses or may not be prerequisites to becoming taught by N. C. Scott, who would with a fluent in Burmese, but in John Okell's case, deadpan expression produce startling clearly, they figured importantly in making sequences of sounds—clicks and sneezes possible his remarkable achievements. Here and all sorts—for the class to write down in is his account of how he got started, and IPA. how he keeps at it to this day. —The Editor My greatest debt on that side of my Now and again I am asked how I learned induction is to Keith Sprigg, a phonologist Burmese. First I was blessed with great good with a passionate commitment to the theory fortune: I had skilled and generous help of prosodic analysis, who ransacked the from a long list of kind people, and ideal Burmese and Tibetan sound systems for learning conditions for much of the time. material to demonstrate the virtues of that Second I had a consuming passion to theory. Keith was another master of the become fluent in Burmese: this was a deadpan. I remember once asking him to chance to make up for my feeble show me what an uvular fricative sounded achievements in French and German. In like. He cleared his throat and made a few 1959 SOAS had a vacancy for a specialist in gargling noises, dismissing each one with a

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group November 2006 / 9 gesture of irritation, then without a trace of a There followed a few packed weeks of visits smile said, "I'm sorry. My baby has been and introductions. The other people in the lying in the garden making uvular trills and hostel were mostly around my age, and all I've been making them back and now I've friendly and helpful. I was taken to see U temporarily lost the ability to produce an Wun (Minthuwun) then head of the uvular fricative." He set himself demanding Department of Translation and Publication, standards. He told me that he only listened and his colleagues; U E Maung, Professor of to his recordings in the morning, because by Burmese; U Thein Han (), Librarian lunchtime his ear was not sensitive to the of the University Library; Dr Hla Myint, fine distinctions of sound he needed to hear. Rector of the University; the Professor and Whenever I get a compliment on my lecturers of the Pali Department; Dr Tha pronunciation I think of my debt to Sprigg. Hla, Professor of Geology, subsequently Rector; members of the Burma Historical Eventually my Head of Department told me Commission; and the Controller of it was time to go to Burma. As was the Immigration, who kindly removed a ban on custom in those days, I had no specific brief. travelling for me. I also met members of the One was trusted to do something useful, so staff of the British Council and the British one did one's best to oblige. The main Embassy. Many of these contacts took me objective was to get familiar with the sightseeing and introduced me to their language and the culture. During my time at . SOAS Saya Hla Pe had been assiduous in introducing me to all his visitors and As the days passed it became increasingly ensuring that I joined them at lunch and clear that I was not going to get much other outings. And he and Anna had language practice in Rangoon. Most of the introduced me to the Britain Burma Society people I had met spoke English much better and their contacts there. The result was that than I spoke Burmese, and even when I when my Bibby Line steamer docked in wandered around the streets trying to strike Rangoon in September 1960 (this pre-dates up a conversation with stallholders and other the days of frequent air travel) I was met by strangers my carefully rehearsed opening an overwhelming crowd of well-wishers. gambits would often elicit only a puzzled "I beg your pardon?" Thanks to Saya's contacts I had been allotted a room in a hostel for young male teachers I pinned my hopes on Dr Nyi Nyi, Professor on the university campus, commonly of Geology and subsequently Deputy referred to, to my deep embarrassment, as Minister of Education. He had said, when "The Chummery". I quickly ascertained the Saya Hla Pe introduced me to him in Burmese for it (literally "Teachers' England, that I was welcome to join him on Hostel") and doggedly used that instead, a forthcoming visit to his in-laws in though it was not universally recognized. It Amarapura. It was a crushing was still axiomatic for many Burmese that a disappointment to hear that the trip was Westerner could not tolerate Burmese food cancelled. I asked if I could go on my own, and living conditions, so I was supplied with but that was out of the question: you would loads of bread and tins of jam and butter and have to eat Burmese food, wash at the well, ham and cheese, towels and kettles and sleep on a mat, talk Burmese all the time. I advice on what to avoid and what to look made several visits trying to persuade Dr out for. Nyi Nyi that that was exactly what I wanted

10 / November 2006 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group to do, and eventually, not without paleface on stage was as good for publicity misgivings, he agreed to let me go. as a performing monkey. For me it was another way of acquiring new words. I spent a month in Amarapura, in the house of Dr Nyi Nyi's in-laws and their family, and In between these immersion experiences I it was one of the best experiences I had. U stayed with friends, sometimes Burmese, Nyunt and Daw Mya Thaung ran a weaving sometimes expats, in quieter and less public business. The back of the house had been conditions and roamed out and about extended to house eight or ten looms, and collecting words, transcribing speech people from the neighborhood came in to recordings, noting examples of grammar, weave longyis as and when they had the recording music, attending weddings and time. Occasionally there would be a visit novice ceremonies, visiting craftsmen to from a textile designer who would set up a hear about thatch-making, stone carving, loom for a new pattern, or the dyers, with gilding, gold-beating, ploughing and further supplies of dyed yarn, or the buyers, harrowing, and most of all music-making. mostly from Mandalay, who came for All these activities were conducted in further supplies. We were also visited by Burmese. numerous neighbors and relatives. It was also helpful just to sit in the stall of No one spoke English, the family and their some friendly trader in the market and neighbors all lived a pretty traditional life, engage him or her in conversation. I worried and everyone had time to sit down for a cup at first that my presence might be deterring of plain tea and a cheroot and talk to and custom, but it soon became clear that I had about the unusual visitor who had landed in the opposite effect: people would stop to ask their midst. They listened patiently to my about the unusual visitor. Even on trips to incoherent accounts of what I was trying to Arakan, Tavoy and Inlay on the track of the do and what life was like in far-away dialects of the region I was able to stay with England, and then turned to each other and Burmese families and again all our said, "I think what he's trying to tell us is communication was in Burmese. Another this," whereupon I would hear the authentic high spot was some weeks studying Pagan version of what I had wanted to say. This period Burmese under the guidance of was a highly effective method for helping Gordon Luce in . me learn the language. After a year of speaking Burmese almost That month gave me a big boost in fluency every day, and (for much of the year) all and confidence. It was followed by some day, I came back to London where I was similar experiences: living for a while in a soon drawn into teaching and research. Saya monastery, to give me an insight into what Hla Pe was always good about using daily life there was like, and staying in a Burmese with me when we were together, small village beyond Shwebo. I also learned and I got to spend time with other Burmans a lot by going on a month's tour with a zat- stationed in London, but inevitably there pwe troupe. We played at pagoda festivals in was less opportunity to practise speaking. I Bhamo, Indawgyi and Mogaung, and the tried to make up by reading a lot, both leader was so tickled at having a tame contemporary texts, fiction and factual, and foreigner in tow that he devised parts for me older materials—poems, chronicles, in the she-baing pya-zat. Having a genuine Buddhist texts—all with help from Saya.

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group November 2006 / 11 Another activity I found helpful—and still writer Maung Htin (this was his well-known do—is to transcribe a recording. I would —his real name was U Htin choose something that seemed useful, either Fatt), I had intended to write about him in impromptu conversations I'd recorded in time for his 97th birthday, which would have Burma, or broadcast announcements, fallen on 21 March 2006. But for a 96-year- interviews and plays, and write out as much old person, just as for other ‗worldlings,' as I could, then persuade some kind native death can come swiftly, even if not, given speaker to sit with me and help with the his advanced age, unexpectedly. The phrases that were too fast or too slurred for venerable satirist and scholar died in Insein, me to decipher. The need to play each a town near Rangoon, the erstwhile Burmese section many times over really helps whole capital, on 29 January 2006. It was only phrases to stick in your memory. about a week or so later that I learned that Burma had lost yet another venerable writer Looking back, I'd say that what you need aged in the 90s. (In August 2004 the first to learn Burmese is a good grounding: renowned Burmese poet Minthuwun died at learning to read and write the script, learning the age of 94 in Rangoon.) 2 to hear and reproduce the vital distinctions between sounds, acquiring a small but useful Partly of Chinese parentage, Maung Htin vocabulary, and becoming familiar with the was born on 21 March 1909 in the town of rudiments of the grammar. Nowadays there Laputa in Irrawaddy Division, Lower are several published courses that will help Burma. Maung Htin was only two months you through this phase. After that the most younger than the late (22 January helpful activities for me were spending time 1909-25 November 1974) who served as with people whose English was non- third Secretary-General of the United existent, or at least weaker than my Nations from 1961 to 1971. But Maung Htin Burmese, and doing much reading and survived U Thant by more than thirty-one listening to recordings. I feel hugely grateful years and his venerable age makes this to all the kind and patient friends and tribute more of a celebration than a lament, contacts and teachers and helpers who made even if Maung Htin‘s passing does that possible. And I always urge other constitute a loss for modern Burmese learners to try and set up similar conditions literature. for themselves. Maung Htin obtained his Bachelor of Arts John Okell degree from Rangoon University in the early 1930s. Apart from writing, Maung Htin worked as a high school teacher, as a mayor ______or administrator of various towns, as Secretary as well as Director in the A Tribute to the late Maung Htin: Ministry of Information, and as Director of Burma’s Foremost Satirist Broadcasting Services. He also served as ______Chairman of the Burmese Writers Association and Burmese Journalists ‗Before the extended arm is bent and before the bent arm is extended, [anyone can die]‘ goes a Burmese saying. Before I learned 2 For my tribute to Minthuwun, see Myint about the death of the 96-year- Zan, ‘Minthuwun: A Tribute to a Gentle Burmese Poet’ 50 Westerly 179-83 (2004).

12 / November 2006 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group Association. In more scholarly roles he was Daung‘s attempted elopement. Minutes after a consultant for the Burmese Encyclopedia Ko Daung brought his would-be-bride to his project and a member of the Burma Uncle‘s house he went to a food stall to buy Historical Commission. He was also one of edibles for himself and for his bride. The the few Burmese writers to write in both food stall happened to be near his high Burmese and English, although his English school and the feared headmistress saw him language writings are restricted to articles and summoned him to class. Would even a and are less numerous than his Burmese very naïve farmer boy have left his bride language books and other writings. Maung that he had just eloped with to buy food near Htin also translated some of Guy de his high school? But had there not been such Maupassant‘s short stories and also Jonathan inanities in Maung Htin's stories, the Swift‘s Gulliver’s Travels. ‗tragedy‘ of Ko Daung‘s bungled attempt to elope would have succeeded and we would Among Maung Htin‘s scholarly writings, have one less satirical story to read from Ko probably the most prominent is his Daung‘s life. annotated commentary, first published in 1960 and revised in 1978, on the work of the Maung Htin first serialized the Ko Daung learned 19th century Burmese Minister Yaw stories in a pre-war magazine and published Atwin Wun U Po Hlaing who wrote on good the serials as a book in 1940, just before the kingly governance. However Maung Htin winds of war reached Burmese shores. will probably be best remembered for his Maung Htin was not quite thirty years old effective, punchy satirical writings. These when he wrote the Ko Daung stories. In took the form of at least two major novels, another elopement story that Maung-Htin in addition to short stories and essays. wrote forty-six years later and published in 1986, at the age of seventy-seven, Maung A satirical novel entitled Ko Daung Htin staged the elopement of yet another (‘Brother Peacock‘) was first published in naïve protagonist, a village boy like Ko 1940. Ko Daung was a simple Burmese Daung. But to this attempt Maung Htin farmer, and his life and loves are narrated in granted success. Not only that, in the later a humorous–but not disrespectful—way. story the bride‘s mother cooperated in the One particular segment of the story dealt elopement. When the couple were just about with the protagonist's two attempts to elope to sneak out of the bride‘s compound before with his high school sweet heart – when he daybreak, to the horror of the bride the back was still in high school. Both attempts failed door of the house opened and the mother of miserably, and Maung Htin wrote the bride called out, ‗Oh what a foolish girl unsentimentally but sympathetically, and you are!' She then threw a warm blanket in with gentle humor, of how Ko Daung used the daughter‘s direction while chiding her his longyi to wipe away his tears. Ko Daung daughter at how negligent she was in narrated his story on a boat on a river at forgetting to take a blanket in such cold night where the only lights that could be weather. The human warmth and the seen were from his cheroot and from little satirical situations, in both the unsuccessful huts yonder as he recounted more than and successful elopement stories written twenty years later of his failed ‗missions‘. nearly fifty years apart, is a testament not To me the first ‗botched‘ attempt of Maung only to Maung Htin‘s skills as a satirist but Htin to elope seems too contrived, as though also to his charming, generous way of the author was bent on thwarting Ko

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group November 2006 / 13 describing humanity, with all its foibles, (25 May 1907-14 February 1995), charms, foolishness, failures and successes. whose apparent ambition to devote his life to writing was ‗thwarted‘ when he Perhaps the most famous of Maung Htin‘s unexpectedly became Prime Minster in literary works is the novel Ngaba, named for 1947-48 and remained most of the time in another Burmese farmer, the protagonist of that post till he was overthrown in the the novel. The novel deals with this man's military coup of March 1962. Having read travails and trials, starting from the time the some of both U Nu‘s and Maung Htin‘s war reached Burma. It relates his and his literary products I am of the view that family‘s struggles with the Japanese military Maung Htin was the superior writer.4 police, including Ngaba's stint as a forced- laborer on the Burma-Siam death railway, At the end of Ko Daung Maung Htin killed his exploitation at the hands of Burmese off the eponymous hero. And unlike Conan quislings and opportunists, as well as by Doyle who ‗resurrected‘ Sherlock Holmes, Chinese and Indian money-lenders and Maung Htin never revived Ko Daung. He merchants. Ngaba has been translated into ended the series of stories with the phrase several other languages including Chinese, ‗Ko Daung is dead. May Ko Daung live for Hindi, Russian and Japanese. It was first more than a hundred years!‘ Planning my published in 1947 and has been republished ninety-seventh birthday tribute to Maung five times, most recently in 1999. Htin, I had intended to end by noting that it is usual for Burmese to wish for persons It may be an exaggeration to claim that whom they admire that they may live for Maung Htin was the George Bernard Shaw more than a hundred years—and Maung or perhaps even Bertrand Russell of Burma. While he, like the two Englishmen, lived well into his nineties, his literary gifts, /preview/0,10987,862231,00.html (accessed output and quality, superb as they are in the 30 March 2006). Less than two years earlier, Burmese context, are neither ‗Shaw-like,‘ in a cover story on Burma entitled ‘House nor do they reach Russellian proportions. on Stilts’, with a cover painting of U Nu , Yet I am of the view that Maung Htin better Time wrote: ‘U Nu once confessed to deserves to be called the ‗Bernard Shaw of himself that he might some day become the Burma‘ than another Burmese who was Bernard Shaw of Burma, for he had "the twice so deemed by Time magazine during talent and the inspiration” . Instead, U Nu the 1950s.3 This was the late Prime Minister became Free Burma's first Prime Minister, and has remained so—despite four attempts to resign—for the past 6 years’. Time 3‘[i]n nearly 20 years of political life, August 30, 1954 (web based archives) Burma's smiling, round-faced [then Prime http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/ Minister] U Nu has never lost the conviction 0,10987,891048,00.html (accessed 30 that he is primarily "a dreamer, a writer." He March 2006) is even convinced that, given a chance to 4I did search for ‘Maung-Htin’ in Time's concentrate, he might have become the archives but it failed to reveal a single Burmese Bernard Shaw. Circumstances reference to the late satirist. Perhaps we have never given U Nu the opportunity to should assume that it was U Nu’s position as test his theory’. ‘The Day of the Tiger’ Time Burma’s foremost politician in the 1950s magazine, June 18, 1956. (Web based that led Time to confer that accolade on U archives) http://www.time.com/time/archive Nu.

14 / November 2006 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group Htin, unlike most humans, was not far from Sumedha, who throws himself on the muddy achieving this. But now one can say with ground so that the Dipankara Buddha will confidence, and in celebration, that ‗Maung walk over him to arrive at the King‘s Palace Htin is dead. He lived nearly to be a unsoiled. The second life story concerns the hundred. His literary works, satirical or Boddhisatva Vessantara, the epitome of otherwise, remain noteworthy and fresh. Generosity or Charity. Then begin the May they continue to spread.' stories of Gautama Buddha, with his conception and birth, as Queen Mahamaya, Myint Zan his mother, holds the branch of the sala tree ______in Lumpini Park. The holy infant emerges from her side to be carried to the royal court Book Reviews where the court Brahmins predict the future ______of the Buddha-to-Be. And so the long and colorful life commences. The Life of the Buddha, Herbert, Patricia M. San Francisco, California: Pomegranate Thirty full-page paintings are reproduced Communications, Inc in association with here, remarkable in their thoroughly The British Library, 2005. Pp 96, appendix Burmese-inspired traditions. Clothing, of notes, pp. 81-93, Glossary, pp. 94-95. architecture, and customs of the royal court ISBN: 0-7649-3155-5, $19.95 (Reprint and in Mandalay are carefully depicted. The re-format of book of same , published in court costumes and military dress are 1993 by same company. Pp. 95, with painted authentically; particularly delightful appendix of notes, and glossary, pp. 93-96. are the scenes with the court ministers in ISBN: 1-56640-602-1) their characteristic tall headgear and the court musicians playing the Burmese This new edition of the original, 1993 orchestra as well as the very distinctive publication of The Life of the Buddha Burmese harp. represents a breakthrough in the presentation of Southeast Asian manuscript painting. The scene showing the Attack and Defeat of Unlike the original edition, here the the Forces of Mara is particularly accordion-pleated horizontal format of impressive. Curiously, however, the text Burmese manuscripts is preserved – a most makes no mention of the Earth Goddess, a convincing variation on the usual vertical central figure in the painting and in this book shape more familiar in the West. The episode, as it is the rivers of water wrung text and reproduction of paintings of two from her hair that wash away the attacking early nineteenth century Burmese demon army. Appropriately, the mudra of manuscripts from the British Library are the Buddha here is Calling the Earth to little changed from the first edition. Witness. From this point on in the However, the paintings linked to the stories paintings, the Earth-touching mudra is used of the life of the Buddha are better placed: frequently, even when the text does not they stretch across the right page, illustrating appear to call for it. For Burmese, the text on the facing left page. Earth-touching mudra appears to have multiple meanings. For instance, when the While the book primarily concerns the many Naga King inserts his coils under the episodes in the life of Gautama Buddha, the Buddha to raise him above the flood while first story relates that of the Boddhisatva putting his head over the Buddha to keep

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group November 2006 / 15 him dry in order to protect him from an to make, since there are over fifty clans and impending storm, the Buddha is depicted over forty related, but distinct, languages, making the Earth-touching gesture rather the Frasers state that their book ―uses than meditating. Unlike the Buddhist art analysis of textile culture to differentiate conventions in other Southeast Asian divisions when other factors are not countries, where this mudra is attached to definitive‖ (p. 12). The Frasers have divided only one episode, in the remaining paintings the Chin into four major groups—the here the Earth-touching gesture appears Northern Chin, the Southern Chin, the Ashö, more frequently than any other. and the Khumi, Khami, and Mro. Chapter One further includes brief discussions of The book's useful and detailed appendix Chin linguistics and the environment in discusses each painting, identifying the which the Chin reside, particularly the characters depicted and pointing out geography and climate of the area. significant elements present. A brief glossary of terms provides further An exploration of textiles must go beyond a assistance. Dr. Patricia Herbert has straightforward recording of fibers, performed a unique service in presenting techniques, and colors, however. In the these paintings in a format so helpful to the second chapter, the Frasers make clear that it teaching of Buddhist legend and thought. is also important to know about the structure And the publishers, Pomegranate of Chin society and its history, as well as Communications, Inc., are to be commended other factors that affect the production and for their lively and original presentation of use of textiles. The Chin have a patrilineal this unique material—altogether a most social structure and they place great worthy accomplishment. emphasis upon status and wealth, as indicated in part by the possession of Sarah Bekker textiles, which form a significant part of Chin material culture. Mantles of Merit: Chin Textiles from Myanmar, India and Bangladesh, David The exact date of the migration of the Chin W. and Barbara G. Fraser. Bangkok: River people into an area that today overlaps with Books, 2005. 288 pp. 554 ill. ISBN: 974- the modern states of Burma, Bangladesh, 9863-01-1, US$ 60.00 and India is unknown, but probably occurred during the first millennium CE. Clan This volume on Chin textiles, ably written migrations within the area continued long by David and Barbara Fraser, is a welcome after that. The first written references to the addition to scholarship on hill groups in Chin are found in inscriptions from the Burma. Not only does it provide extensive eleventh to thirteenth centuries at Pagan. details about the production and use of the Because the Chin had no writing until textiles, but it demonstrates how this missionaries developed a system in the late information can be put to interdisciplinary nineteenth century, the Frasers rightly pay use in order to augment and corroborate attention to oral traditions, many of which anthropological and linguistic studies. have been found to correspond to anthropologists‘ and linguists‘ findings. The first chapter introduces the various Chin They also consider the impact of groups. Acknowledging that cultural missionaries and the British colonial divisions among the Chin are often difficult government on Chin society. In addition to

16 / November 2006 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group village types and architectural forms, the The Northern Chin produce warp-faced Frasers discuss social structure and its textiles and have shared designs. Now effects on the family, marriage rules, elaborately patterned, the authors speculate inheritance, ideas about death, and religion. that early pieces (prior to the nineteenth Sections on tattooing, cultivation methods, century) were simpler. The blanket is one of trade, and warfare have also been included the most important textiles in Northern Chin culture, so the Frasers discuss its wide Chapter Three addresses textile variety of types, designs, and uses. Men‘s construction, examining the fibers, textile and women‘s garments are also illustrated structures, dyes, and the back-strap (or back- and described, with an account of how these tension) loom used by the Chin. vary between different sub-groups. Unlike Traditionally, cotton, hemp, and flax were the Northern Chin, the Southern Chin used, but silk was introduced from China produce considerably less complex textiles and modern cloths and fibers from India. and they have adopted some of the former‘s Locally grown vegetable dyes have now textiles. The Khumi, Khami and Mro weave been supplanted by chemical ones. Useful pieces that are a combination of local ideas diagrams of back-strap looms, along with and borrowings from other traditions, numerous photographs of people in the particularly the Northern Chin. process of weaving, are supplied. The Supplementary weft is used extensively; the Frasers explain the three main methods of Khumi, Khami, and Mro differ from other attaching warp threads to the loom to begin groups in low weft density and in their use the weaving process, as well as the use of of a single loom width, compound wefts, specific weaves for the ground fabric and complex end finishes, false embroidery, and patterning. They accompany these decorated selvages. Their most common descriptions with good diagrams of textile textiles are breast clothes, headbands, skirts, structures. The abundance of photographs of loincloths, shoulder cloths, blankets, and specific weave types aids comprehension of ceremonial textiles. The production and use highly technical information. Finally, of these, and a few other textile forms, such information about finishes, selvages, ends, as tunics and jackets, are all described. and joins is provided, making the intricacy Finally, textiles of the Ashö are analyzed. of the Chin textiles clear. Since the Ashö are highly assimilated, the Frasers expected to find few interesting Chapters Four through Seven form the core textiles, yet the opposite proved to be true. of the book, each one describing the textiles Some of the most sophisticated textiles are of one of the four major Chin groups the Ashö and they show little outside influence. Frasers identify. Each chapter begins with a Of the textile types, the Ashö produce description of these groups and sub-groups particularly impressive tunics. and their geographical location. Next comes a description of technical features of the Chapter Eight, titled ―Wellsprings and Flow textiles. Finally, the Frasers examine what of Textile Ideas,‖ concludes the book by people of different communities, sexes, and exploring the possible origins of the various ages wear. They provide a detailed study of weaving methods as well as possible textile use, types, styles, and historical interconnections between the various changes for the different groups and sub- groups, as suggested by similarities (and groups. The amount of information in each differences) among these weaving chapter is extensive. techniques. Since weaving structures are

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group November 2006 / 17 slower to change than materials and the Nagani Book Club and its sister patterns, such studies can indicate which enterprise, the Burma Publishing House, groups were significant in the development between 1938 and 1941. In addition, articles of weaving. The Frasers reaffirm that textile related to the broad topic of the project shall structure analyses corroborate the findings be published. of linguistic and anthropological studies and that in areas of uncertainty regarding the Five volumes of working papers are classification of groups, textile analysis has currently available. assisted in realizing distinctions. No 10:1, An Introduction into the Nagani An appendix of loom parts and related items Book Club and a bibliography complete the book. The No. 10:2, Material on Thein Pe, Biography volume is nicely designed and laid out. That of Saya Lun and Royal Advisers the book is also well written further No. 10:3, Material on Ba Hein, The World of augments its value. The extensive Capitalists combination of diagrams, historic pictures of No 10:4, Material on Thein Pe, Student textiles in use, contemporary photographs of Boycotters (Two Volumes) people, and textile pictures provide a No. 10:5, Material on Ba Khaing, Political thorough record of this aspect of Chin History of Burma culture, making this a significant addition to cultural studies of Southeast Asia. They are accessible through the website of the University of Passau: Alexandra Green Denison University http://www.iseap.de/content/view/89/ ______and—as printouts—from the Myanmar Myanmar Literature Project Book Centre in Yangon:

http://www.myanmarbook.com

The next papers will cover material on Nu‘s book Gandalarit on his travel to China in ______late 1939, two books written by Ba Hein and on ―World War and Burma," Starting with an investigation into the Mogyo‘s translation of a book on the Nagani Book Club, this project intends to Philippine national hero José Rizal and the document and analyse the role of papers presented at the panel ―Interpreting Burmese/Myanmar literature as a medium Interpretations of Burma‘s Intellectual and between the world and the county‘s society Literary Heritage‖ at the 2006 Burma from the beginning of the 20th century until Studies Conference in Singapore. today. The project is a joint venture between people interested in the subject both inside Anybody interested in the subject is invited and outside of present day Myanmar. to participate in the project by The project‘s results are published in a  writing comments and reviews on series of working papers in English which the contents of the volumes; cover material on the 100 books issued by  contributing essays on

18 / November 2006 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group Burmese/Myanmar literature as a directions for the country. Presenters medium between the international included former British Ambassador Vicky world and Burmese society; Bowman, Mary Callahan, Ikuko Okamoto,  providing material which sheds more Ashley South, Sean Turnell, Khin Zaw Win light on the Nagani Book Club, its and former Australian Ambassador Trevor context and impact on Burmese Wilson. While the overall situation in intellectual and literary life; Myanmar/Burma was not seen as offering  offering assistance as translator, grounds for much optimism, the extent to commentator, or assistant editor. which groups and individuals inside the country were committed to working towards For more information, please contact: gradual reform was an unexpected bright note. Dr. Hans-Bernd Zoellner Universities of Passau and Hamburg For the first time, some of the critical Phone: +49-40-8317961 environmental issues currently confronting Email: [email protected] Myanmar/Burma that have prompted ______increased concerns about Myanmar/Burma‘s natural resource endowment and its natural Myanmar/Burma Update Held in environment were analysed thoroughly from Singapore all perspectives. As well as assessing the ______problems of environmental governance, researchers from inside and outside The 2006 Myanmar/Burma Update Myanmar/Burma offered case studies, Conference was held in Singapore from 17- including on the impact of new development 18 July, back-to-back for the first time with schemes such as off-shore gas. Presenters the Burma Studies Conference. This was on the environment included Ken MacLean, the Australian National University‘s seventh Tun Myint, Matthew Smith, and Tint Lwin Myanmar/Burma Update conference, and it Thaung. Conference papers are currently was the first time that the conference was being edited for publication by the ANU‘s sponsored jointly with the Institute of Pacific Press early in 2007. East Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore. Organised by Trevor Wilson, Monique Trevor Wilson Skidmore, and Tin Maung Maung Than, it Australian National University attracted a good attendance of slightly more ______than 100 scholars from around the world. From Heaven to Earth: This was the first Update Conference to A Ritual to the 37 Nats Exhibit at NIU examine trends in Myanmar/Burma since ______the dramatic October 2004 leadership changes and it provided an opportunity for The Center for Burma Studies at Northern considered assessments by Burmese and Illinois University held an exhibit at the NIU non-Burmese scholars. Updates on the Art Museum during the fall of 2006 to political, economic and military situations highlight a set of seventeen nat images were followed by a specialised session on newly arrived from Amarapura and donated developments in the ethnic communities, to the NIU Burma Art Collection. The where progress directly affects future exhibit, co-curated by Catherine Raymond

Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group November 2006 / 19 and Benjamin Lemon, which reproduced a In the afternoon a Burmese performance was temporary altar on which the images were dedicated to the thirty-seven nats with displayed, explored from various angles the Burmese performers and traditional music. well known Burmese ritual dedicated to the pantheon of the thirty-seven nats. The exhibit will be on the website in 2007. A 2006 graduate seminar in art history www.grad.niu.edu/burma linked to the exhibit was held at NIU. In addition, a symposium focused mainly on ______history, art history and literature was organized with the participation of Kris Lehman, Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Trustee and co-Founder of the Burma Studies Foundation.

Listed below is the program of the symposium:

―Nats and Identity Formation in Burma: Some Long-Term historical Considerations‖ Benjamin Lemon, Ph.D. Candidate in History, NIU

"Devising Images for the Nats During the Early Pagan Period 1084 -1111 AD" Richard M. Cooler, Professor of Southeast Asian Art History, Founder and Former Director of the Center for Burma Studies, NIU

―Change and Continuity in the Depiction of Specific Images in the Ritual to the 37 Nats‖ Catherine Raymond, Associate Professor of Asian Art History, NIU, Director of the Center for Burma Studies, NIU

―Nats in Burmese Literature: comments from writers‖ Saw Tun, Associate Professor of Foreign Languages & Literature (Burmese), NIU

―Offering Food to Nangarine‖ Ma Sandar, Library Assistant, Founders Memorial Library, NIU

20 / November 2006 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group