__________________________ BULLETIN OF THE BURMA STUDIES GROUP __________________________ Number 72 September 2003 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group Southeast Asia Council Association for Asian Studies Number 72, September 2003 Editor Ward Keeler Department of Anthropology University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX 78712 email: [email protected] Assistant Editor Jake Carbine CONTENTS University of Chicago Divinity School ____________________________________ email: [email protected] Book Review Editor Primate Cities and De Kalb......................... 2 Leedom Lefferts Department of Anthropology The Burma Studies Group .......................... 3 Drew University Madison, NJ 07940-4000 The Mya Than Tint I Knew email: [email protected] by U Tin Tun (Retired Ambassador) .......... 3 Subscription Manager Diary Excerpts Catherine Raymond from Julian Wheatley ................................ 11 The Center for Burma Studies Northern Illinois University A Couple of Bibliographical Hints ........... 19 DeKalb, 60115-2853 office: (815) 753-0512 New Burmese Language Materials fax: (815) 753-1776 from John Okell ........................................ 20 email: [email protected] web: www.grad.niu.edu/burma Bibliography of German Literature on Burma ................................................... 20 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] (Visa and Mastercard accepted only). Next Issue March 2004 (Submissions due February 1, 2004) ____________________________________ Of course the city‘s planners make unfortunate decisions, too: the lovely green Primate Cities and De Kalb space in front of the history museum at the ____________________________________ foot of Orchard Road is being plowed under in order to build the new Singapore Business University, the best instance I can imagine In July I had the exciting experience of of misplaced priorities. But I can think of no spending time in Rangoon, Bangkok, and city I have been where a pedestrian is Singapore, all in the space of a week. The accorded so much convenience and ease as three cities are of course geographically very in Singapore. close to one another and in most other respects worlds apart. Reflecting on their In the U.S., pedestrians suffer only a little differences I was struck at how many less contempt than in Bangkok. The different ways cities can be cosmopolitan, as conviction that if you don‘t own a car you all three of the cities assuredly are. My don‘t count holds just as much among most favorite tea shop in Rangoon, the Mercury Americans as among most Southeast Asians. (Anaratha Rd. and 46th St.), serves a great But at least in smaller places in the U.S. cup of the Burmese version of Anglo-Indian getting around is not such a challenge. black tea, along with naan, dosas, a Those of us who have been to De Kalb wonderful variation on jelly doughnuts, know that getting around presents no Ovaltine, and of course unlimited amounts problem whatever if you stay, eat, and of green tea. The owners appear to be Sino- attend the Burma Studies Conference all in Burmans. I call that cosmopolitan. the Holmes Student Center! Bangkok—sin, shopping, and sprawl— retains some charm, against all odds: the So it is a pleasure to announce that the cooking smells from all those vendors Burma Studies Foundation has decided to remind you constantly that you‘re still in hold the next two Burma Studies Southeast Asia, even if this particular corner Conferences at Northern Illinois University of it has been overlaid by cement in every in De Kalb, in October, 2004, and in direction for as far as the eye can see. If Singapore, in 2006. The endlessly Rangoon hurtles insistently toward a resourceful Tony Reid has been kind enough Southeast Asian primate city‘s disarray, and to offer to expedite the Singapore Bangkok—primate city par excellence -- conference, through the good offices of the illustrates how the individual interest in, say, newly established Asia Research Institute, owning a car will aggregate to the which he heads, at Singapore National generalized misery of nightmarish traffic, University. Details concerning the Singapore proves that the inevitable is only Singapore venue remain to be worked out, apparently so. That city‘s struggle against so this is a tentative announcement. But automotive transport shows that if a holding our conference in Singapore would government is both incorruptible and demonstrate especially clearly our ferociously stubborn it can triumph over commitment to gathering scholars from all individual selfishness to a remarkable over the world who share an interest in degree. The newest line of the city‘s Burma. underground system opened while I was there and I could only marvel at the ease The March issue of this Bulletin will with which I moved over the entire island. provide more details concerning next fall‘s 2 / September 2003 Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group conference in De Kalb. (The precise dates Dr. Catherine Raymond are October 22 – 24, 2004.) We might even ([email protected]), or her assistant, condescend to give transport advice to Beth Bjorneby ([email protected]). Or consult people without cars. Such as: This is the website www.grad.niu.edu/burma. America. Rent one! –The Editor BSG's current Chair is Dr. Mary P. ____________________________________ Callahan, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle The Burma Studies Group ([email protected]). She will serve ____________________________________ until March 2004. ____________________________________ Okay, this is the Bulletin. But what‘s the Burma Studies Group? The Mya Than Tint I Knew by U Tin Tun (Retired Ambassador) The Burma Studies Group (BSG) was ____________________________________ founded in 1986-87. Operating under the purview of the Association for Asian Studies, it issues a Readers of this newsletter may recall a Bulletin two times a year, which contains paragraph toward the end of Anna Allott’s information about research, teaching, contribution to our last issue, concerning conferences, and publications concerning Burmese writing in English translation, in Burma in the United States and throughout which she wrote: the world. BSG membership is obtained by paying an annual subscription of $25.00. Last, but by no means least, the student of This subscription includes the fully-refereed contemporary Burmese society should read Journal of Burma Studies, also published by On the Road to Mandalay (Bangkok: White the Center for Burma Studies. The editor for Orchid Press, 1996), an excellent translation the Bulletin is Dr. Ward Keeler by Ohnmar Khin (a pen-name) and Sein (Anthropology), University of Texas at Kyaw Hlaing of a book of ―portraits of Austin ([email protected]). ordinary people‖ by Mya Than Tint, a leading writer and intellectual, and translator The group also sponsors a biennial Burma of western writing. The 35 portraits here Studies Conference, commonly held at the translated are based on interviews with Center for Burma Studies at Northern people that the author met as he traveled Illinois University, but occasionally held in around the country, which he then published Europe or Asia, with a view to in Kalya monthly magazine, and internationalizing its work, in accordance subsequently in two volumes in 1993. Better with the policy of the AAS itself. than any guide book, these tales of ordinary Information about previous and folk paint a vivid picture of life in Burma forthcoming Burma Studies Conferences can between 1987 and 1991. be found at the following website: www.grad.niu.edu/burma/con. For further On my way to Burma last year, I happened information regarding the Burma Studies on a copy of On the Road to Mandalay in a Conference at NIU, please contact the bookstore in Bangkok. As a collection of Director of the Center for Burma Studies, interviews with Burmese people of various Bulletin of the Burma Studies Group September 2003 / 3 sorts, it looked like it might be useful in spare flesh about him. In fact he looked courses I teach on Southeast Asia. every inch a bookworm with his thick horn- Thinking, further, that it could be a good rimmed glasses and ever-frowning forehead. language-learning strategy to compare the Even as he walked his expression suggested Burmese original and an English version, I a man in deep in thought. was disappointed when I later asked around at bookshops in Mandalay and learned that We became quite close after a year or so, no copy of the original was to be found. I and rapidly developed a friendship of did find a copy of a later collection of warmth and understanding. We not only had interviews by Mya Than Tint, however, and common interests like reading, watching was immediately enthralled. I then learned movies and exchanging views and ideas on more about the author’s remarkable politics, history, economics, literature, achievements in a great many different philosophy, arts, etc. Our common friends fields. And I was startled to learn that one of like Ko Than Tin and Ko Kyi Lin, and the translators of On the Road to Mandalay, writers Aung Lin and Kyaw Aung who Vicky Bowman, was not only a good friend hailed from the same town of Pakokku and of an old friend of mine in Mandalay but had similar backgrounds were catalysts for also about to become the British our friendship. Although I did my schooling Ambassador to Burma. Vicky Bowman has together with most of them at Pakokku now passed along the following delightful Wesley High School, I was not a native of reminiscence of Mya Than Tint, written by a Pakokku and arrived there from Nyaung Oo long-time friend after the author’s death in simply for my education. Out of them all I 1998. –The Editor liked Mya Than Tint the best because of his simple manner, his honest and frank way of I first came to know Mya Than Tint in 1948 speaking and most importantly because of when he joined the University of Yangon as his sincerity.