Surreal misquotes

Bo Maung my bosom friend drank a bit too much, came to his senses a bit late, and took the break abruptly. He was well on his way to recovery, everyone thought, and died suddenly in his late-forties with a heart attack.

The last time I saw him was at the central railway station in Yangon when I saw him off shortly before I went to work in the Pacific. He was then boarding the train to Shwedaung, the town of his headquarters where he was the Township Officer of the General Administration Department. Of his fond memories I recall sitting hours on end with him over just a cup or two of tea and listened to our favorite singer, song writer, and pianist Sandaya Chit Swe at Maung Aye Cafe in Yegyaw. These days when I chanced to walk up the Thein Byu road between the Old Secretariat building and Government Printing Press, I miss the times when Bo Maung walked me back home from his place in Kandawgalay and we have our never ending talks, and it was drizzling. I remember the faint sweet scent of the kha-ye flowers dropping on to the platform and the tarmac from the trees lining the road. The trees are still there with thick dark trunks and branches with shiny leaves and small white flowers. But a fewer of them now, I think.

We both were fans of the leftist writer Bahmo Tin Aung, who undoubtedly was a hero of the young people of those days. We talked about his story "Dr. Yae Gyan", though I didn't remember reading it myself. He used to quote a passage from it:

"Far and farther away is a place, across the river,

It's the sweet home for me ... ."

He told me it was taken from the Bible.

A few years back, a found a reprint of Dr. Yae Gyan and bought it to give it to our youngest son whose name we took from this hero of Bahmo Tin Aung. Our son was working outside Myanmar and just before leaving Yangon to visit him I realized that I never really have read the book, so I hurriedly ran over it and naturally tried to find my (friend's) quote. I couldn't find it. Had my memory faltered? Or was it passed over because I was too hasty? Anyway, right or wrong, it was a sentimental piece and I'll always keep it together with the memory of my friend.

I have always like Hemingway and love his powerful prose. On occasions I love to quote this from Green Hills of Africa:

"If you loved one woman and a country, you are fortunate. Afterwards when you die, it doesn't make a difference."

Some time before, driven by my affinity for misquotes, I tried looking for that on the Web and I found:

"So if you have loved some woman and some country you are very fortunate and, if you die afterwards, it makes no difference."

Thanks, it was quite close.

A few weeks earlier, I was looking for images from white parabaiks on the Web and found the picture on the left first.

The head of the beast immediately struck me as familiar. The shape of the snout and eyes and color I thought I knew them. 

I thought it must be Chagall with his paintings of goats and cows. I looked for them on the Web and found La Mariée, Blue Circus, The Cow with the Parasol, The Farm Yard, I and the Village, and Big Sun.

Definitely it is Marc Chagall and I wasn't wrong!

The patriotic Buddhist monk, abbot of See-ban-ni left the legacy of indomitable spirit of defiance to the conquerors in a verse so intense:

Loss of kingship, loss of throne and sovereignty,

Loss of cities, obliteration to nothingness,

Three-fold losses we have to endure,

Has it to be our times doth our lot suffered?

Won't death serve us better?

I had also associated these words with this venerable abbot for some time:

Live simple, think complex.

And I had quoted it on many occasions and there wasn't any question at all until I quoted it to a young Myanmar diplomat in Jakarta. Though highly educated and knowledgeable, he had no idea of it. Well, I started to have doubts then and so I asked a friend who is a noted short-story writer and a lawyer. He looked up in some books on Myanmar quotations but couldn't find anything like mine. So, that must have been one of my misquotes. Yet I am not willing to give up. May be the name of the abbot has been wrong, but I am definite that I've read the text of the quote somewhere.

Some time back an ex-newscaster of a foreign radio service interviewed the head of an important commission or committee in Yangon. I felt the interviewee was way too cautious over the whole length of the interview.  Thwarting what looked like an attempt of the interviewer to corner him the interviewee remarked that Professor Hla Myint, who is a world renowned development economist, advised them not to move too fast, in reference to the topic of the interview. The interviewer didn't follow up on this remark. He must have known the visit of Professor Myint. I wonder.

Indeed I recalled that Professor Hla Myint, who visited Myanmar in 2012 together with Nobel Laureate economist Professor Stiglitz and Professor Findley, had delivered a talk on pacing development efforts in Myanmar. If I am not mistaken, Professor Hla Myint was not recommending caution over zeal, but to try balancing them and suggested that gaps may be help closed by diligent international assistance.

Quite recently, I visited one of a few sayas of mine from the Rangoon University days. It was the time of the Festival of Lights. While this is a religious Buddhist festival, it is also the time we Myanmars pay respect to our elders and sayas. It has always been a simple, heart-warming tradition of everyday life of ours. So we talked about our health, our families, old times, and exchanged some cautious remarks about life here in general. When I mentioned the visit of Professor Myint, my saya said that they had met him while he was in Myanmar and recounted that Professor Myint's advice to them was not to rush.

I was confused. Something must be wrong. Am I getting too old? I had the recordings of Professor Myint's talk as well as the talks of two other economists. I had listened to the recordings, but then my understanding might have been faulty.

Because of some micro urban renewal scheme we have to move out along with other residents and find a temporary home a year ago and we have yet to be settled. Hence, only after being frustrated for hours, I found my copy of the video disc of the talk out of the mess, with great luck.

Unfortunately no transcription of the talk of Professor Myint or others with him was available. So I was on my own. And as far as I could make out Sayagyi was commenting on the view held by many foreign diplomats and others that the hectic comprehensive reforms initiated by the government would result in Myanmar's burn-out, because of the limited capacity of the civil service.

Fortunately there is light at the end of the tunnel. He summed up by way of remedy:

I tried to show that this assumption have to change when applied to a country like Myanmar.

One, that country's limited administrative capacity is not immutably fixed. It can be augmented by seeking suitable assistance from various sources ranging from international agencies from economically advanced countries and Myanmar's neighbors in South East Asia which are rapidly growing.

Two, at present, Myanmar's administrative capacity has to be used ex to satisfy not competing ends, but in promoting complementary goals of economic development and political integration.

Finally, the reforms of which Myanmar is said rushing through are propelled by outward looking policy of economic development based on liberalization of the economy.

The present strain on the limited administrative capacity may be regarded as heavy temporary peak period demand on the country's limited capacity during the transition period from heavily consult economy to a free market economy.

I say all this fully aware of the fact that unlike the shortage of domestic savings which can be increased from external sources in recognized ways the problem of augmenting the limited administrative resource of a country like Myanmar by technical assistance from abroad is more complex. To be effective, the assistance must be adapted to suit the local conditions and state of economic development of the receiving country. Yet the reforms have to improve to increase the absorptive capacity of the country for outside capital in the form of foreign loans, foreign aid to the government and ensures of private foreign investment.

Perhaps Professor Myint's talk at UMFCCI (Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry) on February 2012 entitled Comments on rush to reform creates Myanmar burn outs which I mentioned, and his meeting with academics and other peoples were on different occasions. However, I don't have any inkling about those other occasions. Did they carry entirely different messages of Professor Myint, from the one that I've been quoting?

It seems possible to reconcile the two entirely opposite views this way. If sayagyi U Hla Myint had not veered from his original idea of augmenting the administrative capacity with outside assistance, which I think almost everyone would suppose, while his audience in a particular occasion were adamantly suspicious of outside assistance, the good professor would have no other option than to advise them not to rush, if I may add, packaged with a conservative inward looking policy as sayagyi has characterized the post-war, post-independence reforms.