(Book Review) Love among the oppressed

(Published in Irrawaddy's e-magazine, March 2011, Vol. 19 No.1)

Book Title: Burmese Lessons: A true love story
Author: Karen Connelly

Karen Connelly received her first Burmese lesson within two hours of arrival in Rangoon when she learned the Burmese word for beautiful: hla deh. But the beauty of Burma is not what she highlights in her memoir “Burmese Lessons,A True Love Story.” She focuses instead on the grim reality that she encountered during her personal journey on which she discovered not only Burma and its people, but her own true love.

The memoir begins with Connelly traveling to Burma in 1996 to collect information on political prisoners for a series of articles. While her memoir does not include any discussions with political prisoners, she writes about meeting Burmese people from many walks of life—literary figures, a former political-activist-turned-tourist-guide, a horse-cart driver and a nine-year-old boy working in a tea shop by the roadside. In the process, she learns about the draconian censorship that Burmese writers have to endure; she meets Burmese artists who are incredulous about governments that provide grants for artists and writers; she uses drawings in an attempt to explain what a condom is to a horse-cart driver and his wife who do not have a clue about family planning; and she discovers firsthand how rampant child labor is in many parts of Burma.

When students stage protests against the military junta in 1996, Connelly participates in the demonstrations and witnesses the brutality of police and soldiers against civilians. After the arrest and deportation of her friend, a Swedish journalist, she decides to flee to Thailand for her safety.

At a party in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, Connelly meets the hero of her love story—a man named Maung, a revolutionary leader in one of Burma’s resistance groups who asks her to “give her heart to Asia.”

Connelly bares her love scenes with unexpectedly explicit descriptions. Lines such as: “His wetness turns into my own—his tongue in my mouth pulls liquid silk between my legs” are comparable to love scenes in Sidney Sheldon’s “The Sands of Time.” At times, her entangled emotions seem like those of a love-struck girl who is not yet a woman.

From the time she meets her lover, it is difficult to discern whether Connelly intends to focus her memoir on her love story or her experiences with the people of Burma. She sometimes alternates her chapters between detailing her passionate love affair with Maung and presenting her heartfelt truth about Burmese people—just as one is still reeling from disbelief regarding a Thai woman’s attitude towards a young Burmese girl, Connelly throws us into a chapter about her own emotional turmoil.

She also writes about meeting a number of people in various towns in Thailand—including Burmese dissidents and refugees in Mae Sot, Mae Sariang, and a refugee camp, as well as foreigners working for Burma’s cause.

Her accounts are sincere. She touches on raw issues such as the “territorial” nature of “whiteys” and the split of the ABSDF (All Burma Students’ Democratic Front), one of Burma’s resistance groups. She tugs at readers’ heart strings with her story of the death of a two or three-year-old child from malaria in a refugee camp and the resulting anguish of the child’s mother.

For many, Connelly’s memoir might not measure up to “Lizard Cage,” her previous novel centering on the prison life of a Burmese political activist which won her the Orange Broadband Award for new writers. But this is a memoir, after all, and the book reveals a very personal side of Connelly. Her humility is visible when she helps the women in an ABSDF camp carry stones from the stream up to the top of a hill. And her reflections are critical—such as “I should know that the Westerner is allowed to make such distinctions between one Asian race and another. The Westerner knows. We are entitled to knowledge, among other things. That is what makes us experts.”

Of the many books regarding Burma in recent years—Pascal Khoo Thwe’s “From the Land of Green Ghosts,” Emma Larkin’s “Finding George Orwell in Burma,” Andrew Marshall’s “The Trouser People” and Zoya Phan’s “Little Daughter,” Connelly’s memoir stands out for its intimate details of her love scenes and the way she has mingled them with her encounters of Burma and its people.

How does Connelly’s love story end? Perhaps she offers a hint when upon her departure from Burma she says: “Leaving is my consummate and cursed talent.”

Has she learned her Burmese lessons well? Reading her memoir will certainly provide enough evidence to decide—even for Connelly herself.