Free Burmese Lessons by Karen Connelly

his hand out the window, toward the past, when the entire nation was convulsed with indignation and propelled into action. “Then the soldiers killed thousands. And many others left. But we still had plans. There was Aung San Suu Kyi. We thought, All right, two years, five at the most—there were still many people in the movement. But now we don’t know. She is not really free, even though the house arrest is over for now. She can’t travel. They will let her speak for a while, but they will make her be quiet again. And what if she had power, right now? The military will not disappear.
    “Right now, not many things work in my country. The university system has been destroyed by all the shutdowns. If you get sick and have to go to the hospital, you need to bring your own bandages, your own plastic bags, your own blankets. And if you get a blood transfusion you might get malaria or HIV. Or hepatitis. A friend of mine got two at once: hepatitis and malaria, from an operation on his leg. And he had already paid for the blood that infected him! There is no money for schools and hospitals because the generals keep it for themselves. I understand why the intelligent people are leaving.”
    “Do you think you’ll ever leave? There are many exiles in Thailand and India.”
    “I know someone who was on the border for a long time, but then he got sick and had to go into the U.N. refugee camp. Now he lives in Norway. What could I do for Burma in Norway? I would be very busy learning to speak the Norway language, like my friend. I know the exiles on the borders are working hard, but here we are also working, fighting. Quietly.
    “That drives some people crazy—to fight and to be quiet at the same time. And nothing’s getting better. People in outer Rangoon still getmalaria during the rainy season. Right here, in the city, malaria kills people! I spent my youth doing politics—going to meetings, copying and distributing strike manuals, waiting, translating documents, copying U.N. reports out in the middle of the night. Then we finally did it, we had our people’s revolution. And it failed. Some of my friends died. My two cousins went to prison. My uncle went to the border. I did not leave. Now my mother is sick and I can’t go anywhere. Thirty-six and I am an old man, taking care of an old woman. I haven’t traveled the world. I haven’t been free.”
    “You have every right to be bitter.”
    San Aung laughs. He has the habit of laughing before offering up a particularly scathing observation. “Yes, I am bitter. Many of us are. We are angry, we are sick of this shit. But most people will not talk about that, especially with foreigners. Why would they tell you? Regret is not a very Buddhist emotion. How can my Saya show his unhappiness to you, his guest? It would be inhospitable. Bitterness is un-Burmese. Saya is a great artist whose work will only be recognized in twenty or fifty years, long after he’s dead. Maybe. Or maybe not. The Burmese people of the future will not be interested in his paintings. They will be more interested in … computers. And these things called mobile phones. The Japanese people who come here on tours can’t believe we don’t have them.”
    “It was sad today, how the painters were afraid to talk to me.”
    “It’s not just because they are afraid of stupid journalists. It’s because sometimes they don’t know how to talk about their own experiences, even in Burmese. It’s hard for people to talk about what they don’t have. It’s hard to imagine.
    “But we will smile for the foreigners. We are happy to talk about all the old writers over dinner—Gorky and Lu Xun, people no one in the West reads anymore because there are new writers now, writers we don’t know. The country was closed to the outside world for over thirty years, and now that it’s open what do we get? Art exhibitions and new translationsof literature? New schools, medical journals, hospitals? No. We get high-rise